Nora Baier – gilding the lily
The vast majority of pop songs ever written deal with love, or the disappointment associated with it. Don’t believe me? Just run through your record collection real quick or do some scrolling in your music app of choice. See?
Now, if you’ve completed that quick bit of research, you’d also have noticed that most of the blue-hearted breakup songs have one thing in common – they blame the other person for the relationship ending.
Perhaps it’s a lack of maturity on the part of the songwriters, or maybe the audiences just need to hear an accusation in the form of a pop tune. On the other hand, Nora Baier’s got enough bravery and empathy to consider the other side.
The tender and poetic “gilding the lily,” with its soulful, resonant singing, is a tune about adding unnecessary strain to your loved one’s life by simply being there. It dares to deeply analyse the question: “Wouldn’t things be better for them if I were simply not here?” Of course, possessing this kind of empathy makes the answer to the question likely to be “no,” but it’s a fascinating concept for a song, nonetheless and a very strong performance from Nora Baier.
Knife Emoji – Doppelgang
Music’s turning into a profitable commodity again, musicians are the future kings of the world, and we don’t even know it. You must think I’m crazy. Why, it’s true that hearing music has never cost less, and making it has never paid worse.
You’re also pointing out the fact that most of the biggest artists in the world have sold their catalogues for millions of dollars, in this way ensuring that their tunes get legally fit into the AI algorithms for decades to come.
But, I suppose, you need a disaster before a breakthrough. With so little actual music being made, and so few people who can make it, future listeners will crawl on their hands and knees begging for a group like Knife Emoji to smile on them with a song.
It’s because Knife Emoji use old-fashioned strategies for their single “Doppelgang.” They mysteriously present themselves as a cult that’s obsessed with The Beach Boys and Supergrass. They write veiled lyrics and further cover those up in layers and layers of resonant guitars and melodic harmony vocals. They’re the past, and in some underground basement, they’re the future as well.
