Derek Ellard & The Future Business Model – The Lake
Just like Neil Young’s albums, folk songs are usually either very good or very bad. Unlike Mr Young’s records, when the folk numbers do turn out to be of inferior quality, they are real stinkers complete with pompous, melodramatic singing about the state of the nation, the weather, and other such noteworthy topics.
However, it is also true that folk sits as the bedrock of most modern music and when or if the electricity goes out, people will still be using acoustic guitars to sing their woes by the campfire. You can stop folk music to paraphrase Dee Snider.
Folk has been forced to get crafty and lure modern listeners in with mood pieces like Derek Ellard & The Future Business Model’s The Lake. I’m confident that if you strip all the paint off of the track, you’d still be left with something worth a listen. However, it’s all the glitz and glamour of the production and pretty vocals that make this into a colossal tune of the kind that big Hollywood movies might be looking to invest in for their pictures. It certainly sounds like something taken out of a film classic.
Pacific Swell – Calavera Bungalow
It usually takes a novel about a hundred pages and a movie about 45 minutes to lead you towards the actual conflict and some memorable moments of action. Story buildup and character creation play a large part in forming the background needed for the audience to enjoy and understand why anyone in the story would want to do anything.
It’s rare that a story will jump directly into the struggle and not stifle it until the very end of it. There’s a good reason for not often trying this. It would be the equivalent of watching only the scenes of the Godfather where people get murdered. Entertaining, for sure, but not of real importance.
Well, Pacific Swell manage to hump right into the thick of things on Calavera Bungalow and keep the action going for the whole three-minute running time while never looking back. It’s a necessary thing for a single, I agree, but not an art many possess. Their secret weapons are the singing that seems to belong to an old-fashioned movie-star and a foundation of the quietly sinister music of the Doors. Strong writing.
