Packaging – Always Calling
The future of music might just belong to those who are still able to remember the music of the past and/or those who will still own old vinyl records and a record player.
That’s because the world is changing quickly, usually for the worse and is in need of developing a soundtrack to match the madness. Those creating the modern soundtrack have little use, anymore, in old, old sounds. They need to surprise audiences with something quick and colourful.
But that’s not what Packaging want for themselves. This art-rock unit brought together, likely, through jam sessions and file sharing between already established musicians, still dreams of otherworldly recordings that may exist solely in some little German record shop.
Packaging view retro Eurocentric art-rock through rose-tinted lenses. Much of that music, in fact, never sounded as nice and well-put-together as “Always Calling.” But it’s nice to dream of the future and to reimagine the past. Pop-friendly, but willing to explore, Packaging make sophisticated music beamed down from an impossible past.
Bonus Room – Use 2
Thankfully, rock stars can say anything, both in interviews and, especially, in songs. That is, at least, the deal that we think we’ve been given, and we should never accept anything less. Musicians trying to guess what we want and, in this way, make it onto the charts are a plague upon this world.
And even though musicians are allowed to be as wacky, eccentric, and controversial as they desire, there’s never any excuse for them to forget to be entertaining. Simply put, nobody will listen to someone with a broken heart unless they have a good beat behind that confession.
Bonus Room is a brand new band, but one that’s learned this lesson easily enough. The greatest pop-rock songs are the ones that can be whistled by an 8-year-old and have essays written about them by college professors.
This is why Bonus Room’s “Use 2,” if heard from a distance, sounds like the glossy soundtrack of a Hollywood murder and mystery production. Focus more closely, and the song’s lyrics about disintegrating relationships may hit home and may even force your hand in making that telephone call that you keep putting off.
