Painted Shield – Window
Most successful bands turn into companies. And the people playing in those bands, if they’re lucky, turn into CEOs, managing directors, or chief operating officers. But they, too, get replaced when profits aren’t quite to the levels required by the organization or… when they die. There are more famous bands touring currently without any of their founding members than we’d like to recall.
It takes special kinds of musicians to do the opposite, to purposely move themselves back in the shadows, even if for a little while. It also takes artists who possess a certain amount of faith in the generosity and focus of modern audiences to return to the joys of making complex, impassioned music. Given our collectively shrinking attention spans, this seems downright crazy.
Painted Shield’s “Window” is a single that doesn’t look to charm you with a clever pick-up line but to get you sold with a full speech. Curious about whatever happened to Seattle’s alternative rock? Turns out it got serious, even moodier, so I sold the distortion pedals and just kept going. Painted Shield is a quintet of highly capable musicians. One of them is Stone Gossard, a guy who penned some of the biggest rock songs of the 90s. However, both Gossard and his success are willfully pushed by in the shadows, back into the corner of the room for this one.
GLAY x Enhypen – whodunit
Jam rock bands are a wonderful thing that I know exists and try to hardly ever encounter. Some of them are gigantically successful in the U.S.A. and neighboring territories. And why not? The best jam bands try to integrate the original qualities of American pop music minus the maddening excitement. You get Earthy folkie songs. You get extraordinary playing. And you get all of this in songs that last for half an hour.
We need jam bands, just like history nerds need historical reenactments. These groups connect us to the past. And in the U.S., the place where rock n’ roll was born, it must feel like a duty to try and help these bands.
Elsewhere in the world, things are different. Places like Sweden or Japan are notoriously enamored with American pop culture. But they don’t have a connection with country songs about working on the railroad. They interpret things in their own way.
GLAY x Enhypen’s “whodunit” just sounds like a hit from the moment you hear. Of course, it is a hit… in Japan, South Korea, and other places obsessed with this kind of culture. Say what you will, but this is music from a very well-designed scene. The music is as colorfully kitschy as the costumes, and the entertainment is provided with tremendous consistency. It’s anime-rock or what pop music would’ve sounded like if it had been invented in Japan or South Korea.
