Paul Nourigat – Imagined Places
The world of pop-rock music can be an amazing ally or a terribly depressing thing. If you’re a fan, you have to make way for both these things. You won’t be able to just erase the sadness that accompanies pop fantasies and keep the glitter.
That’s because pop-rock, like any vital-sounding music, plays upon our greatest fantasies. If the music captures you in just right away, you’re bound to feel like anything is possible. At the appropriate time, a nice melody is going to make you feel like you can take over the world.
But any high has a downside. At times when things are not going well, when you’re struggling to find your way, or just fighting desperately to muster the strength to make changes, pop-rock fantasies can be a reminder of horrible disappointments.
Just ride the bad times out! This is what Paul Nourigat advises on the low-key, friendly folk-rock of “Imagined Places.” This is a song about finding the hard times, being knocked about, but not accepting defeat. It’s a song about the big pop-rock fantasies, about using the best of your abilities to dream a dream and then build it. Need some motivation? Maybe you can find it here.
JW Francis x Paul Cherry – I Love You 2
Don’t knock sweetness. So much of pop-rock music was built off of it. And because it’s been proven to work on so many occasions, I doubt that it will ever go away fully, that it will be replaced by mean-spirit nihilism.
And don’t start believing pop songs aren’t important! Nah, the best ones tell the things that are most important to us and the things that we, regular Joes and Janes, find the hardest to express.
“I love you” is likely the phrase uttered most often on a daily basis in the English language. Although a lot of people say it, much fewer believe it. That’s natural. A simple phrase of such gravitas cannot just be uttered in any kind of way and expected to be believed.
Yes, there’s plenty of sweetness that comes out of JW Francis x Paul Cherry’s “I Love You 2.” But there’s a nice groove, a clever orchestration and a nifty way of bringing the vocals to the forefront. More importantly, this is not a sappy song. This isn’t just a phrase thrown around lightly. If it means what I think it means, it means everything. Pop songs can still do that.
