Raising Ravens – Don’t Stay
Similar artists: Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Hole, L7, The Runaways, Lita Ford
Genre: 90s Rock, Alternative Rock
People usually spend their lives running after the wrong thing. In life, personality will be more important than good looks. And in art, character will always trump technique and ability. Most never learn.
Rock n’ roll listeners know this instinctively. Singers whose quirky personality comes through in their voices are usually the ones who win out in the end. Yet television shows and music producers will have you believe that only singers possessing an incredible range and amazing technique have any chance of being successful.
The opinion of the shows and producers matters. Not so much in creating quality songs, but it has an effect on the musicians allowed to get their foot in the door. Blame them on the host of bland, uninspired singles lining up the pop charts.
Raising Ravens’ Don’t Stay is a song built on an expressive voice and a performance that aims to capture the singer at their most natural. Musically, the song chooses some of the great female rock singers as inspiration and learns easily that their greatness comes from their idiosyncrasies.
Porcupine – Comatose
Similar artists: Queens of the Stone Age, Swervedriver
Genre: Shoegaze, Math Rock, Alternative Rock
Alternative rock’s 1990s success is the equivalent of a DIY movie made on a $100 budget winning the Oscar. It was surprising and made the genre unavoidable as it became the talk of the town.
And while the alt-rockers had crept up from behind when nobody was looking in order to achieve their fame, meticulous planning had been involved. For one thing, they knew, and they felt what the public was looking for.
These were musicians who captured the disenchantment of modern kids, along with the quirky humour that dominated the way they talked. Their music included random or disparate elements that made them stand out from the genre-obsessed bands of old.
Porcupine’s Comatose likes to play with people’s expectations just as much as the good ol’ alt-rockers of the 1990s once did. Here’s a sound of despair ringing out like a fairground jingle. The guitars are gigantic constructions that feel cartoonish. And the carefully crafted melodies are tossed nonchalantly.
