Rats Department – Dirty Dancing
“It’s a horrible day!” That’s not the opening lyric to a potential pop hit single that plays on the morning radio. And it’s not the slogan of some fast food chain trying to get you to pull over and buy yourself a burger. It’s not even what you’re uncaring boss says as they walk into the office.
But this is the way that a lot of people feel, and there’s usually nobody to tell this to. It’s not polite! It’s not friendly! And it shouldn’t be told in polite company unless you want them to never be invited to parties ever again. But that’s the way that Rat Department greet their potential listeners.
And because, yes, so many people walk around with precisely this phrase throughout their waking days, they may very well feel a connection when they hear somebody else say it. Yeah, it’s a horrible day, and the reality best be faced head-on.
Nobody can copyright a drum beat or trademark a lyrical concept. This is what allows Rats Department’s “Dirty Dancing” to work with familiar ideas, while twisting and turning them into something unique. “Dirty Dancing” feels like a soundtrack to walking around with precisely no energy, vigour, or enjoyment for life. It’s tense. It can be fixed. And, it needs just the direct approach that Rats Department provide on this post-punk track.
High Tea – Ouch, Oh Shit
People have been known to describe a great goal, a well-played tennis point, or an excellent put as “poetic.” But, as much as athletes’ and singers’ faces may share the real estate of teenagers’ walls, art and sports couldn’t be further apart.
High Tea know this, and it’s in the group’s despair that we may find ourselves connected to the collective exasperation of the world. It’s because artists are supposed to doubt themselves and ask frightening questions before jotting down their findings without making any adjustments to the answers.
Athletes, on the other hand, are able to create their own reality and are rewarded for it. Famously, Bob Rotella, the golf guru, advised those who wanted to become pros to delude themselves into thinking that they simply couldn’t miss. But try the same approach in any kind of personal relationship.
High Tea’s “Ouch, Oh Shit” doesn’t mince words, and the songwriter cares very little about the song shining a great, big light on their achievements. Quite the opposite. This is the song about everyone thinking that you’re going to finish dead last and, in some ways, agreeing with them.
But listen to that vocal and tell me that this is the singing of a person defeated? It’s not! It’s someone ready to screw up the bets of everyone that would be dumb enough to back a defeat.
