Salarymen – If You Want Me
When it comes to pop culture, the people who make content for it must, invariably, answer a simple, important question: do they want to be like their parents, or will they do everything in their power to avoid it?
There’s no middle ground here, at least, not for those looking to create something impactful. A dress, for example, either echoes the sophistication of the past or attempts to guess just how great the future might turn out to be. But the designer must know which is which.
The great thing about Salarymen, and the few groups, lovingly taking on the sounds and attitudes of retro 60s music, is that they’ve made a decision. They’re not of this time, and because of that, they cannot be held accountable to the rules that cover this period.
Salarymen’s “If You Want Me” is a beautiful back-and-forth pop dialogue. It’s a duet between a man and a woman who have reached the end of their love affair. It’s constructed using pretty Beatlesque melodies and orchestration that suggests the lighter side of that era of pop music. It’s an old-fashioned kind of song, of the type that rarely feels unneeded if executed well. And Salarymen do just that.
Dash Hammerstein – Mr. Resistance
They’ve got books on it, you know! And, if you’ve got a few months to spare, I’m sure that you’ll find YouTube videos, online courses, and people at the local bar just willing to consult you on how to tell a joke or write a pop song.
Yeah, yeah, there are ways of quantifying just how talented an individual is, it’s said, so why wouldn‘t there be ways to reverse engineer brilliant work? Get a book on being funny, and another on writing hits, and you’re set for life. Might as well pick the mansion that you like best!
But there’s always something missing. No, no, everything makes perfect sense. It’s just that the people who tend to come up with either brilliant jokes or songs are weird creatures who’ve got to be this way by some kind of accident. Nobody knows, really, how to make someone turn into one of those creatures. That’s where the stories end.
There’s a love for lo-fi sounds that acts as a barrier to getting into Dash Hammerstein’s “Mr. Resistance.” But once you’re through, you’re going to love this even more, most likely. It’s an old-timey piano groove that lets the excellent melodies, clever lyrics, and pop hooks come together. And the fact that this is all a little wacky and not engineered to “modern pop release” standards just proves it all. Hearing this, feels like being in the company of some kind of genius that plays perfect chess in the park and ends the day by sleeping in one of the trees there. That wasn’t in the book. Hard to program brilliance, as it turns out!
