SH!NER – On an island
Similar artists: Incubus, The Early November, Yellowcard, Third Eye Blind
Genre: Pop Punk
Out in the Western world, teens get a free pass to be idiots. It’s a marvellous thing that many, yours truly included, abused for as much as they could. The luxury of this kind of existence is that you can put the important things off for a while, and you won’t get judged for it too harshly.
This is, of course, not something that kids living in countries with much more serious problems can do. And, for the most part, their development is far more harmonious because of it.
It is rare then to hear teenagers voluntarily give up that right. I’m not just talking about kids opting to dress in black and starting to quote Emil Cioran. I mean kids who sincerely consider the meaning of existence, who try to improve themselves, who plan for the future.
SH!NER’s “On an Island” is an alt-rock confession of existential dread. The things that are most interesting are that this is a young of very young people, the fact that they are doing this voluntarily, and also, the fact that they’ve really soaked up the influence of Incubus. It makes for an entertaining, rocking discourse with the self.
Hopper – Everything You Wanted
Similar artists: The New Hires, The Honest Heart Collective, Texas King, Bearings
Genre: Pop Punk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
If the recent history of pop music has taught us anything, it is that a good chorus crosses the divide, unites audiences, and even gets a song about murdering your enemies to be known by your mom and grandma. That’s a powerful tool, and the most successful acts in the music industry use it all the time. Just take random modern rap songs and ask if fans know what the rapper is saying, and they’ll smile and sing you the chorus.
The great chorus hook works for other styles as well, of course. It helps, for example, to overcome generational divides and biases about modern genres not living up to the potential of the good ol’ days. Give classic rock fans a riff that they can hum, and they’ll be happy. Give ‘em a hook to tap their feet to, and they’ll tear out their Van Halen posters off the walls.
On the surface, Hopper’s “Everything You Wanted” sounds like a reasonable estimation of all of the pop-rock tricks being used at the moment. That, at least, is what the verse tells you. But get to the chorus, and you have something that explodes out of the speaker, the hook that can stand beside any of the famous arena-rock songs of old, the moment when the band goes for power. It’s enough to make grown men cry and get Hopper a ticket to the big time.
