Summer – Les filles du soir
People tend to put uncomfortable things off for another time. We don’t like to look the truth square in the eyes, not when we know that it’s going to bother us. And, to avoid it, we have plenty of tools. Pop music is, most certainly, one of them. Pop songs are designed to transport you into another world and, let’s be honest, most of them are meant to distract you from real events.
It’s all good, but where does it stop? We live in an era in which plenty of terrible things happen to plenty of innocent people. Most of us have trained ourselves to look away from the horror and instead look toward the things that are comforting. We all want the world. We all assume that one day, we are going to receive all of the things that we have coming to us. Some of us are willing to pay any price to have things stay this way.
Summer’s “Les filles du soir” dares to ask just what price one person is willing to pay for the illusion of happiness and fulfilment. It’s a song about the illusive nature of reality in the digital age. But the concept isn’t the most striking thing about this song. It’s the singing. The vocals are powerful, clean, and reminiscent of French (or Belgian) chansons. It’s the kind of performance Jacques Brel would’ve been proud of.
Inland Isle – Born Ahead
There aren’t a lot of natural comedians in the pantheon of great pop stars. Most of them couldn’t afford to tell jokes when there was so much serious work that could be done. A good number of them didn’t have much of a sense of humour, and this is why they wrote love songs to girls who had multiple restraining orders against them. And some of them were too blasted out of their minds to think of a good joke.
Someone who did qualify for all of the things mentioned before but still wrote beautiful songs that highlighted his gorgeous vocals and his strong melodies was Harry Nilsson. Here was a man who faced the odds not because he had to but because it just seemed more fun. Naturally, songwriters who are blessed with talent and cursed with a desire for self-sabotage tend to love the man.
Inland Isle’s “Born Ahead” uses the Nilsson Model. If you do not understand English very well, you mustn’t worry. This should sound to you like a retro soft-rock ballad sung by a very competent vocalist. If you do understand the vocals, however, you should chuckle, worry a bit about the mental state of the lyricist and consider adopting Inland Isle among your favourites. It’s humorous, well-designed and heartbreaking.
Nilsson passed away before he could truly formulate an opinion on our modern ways, but I’d like to think that Inland Isle is carrying the torch for humorous criticism.