
Pesky – I am Burning Man
Similar artists: The Black Keys, Soundgarden, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Lo-fi Rock
Rock musicians have become something of an endangered species during the last decades. That is, at least, the impression that the long fateful get when taking a peek at the pop charts from most places throughout the world. This was a worrying sign. It’s never too late to embrace new sounds, but turning towards faceless pop after a lifetime of listening to rock artists sounds like a bit of a drag.
As has happened often throughout the history of pop music, the rockers were forced to go back to the drawing board and learn new tricks of disguising their intentions. Some of the smartest artists realized that there was no need to get rid of electric guitars, live drums, and howling vocals altogether. No, as long as you can get people to dance to your songs, you are in business in any era.
Pesky’s I am Burning Man delivers on the promise of blues-rock riffs as the foundation for modern dance-pop radio. In order to do that, the group charges the song with desert-rock tones, grooves a la The Black Keys, and the kind of vocals that could be chanted by a stadium of followers. Pesky know that the first step towards achieving success is being convinced of it. Their ambition could take them far.
Golden Alphabet – Crazy Pie
Similar artists: Tame Impala, Babe Rainbow, Flaming Lips, Beck
Genre: Psychedelic Rock, Indie Pop, Garage Rock
The classic music instrument began becoming obsolete during the time of MTV’s dominance. Suddenly, the most important outlet for popular music wasn’t very concerned with the virtuosity of guitar players that could play 10-minute guitar solos with their teeth. Sure, they existed and had careers of their own, but, generally, they didn’t enter the periphery of the mainstream culture. And while people choose to remember those days, mostly for the funny hairdos and suspect fashion sense, the music was distinctive, as was the philosophy behind it.
Bands and solo artists appeared in videos with shiny new instruments. Most of these instruments were variations of synthesizers. Most of these bands were labeled new waves. They’d grown up on Kraftwerk’s idea for a mechanized musical future. They now understood that anything that could make a sound and stay in tune was fair game. Pop music, suddenly, could be everything. The artists that followed during the 1990s took this idea to its logical and, sometimes, absurd extreme.
Golden Alphabet’s Crazy Pie is a proud mish-mash of numerous ideas that 1990s alternative artists found appropriate to appropriate for their own music. It’s a dance tune that seems like it was made by rockers. It’s a song where the mixing desk is as much an instrument as the electric guitar. And it features the kind of playful vocals that anyone with an ear for melody, a taste for eccentricity, or, at the very least, a sense of humor will appreciate.