TV Pins – Magpie Eyes
The Olympics are about to end, which means that for another four years, we will have to find other ways to entertain our interest in steroid-taking athletes from countries where child athletes are worked like slaves on Ottoman ships. Oh, well.
The Musical Olympics are going on every day. And they are just as unfair. It does include categories such as Greatest Nation in the 3-minute Single. There are only two contestants worth considering – Sweden and The United Kingdom. U.S.A. makes the final, but analysts agree they never much stood a chance.
How long our the best British indie-rock albums? It feels like fifteen minutes or less. Is there even a Side B to “The Queen is Dead”? Shouldn’t be.
And why in the world does the best, most cheerful guitar pop music come out of places that are as deprived of the Sun as rat-infested cellars? Those are tremendous mysteries, of course. But seeing as how we won’t be able to solve them, let’s just give gold to The U.K.
TV Pins’ “Magpie Eyes” belongs to the great and long-lasting British tradition of keeping up spirits through the harsh, ten-month winters with beautiful, catchy, 3-minute guitar singles. You can whistle them or chant them, and you’ll want to play them over and over again. Not only that, but they may confuse some people from warmer climates to move over, provided they haven’t kept up with the news. Some nations deserve gold in something, and TV Pins are doing their part.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults – Dress
The lyrics of The Smiths’ Morrissey were to Anglo-American musicians what the Glasnost was to anxious, death-fearing artists in Russia. It meant that, suddenly, the things that artists thought about could be used in their work. Who knew they could do that?
As it turns out, most of them did, in fact, just think about running their car into wrong-way traffic, strolling through funeral yards, or Oscar Wilde’s necktie. But it was a time change and, as it turns out, quite a revolutionary period.
Outside of the pressures of the pop charts, there are still songwriters looking to strike a connection with audiences through their earnest lyrics, their quirky humour and their no-fashion fashion.
Letting Up Despite Great Faults is one of those indie-rock groups. Part of the sensitive and morose group that’s held an iron grip on indie for decades, the band’s lovely single “Dress” deals with the topic of clothing choices to the author’s funeral. It really is as charming and as gentle as you’d expect, with the vocals a particular highlight.
