You Citizen – A Hard Appeal
Developing a musical obsession early on in life and spending most of your waking hours worrying about this particular thing is the kind of energy that can sustain you throughout life. But you have to be smart about what you obsess over.
The fact is that by the time you’ve become an adult, it’s likely that you won’t have the same energy or feel the same drive to become as fixated on any other thing with quite the same intensity.
If you’ve somehow found your way to punk rock when you were a kid, it’s likely that everything you’ll want to hear afterwards will be a version of your first love. If, on the other hand, manufactured pop music was your kick, you’ll be waiting on music producers like drug dealers who, solely, can provide your fix.
You Citizen’s “A Hard Appeal” is a song driven by a powerful, catchy guitar riff and energy that calls to mind classic punk-rock or the garage-rock revival bands of the 2000s. The fact that the song is loaded up with personal opinions, original impressions and lessons learned through the years makes the tune even more interesting upon repeated listens. But at the heart of it, You Citizen’s reliance on familiar rock tactics is what makes “A Hard Appeal” immediately capture the listener’s attention.
Max Rauch – IRRATIONAL!
Perhaps it’s true that the early 1990s produced the last great crop of superhero rock stars. These were people who seemed to possess an unspeakable amount of talent and courage. The world couldn’t help but be interested in them.
Most of these people, on the other hand, kept telling audiences of their vulnerabilities and advised that they would likely not hang around for long. Most of them were right. The superheroes prophesied their own downfall.
But what if history could’ve been different? What if all those people could’ve found happiness and fulfilment and channelled all these positive vibes through big, chunky alt-rock songs? What if they turned into Max Rauch?
Max Rauch’s “IRRATIONAL!” sounds like grunge rock if, somehow, Seattle would’ve started getting great weather. Yes, there’s plenty of emotion captured in the song. But, for the most part, Rauch is just happy with using those distorted guitars to create memorable jingles and using the vocals to make you want to hum along. Takes a lot of courage and talent to do this as well, I tell you!
