Zulitas – The Trilogy
Nobody wants to work too hard unless they have some kind of chemical imbalance, making them toil their life away. Musicians aren’t any different, and especially not the people in the pop world. Why there’s all that business about dressing up, eating right, going to the gym, and talking to reporters during hundreds of interviews that all sound alike.
If you consider all of these things, it is understandable why pop-rock stars don’t want to try any harder once they have found a format that allows them to make a living. Consequently, fans have become used to the reality that their favourite bands or pop stars will produce the exact same albums, the exact same collection of songs for as long as those are bought.
If you’ve been missing the dynamism and pomposity of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s songs, you may want to give Zulitas’ The Trilogy” a listen. This is not music produced by people who want to take it easy, nor is it aimed at folks who simply don’t have a bit of a challenge. This is an 11-minute pop tune written with the grandiosity that a Wagner play staged in Bayreuth might have. It’s recorded to sound like the possible last tune these musicians ever manage to lay down on tape, and, like a bat out of hell, they might be gone when the morning comes.
LIL DUSTY G – JUMPFLY, THE BIRD OF PREY
Those hoping to discover some hidden musical scale that will make them earn enormous riches and fame are wasting their time, of course. So are, for the most part, all of the trillions of bands who have the label of “revivalists” stuck to them wherever they go. Things can’t be the way that they were, and the more we try to bring the past into the present without making any changes to it at all, the more we will be disappointed.
It’s just as true that those who stubbornly avoid any contact with trends and the zeitgeist are fated to be left behind. It’s not that these tendencies will stick around for long. They never do. But it is part of the job description of any pop songwriter to know what’s on the pop charts, whether they actually like it or not. In fact, it’s better if they have a quiet hatred and distrust of trends altogether.
Lil Dusty G is not the first musical artist to blend modern hip-hop and pop with rockier elements. But on “Jumpfly, the Bird of Prey”, he does it in an exciting, highly musical way. The song is short, and its presentation resembles that of the cloud rappers of the late 2010s. But the song is is also built off a garage-rock guitar riff and a vocal melody that’s hard to deny has the potential to get stuck in your brain. The tune’s greatest merit, of course, is the fact that Lil Dusty G does something that is completely pop while also doing something for the rock fans looking for a representative.
