To reach my 500 word a day goal, I must mention this song, Fake Empire by The National. The groove in it is very cool rhythmically. The right hand of the piano starts out in even quarter-note chords. The left hand accompanies with a lazy triplet rhythm. The disjointed vocal is third in line, reinforcing the right hand, but only barely. The drums are last, reinforcing the triplets in the bass.
My brother, much more musically literate in the cool music of the last 5 years than I am, made me a mix CD of 20-odd songs from bands most of whom I’d either never heard of (The National, Stars, The American Analog Set), had heard only the name (Teenage Fanclub, The Hold Steady), or hadn’t heard the song before (Fountains of Wayne, Keane). Can I tell you that you’ll never hear a more attractive pop song than Fountains of Wayne’s The Girl I Can’t Forget?
What’s even better is that I put those songs into Pandora, and now have access to a whole range of solid recent pop music that I would never have heard otherwise? Though I must say, when you enter a band you’ve never heard of (The Six Parts Seven) and then, almost too quickly, it comes back with “Do you mean the band The Six Parts Seven?”, as if to say “What do you mean, dumbass?” I do shift a tad uncomfortably in my seat.
