Let me count the ways.
I never would have even heard Ariana Grande except for Holy Other playing 'Honeymoon Avenue' on the amazing sound system at Corsica Studios. It sounded so good that I asked him what it was and remembered the few syllables I managed to hear well enough to google it out the next day.
I have since played that song about 500 times.
It's just an ordinary pop song. It is. Even with the imprimatur of Holy Other on it. But:
1. It's got that classic thing of a happy song about a sad thing.
2. Her voice. It is so incredibly liquid and free sounding, as if it just pours out of her body with no effort.
3. The production. I have never heard a pop song that is more conscious of itself as a pop song. It is so glossy it seems to be a comment on the idea of glossy.
And then there's the fact that every time I listen to it I picture little Holy Other bopping around his DJ booth to it like it's the best thing he's ever fucking heard. Knowing that he's inflicted this song on the uber-hip crowd of Corsica, with no perceptible irony, just because he loves Ariana fucking Grande.
I'm gonna buy the album and I don't care who knows it.
I have since played that song about 500 times.
It's just an ordinary pop song. It is. Even with the imprimatur of Holy Other on it. But:
1. It's got that classic thing of a happy song about a sad thing.
2. Her voice. It is so incredibly liquid and free sounding, as if it just pours out of her body with no effort.
3. The production. I have never heard a pop song that is more conscious of itself as a pop song. It is so glossy it seems to be a comment on the idea of glossy.
And then there's the fact that every time I listen to it I picture little Holy Other bopping around his DJ booth to it like it's the best thing he's ever fucking heard. Knowing that he's inflicted this song on the uber-hip crowd of Corsica, with no perceptible irony, just because he loves Ariana fucking Grande.
I'm gonna buy the album and I don't care who knows it.
Sometimes I imagine trying to 'explain' contemporary music, in as few ways as possible, to someone who enjoyed music in their youth, but haven't really listened to anything good or new since 'Tapestry' was released (my parents, basically). The conclusion I usually come to (in what inevitably is a fairly useless and self-indulgent reverie) is that the first point I would make (not necessarily the most important, but certainly the first thing that you need to know) is that now more than ever before the spaces between the sounds is as important as, or even more important than, the sounds themselves. That's not the case in every realm of music, but it seems to me since the cross-over successes of your James Blakes, your the xxs, and radioplay for stuff like Magnetic Man means that the chop, the pause, and the staccato beat are just about ubiquitous across pop by now. I'd never heard of Ariana Grande before, and whilst I do like the song, and the production, I thought her voice never got quite as kick-ass as the opening promised. But hell: I'm all for loving stuff unironically, unabashedly, unashamedly,and if you and Holy Other were rattling along to this, with just pure joy and excitement, whilst a railway arch worth of hipsters looked on, then more power to the both of you!
ReplyDeleteThat is really interesting about the silence and spaces. It is one of the best parts about the opening of the song.
DeleteI must now go google Magnetic Man!
The greatest part is that Holy Other got the hipsters to dance along!
PS Love the picture!
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