2” hybrid then moves into a mixture of late ‘70s/early ‘80s rock touchstones from their beloved Fleetwood Mac to Linda Ronstadt to Billy Squier. The most recent, and blatant, example is the group’s latest single “The Wire.” It opens with a “Heartache Tonight”/”Rock & Roll, pt. Lately, though, the feeling has shifted to: “Huh, this song sounds almost exactly like that song.” This is the trouble Robin Thicke and Pharrell have stumbled into with their facsimile of Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up.” And it’s something that you are going to be hearing about a lot in reference to Days Are Gone, the first LP by all-sister trio HAIM, because these young women don’t try to hide their pastiche approach to songwriting in the slightest. The idea, as far as I understood it, was to imbue in the listener the feeling of “Oh, this song reminds me of that song.” How a band or artist distinguishes the work is in the shading or smoothing over of those imprints. When knocking a pop song into shape, the finished product is always going to bear the marks of its influences.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |