Daily Jam - Five Seconds

This column was originally posted in 2018, back when my youngest son was two years old.

I’m tired.

There seems to be an almost nightly moment of dread when I hear some shifting around on the baby monitor, maybe a sigh or a whine, a meek little cry for Mama or Dada, or a loud thump as a toddler escapes the confines of his crib, a growing wail as he realizes he can’t get his door open. And then my wife and I attempt to wait each other out, to see who will get up and out of the comfort of our sheets and blankets to soothe the little one back to bed.

Sometimes I win the battle, and sometimes I don’t.

So I rock my son back to sleep, and set him back in his bed, and then I wait him out, counting to 100 in my head to make sure he’s actually sleeping and not going to dart up hollering again when I’m halfway down the stairs.

Sometimes I win the battle, and sometimes I don’t.

And then my alarm goes off at 5:30AM, and I hate everything about this world. With two sons, I’ve been doing this dance in some capacity or another for over 5 years now. I’m pretty sure that there will never be another day when I’m not tired, when I’m not exhausted, and when I’m not grumpy because of it all.

Current events and the media and technology only make it worse. I’m swimming in a sea of sleepless delirium and bad news alerts.

But hey, at least there’s pop music, right?

Twin Shadow’s 2012 romantic gem “Five Seconds” is one of those songs that can make everything subside, if even just for 4 minutes or so. This modern homage to new wave and synth pop snaps and swings with hooks and groove aplenty, feeling timeless upon first listen, a gooey, earwormy, nostalgic buzz. It’s a perfect pop song. The best kind of bubblegum. And it makes me (briefly) forget how tired I am.

Maybe the boy will sleep tonight.

Daily Jam - A Place We Like

This column was originally published in 2017, and it's kinda wild to re-read these things because of how much things have changed (both good and bad) in just seven years.

As the divide in this country broadens and expands by the minute, I try to take the slightest bit of solace in the fact that at least as far as pop music is concerned, the divisions that seemed so prevalent and moored into our general psyches when I was a teenager have blurred and begun to dissipate. The Millennial audience and younger, as maligned as they are by both the cranky old farts like myself (Gen-X) and the even crankier older farts ahead of me (Baby Boomers), tend to view music as music and pop as pop. Liking a Top 40 artist and some underground innovator in the same breath has become the norm. It’s all apples and apples now, artists drawing from any and every conceivable inspiration to create…pop music. Indie rock bands are just as likely to experiment with bubblegummy pop sounds as post punk bands are to dabble in hip-hop. It’s kind of amazing. Strange and interesting and amazing. And while it’s been a little difficult at times to realign myself into this way of thinking (I will never understand the allure of Drake), it’s been rewarding, and certainly freeing, a dropping of all pretenses and judgement that would have been unheard of for a music snob like me 15 or 20 years ago. It’s like I’m 8 years old again.

And I dig it.

Sweet and bouncy pop sounds that I may have turned my nose up at over a decade ago now work their way into my steady listening habits, probably none so much as the one-off 2010 collaboration between synthy rock acts Hooray for Earth and Twin Shadow, and their absolutely infectious “A Place We Like.” It’s not that I would necessarily have disliked the song when I was younger, but rather, I would have been far more secretive in my affinity for it. And that’s just ridiculous because from the opening electric piano riff, the instantly clap-inducing beat, and the soaring little bits of synthesizer, I fall hard for this song every single time I hear it. It’s 80’s-indebted, singsongy, and bobbing, something that my body, heart, and soul gravitate towards. I could listen to this song until the end of time.

I’m sure that someday you’ll catch me energetically singing it in my car.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Twin Shadow - To The Top

I cannot help but be hooked to Twin Shadow's latest single "To The Top," which may or may not be on an upcoming new album.  The song is dramatic, climactic 80's perfection, like something that would play through the big ending of a John Hughes movie.  I just want to put my fist in the air.  Listen below.

Sky Ferreira & Twin Shadow

In a lot of ways, Sky Ferreira represents most everything i hate about modern popular music.  She's a model/actress/performer/blah blah blah, a bubblegum princess manufactured for the masses to be consumed and spit back out like so much Britney Spears.  Seriously.  Just look at the vapid expression on her face.  That being said, i enjoyed her at SXSW in spite of myself, and despite her claims of illness (a ploy to cover her lack of a singing voice maybe?), the show was full of energy and fun.  "Everything Is Embarrassing" comes from her "Ghost" EP, a short collection of songs that sways between personal bedroom folk pop and all out dance tunes.  It kind of feels like throwing a bunch of different styles at the wall to see what sticks.  My money's on the dance tunes.  So, if you're in a head-bobbing mood and want a glimpse at what the kids are maybe into these days, check out Twin Shadow's remix of the aforementioned "Everything Is Embarrassing."  I like it better than the original.



And here's the original version for comparison.