The Evens - The Evens (listen to “Shelter Two”)
The first cut from The Evens’ self-titled debut may be helpful in considering what makes a song succeed.
One thing that infuriates me is when people mistake the singer for the song. These people will play a song they consider brilliant, which then consists of a minute and a half of some girl singing “my knees are wobbling” in a pretty voice, repeatedly hitting one high note. This is not worthless, it’s fine to enjoy it, I like some of this kind of music, but this is no more good songwriting than Panic at! the Disco has good songwriting because they put on make-up and prance around like they have ants in their pants.
Ideally I would record new versions of every song I consider, so as to remove the variance of performance and production.
The fact is, Ian MacKaye does not have a pretty voice. He has a voice which sounds like he might be fun to hang out with, a voice which, if it asked me to cross the road, I would feel compelled me to do so as if it were my own soul speaking, but he can’t or won’t hold a note, and if anything he sounds a little goofy. His music, from The Teen Idles to Fugazi, has always had to succeed based on his songwriting and arrangements. Amy Farina, his collaborator in the Evens, is one of the best drummers in rock, and has a singing voice which I imagine is more commonly understood to be good, but the songs remain the backbone of the Evens.
… more to come…
1 year ago
