2008 Woodie Awards
for the record
Melissa Marshall
Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: Arts
I am trading brown sweaters for worn linen, retiring Columbia boots for Madden flats, tired jeans for cotton dresses and my work ethic for three-hour meals on Battell Beach. And as I am restructuring my mood from hibernating bookworm to GPA-murdering social butterfly, I find myself deleting playlists such as "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," and facelifting my iPod with mixes boasting the promises of "Why Ponder Life's Complexities When the Leather Runs Smooth on the Passenger Seat?" While your Belle and Sebastian catalogue may be where you instinctively turn to, just because you have a favorite t-shirt doesn't mean you never update your wardrobe. Try these three artists on for size - they will at least keep you covered until the new Death Cab release on May 13.
Besides awesomeness, the tying factors between the French duo M83, Baltimore childhood couple Beach House and Liverpool vixen Candie Payne is nostalgia. M83's fifth full-length release Saturdays=Youth is aptly named - playing itself as the ideal soundtrack for idyllic afternoons and windows-down windy roads. The first cut, "Graveyard Girl," incorporates the lushness of acclaimed 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts, but updates some of the duo's earlier shoegaze aesthetics with poppy percussion. Unfortunately, it drags me back to high school in a bad way with a cheesy spoken interlude including the gem, "I'm 15 years old and I already feel like it's too late to live." The '80s-inspired synth-pop tracks like "Kim and Jessie" and the more subdued "Too Late," however, more than make up for it, evoking simpler times scripted by John Hughes. Throw in lines such as "Kids outside worlds / They are crazy about romance and illusion" sung in Anthony Gonzalez's stylized vocals, and I feel exhilaratingly infinite after 20 minutes into the disc. The Phil Collins of our generation, M83's April 15 release is pure pop, masterfully memorable in its reconstructed musical memories of a past decade.
Besides awesomeness, the tying factors between the French duo M83, Baltimore childhood couple Beach House and Liverpool vixen Candie Payne is nostalgia. M83's fifth full-length release Saturdays=Youth is aptly named - playing itself as the ideal soundtrack for idyllic afternoons and windows-down windy roads. The first cut, "Graveyard Girl," incorporates the lushness of acclaimed 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts, but updates some of the duo's earlier shoegaze aesthetics with poppy percussion. Unfortunately, it drags me back to high school in a bad way with a cheesy spoken interlude including the gem, "I'm 15 years old and I already feel like it's too late to live." The '80s-inspired synth-pop tracks like "Kim and Jessie" and the more subdued "Too Late," however, more than make up for it, evoking simpler times scripted by John Hughes. Throw in lines such as "Kids outside worlds / They are crazy about romance and illusion" sung in Anthony Gonzalez's stylized vocals, and I feel exhilaratingly infinite after 20 minutes into the disc. The Phil Collins of our generation, M83's April 15 release is pure pop, masterfully memorable in its reconstructed musical memories of a past decade.
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