The soundtrack of our lives changes from season to season. At Dartmouth, it's the season of skipping your 2A to lounge on the Green. Meanwhile, there's a crop of elegant folk-pop taking root in iPods across the country. Artists like The 1900s and Jaymay are gaining attention for their pure melodies and rich harmonies. With acoustic depth and near perfect arrangements, groups like Fleet Foxes are harkening back to 1960s bands of yore. Far from "emo," these new albums are borderline happy-go-lucky. There's no better way to ring in the spring.
The 1900s
The 1990s, seven friends from Chicago, are a self-proclaimed "psychedelic pop group," and their new album, "Cold & Kind," (2007) has lifted me out of a musical rut. A favorite track on the album, "Georgia" -- with its chorus "Jump for joy, Georgia!" -- makes me want to do just that. And I never want to jump for joy. Attention: All of you who think buying the whole album is a waste of money -- let "Cold & Kind" quiet your cyber-age cynicism and challenge your short attention span. After finishing their album on the 40th anniversary of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967), The 1900s made their album exactly 40 minutes long to pay homage to The Beatles, one of The 1900s' greatest influences.
For those who like Belle & Sebastian's harmonies and Sufjan Stevens-style melodies, while still kind of wishing you could go back to the good ol' days of Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and the Zombies, The 1900s are your bag, baby.
Fleet Foxes
"Sun Giant" (2008) is perfect for an April-showers type of day when you just wish May flowers would get here already. The band uses a lush array of instruments to create their sound -- a musician's music, so to speak. The well-crafted harmonies and melodies on "Sun Giant" reflect a wide array of influence -- each song focuses on a different aspect of music that this band loves. The first song is a capella for all but the last 40 seconds, when a mandolin appears softly among the quiet purring of the vocalists. Yes, purring.
The band owes everything to its 1960s and '70s influences. I desperately want to call them as a new Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but to classify them as such would cast aside the obvious Simon and Garfunkel vibe and the "Feel Flows"-era Beach Boys sound. While these epic artists clearly influence Fleet Foxes, the band never aspires to imitate the music of yesterday. "Sun Giant" has a sound that's almost borrowed but still entirely new.
Jaymay
Jaymay's first full-length album, "Autumn Fallin'" (2008), is sugary sweet but lacks cohesion. When autumn was actually falling, I was introduced to a few Jaymay songs and was blown away by how accessible her music was. Jaymay's strongest quality is precisely that -- she knows how to write catchy tunes -- but seems stuck in the realm of kitsch. But she has a killer voice, witty lyrics and the catchiest melodies, all fitting ingredients for the perfect springtime playlist.
Jaymay chooses fun instruments like maracas and xylophones to accompany her catchy lyrics and scrumptious melodies. In the most memorable song on her album, "Gray or Blue," she boasts, "I know the shape of your hands because I watch them when you talk; I know the shape of your body because I watch it when you walk." The lyrics in each song make up a series of vignettes that always tell tales of falling in and out of love. But although much of her album documents heartbreak, she's careful not to take herself too seriously.
"You'd Rather Run" is a song about that moment where her lover went from flawless to disarmingly flawed: "Was there ever a moment, one small slice in history, when I took you seriously? When your belt and your shoes did not announce your poor taste so fearlessly?" These are witty and accessible lyrics, Jaymay at her finest.
"Autumn Fallin'" is a fiercely personal exploration of loves lost and found. Jaymay ties these feelings up in a beautiful bundle but all together it seems a bit contrived. Taken individually, each song is a gustatory treat, but eating them all at once is just too much to stomach.
