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tealinI completely forget that I have 'what song is this?' turned on on my phone until suddenly, once or twice a year, completely by surprise, I look at it and there's the name of the music on the screen. This, I think, says it all about my media consumption and, shall we say, esoteric tastes. Usually it happens in a grocery store, or somewhere else playing popular music without much background noise, but very occasionally it happens at home: today it told me I was listening to the Oh Hellos. I knew this, because I had deliberately put them on, but it was still a little startling.
The Oh Hellos were recommended to me years ago when I took to Twitter in anguish over being unable to place a particular song I had frequently heard at Pret à Manger, then hadn't heard for a long time, and then, maddeningly, heard again. Usually when I hear a song I like, I try to jot down a few lyrics so I can look it up when I get home, but this one defied me: the verses were sung too softly to hear in a café (the only place I ever heard it), and the chorus was just 'Ahhh-ah-ah's so was inherently un-Googleable.
Every so often I would try describing it to someone who knew music, which is how I learned it wasn't 'Home' by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, or any music from Where the Wild Things Are, despite having a similar plinky 2010s-hipster sound. I tried 'ahh'ing the tune into a music recognition app to no success. I wrote to Pret HQ about it. I asked the baristas at that location. No dice. Then one dramatic morning I heard it again and dashed to the counter to demand what was playing, while the friend I was with approached one of the Young People alarmed by my departure, and he managed to get his music-recognition app to pick it up. When I returned, then, I finally learned that it was 'Nowhere to Go' by Hurricane Love, a tiny Swedish band whose success seemed to extend only to getting this one song on a Pret playlist.
Satisfaction.
Anyway, rewinding a bit: Before this revelation, I would periodically take to Twitter to try to crowdsource a resolution to my anguish. Once, someone listed some bands I'd never heard of, one of which was The Oh Hellos. I looked them up on Bandcamp, and they did really, really sound like the mystery song: plinky hispters of the finest vintage. I went through song after song and none of them pinged my neurons, but ... I really liked them. It's not often I come across a band (or musician) I really like, but when I do, I go deep, and I was over the moon to find some new albums to put on eternal shuffle/repeat.
This was back in 2018 or so, so very old news. The reason I'm posting about it now is because I've just sat down to some text-based work, and needed to put on something I knew so well I wouldn't be distracted by the lyrics. It had been a while since I'd given the Oh Hellos a spin, so I threw them on a playlist, and suddenly it was 2018 again and I was newly appreciating just how much of a vibe these songs are.
So, because this is my blog and I can inflict my music on you if I want to, here are a few of my favourites:
A song which I didn't realise was about The Terror until I listened to it after watching The Terror: Eat You Alive (It's not actually about The Terror, it's just perfect by accident. I'm sure they didn't mean it literally.)
They made a whole album about abusive relationships (and getting out of them), called Dear Wormwood. Bitter Water is a jam all the way through, but the mini-bridge and internal rhymes of bury me beneath the tree I climbed when I was a child is just ... [chef's kiss]
A folk rock cover of 'Danse Macabre'? Sure, why not.
And the song that makes direct eye contact with my deepest darkest soul and doesn't look away until it's stared me all the way down: In Memoriam. If you're doing all the leaving, then it's never your love lost – and if you leave before the start, then there was never love at all ... ouch. Ouch ouch.
So much music, including some of my favourite bands, have gone all 80s-synthy in recent years. I so loved the music that came out in the early 2000s, going for that jangly acoustic sound; for the first time in my life I actually kept my ears pricked for tunes I liked, rather than stuffing them against unpleasantness. Now we're back to overproduced fluff again, it seems. If you know of any more in the plinky-hipster vein, do please send them my way, especially obscure Scandi outfits or crypto-Christian neo-bluegrass ...
The Oh Hellos were recommended to me years ago when I took to Twitter in anguish over being unable to place a particular song I had frequently heard at Pret à Manger, then hadn't heard for a long time, and then, maddeningly, heard again. Usually when I hear a song I like, I try to jot down a few lyrics so I can look it up when I get home, but this one defied me: the verses were sung too softly to hear in a café (the only place I ever heard it), and the chorus was just 'Ahhh-ah-ah's so was inherently un-Googleable.
Every so often I would try describing it to someone who knew music, which is how I learned it wasn't 'Home' by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, or any music from Where the Wild Things Are, despite having a similar plinky 2010s-hipster sound. I tried 'ahh'ing the tune into a music recognition app to no success. I wrote to Pret HQ about it. I asked the baristas at that location. No dice. Then one dramatic morning I heard it again and dashed to the counter to demand what was playing, while the friend I was with approached one of the Young People alarmed by my departure, and he managed to get his music-recognition app to pick it up. When I returned, then, I finally learned that it was 'Nowhere to Go' by Hurricane Love, a tiny Swedish band whose success seemed to extend only to getting this one song on a Pret playlist.
Satisfaction.
Anyway, rewinding a bit: Before this revelation, I would periodically take to Twitter to try to crowdsource a resolution to my anguish. Once, someone listed some bands I'd never heard of, one of which was The Oh Hellos. I looked them up on Bandcamp, and they did really, really sound like the mystery song: plinky hispters of the finest vintage. I went through song after song and none of them pinged my neurons, but ... I really liked them. It's not often I come across a band (or musician) I really like, but when I do, I go deep, and I was over the moon to find some new albums to put on eternal shuffle/repeat.
This was back in 2018 or so, so very old news. The reason I'm posting about it now is because I've just sat down to some text-based work, and needed to put on something I knew so well I wouldn't be distracted by the lyrics. It had been a while since I'd given the Oh Hellos a spin, so I threw them on a playlist, and suddenly it was 2018 again and I was newly appreciating just how much of a vibe these songs are.
So, because this is my blog and I can inflict my music on you if I want to, here are a few of my favourites:
A song which I didn't realise was about The Terror until I listened to it after watching The Terror: Eat You Alive (It's not actually about The Terror, it's just perfect by accident. I'm sure they didn't mean it literally.)
They made a whole album about abusive relationships (and getting out of them), called Dear Wormwood. Bitter Water is a jam all the way through, but the mini-bridge and internal rhymes of bury me beneath the tree I climbed when I was a child is just ... [chef's kiss]
A folk rock cover of 'Danse Macabre'? Sure, why not.
And the song that makes direct eye contact with my deepest darkest soul and doesn't look away until it's stared me all the way down: In Memoriam. If you're doing all the leaving, then it's never your love lost – and if you leave before the start, then there was never love at all ... ouch. Ouch ouch.
So much music, including some of my favourite bands, have gone all 80s-synthy in recent years. I so loved the music that came out in the early 2000s, going for that jangly acoustic sound; for the first time in my life I actually kept my ears pricked for tunes I liked, rather than stuffing them against unpleasantness. Now we're back to overproduced fluff again, it seems. If you know of any more in the plinky-hipster vein, do please send them my way, especially obscure Scandi outfits or crypto-Christian neo-bluegrass ...
no subject
Date: 2023-01-10 12:41 am (UTC)Oh hell yes. ^_^ It is to be expected.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-24 07:38 am (UTC)(The song that stares into the darkness of my soul is "Don't break my heart" by Vaya con Dios. The anger and the fury, and the fears living inside me. Should you love me, would you love them just the same? And if you tried to understand me, would you crucify or damn me? Or stand by me, like smoke around a flame.)
I know of many obscure Norwegian bands, but not sure any of them counts as "plinky." They're somewhat hipster, I suppose. I'll post links to some songs, and hopefully Youtube will take you down the rabbit hole to more of the same. Here's a short list of songs:
Crown Imperial Song - Weld. It's jangly if nothing else, and has a home-made video so it's hipster.
Come Back to Me - Minor Majority. Still jangly?
Lift Me - Madrugada. TBH, Madrugada is probably not obscure, because they're more popular outside of Norway. I don't know if it fits the bill, but they have several folky-bluegrassy songs. (I just picked my favourite of theirs. If I had the skills and know-how, I'd paint a picture of the image the last verse makes me see in my mind.)
Fool to Your Crown - Sivert Høyem. Madrugada's lead singer on his own. Possibly most sexy voice in Norway. I once just lost out at seeing him play in a local pub by a couple of days. x)
Morning Shine - Tommy Ljungberg. I'm throwing in a Swedish song, which I was sure was by a Norwegian artist before I looked it up. It sounds more Norwegian-produced, just trust me on that. x)
Honorable mentions:
Racing - Erik Faber. This guy is local, LOL! He was at the height of his career while I was going to college in Kristiansand, and my friends reported meeting him out on town! He was apparently a nice guy. The female singer is Marte Wulff, who apparently is still active. Erik works as a carpenter, I've heard. I think this is one of his best songs, in terms of lyrics. He was always a bit crap at those, so I think Marte helped him with this one.
Bye Bye Johnny - Return. This.... it is. It just IS. Major, major hit in Norway around 1987. The best lyrics ever comitted to paper, in marvellous Norwenglish, and not even the band seems to know where Johnny's dead body is described as lying.
I'M SORRY!
no subject
Date: 2023-02-02 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-09 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-05 06:54 am (UTC)Also maybe The Arcadian Wild, esp If You're the Coffee?
no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 06:37 pm (UTC)I really want to like The Arcadian Wild, but I find their songs generally too ... Pixar-y, if that makes any sense? I'd not heard of Elliott Park, though; I will have to investigate him further!