matt’s music blog

The gated synths that lead into the song help set things up, and when the first line of the chorus, “I got the bass for your face,” comes up, it’s a perfect fit.

I got the bass for your face
Yes I can hold it down
These kids are such a disgrace
I need an older crowd

Mental stimulation
Voter Registration
Patches on my elbows
Match the colors of my cords

The vocorder effect, especially on “colors of my cords” (which sounds like an autotune) is like the perfect little cherry on top of the sunday – it’s so sweet. Then we get to the rap – MC Chris’ voice can be hard for some people to take, and it seems like either people love or hate him. But the rapping is solid – I’m not wild about the first verse, but the second and third and damn clever:

Are you joking? It’s too smoky
There’s a cover, we should leave
Let’s not panic, let’s beat traffic
And get home in time for tea

Kids have access nostalgia waxes
Can’t relax if I can’t breathe
Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy
I feel fat and elderly

Let’s play Scrabble, let’s play Boggle
Discovery channel with Ted Kopple
Kids are awful, they’re all moshing
So obnoxious sneezing, coughing

Spilling beer and breaking glasses
They’re no fun, these trust fund fascists
No more head tricks, we’ve got Netflix
Let’s grow beehives and mustaches

“Are you joking? It’s too smoky,” is a keeper, as is “Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy, I feel fat and elderly.”

There is vomit on the toilet
And no soap I can dispense
Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes
Now I have no confidence

Can’t believe it, I smell reefer
We might get a contact high
I feel loopy I see snoopies
I need pizza with these doobies

I feel mellow, legs are jello
Hold me up or I might nap
Someone dosed my Diet Coke
It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh

Freaky Friday might go my way
I feel like a different person
Now I’m tripping, ceiling’s dripping
Wait a minute, no crowd surfing

Once again, “Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes, now I have no confidence,” “Can’t believe it, I smell reefer, we might get a contact high,” and “It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh,” are great lines.

It’s tough for me to be as verbose explaining some songs that I like – especially ones like this that aren’t much more then rapping, a chorus, and some catchy synth accompniment – but it’s all about the gated synth in the intro, the little autotuned fx on “colours of my chords,” and the pacing in those lines I called out above.

Thing start out quiet – a bass line, a little bit of white noise shaking, a nice reverby kick, until something beautiful appears at :25… a cut-down trance lead with a little bit of echo to it, arpeggiates and dances its way around the chording, eventually leading into the vocals (accompanied by a nice splash of drum machine clapping)

I never knew this could happen to me
I know now fragility
I know there’s people who I haven’t told
I know of people who are getting old

The words are whispery with white noise, vocorded to a ’singing robot’ degree, and as they finish up the trance synth gets expansive, brightening then filter-tweaking down to a muted sound, before bringing in the next verse. The second verse might as well be the first , and the third follows quickly after. Finally at 2:57 the instruments have had enough – they drop out for a second to give the vocals a chance to introduce the peak of the song, where the synth brightens up and starts rolling higher, accompanied by some additional percussion. This can’t keep up for too long, and relaxes at 3:45 to let the final verse have some breathing room, this one with less clutter then the others, allowing the depth of the vocal effects to be really appreciated. Things stay quiet for the rest of the song – the apex has come and gone, the song’s assets are played out, and it meekly returns to where it started – a bass line, and a kick drum.

It’s kind of like a sudden rainstorm, with hand clap clashes of thunder and lightning, washes of wind-swept rain, whispery streams suddenly engorged by an extra payload… not a very complicated song, or a very in-depth one, although it manages to run nearly 5 minutes without getting too repetitive. The excellent use of splashy hand claps, vocorded lyrics, and that trance synth line are what make this song irresistible to me. The “me/fragility” rhyme works really well too.