Word: songfulness
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...tracks later, the title “You Don’t Love Me” holds out the promise of a bittersweet confection. But instead the song is playful, with handclaps and facile lyrics like “You say you like my eyes or just the way I giggle / sometimes you like the smell of me or how my stomach jiggles / but you don’t love me / that’s alright.” Most of the Oldham repertoire features unpredictable chord changes, but here the carnival atmosphere melts into stale poppy hooks, adorned...
...Bored” uses some well-placed high whines and a catchy beat to call to mind a culturally starved American teenage boy fighting off total lethargy with his guitar. Along the same lines, the peppy persistence of “No Hope Kids” actually endows the song with humor as the lyrics develop from lighthearted denial of material needs—“got no car, got no money”—to more serious worries—“got no friends, got no family.” Such songs contribute...
...Cure, it’s pretty obvious why time and again fledgling rock groups have appropriated the musical aesthetic of their compatriots. White Lies, a London based trio formerly known as Fear of Flying, is no exception to the rule. Featuring a nostalgic veneer of haunting melodies, morbid song titles, and even more melancholic lyrics, the outfit’s U.S. debut, “To Lose My Life...,” is a fitting tribute to the pantheon of 80s British music icons. But White Lies can offer more than just a touch of despair. Despite their channeling...
...Unhappy China point to the protests along the route of the Olympic flame, complaints about pollution from China by Western nations that consume far more resources per capita, and the West's unwillingness to share key technology with China as examples of continuing foreign disdain for the Middle Kingdom. Song Qiang, who contributed to both China Can Say No and Unhappy China, writes in the latest work that China should reduce the importance of Sino-French relations because of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader that Beijing says is promoting separatism...
...talking with Wang and Song it's easy to get the feeling that it's not so much China that's unhappy and angry, but the authors themselves. The brand of nationalism they preach is still a potent force, but they seem more upset about rivalries at home than abroad. Wang cautions that the book's title is a bit of a ruse. "To be frank, those words in the title Unhappy China are just for the purpose of promoting the book in the marketplace," he says. "We didn't choose them. It was the people selling the book...