Skinny Dippers – Boat On The Water
Genre: Indie Folk, Indie Pop, Dream Pop
Similar artists: TOLEDO, Bahamas, Real Estate, Hovvdy, Martin Courtney, Slow Pulp
There is music that forces the listener to confront reality in its deepest, most unforgiven aspects. And, there is a flipside. Music that makes one see reality better than it is, or simply to help them forget about the world for a while is also being made. Both are popular. Which of the two is more needed in the year 2022?
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The answer should be obvious. Still, it’s not one that many of us are comfortable acknowledging. The songwriting greats, your Dylans and Lennons, prided themselves on being truth-tellers. Much of their best work involved pointing a mirror at the world and letting their audience deal with what they saw. At this juncture in time, it feels like various aspects of reality have become positively unavoidable. And, it is now up to musicians to help us deal with it in a different way.
Skinny Dippers’ Boat on the water is the smooth, dreamy alternative to all the news and art about doom and gloom. It’s a slide down a calm river, a tune meant to rock you to sleep, and a promise that everything will be alright. The innocent, reverb-drenched vocals rung out like the voice of an old friend, while pop motifs give the melodies plenty of strips on which to land. Skinny Dippers are optimists, a rare breed in modern music. And, why wouldn’t we need more of this?
Hillsborough – Comin’ back to you
Genre: Alt Country , Pop Rock, Garage Rock
Similar artists: Whiskeytown, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Rose City Band, The Doors, Waylon Jennings
The really great songwriters are just like war-zone reporters. They are geeks forced by their profession to go out and seek adventure. When worse comes to worst and they get their limbs blown off there are those who weep for them, but the majority of observers are on hand to remark that, probably, they could have done more wth their lives than simply go out on these wild searches.
See, this is where the problem lies. Almost without exception, the great songwriters are folks known to get their noses stuck in a book or two. But, as any struggling author will tell you, all the words in the world won’t help you very much when you have nothing to write about.
Hillsborough’s Comin’ back to you is a loose, rocking number, but, unmistakably it carries the recklessness of the band’s heroes. This is music written by authors who are undependable as life partners, make for bad friends, but end up writing the truly great tunes. Is this a deal worth taking. Some are desperate and burdened by enough talent to answer “yes”.
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