By Martin Castro (The Cascade) – Email
“My Trigger,” the track that opens Miike Snow’s latest record, iii, like most of the tracks found on the album, is melodically saccharine and catchy as hell. The track works as well as it does thanks to the arrangement of infectious melodic components, first in the verse, then the chorus. There’s just enough energy, provided by a bouncing piano and vocalizer, to keep the track afloat throughout.
Other tracks on the record don’t do as well. “The Heart Of Me” for example, is just as catchy in theory — the same type of hooks are used throughout, and the same vocal delivery as used in “My Trigger” is employed. But even though the track sounds nice, it gets kind of old, unless you intersperse it with the rest of the record, which sort of sounds the same.
This is iii’s main problem. The entire record is built off the assumption that a song is only as good as its hook. While this might prove true in today’s pop genre, an entire album of songs built around hooks is going to have its drawbacks. Mainly, that there’s nothing keeping the listener from skipping to the next song as soon as the chorus and first verse of a track are done.
This said, the infectious production and overly-sweet vocals pay off, especially in “Genghis Kahn.” Again, the track is pushed forward by a piano riff, which culminates in what’s probably the catchiest chorus I’ve heard in at least two months. There’s a certain carelessness to the track that urges the listener to dance absentmindedly while listening.
Still, I have a problem with “Genghis Kahn.” Maybe it’s the chorus, which, although catchy, doesn’t say much. But how can I find the chorus problematic if it’s the very thing that drew me to the track in the first place?
Well, let’s put it this way, the problem isn’t the chorus, it’s everything but the chorus.
Part of the second verse on “Genghis Kahn” unfurls as follows: “And the lights, they glow / Like I’ve just lost the World War / And the scene slips away / To the evenness I fake.”
What does that even mean? I mean, sure, it sounds nice when delivered over some cool piano riffs, and it’s great to blast in the car on a morning commute to school or work — it’s colorful and melodic. But apart from that, what is it doing? What is it saying? What is it?
I’ll tell you what it is — it’s empty. It means nothing. Just like the chorus, during which vocalist Andrew Wyatt croons: “I get a little bit Genghis Kahn, don’t want you to get it on with nobody else but me / nobody else but me.”
What does that even mean?
Do people even have a firm enough grasp of who Genghis Kahn was to complete the metaphor? Does it matter? These are the questions I usually bring up when talking about the majority of what’s considered popular music today. None of iii raises any questions, either about ourselves or love or relationships or anything. None of it asks the listener to consider anything other than what we’re listening to. We might as well be listening to someone read an introductory physics textbook to the tune of “Genghis Kahn” or any other track on iii. At least then we’d learn something.
What’s worse is that even though I know there’s absolutely nothing being said on iii, I keep listening to it.
Because it’s so damn catchy.
They’ve done it. God damn it, it’s finally happened!
Pop music has won.
