Many artists make the mistake of thinking that to keep music in general, and their own careers in particular, moving forward, they have to constantly reinvent, rewire, and rethink music, genres, and the sound they create. Okay, that works for some artists, but I would say that a more realistic target to aim for is to take the sounds and styles that have worked in the past and just do those…only better. Simple huh?
Of course, better is a subjective term, but Sean MacLeod’s latest single, “Romeo,” is a good example of what I’m talking about. As a song, it sits comfortably in the mainstream, feels familiar, and could have been written any time in the last 40 years – from eighties post-punk pop reinvention and the C86 sound, to the less brash end of Britpop, to the 21st century indie revival, to where we find it today, the perfect singer-songwriter-indie band meeting of sonic minds.
But, and here is the clincher….it’s good, really good, damned flippin’ great in fact. Infectious and full of energy, vibrant and instantly accessible. And unlike the vast majority of songs in this vein, you will be humming the hook and singing “Julieeeeeeeeet” for days to come. It makes you realize that genres only sound dated when the will and imagination for pursuing that style runs dry. “Romeo” is the exact opposite of such a notion.
And when you take the song apart, it all sounds pretty familiar, but, and this is the point I’m making, it sounds like the song that everyone else looked to for inspiration or copied in the first place, the song that led the way rather than the one that dutily followed the pack. (Do you think he has a time machine?)
That’s how it’s done.
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