As I have said time and again in many reviews, pop doesn’t have to be based on the lowest common denominator approach, and rock doesn’t have to err towards the brash cliches of the past. There is a middle ground that can be walked, one that mixes and matches the best sounds garnered from both worlds, and that is the path that you find The Outers deftly walking.
“Twenty” is one of those songs that skims over fad and fashion’s fickle fates and builds something more robust. You might even say timeless. Taking post-punk grooves and electro-pop moves, the drive of the dancefloor and the authenticity of the truly exploratory end of alternative rock, the result is a song that is both accessible and infectious yet far more authentic and honest in its construction than most of the competition.
And by honest and authentic, I mean that it doesn’t simply go for the easy gimmick or the sucker-punch attraction. It swerves the style over substance moves such as guest rappers and dance routines, marketing ploys, and studio trickery, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have style. It has style by the ton, but it has substance, too, and never sacrifices one for the other.
Music made between a rock and a pop place, between the traditional world of the analogue approach and the more digitally deft part of the musical landscape, between the sound of the past and the sonic prediction of the future. Exactly what we need right now to give pop new purpose, indie new energy and rock a way forward.
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