Sunday, June 14, 2009

Stillness is the Move

Dirty Projectors are on everybody's lips right now. They are poised to become mainstream-indie-world-famous, which is what Beyonce and Jay-Z refer to as "not famous at all". They are touring with TV on the Radio and getting a lot of blog hype (which I am contributing to by writing about them now by .00241 blog hype points).
At this point in my life I'm more of a fan of songs than I am getting jazzed about new bands, but I am fan of this new Dirty Projectors song "Stillness is the Move". I referred to it on the Hollerboard as sounding like "Mariah Carey produced by Four Tet", which someone responded to by asking "Wait, that is a good thing?". To me it is, as well as the way the song seems to condense all the experimental/pseudo-African guitar and off-kilter rhythmic things the band had been doing up till now, but in a palatable, poppy form.
I like the lyrics and delivery, too- they are filled with dewy collegiate metaphysics and self absorption just as they should be ("Isn't life just a crazy dream?"). I love the patent New York-centrism here too, like when she plays with the absurd concept of "working as a waitress in a diner in some remote city". Lol, what is a "remote city"? Someplace you can't get Vegan cookies at 3AM? Do you think she's picturing somewhere as remote as, like, Trenton, or even.. Philly? This band's parents are probably African-American studies professors at NYU and they are probably talking about their offspring's popularity on the Hype Machine at a cocktail party right now. One thing that no one ever seems to admit about bands like this, The Strokes and Vampire Weekend is that a big part of their appeal is similar to that of Gossip Girl- it's fun to see what rich, privileged ivy league preppies are doing these days to be "weird". That and people like to picture them having sex. It's like reading old Brett Easton Ellis without having to read.
That is part of why I like it when this girl is squealing all over the end of this song, like, "This is just coming right out of me! I am Pablo motherfucking Picasso with an urban twist!" It's like going to see a girls photos at her first group show and being like "Holy Shit! Did you just see that dog and just snap a photo like that? It looks so composed!" and then going back to her loft for mindblowing sex after drinking like 18 little cups of free white wine.

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