Jam of the day: "The Stand"

Artist: Mother Mother
Album: Eureka
Song: "The Stand"
Released: March 15, 2011
Label: Last Gang

I read about music a lot. I don't really know, but I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that a lot of great novelists don't really read a lot of contemporary fiction, or that great directors don't watch many films, and so on. But as a music blogger myself, I find myself constantly reading other music criticism: reviews, recommendations, interviews with bands, and so on. Logistically, there's a lot of music out there to be discovered and reading lots of other blogs helps me find new artists I like and see what others are listening to. Artistically, though, I generally like to know what others are up to, how they structure their websites, how they write, how they share with their readers, and so on. But that's beside the point. All I'm really saying is that I'm glad I listened to We Listen For You and gave Mother Mother a chance.

I'm a little surprised that I like this song (and their latest album, Eureka) but I don't care to assess that. I like it, that's that. This song has an amazing buoyant energy to it; "catchy" doesn't even begin to describe the way the back-and-forth vocals, between a female duo and the lead male, create a delectable tension that the instrumentation, with synths and guitars and drums and bass, simultaneously cuts through and intensifies. That ice cube clink in the beginning is a nice, humorous touch, too. I've had the phrase "It's like paradise / Spread out with a butter knife" running through my head for days on end, and particularly the way that the ladies here shout it out in a crazy harmony that sounds just right in this context. The video itself is interesting, coming across ostensibly as the female singers interviewing the male singer, with some swirling footage of the band playing during the choruses, plus some crazy animation in the backgrounds that makes you think the singer is being portrayed as, well . . . crazy. Maybe he is, but I'm totally with him on the "women on bikes" thing. And the "all of the people and all of their peers", but that's something else. The jury is still out on whether "everyone's fucked and they don't even know".

Check out the video below, and check out the links below that to find out more about the band.


Mother Mother on the web:
Website
Facebook
Twitter
Wikipedia
Myspace
Insound
Last.fm
eMusic