The Best Song In The World
We hear songs we like all the time. Sometimes though, we hear a song that sets off a reaction in us that goes beyond mere liking. For whatever reason, whether it's the lyrics, the melody, or the singer's voice, a song can become an obsession. We play it over and over again. We make other people listen. We wish we'd heard it years ago. We love it.
This column is about the songs that make us do those things. If it goes well I might turn it into a recurring feature. You'll let me know.
Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Best Songs In The World.
The first BSITW is "Burial" by Miike Snow, who is a band, not a person. Made up of American singer-songwriter Andrew Wyatt, who also plays in the New York City prog-glam outfit Fires of Rome, and the Swedish production duo Avant & Bloodshy, Miike Snow works a kind of hyper-emotional keyboard-driven dance-pop. You may have heard "Animal," a sort-of hit from the band's self-titled debut, which came out last May on Downtown Records. That song had one of the catchiest choruses in recent memory--no surprise given that Snow's resident Swedes co-wrote and produced Britney Spears' "Toxic." These guys know their way around a pop song, but "Burial" stands out for being that rare pop song with depth. It's suffused with a sense of yearning that matches the gorgeous allure of the leaping melody and lullaby-like synth hooks.
Much of that yearning comes from Wyatt's lyrics and vocals. I don't know how old the tall, thin singer is, but from his looks, I'd guess he's in his early 30s. So I can't explain how it is that his voice sounds like a cross between a wizened old woman and New Order's Bernard Sumner. It's an eerily magical sound, and in its blend of experienced earthiness and dancefloor reticence it makes the sentiment of "Burial" hit even harder. "Misery is all we know lately" go the opening lines, "Saturdays are all the same."
I've been there before. I'm not gonna lie, part of the reason this song has stuck with me is because I've had a lot of those same-seeming Saturdays lately. On "Burial," though, Wyatt's moving vocal and gleaming, whooshing musical soundscape suggest that the bummer will pass.
The chorus is also darkly uplifting. "Don't forget to cry / At your own burial." Wyatt is singing about homicide of the spiritual, not physical, variety. "Now it's all a funeral / I've become a serial / Killer of us both." Wyatt swoops up to a high note on the third syllable of both "funeral" and "serial" - hope. The song ends with a starry sky of keyboard lines. By the time you get there, you realize the song is about burying the blues, not yourself.
See more at www.spin.com
SPIN's 20 Best Albums of 2009 http://www.spin.com/gallery/20-best-albums-2009-so-far
Search 1,400 Album Reviews http://www.spin.com/reviews
This stuff is total dreck..however it is a novel way to promote no talent and make it appear important.. Keep hooking in the little girls,,great for buisness
"Best Songs in the World" is hardly an applicable title if you're only going to look at current or recent tunes, in a single language, in a single genre. I think "My Favourite Current English-Language Pop Songs" is much more accurate.
Would you look at all the cars in a single block, pick your favourite of them, and assume it's the best car on any block in any city in any country in the world?
This is pop music where the songwriting bar has always been set low. Of the two I listened to, Animal is a better pop song in my opinion. It's cleaner, tighter, groovier, more energetic. While neither is bad, neither rocked my world either. While Burial has a few good snippets of lyrics, it doesn't go farther. I've heard many, many well-written songs with much more depth lyrically and musically, some known, many unknown (I've been a judge of songwriting contests and I have also taught songwriting).
If this is the best song in the world, which said a lot about the existing talents.
you obviously haven't considered any of the real masters in your deliberation over the best song. surely Ican find more people to agree that, say, the Eagles, or Tom petty wrote the best song. perhaps you should consider that the songs being written now are, for the most part a bunch of crab apples.
In short, your opinion is recieved, and it seems nobody agrees, which is why it's an opinion. please opine on the subject of music and good songs somewhere else, say to your friends in the real world.