Punctuation Power?!?!
Angles by The Strokes - Blast from the Past Sunday
Every time I hear a song, I immediately come up with a way to categorize it. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’d like to explain it a little more. Some songs give me a strong setting, a place that I can see in my mind as I listen to it, a mini music video with an exclusive premiere in my head, if you will. Some have what I call the “melting quality” or feel like “earth shatter songs”, and therefore I categorize them as such. However, on rare occasions, certain songs (and on even rarer occasions, whole albums) will give me a whole other category, one that feels more like it was handed to me rather than something my brain came up with.
A few days ago, I was sick and tired of listening to the same songs again and again. Don’t get me wrong, they were great songs, but I just felt like I was stuck in a listening rut. But then, it came to me. I went to the albums I had saved on Spotify, and filtered them alphabetically, and it was after just a bit of scrolling that I saw Angles in all it’s brightly colored geometric glory. I mean, this album was a pivotal part of my childhood, how could I NOT click on it?? As I clicked through the songs, hearing snippets of them before a deep dive, something struck me. Several songs on the album fit perfectly into a category of punctuation, specifically “!!!” or “??”.
First off, we have the “!!!” songs. Usually “!!!” songs are just generally loud or have a loud message. However, on Angles, each of the “!!!” songs have a direct sense of urgency, one that makes the listener want to sit on the edge of their seat and check behind them, just in case. A good example of this is the fourth track, “You’re So Right”. The guitar is quick and repeats the same note over and over, in the style of an alarm, one that’s more important than just a regular wake-up call. I can hear a little Daft Punk towards the end of the song — the weirdly layered harmonies that clash on just one word at a time have a non-human quality to them that makes it irresistible. “Metabolism” also has this sense of danger to it. I think this is again enhanced by the rhythm of the guitar, which when combined with the locked-in beat of the drums makes it feel like it’s being thrown towards you, with barely any time to dodge it. Furthermore, the rallying quality of the vocals sounds less like an optimistic “let’s go guys!” situation and more like a desperate “if we don’t get out now we’ll die” situation. However, don’t be fooled. While not all “!!!” songs have this sense of urgency, yet still fit the bill. Track 8, “Gratisfaction”, is the prime example of this. It’s a happier version of a “!!!” song, despite the lyrics being kind of a downer. But to think of it from a strictly musical perspective, it has a lot of great qualities. For one, its skip-hop beat is totally irresistible. Add onto that a tight, crashing drum beat and gang vocals in the chorus, and you have one of the best songs on the album, if not of all time in my opinion.
The other category of punctuation that is prominent on Angles is the “???” songs. It strikes me most with two tracks, “Call Me Back” and “Life Is Simple in the Moonlight”. “Call Me Back” has been a fascination song of mine for years, and I think I can finally pinpoint why. For one thing, it has nearly everything that draws me to a song, including but not limited to shiny single notes on keyboards, a levitation moment, and subtle background harmonies. But “Call Me Back” ’s most important, and most intoxicating, quality comes from the desperately defeated feeling it invokes in the listener. It’s one of those songs that makes your heart physically feel it, with the uncertainty of it making “???” a fitting description of it. However, while “Call Me Back” holds its “???” in the vocals and lyrics, “Life Is Simple in the Moonlight” holds this quality in a different place. This was the song that planted the punctuation predicament in my head to begin with, because I always thought that guitar sounded as if it was asking a question. With this song, the “???” is created strictly through the instrumental, the coupling of the guitar and the bass, something that I think it incredibly hard to do. Not only did The Strokes do it with “Life Is Simple in the Moonlight”, but I would argue that they master it in the context of this song.
Angles is a nostalgic album for me. It played a lot in my family’s house when I was a kid, and brings me back to happy, simpler times. It’s a steady album that I can always come back to when I need to feel a certain type of emotion or hear a certain type of song, because I basically know it like the back of my hand, despite not being able to understand any of the lyrics. (No offense, Julian Casablancas, that’s kind of your style anyway.) However, Angles does more than just invoke emotions in its listener. The Strokes are able to create a powerful piece of music that lends itself to something higher than emotion or genres, something that can’t be explained in normal terms, something that is so beautiful and specific that it gets its own category of punctuation power!!! Isn’t that something???
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