I have some weird soft spot in my heart for this style of pop song. I’m not sure if it can be considered a specific genre, though people credit the sound of this song to another band, Joywave, who partnered with another band to make a very similar song with Big Data that I should also post.

Anyway, this song is bombastic and a joy to listen to, and it comes at you out of left-field with a second chorus that feels plucked from an entirely different song… but it works! It works really well. I love the stuttering effect on the voice and the little triplet (I think) extra stutter that adds the right amount of rhythmic interest to it. I reaaaallly love the little glitchy guitar part they added to the second main verse, like the stereotypical high pitched funky pop guitar is being strummed somewhere far away over a broken connection. It’s just fun!

Maybe this weekend will be 2010’s POP WEEK.

A couple years ago, this wonderful video game came out called Paradise Killer, and one of the many fantastic aspects of that game is the soundtrack by the producer Epoch. Since then, I’ve kept an ear on what they’ve been up to, and for the most part it’s all high quality, juicy “city pop”, and no one does it quite like Epoch.

Imagine my surprise when Epoch, along with regular guest vocalist Fiona Lynch, put out a covers album. Unfortunately for my music cred, I only recognized one song name on the album, and my immediate visceral reaction to seeing “You Oughta Know” was to recoil in horror. A city pop version of Alanis Morrisette’s most grunge-coded song? It can’t possibly work!

But, you know what, it does. I mean, I’m biased, I like Epoch’s sound in general. And Fiona Lynch dials in a fantastic snarl we’ve never gotten to hear from her before. It’s fun! I can’t complain.