Even Better Asks: Who Are You?
Or: what makes your music taste, yours?
You’re reading Even Better Asks, a recurring series where the head honchos at Even Better come up with an open-ended question for our extended web of pals to answer in blurb form. Last time, way back in January, we remembered some of our favorite David Lynch moments. Our prompt for this week asks the crew to get specific with their own taste:
What is the most (insert your name here)-core song? (AKA — what's a song that sounds like it was designed in a lab to appeal to you and specifically you? AKA what's the one song that best sums up your music taste?)
The most "Brendan-core" song I can think of is "Sweetness" by Jimmy Eat World, which also happens to be the best Jimmy Eat World song despite what others will tell you. I'm not a complicated guy and I won't pretend to be smarter or more cultured than I am. I think the main tenets of "Brendan-core" are having an undeniably good pop hook, some dynamic changes, opportunity for big singalongs, fast tempo, and enough distortion/drop D tuning to justify still feeling like you like to rock. It'd be even more perfect than it already is if it had a surprise sax solo, but the piano dinks are still nice.
It took a few spins of the 7" before I let the song in. Despite blindly pre-ordering the disc due to the promise of a Panda Bear feature, my expectations were unclear. Patient waves of synth and a chord progression steeped in perfect nostalgia carry an almost eerily pristine earworm into perpetual memory. My dedicated penchant for Noah Lennox singing over pop and dance tracks reaches its apex in Braxe + Falcon’s "Step By Step," a delicious crème brûlée confection that towers alongside the finest songcraft of the 2020s. As far as Aly-core that isn't just 180-minute drone albums goes, this is the pinnacle.
Chris Bench
I had a bit of tough time coming up with the song that felt like it was built for me. Was it cause I didn’t want to let David Bowie down? Was it that nobody has ever made dancing with a lamp look that dang joyful? Do I know myself at all? In the end it turns out Alex G has a mainline straight to my frontal cortex and I have no choice but to dance when that mandolin starts twanging and that horse starts kicking! I’m betting Headlights is gonna be an all timer for me and this opening single, “Afterlife,” is the milestone marker that, as Boston Johnny would say, is rocking…“Alldatime!”
I’ve given this a lot of thought. I think the most Miranda-core song is “Deep Gulch” by Hard Girls. I don’t think Miranda-core has to be loud and shout indie punk, but this one is. What makes it Miranda-core, really, is that it’s a perfect type of song to listen to a bunch of times in a row. It’s lyrically dense, but without a real chorus.
Instead, a lot of the lines just connect and reflect off each other in a way that makes it almost feel like there’s a chorus. I think that’s nice. It’s got an extended outro that works as a sort of second movement of the song so it’s easy to circle back to the beginning and not get irritated. If it’s the last song I ever heard I’d be happy.
Shawn Cooke
Tricky one here…who comes up with this stuff? I feel like I’m on an island when saying Golden Apples’ Bananasugarfire is my favorite indie rock record of the decade so far, for everything it is and everything it isn’t. I’ve seen them compared to Elephant 6, Yo La Tengo, psych rock, power-pop like Teenage Fanclub, shoegaze like Whirr (shoegaze from a big music blog; Whirr from the kid who committed a drive-by at the merch table last month, slapping down cash to buy a record and telling lead Apple Russell Edling “you guys sound like Whirr” within 15 seconds)…varying degrees of accuracy there, and also various types of music I’ve loved in passing while still feeling like a tourist. And yet pretty quickly I realized Golden Apples were squarely for me, tossing the past few decades of indie rock in a blender (but a heavier dosage of every early 2010s 8.4 BNM band) — fuzzy, melodic, noisy, propulsive, yet crucially underpinned with strong pop instincts. Me-core has to carry at least some Beatles aspirations. I guess to answer the original question: it’s “Waiting for a Cloud.”
Aidan O’Neill
Fun as it is to imagine a mashup of coastal indie pop, tezeta, R&B, Latin, and whatever we’d call Norah Jones — the laboratory/studio would have way too many cooks in the kitchen and it’d end up sounding like We Are The World. Luckily, there are plenty of songs that combine my top two genres, retro soul and hip hop. After disqualifying a couple from Ye Who Must Not Be Named, “Int’l Players Anthem” is a mix of what I love about each: a swelling, dramatic, emotional instrumental and hook (sampling “I Choose You” by Willie Hutch), complemented by a bouncy, danceable beat and an infinitely quotable André 3000 verse. You could play it at a college garage party or (slightly censored) at a wedding. The overlay of UGK’s aggressive, braggy energy next to the purity of CeeLo Green’s vocals exemplify why soul and hip-hop are a match made in heaven, not even a laboratory. Call me an international player, cause it’s my anthem.
At risk of pandering, I’ll pick a song that Even Better’s own Elliott Duea shared with me: “Clouds” by Velour 100. When I first heard this song, I felt like it lived in my bones. The fuzzy guitars and openhearted vocals create a feeling of familiarity before dissolving into a clattering cacophony. With Christian themes, pop sensibilities, and dreamy shoegaze production, “Clouds” parallels my own musical journey.
I only ever describe my favorite type of music with the meaningless phrase "indie rock" because I'm not really into any of the various subgenres that actually describe the way a song sounds: emo, folk, psych, twee, dream pop, punk, post-punk, shoegaze, etc. The basic things I'm looking for are a fast(ish) tempo, somewhat loud/distorted guitars, and melodic songwriting. Lyrics don't matter. I'd love some sort of third act "je ne sais quoi" element—a key change or a vocal filter or a new instrument or a guitar solo. Per this formula, the song I've chosen as peak Nick-core is "Depletion" by No Age. I'm always happy to hear something like that.
Eric-core is almost certainly a product of the pandemic. I was such a different person, both physically and temperamentally, by the time I emerged to finish my last year of undergrad in the fall of 2021 that acquaintances genuinely thought I was a new student. I listened to Charli XCX's how i'm feeling now obsessively throughout those years. It’s an album that obviously tapped into the chaos of the early pandemic, but feels even more personal now in ways I’m reluctant to parse. Of the bunch, “forever,” a piece of hyper-bedroom-pop about the end of a relationship, might be the template for my taste.
Elliott Duea
Shoegaze and trip-hop - the two most Elliott core genres. No band paired those together better than Bowery Electric, and no Bowery Electric song marries the genres with more tasty impact than “Freedom Fighter.” Elliott core is warm and visceral, sometimes haunting. It’s usually cinematic. “Freedom Fighter” is all those things abound, the washy shoegaze guitars slide their way into my heart, while the drums beat pleasantly against my bones. Add in the strings plus Martha Schwendener’s soft vocals, and I’m soaring. A song designed in a lab just for me.
Plus, my favorite time to listen to music is driving at night. My favorite song for driving at night? Take a guess.