Haim days are gone track by track review

HAIM DAYS ARE GONE TRACK BY TRACK REVIEW MAC

It isnвЂ™t until вЂњHoney & I,вЂќ the albumвЂ™s fifth track, when HaimвЂ™s energy shows any signs of faltering. Those three songs - вЂњFalling,вЂќ вЂњForeverвЂќ and вЂњThe WireвЂќ - are essentially perfect, every single second engineered within an inch of their lives, to the point where resistance becomes either impossible or unconscionable. The recordвЂ™s first three songs have already been released as singles, long before a full-length was even announced. There is something immensely gratifying in giving in to the sheer pleasure of mass media, in letting such immaculate, stainless hooks sink effortlessly into yourВ cerebrum.ДЄnd the hooks are boundless on Days Are Gone. If vaporwave is an acceptable form of cultural digestion, then in which ways exactly do Haim fail the grade? To my ears, they donвЂ™t. It must be possible to admire artifice as art, to admit weakness while admiring strengths. To borrow a critique from another format, Days Are Gone fails the Bechdel Test, though it must be noted that the genders of those soon-to-be ex-lovers are never made explicit they are instead entreated in the second person or described using generic terms of endearment, such as вЂњbabyвЂќ and вЂњhoney.вЂќ The phrase вЂњhold onвЂќ is sung huskily on several songs if the debt to Wilson Phillips is unintended, it certainly doesnвЂ™t goВ unnoticed.Д«ut we are living in a postmodern era. ThereвЂ™s hardly anything radical about groups of young women singing about love, and to be fair, there isnвЂ™t anything radical about Haim either. Of the 11 songs on Days Are Gone, HaimвЂ™s long-awaited debut record, every single one is about being in a relationship, with the overwhelming majority focusing on periods of dissolution.

HAIM DAYS ARE GONE TRACK BY TRACK REVIEW MAC

An acknowledgment arrived that the softness of soft rock swaddled hard truths about the ways we coexist and share each othersвЂ™ privateВ spaces.ДЇleetwood Mac works so well as a reference for Haim - a much buzzed-about group, consisting of three sisters from Los Angeles, as well as a myriad of mostly behind-the-scenes collaborators - not only because they often sound like Fleetwood Mac, but also because there is something terribly unhip about the tidy and fussed-over kind of music made by bands like these. Songs about love and loveвЂ™s decaying half-life could no longer be taken at face value as sentimental pablum, because love, like all personal matters, was inherently political. Or maybe this reappraisal can be connected to ripples of progressive influence, of living in a late-wave feminist world. Post-Napster, an understanding arose that even popular bands needed to make ends meet, that there was no shame in selling out, only in failing to sell out successfully.

Or maybe it resulted from the flattening of the world of popular music, the bleeding together of genres that followed the advent of file-sharing. Maybe this shift into acceptance and appreciation was a natural progression, the result of an organic sea change, respect renewed as soon as the old prejudices died out.

Nowadays, you can pop into any Urban Outfitters and pick up a pristine 140-gram copy of Tusk for $44.98. Their albums littered dollar record bins the world over, long before record collecting came back in vogue. When did it become socially acceptable to admit to enjoying Fleetwood Mac? As a child of the 80s, I remember how derisively they were referenced, as corporate divorce AOR, before dad rock was even invented as a pejorative term for that kind of thing.

Haim days are gone track by track review