Song of the Week: Youth Lagoon, "Mute"

The posts here have gotten rather uniformly long and theoretical and detailed. To balance things out a little, I'm also going to start doing weekly short posts focusing on a single song. First up: Youth Lagoon's new single "Mute," from their just-released and enjoyably titled album, "Wondrous Bughouse."

Two things will probably be clear to you by about two minutes in (I just verified by testing on my wife): 1) the song pretty easily meets my criteria (and anyone else's) for sounding "unique" and different and 2) not necessarily in a good way, since it's mostly due to the screechy, harsh feedback that takes over at 1:05 and recedes in and out for the rest of the song.

I've emphasized before that adding "unique" elements isn't good enough if they don't seem to fit in the musical mix. It sure sounds at first like the feedback doesn't here, given how dissonant it sounds over what's otherwise a highly melodic song. But after several listens, I've come to think that it is the good kind of unique; there's an identifiable, and very interesting, musical idea behind the feedback.

The point comes through best during the guitar solo that starts at 2:57. Taken note for note, the solo itself is anthemic enough to plausibly be one some mulleted '80s rock guitarist could be playing at the front of the stage with one foot perched on an amplifier. And there's a certain set of connotations that comes along with that image- of a high-volume, beat-heavy hard rock arrangement smoothly sculpted to emphasize power, perhaps presented with ripped jeans and stage fireworks- that the feedback acts to twist and subvert. It's taking something associated with familiar notions of masculinity and (musical) force and turning it into something melancholy and crumbling in a way I haven't quite heard before.

My wife suggests that using more traditional (and harmonic) chimes or bells would make the whole thing sound better. She's right, but under a different conception of what the song should be. That would make for something that sounds more like a familiar chamber pop anthem (a la Coldplay, perhaps), and it could probably serve as a well-written example of the form. Hell, that's even a form I like. But for an intensive listener like me who's trying to avoid the saturation principle, I find it even more rewarding to see someone attempt a largely new musical idea- and succeed.