Miike Snow, "Black & Blue" (2009)

find it on Miike Snow

Listen, I never claimed to be the quickest draw in the music blog world. In fact, I kind of take pride in being a little behind where everyone else is, carefully choosing perfect bites instead of throwing out everything that's even remotely tasty.

I think it's something that's kind of a problem in the world of music blogs. Everyone's that's in it is so far in it that they forget that some people may not have heard of the sound that blew up the blogs four months ago. In this new world of everything all the time, it's really easy to miss something that's seems all around.

ANYWAY...I kept hearing of Miike (sic) Snow, and even got a comment about them about a month ago, but never got around to actually listening to it until I popped open my recommendations radio on last.fm a couple weeks ago. The full album is pretty good, but "Black & Blue"¹ is as good as thoughtful pop² gets. It's full-song catchy in a way that few other songs are; not relying on one hook that's so catchy that it pales the rest of the song right out, but rather keeping an understated, groovy hook going the whole way through.

¹ Sorry to Katie who I led to believe was picking today's song with her dancing this morning. Next week.

² This kind of music needs a better term. It's pop, but not indie pop and not dance music and not marketed chart pop. So "thoughtful pop" is about right, but...we just need something better.