Songs For Your Day

I remember reading an article 3 or 4 years ago that described Arcade Fire’s Funeral as one of the best make out albums of 2004. Although I do not remember the exact magazine, I picked it up free from some small indie record store in New York, the article still sticks with me. Part of the reason, I believe, I remember it so well is that I could never imagine making out to Funeral. There is an overwhelmingly intimate tone to the album that communicates delicately and indirectly but, in my eyes, never causes feelings of affection. While it may be tragic at times it never seems to evolve from a conversation with close friends and thus does not succeed at provoking an act such as making out.

This however is completely untrue of the album I would like to discuss within this post, The XX’s new self titled album. If you have not yet heard it, the lyrics have the subtlety of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. At times they verge on being absurdly affectionate ( I am yours now, So now I don’t ever have to leave, I’ve been found out, So now I’ll never explore) but always manage to emotionally evoke the listener. Like the young lovers of the before mentioned Shakespeare tragedy, the two lead singers of XX seem so blinded by love that nothing else matters. It is this since of urgency that makes the album so damn, for lack of a better word, sexy.

When we live in a time where songs like “Don’t trust me” by 3OH!3 are number one hits (She wants to touch me wahoo. She wants to love me wahoo. She’ll never leave me wahoo, wahoo hoo hoo. Don’t trust a ho. Never trust a ho. Don’t trust a ho. Cause the ho won’t trust me.) we need bands like XX to show us what being overwhelmed with affection is really like. And it is because of this forever desirable image of unrelenting love that seems so blurry in a time were everything is abstract and viewed through the lense of pop culture that I cannot stop listening to XX. In a world where music aggrandizes the one night stand and emotionless hookups, the XX forces you to again feel. For this I thank them.