Welcome to Make-Out Music, a music blog written by Ryan Sheridan, for those in search of the perfect pop song. Forget you actually gave freak-folk a chance and take comfort in discovering pop music that can still be sophisticated. Find the perfect remix, forgotten guilty pleasure, original sample or secluded Scandinavian sound with our MP3s, interviews, genre features and video mash-ups. Befitting a spot on your next mixtape, it's Make-Out Music: because getting to second base needs a soundtrack.
If you have comments, questions or music of your own you'd like me to hear, please send all e-mail to ryan [dot] makeoutmusic [at] gmail.com. MP3s will be taken down upon request.
Friday, April 3, 2009
GETTING DRUNK ON THE NEW WINE
Like Erlend Oye’s The Whitest Boy Alive…on a budget
our months into the new year, I think it’s safe to say 2009 has already found its sound. So far we’ve heard Passion Pit’s huge, gooey synths, Phoenix’s palm muted guitar licks and, now, Norway’s The New Wine — a quartet who’s wrangled all these sexy sonances into one EP.
Given away to fans via a free digital download on MySpace, this self-released untitled EP possesses a certain charm none of the aforementioned bands do. There aren’t any children’s choruses or slick producers here. Rather The New Wine’s output is content to be lo-fi dance-punk, thanks mostly to what has got to be a starter Casio — much like the one your penny-pinching parents probably gave you on your 9th birthday in hopes of you becoming a musical prodigy someday. Though lo-fi can be a deceiving word, think Erlend Oye’s The Whitest Boy Alive…on a budget. The two bands are actually good friends. Check out this video of TNW covering TWBA’s “Golden Cage”:
Available for download today is the EP’s final track “Revolving Cylinder.” Here The New Wine uses that kids’ electric piano to dance with a slinking bass line that backs up bright, shiny guitars, Phoenix-like palm mutes, and, duh, a disco beat.
would be a fool not to credit the Cure as the model for what I call make-out music — or at least its torch holders for the 80s. Pestered by romance and a tingling sensation in their pants, goth kids, as legend has it, meticulously crafted at least one mixtape with Robert Smith & Co. on Side 1 — and maybe something upbeat off Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me for good measure on Side 2 — keeping just the right amount of hissing silence at the end to make sure the listener “got it.”
Decades later modern U.K. and U.S. bands obviously still “get it.” In February the NME, Britain’s premier Morrissey hate-mongorers, released a compilation of Cure covers after awarding the band with the title of “Godlike Geniuses” at the Shockwaves NME Awards. One of my favorite Cure songs, 1989’s “Lullaby,” also happened to be covered by Editors, one of my favorite bands to listen to when Interpol’sbusy. I loved the original’s spider-like strings, rolling bass line and hovering synth and, though this cover has none of those things, Editors make it their own by speeding it up and drenching it in their signature guitar reverb. I’m still wondering, though: Which version will get that girl to fall in love with me?
Friday, April 3, 2009 
our months into the new year, I think it’s safe to say 2009 has already found its sound. So far we’ve heard Passion Pit’s huge, gooey synths, Phoenix’s palm muted guitar licks and, now, Norway’s The New Wine — a quartet who’s wrangled all these sexy sonances into one EP.
would be a fool not to credit 
