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.
nbeknownst to me until a couple minutes ago, this blog’s been a straight-up sausage party. Since Make-Out Music’s January inception, I’ve accidentally forgotten about our female counterparts. So, in the name of Equal Opportunity, today the ladies get their due with a trio from Brighton known as Chungking.
Chungking came onto my radar in 2005 when their second LP, The Hungry Years, was released. At the time I was still flirting with Feist’s Let It Die and I viewed The Hungry Years as its unofficial sequel. Both LPs bore smokey white girls who knew their Jazz. As it turned out, The Hungry Years was better than Feist’s official follow-up, The Reminder, which was a boring, predictable romp through Apple-friendly monotony.
“Making Music,” Hungry Years’ first single, is a classy ode to a dreaming debutante’s favorite comfort zone. The piano-clad song creeps along with a frightful violin and sparse horns until it dips into a huge soulful chorus, following singer Jessie Banks’ blissful exclamation: “I just want to cry / so help me along to where I belong / here I’m safe and sound…making music.”
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?
oday’s songs may initially bring your sexuality into question. And if they do, I must ask you to chill out, homophobe. They’re actually as close to the 80s pop sound we’d all like to remember than anyone this side of the Killers has gotten. Besides, the decade would have fallen to RATT had the music industry not turned a blind eye to sexually ambiguous pop stars (here’s lookin’ at you, George Michael). I’ll start this series out with five tracks from across Europe, all of which I’ve secretly been devouring since last year:
He was the mastermind producer behind Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet.” Now fronting Danish chart-toppers Private, Thomas Troelsen unveils the bouncy and infectious “My Secret Lover.” It’s a song anyone a slave to their hormones could relate to: “I met you at the club no further comment / I said ‘Baby, let’s go back to your apartment and girl, take off your clothes, let’s make this place a mess.” While lyrically it may have been a bit crass for the 80s, the chorus’ vocal melody has been snatched from the Reagan era’s own King of Pop. Not to mention the music video’s intro, which sports the same cheap, green strobe effects seen in MJ’s “Rock With You.”
This haunting slow jam swings in beautiful harmony much in the same way Tears for Fears would have 23 years ago. Like Tears’ “Head Over Heels,” sweeping synths and desperate lyrics make “Rush” a heartbroken Swedish companion.
I’ll be honest: Whereas the other songs in this post come from genuine, established acts, “3 Little Words” brings the cheese as evidenced by the song’s music video. Still, London’s FrankMusik, a fashion school dropout, may just be 2009’s synth pop band to beat — that is, if you trust the BBC’s Sound of 2009 poll, which also ranked Passion Pit, another new favorite of mine, 2K9’s “best new music talent.”
Perhaps the most modern-sounding electro song of this bunch, Heartbreak’s “We’re Back” starts out like a B-side to the first Ladytron album. But once the first chorus hits, it’s the deep baritone of frontman Sebastian Muravchik going on about the disco that puts “We’re Back” somewhere along the Italo-Disco timeline. As a duo, Heartbreak also bares some resemblance to fellow Londoners Pet Shop Boys — in a retarded cousin (note the pasteled windbreakers and overly enthusiastic flailing) sort of way.
The fretless bass that travels throughout this song is most likely synthesized. The angelic voices probably are, too. But this song, along with all of Juvelen’s output, is some of the freshest synth pop I’ve heard in a while. Vocally, this Swedish seducer is the second coming of Prince. And while that’s probably most listener’s selling point, it’s the driving bridge at 2:53 that strikes like Hall & Oates on the verge of suicide.
Monday, April 13, 2009 
nbeknownst to me until a couple minutes ago, this blog’s been a straight-up sausage party. Since Make-Out Music’s January inception, I’ve accidentally forgotten about our female counterparts. So, in the name of Equal Opportunity, today the ladies get their due with a trio from Brighton known as Chungking.
would be a fool not to credit 
oday’s songs may initially bring your sexuality into question. And if they do, I must ask you to chill out, homophobe. They’re actually as close to the 80s pop sound we’d all like to remember than anyone this side of the Killers has gotten. Besides, the decade would have fallen to RATT had the music industry not turned a blind eye to sexually ambiguous pop stars (here’s lookin’ at you, George Michael). I’ll start this series out with five tracks from across Europe, all of which I’ve secretly been devouring since last year:
