Songs of The Week: "Honey Bunny" by Girls and "Girl" by Das Racist

You'll have to forgive the corresponding symmetry between these two entries; it was not intentional. I meant to throw up one of these songs last week but a mastery of time and even basic coordination are skills that continue to elude me- so let's do a couple at once. The first track is "Honey Bunny" by Girls, off their new LP Father, Son, Holy Ghost- which some people are just retarded for. I think the album is quite good, if somewhat derivative of Belle and Sebastian, who are in turn occasionally riding the coat tails of The Beatles, who's influence is also quite prevalent throughout the album. "Honey Bunny" seems to stand out as the album's best track, with a tight surfer grunge guitar riff to open things up and singer Christopher Owens proving to be an inescapably endearing and inviting force with his soothingly care free voice. He jumps back and forth from jaded albeit brushed off rejection, to pure adoration. And while the best part of the song is that amazing hook- "They don't like my boney body, they don't like my dirty hair"- I appreciate that he didn't end the song with it. If the romantic side of him didn't overcome the cynic, it wouldn't be the gratifyingly optimistic track that it is.

Next up is "Girl" by Das Racist off their new album, Relax, marking their first release on a record label, Greedhead music in this case. Relax is condescendingly referred to as their first "real" LP, relegating the equally valid offerings Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man to the quasi legitimate status of mix tapes. Just because they made these records themselves without the distributive assets or production capabilities of a record label, they are marginalized as lesser forms of art. Why most sources of music criticism are so complacent in this admittedly mild form of discrimination is unclear. Perhaps not being on a label and not officially releasing their work as an "LP" allowed Das Racist to avoid potential obstacles in the form of royalties due to all the people and intelectual properties they reference; royalties that a label backing them may be willing to pay. That rant aside, I was interested to see how the guerrilla warfare brand of hip hop that Das Racist indulges in would change under the production and scrutiny of an actual label. "Girl" is indeed the most produced and glossy experience on Relax. It has a wonderful if perplexing- considering the group here- spaced out pop melody that would feel more in place in an MGMT song. Das Racist has, if not a striking talent, than at least a persistent habit of creating pretty interesting rhythms, but paying them little or no regard when building lyrics around them. They deviate from this custom, but only at first, surprising many no doubt by actually, you know, singing. Half way through they switch over to not quite rapping, more some sort of spoken word monologue. The beat proves expansive and melodically stimulating enough to support both styles I think. I really enjoyed this singular instance where the Das Racist crew was more interested in using their music as a means to communicate something sincerely, rather than a crude delivery system for their still rather amusing lampooning of obscure and washed up pop culture references. They have the rest of the album for that after all.