Sharp and intelligent pop music will always stand out from the pack, especially today when the term pop music seems synonymous with phrases such as throw-away and lowest common denominator. The View From The Barstool, the new single from Canadian pop auteurs Hotel Mira, sounds like sharp and intelligent pop music disseminated across a tired musical landscape.
The use of the word auteur might seem high praise, but for a change in the over-egged and hyperbolic world of music journalism, I think it is justified; they could very well be laying down the blueprint for a whole new take on pop music and what it could be.
If, in the past, pop purveyors have been happy to throw out anything that will get the hoi-polloi dancing with the minimum of effort, Hotel Mira, thankful, shows us that there is another way, and this latest single, if nothing is not a poised, peppy and near-perfect slice of pop music. (Although, given how deftly done it is and how much non-pop moves and grooves they bring to the table, perhaps pop is not a word that even does it justice.)
Soulful guitar licks, scintillating synth riffs, funky bass grooves and dance-friendly drum patterns form a brilliant platform, with the anthemic, uplifting, hands-in-the-air euphoria of the choruses being the perfect icing for this moreish musical cake.
I liked their previous single, Waste Away; it is an understatement to say that I love this new one. Great pop music is back on the menu.
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[…] On the one hand, you know and hopefully like what you have heard already, and in the case of The View From The Barstool and Waste Away, the word like hardly does my feelings justice. Conversely, you hope the new […]