If I Had to Pick 1 #1
If I Had to Pick 1 is a series of blogs discussing various songs worth deeming as the only song you can listen to for the length of a day. If you’re interested in listening or buying any of the songs listed, click on the title of one for a link to Amazon.
Although described mostly as an Emo band, Mineral’s short discography of music also pulls from indie rock styles, alternative rock, post-rock, and hints of shoegaze. I love their approach to clean guitar tones used over mellow and somber chords that can switch to punchy and crunchy tones effortlessly, adding much texture and dynamic to their music.
This is common throughout their discography and makes for beautiful songs when heard with the vocal melodies. But if I had to pick one song by this band, it would be their 2019 release, Your Body Is The World, off a two-song EP titled One Day When We Are Young.
This song showcases incredible progression and maturity from the band by displaying their classic style but with better song and instrumentation structure. I love the melodies from the vocals and guitar. The lyrics in this song tell an incredible tale of youth, curiosities, the importance of learning through failure, and finding your real identity. The song is also their best sounding recording they ever put out.
Alternative hard rock/emo band Can’t Swim puts out some pretty catchy material to satisfy many emotions. Still, they have yet to write a song that tops their 2016 song Death Deserves A Name, off the EP, also titled Death Deserves A Name.
This song is compelling. It’s rooted with deep lyrical emotion of bitter memories, beautiful complementing melody, and chord progression with dark and heavy tone throughout the chorus. The song really hits full throttle towards the end when the expression picks up and is weighed even more.
This is a tough one because there are several songs I love on this album from British Blues band The Temperance Movement. Still, I think the song that best represents the true talent and beauty this band can present is Pride. Pride has a great balance of relaxing storytelling sung with a charmingly warm melody on top of a fantastic yet straightforward sounding chord progression. At the same time, the rest of the band fills in the gaps wonderfully with steady sounding off beats and funky feelings that fizzle into a unique steady classic blues rocker.
For those that don’t care much about blues-rock, I know what you might say, the genre produces songs that sound and feel the same and rarely, if ever, has chart-topping material. I agree, but the songwriting in this song by this band will make you eat those words. If there’s a way to write beautiful blues songs, this band has nailed it right here.
Folky emo neo-jazz? Yup, this song hits the spot in so many ways. When I first heard this song, it made me feel a vibe, not many songs can make me feel. Go Home is fresh, smooth, upbeat, and beautiful.
The vocals are flawless. The dynamics are perfect, and the chorus melody is so bloody catchy yet so simple it’s ridiculous. Honestly, the song itself is straightforward, but the way the band stacks the instrumentation and their overall playing as a whole turns a simple song structure into oh-so-sweet, sweet, music.
Kongos fell off my radar a few years ago, and I honestly could have cared less to listen to them again until I did precisely that…. what was I thinking? This band is so talented and unique! I mean come on, they are made up of all brothers from South Africa, and one of them plays the accordion? Not many bands can pull that off. Anyway, this album is excellent, and I might review it for Music Recommendations, but the song Take Me Back really stands out to me.
It’s dark and mysterious but opens up into a fantastic chorus with such a powerful vocal melody that it gave me chills. It also features a really cool accordion solo! You can tell the approach to this song is well throughout because it’s repetitive but not overdone to the point where it becomes a bore. The production behind the song is spot-on perfect, and I might never get tired of listening to it.
All Links Shown Are Affiliate Links.
