I’d found The Presidents‘ new CD at my local JB Hifi the other day, and listening to it in the car on the way back I got to thinking how rare this brand of what I call “fun rock” is – rock-type music that’s reasonably upbeat and light-hearted. I’ve got a very limited library of it, mostly made up of The Presidents and Do As Infinity (sadly, no longer together).
There has to be more of this stuff out there though. To that end, I ask you, dear friend, to have a listen to a sampling of fun rock on my muxtape and tell me where I can find more of this kind of stuff. I don’t know what exactly it’s called – perhaps alternative? – but it’s the polar opposite of both Emo and “heavy metal” and its ilk. The song’s gotta make you smile, make you tap your foot along to it on the train. I’ve heard good things about MGMT for example, but not really sure what their fun rock songs are.
All suggestions welcome!
Hmmm… I’ll have to think about this.
Off the top of my head:
-> Weezer (“god damn you half japanese girls do it to me every time…”: ‘El Scorcho’ – a song perhaps you have an affinity with? *wink*). ‘Buddy Holly’ is more upbeat – very cool geeky rock
-> Reel Big Fish – this is rock music strongly leading towards ska – most people enjoy their song “Beer”. A lot of ska is pretty upbeat.
-> moving towards more alternative and less rock are a lot of my personal faves from the past: ie Ben Folds’ “There’s Always Someone Cooler Than You”, The Whitlams’ “You Sound Like Louis Burdett”. I’ve always like the rock song that is almost a novelty song… the cheerful random lyrics :)
-> perhaps you’d like The Wombats? The CSS remix of “Kill the Director” is one of my current faves, you might know “Let’s Dance to Joy Division”.
Re MGMT: I’ve totally gotten into the Justice remix of Electric Feel (great song to groove to while walking) and before that I was into the Afterschool Dance Megamix of Kids. Not quite sure it’s what you were thinking of but check them out anyway :)
The whole reason I turned to electro is because it’s fun rock with beeps. I’d say Muscles has too many beeps for you, but his whole appeal is that the music is fun electro (if you want to humour me you can check out his song “Ice Cream”)
haha, thanks! I’ll check all those out :)