A great power-pop song offers innumerable rewards: an eternally memorable melody, an adrenaline rush, a way to make a spring day sing. Still, as much as guitars and synthesizers can capture and even cultivate a hormonal rush, beneath the best power-pop beats a sad, bleeding heart.
Recalling the work of Stars, another band that slathers chiming hooks atop deeply conflicted odes to relationships gone sour, Headlights' "It Isn't Easy To Live That Well" conjures minor-key melancholy on its path to pop bliss. Breezy on the surface, the song finds swooning synths, shimmering guitar lines, a twinkling glockenspiel, and an impeccably placed handclap coexisting with Erin Fein's cooing examination of self-delusion: "Is there any use, to tell myself the truth?"
Fein may come around to the side of getting real -- "I don't have a reason to lie, do I?" -- but it's an epiphany that feels like resignation, even amid so much joyful noise.
Listen to yesterday's "Song of the Day."
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