You’re probably wondering what exactly a musical ‘sweet spot’ is. Have you ever heard an ethereal, simply brilliant moment in a track which is so satisfying you can’t help but listen to the song again and again? Sweet spots can be a closing culmination of all the best elements of a track, other times they can be a jarring shift into a totally new melody or, in an even more non-descript way of saying it, the part where the song suddenly makes sense: the part when it ‘hits you’.
This is probably the closest I can come to conveying how these moments make you feel using words, but I can illustrate it best by showing you my personal favourites.
Now bear in mind, just like every form of art, these are entirely subjective so don’t worry if you don’t hear them yourself – but I find these moments so damn good they make me want to write about them. Also, I’m being pretty strict on myself to make sure I don’t just list all of my favourite songs, these tracks have very specific moments that I’ll be talking about, two at a time.
Should Have Known Better – Sufjan Stevens
“I should have known better
Nothing can be changed
The past is still the past
The bridge to nowhere
I should have wrote a letter
Explaining what I feel, that empty feeling”
Sufjan Stevens is, to me, the indie king of variety. Between releases he’s constantly found ways to explore where he can take his sound with instrumentation and lyrics. He also has the remarkable tendency to change a song completely halfway through (and sometimes more than once! I’m looking at you ‘Impossible Soul’). Some of my favourite parts of his entire discography are songs with these shifts. An honourable mention goes out to Come On, Feel The Illinoise! but I think the shift in Should Have Known Better from 2015’s Carrie & Lowell stands out as one of his most beautiful creations.
At 2:37, Should Have Known Better takes a small half second breath of silence from the delicate acoustic guitar and choir which guided the song’s first half and then the sudden hit of a warm electric piano chord enters accompanied with a shy repeating ostinato, banjo plucks and light claps. Leaving a voiceless moment for us to take it in, we feel the warmth and nostalgia from the music before Sufjan’s lyrics take us through feelings of regret and then acceptance which quell the pain introduced by the first half. This final stretch of the song continues to elevate and provides us a cathartic release from a painful tale of anxious memories. Sufjan uses the perfect marriage of minimalistic yet beautiful instrumentation, lyrics and vocals which I can only describe as celestial.
3WW – Alt-J
“Oh, these three worn words
Oh, that we whisper like the rubbing hands
Of tourists in Verona
I just want to love you in my own language”
Since winning the Mercury Prize for An Awesome Wave back in 2012, I think that Alt-J have struggled to replicate its success. They’ve slowly been creating unique sounds which are best described with the rather apt label of ‘alternative indie-rock’. Although none of their recent work has been bad, it’s hard to maintain novelty – which was one of the strengths of both An Awesome Wave and Alt-J in the context of the 2012 sound scene. Their shyness and introverted, muted experimentation was both unlike anything people had heard before and refreshing.
Their third album RELAXER, originally put me off in the promotional run-up since I found their faux vaporwave visuals somewhat gimmicky and 2014’s This Is All Yours missed the mark with me. What shone through however was some of Alt-J’s most beautiful music in RELAXER’s first single and album opener 3WW.
A hypnotic bass crawls gently underneath the introduction as they reassure us they can still make restrained yet lush moments. Then the soft, deep backing vocals kick in as everything drops out and the production choice (to use a room recording from what sounds like a phone) teleports you instantly to an empty living room, where you’re sat cross legged and the morning sun is peering in through a window, revealing the invisible dust specks hovering in the air…
This song has so many ‘nice’ moments and Alt-J know it, accentuating each vocal breath by cutting everything else out.
For me, the song reaches its zenith at the chorus (2:37 and 3:58). The song hops to a slightly harsh piano riff, which employs soft strings to bring you down again and cushion your fall, as though you were a paper plane gliding gently to an office floor. In between a light guitar line where you can hear each finger’s slide on the frets, we eventually arrive to a beautiful delivery of the lyrics “I just want to love you in my own language”. Both choruses of the song use vocal harmony wonderfully, with Joe and Gus in the first and the surprisingly satisfying appearance Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell in the second. Female vocals add so much to the Alt-J’s sonic texture and ties in too perfectly with 3WW’s narrative.
We’re then gently ushered out of the chorus with a delicate guitar and piano break, which takes a moment to let us soak it in. To me, an indicator of a great lyric is when I’m blindsided with the natural feeling of envy upon hearing it over how I didn’t create the lyric myself. The short repetition at the end of this break almost makes me feel that Alt-J are rubbing it in, taunting me and saying “Yep. We wrote that lyric. You wish you did first, didn’t you?”.
But I don’t complain. I sit back and enjoy admiring it.
For this moment, both lyrics and instrumentation are weaved together masterfully to make a sickly-sweet moment which I’m an absolute sucker for and every time I hear it, I feel something very special.
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Expect to hear more about my favourite musical sweet spots soon!
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