|
Collapsing Opposites' Ryan McCormick is a child-care worker, which won't come as a surprise to anyone who has heard Mean Letters. Chock full of simple pop melodies, catchy but spare instrumentation and unfocused playfulness, it seems tailor-made for young audiences -- which, as you could probably guess, signals potential pitfalls for would-be adult listeners. The thing that lifts Collapsing Opposites' work above Raffi territory is McCormick's wry lyricism; songs like "Mirror Stage" (a cute reference to Lacan's theory on the mental development of infants) demonstrate McCormick's skill at combining simple, Flaming Lips-style joyousness with self-referential lyrics (i.e. "This is not a reference to 'We Dance' by Pavement / If you thought that pat yourself on the back for being so significant / But that's not what we're saying now, these are different times now / When I wrote that other song, hadn't discovered The Fall yet"). At its best, Mean Letters is the sound of K Records' finest joining Sesame Street's songwriting team; it will please young listeners and not-so-young listeners alike.
--
|
