Popcorn Noises

Dent May - “Eastover Wives”

I’ve already gone into detail about this one and I’m surprisingly still happy with everything I said about it (except for misquoting a chorus lyric—“I admit to myself I’ve seen good women do wrong”—though it still means the same thing), but since I’m calling it one of my top songs of 2010, it’s worth bringing up again.

Y’know, there’s this fine line between cleverness and cheesiness that, from where I’m sitting, doesn’t get broached very often these days. I feel like there are a lot of brainy songwriters, cheesy songwriters (unintentional or otherwise), schmaltzy songwriters, and earnest songwriters, but I don’t often find myself calling a song clever. At his best, Dent May is a kindred spirit of Stephin Merritt: able to use wit and flare to acknowledge the performative nature of a song while still delivering an emotional punch. Of course, there are all kinds of people trying argue for the integrity of music that (in rock crit circles) might once have been considered silly and valueless, but this Vegas lounge kind of stuff remains generally ignored. I’m not saying we need more of it necessarily; we just need to appreciate the small doses that do come our way.