The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Courtney Barnett – Pedestrian at Best

The title’s not self-reflexive.


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Edward Okulicz: This derives its grunt not from Barnett’s semi-conscious rant, but from a delicious lineage of Australian female-fronted dirty indie pop. I hear echoes of long-forgotten loves like the first two Deadstar records, Moler, a bit of Waikiki. The rant itself boasts some terrific lines, though you can’t actually do origami with Australian banknotes as they’re made from a super-technical plastic polymer thing that can survive a washing machine. I’d rave more but I wish the chorus didn’t end and put most of its emphasis on the song’s worst line.
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Micha Cavaseno: It’s not the bars — those aren’t for me but they’re fine, and I love the origami line. It’s the cloying Neanderthal sub-PJ Harvey B-side stomp-along being used as backing.
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Alfred Soto: Loquacious because she loves how words sound as much how they sound against rusted-through guitars, Barnett has come up with a terrific single. Singing the verses in the same key is Barnett’s way of annoying the shit out of her audience with her eternal diatribe. So is a backing that sounds like it was recorded in another room, as if annoyed to the core. The riff’s good, equal parts Kinks and L7. And it boasts a solid Valentine’s Day line: “I want to exploit you, honey” is as good as “I might like you better if we slept together”
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Anthony Easton: I can only be disappointed if I am surprised. This grungy mess of anger and self-loathing proves that the rant is an overestimated form. 
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Ian Mathers: The “Loser” that 2015 deserves, I guess.
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Brad Shoup: It’s like a Crass song written by a fast-fashion retailer.
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Mo Kim: Here are three long monologues, each more pointed yet confused in their introspection; not even the speaker is safe from her own withering deconstruction. Barnett finds a perverse strength in her reading, however, delivering “Pedestrian At Best” like an honor roll student trashing her room just to keep her parents on edge. On the verses, she walks a tightrope between rehearsed poise and anger spilling over, while on the chorus she carves apathy into punchlines that cut as much as they invite singing along. And then there’s that gut-churning tag team of guitar and drum barreling forward, falling apart at the seams but holding together just through sheer tenacity. This has been a trying winter, and I appreciate it when noisy songs like this can cut through the cold.
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Katherine St Asaph: Like a mashup of Kate Tempest (imagine splicing in “I’m swaying to a power ballad”) and “A Cleaner Light” with great lines and great hooks and lacerating self-awareness.
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Patrick St. Michel: Any song capable of capturing how small things can snowball into existential dilemmas and turn one into a mess is a winner for me.
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Cédric Le Merrer: This captures the feeling when your troubles return and you know that you must change but don’t how, and how it’s all a grind anyway. Because you’re having so many feelings you can’t express or understand them all. Any interference in this private pity party an trigger the bullshit detector. It makes you insufferable. It can be a form of neurosis; it may just be growing up and figuring stuff out.
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