Fragile Fawn - "Indian Giver"

As much as I like to say that I listen to "everything," it's mostly an attempt to do one of two things. Sometimes, I just don't feel like explaining myself. I listen to good music. I don't have the patience to ennumerate the genres that make up "good" music. The other reason I tell people I listen to everything is because I don't like talking about my pop music obsession. I am really in love with pop music... to the point that it's become embarassing to my friends and myself. Sometimes, I'm ashamed to talk about my pop obsession because it gets mistaken for a love of conventional, radio pop. While, sometimes, I am referring to something that is getting heavy airplay, usually I'm just talking about simple music with great hooks.

There's something so special about discovering new pop music for me. Yeah, being an early adopter of whatever new buzz genre band is cool, but discovering really great pop is special because so many people try to do it, but there are so few who do it well. Sifting through the sands of new pop music rarely yields anything of note. When I came across Fragile Fawn's myspace profile, I had one of those eureka-type moments. Plain and simple, this is damn good pop music. I can't advocate enough for this band. I heard that the kid playing guitar/banjo (by the way, I think it's actually all guitar, but how do you play a guitar like that?) is like 17 and studying at Berklee, which makes sense, considering not only his technical ability, but his song arranging.

When I still worked at KXLU, I had to sum Fragile Fawn up in a few words, even though it really requires so much more. What it basically was whittled down to was "Foot Foot with a 16 year-old twee pop spirit," which means I'm immmediately in love. I had only heard two of their songs at this point and I was immediately impressed. Then I heard "Indian Giver." This is like a damn Beach Boys song. Not the "Surfin' USA" Beach Boys, but I mean some heavy Pet Sounds lifting. There's so much going on in this song, I can barely handle it. I have to listen to it at least twice every time I hear it, just because I feel like I didn't get it all the first time. It's not easy to write songs like this without losing direction, but it somehow all stays on the tracks.

Enough geeky worship. Listen.

Fragile Fawn - "Indian Giver"
Fragile Fawn on Myspace