Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
To say there has been a lot of ornate pop music hitting record store shelves in the last couple of years would be too great an understatement for any real critic to make, but if you take a peek at your radio dial, you’ll get a good picture for yourself. Whoaa isn’t looking to be part of the margins in their new single “Saturday Fun,” but rather than completely rejecting trends as a tool of the mainstream alone, they’re modifying a conventional take on party rock to fit their own melodic needs. It’s smashing to hear, and it’s why “Saturday Fun” is making a lot of end-of-summer best-of lists.
The melodies in this track might be as bright as the daylight sunshine, but the tempo puts us in a nocturnal setting where there’s nothing but the meandering bassline and a lingering vocal to keep pushing us forward. From what I can tell, Whoaa wanted to put a big ol’ exclamation point on the emotional subtext of the lyrics without being any more linguistically poetic than they have to be, and rather than depending on the strength of the instrumentation to do this alone, they’re pressing all the buttons at once with marvelous results.
“Saturday Fun” is as flashy as it is uncompromising, but most of all I think it’s highlighting Whoaa’s durability and bravery in the recording studio (neither of which I’ve been able to hear very much of in the majority of the new independent pop content I’ve had the chance to sit down with over the last year and a half). They need to go even further than they did with this single if they want to make some real waves outside of their local scene, but there’s nothing here that would imply they’re planning on giving up any of their energy anytime soon.
Amanda Beeler
