Music Existence Because of Music, We Exist
G Flip creatively opens up her arms in the brand new single “Good Enough” and welcomes us into a smart side of alternative pop/rock that relies more on suffocating grooves and haunting melodies than it does belligerent beats and mumbled vocals. In her latest cut, G Flip deliberately goes against the grain of modern pop music and combines her wide-ranging influences from the indie rock underground to create a sound that is truly her own, and “Good Enough” might be this season’s most elaborately designed track because of it. Sparks come flying off of the intoxicating harmony between the strings and her vocals, and though devoid of flashy commercial lacquer this single gives us a decent sense of the depth that G Flip has as a composer.
The riffs are galloping and directive from the jump and repeatedly challenge the drums for control over the song’s rhythm. With each rhythmic stroke of percussion the drums recoil as if to absorb the damage of the groove, only to return with an even harsher bash in the next verse. They go back and forth for the duration of the track and the exchange never gets old – only more and more penetrating with each string of words uttered in G Flip’s smoky vocal.
I’ve always said that a good rock song is compelling because of its brash bassline, and “Good Enough” boasts one of the most petulant bottom ends I’ve heard in a while. Peevishly situated between the drums and the guitar, the bass tries its hardest to break through the invisible wall separating its rumble from the white treble coming off of the percussive parts and comes fairly close as we near the end of the song. It’s accentuated in the master mix by the lowballing of the sharper cymbal crashes, but it never protrudes into G Flip’s vocal, which is the undisputed star of this spectacle.
Lyrically speaking, G Flip takes the opposite road of her campier counterparts, who usually prefer to wreck songs as fascinatingly alluring as “Good Enough” with concept-riddled nonsense that wouldn’t even be relevant on a straight-up indie pop disc. She’s focused and to the point, clearly describing to us what’s going on in her malevolent mind as she sizes up her prey. There’s a bit of wit in her use of dry symbolism, but this isn’t a tribute to the greater elements in her underground scene. Her prose is gentle in comparison to all of the mayhem that the backing band is pumping out, but her delivery is as cutting as a sword through silk.
You don’t have to be the biggest pop fan in the world to be able to appreciate the ingeniousness of “Good Enough” as it relates to modern rock music. Everything that we’re expecting this song to evolve into never comes to fruition; G Flip’s attack isn’t nostalgic nor particularly revolutionary, but it feels so much different than what major label rock has sounded like in recent years. It could be the rigidity of the mix, or possibly the imaginative and conceptual nihilism hidden in the song’s narrative, but either way, “Good Enough” is a single worth examining.
Julie Blankenship
