Maj New Music: She & Him 'Volume 3'

I’ve never seen an episode of ‘New Girl’ or watched ‘(500) Days of Summer’ (no kidding), nor have I ever been interested in Zooey Deschanel and her indie project, She & Him. I didn’t even know she could sing, for goodness sake! Turns out, however, she can, and her latest collaboration with M. Ward has resulted in a pretty damn good summer record.

Volume 3, She & Him’s fourth studio album, is all about love and breakups and, weirdly enough, London, and even though it has the potential to be incredibly banal, it actually isn’t. Ok, maybe it is, but in a good way (if that makes any sense).  The melodies are fun and very Beach Boys-ish; lyrically, though, Deschanel manages to bring an element of complexity to an otherwise straight-forward record. (“I sacrifice myself at the altar of someone else's love for me. No, that doesn't comfort me.”)

Volume 3 opens strongly with ‘I’ve Got Your Number, Son’ but starts feeling repetitive towards the end whilst ‘Together’ sounds like it could belong to a different album. Zooey and M. Ward have also included three covers (Blondie's 'Sunday Girl' is totally unnecessary), and with 14 tracks, Volume 3 seems a bit too long. Overall, though, She & Him have created the perfect rom-com soundtrack which is actually not a bad thing. And I will definitely be listening to it all summer long.  

Maj Review: Spring Breakers

For some odd reason, we’ve become increasingly fascinated by our own ‘messed-up’ generation – especially in movies. Two hotly anticipated releases this year – Sofia Coppola’s ‘The Bling Ring’ and Harmony Korine’s ‘Spring Breakers’ – attempt to explore the morality, or lack thereof, of a bunch of bored middle-class girls gone wild.

One might think that Korine has somewhat mastered the fruitful what-happens-when-parents-are-not-around formula: he did, after all, write the screenplay for photographer Larry Clark’s disturbingly honest 1995 debut ‘Kids’. And despite the fact that I’d been dreaming about ‘Spring Breakers’ for months, the film left an unsettlingly bitter taste in my mouth after finally watching it.

The plot, filled with random feuds and weird Britney references, was such an annoying mess; the ending was even worse. Maybe the film should’ve been longer, or maybe it should’ve been cut differently. I don’t know. What I do know, however, is that Korine had obviously tried to EXPLORE which is kind of funny because nothing actually gets explored. The characters have little or no depth, and some of them seem absolutely pointless (sorry, Gucci Mane). Even the legendary James Franco could not save the day. And that says a lot.

I don’t think that the idea of ‘social commentary’ is bad. It’s just about the art of executing it correctly.  



Hopefully, ‘The Bling Ring’ won’t be a let-down. It can’t be.