Sam Recommends: “Did We Live too Fast” by Got a Girl

Got a Girl deserves an award solely for having the most killer album title: “I Love You but I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now”. The duo, consisting of Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Yes, that Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Dan the Automator, point their primary influence towards ’60s French Pop, and it is this inspiration that shimmers throughout the LP.

Its lead single and opening track, “Did We Live Too Fast”, is the kind of song that immediately evokes not just a mood, but a setting–a Parisian hotel lobby, one that brims with a Most-Wanted List of atypical sonic characters; many contradict each other, yet, somehow, they effortlessly harmonize. You can eavesdrop on the soft trills of piano lounging in perfect tandem amidst raucous explosions of industrial percussion. You can spy on woodwinds fluttering across the pulse-throb of an electronic bass. But, Winstead’s vocals are undoubtedly the protagonist, effortlessly slipping from wistful whispers to champagne seduction in the space of a verse.

The music video evokes similar stylistic ambitions too; a black-and-white Twilight Zone inspired (Eyes, eyes, and more eyes) bit of satire, one that literally winks at its audience–the ’60s may have had some brilliant music, but its gender politics tended to lack the same sheen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD6upBLkbj8(Song recommendation by Sam Jowett)