Today’s song of the day is a tribute to the ephemeral state of good indie music. Today I simultaneously discovered Harlem Shakes and mourned their passing…apparently back in 2009. This awesome alt rock band formed in 2006, released its first, very well received, album, Technicolor Health (a great name for an album), in 2009 and then disbanded that same year. There’s nothing worse than discovering a great new artist, googling them and then finding the following statement on Wikipedia, “(insert band name here) WAS an American indie rock band…” This knowledge unfortunately also comes on the heels of my discovering that my very first indie rock love, Voxtrot, disbanded last year. Wahwahh.
But still the music Harlem Shakes made was fantastic and, I think, deserves some love. My favorite two tracks off of their debut, and only, album, are Sunlight and Strictly Game. Sunlight is a fun tongue-in-cheek rendition of a story from the Bible – that in and of itself is super impressive. I can’t really imagine a) coming up with that idea or especially b) being able to verbalize it and sell it to others as a worthwhile project, but I’m so glad they did because this song is addictive. Strictly Game is a totally dance-able, and yet surprisingly weighty and un-ironic look at life and what it takes to create a little happiness. So join me in putting ‘a little bit of bitter in your pink lemonade’, give this track a listen, and perhaps feel that same twinge of regret that I felt that you’ll never get to see this band live.