Album: Plastic Beach
Artist: Gorillaz
Kyle: The tonal foundation of "On Melancholy Hill"--the buzzing synthesizer hum--drags the song down like an albatross, carrying through its entirety as a nagging reminder of how it began and where it will end. The sighing backup vocals and Damon Albarn's resigned tone form the emotional texture, while the upbeat piano and chimes act as counterpoints to make the sadness easier to swallow but no less painful to digest.
The track is produced with a scratchy, vinyl-like quality that makes it sound like it's been sitting in someone's attic: this is not a song that takes place as we hear it. It's a memory, slightly faded and sweetened with age as all memories are, but haunted with mournful regret. [A]
Randy: Objection. “On Melancholy Hill” is officially a letter of resignation from Albarn--a dreamer run out of dreams, and, behind the boards, a musical producer warily toeing the line between understated and lazy. Lifting that buzzy cicada synth reveals only lifeless, filmy slackerisms below it, and a might-as-well love story puckering up with all the permanence of a middle school game of MASH. Marshmallow-plucked percussion and scribbling riffs aside, “Melancholy Hill” is life as an interlude, and acquiescence mistaken for romance. That said, it's absolutely mesmeric. [B+]
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