Big Stir Singles: The Second Wave

Big Stir Records

I always did love college rock and power pop, but didn’t know much about modern pop/rock bands. These Big Stir compilations give me the opportunity to learn and explore.

Modern pop/rock is the normal side of that spectrum: ordinary people making punk, post-punk, and retro songs about normal problems. In the case of this album, which leans heavily toward jangle pop, it means mostly sad, angry, even bitter love songs. The two that aren’t, are The Living Dolls with “Everything That Happened,” about romantic confusion, and In Deed with “Don’t Need, Don’t Care,” a happy love song. But the best of the love songs, a feminist one about loving yourself, is In Deed’s “Marry Myself.” The singer doesn’t need men to love, just herself.

The really happy songs are the ones about life, such as the Kariannes with “This Is a Cure,” and politics. The political songs, mostly about class, shine the most. "Anytown" by Joe Normal And The Anytown’rs is a working class hero anthem that soars, and calls for revolution.

I hear Big Stir already has Vol 5 of this series in the works. I eagerly await it. In the meantime, stay tuned for my upcoming review of The First Wave.

Andrea Weiss