Barcelona has already garnered great praise in this webzine. Last year’s simon BASIC is one of our favorites. Surely there’s a large audience out there waiting to discover this band. God knows, there’s enough of us who came of age in the 1980s and now spend our work time and home time connected to virtual space. When Barcelona quietly blipped onto the scene last year, they seemed preordained as our spokesmen.
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Right out of the gate, my eyebrows go up. “Why I write Such Good Songs?”’s chirpy little guitar melody and simple chords sound like Graham Smith (ie-he who is KGW) is aiming to be his young generation’s version of Art Garfunkel. Or maybe it’s Cat Stevens. Someone, anyway, without any balls. The song is catchy but just harmless. Almost like a lo-fi gen x sitcom theme. That is until the chorus when it all goes pear-shaped into happy fun time on Sesame Street. It must be the background vocals during the chorus that push it over the brink. Hearing more than one voice sing “No one can sing like me and / No one can play guitar like me” really makes a man picture some muppets and children skipping in a circle. (more…)