I am the sort of person who is consistently working for the opposition in an expected course of action, view, or habit. For example strict vegetarians make me want to eat raw meat and gun down camels, extremely obsessive correctness of any kind brings out my hidden sarcasm and coldness, and when I observe public displays of affection, my senses tell me to put off dating for eternity.So what I’m trying to say is this; if you're doing or saying something, and you make it very obvious that you won’t budge or hear out a perspective, then odds are, I will turn it down. And if you’re going to ask me why, well it’s cos life is extra entertaining that way.
I know I’m hardly alone when it comes to rebelling this way and people like us do make up a huge slice of this world….you know the ones I'm talking about, the ones who can never just be of the same opinion with a prevalent and regularly held way of thinking. Someone who insists that David Bowie’s version of ‘Man who sold the world’ was the best version, that Gin Blossoms was better than Matchbox Twenty or Counting Crows, that the answer to "Michael Jackson or Madonna?" is Tears for Fears, that Hendrix’s ‘Bold as Love’ was one of the finest instrumentals to be ever played, that Marvin Gay out-funked Gloria Gaynor or Smokey Robinson, or that Lifehouse is somehow the quintessential alternative band.
I’m not a music contrarian. But in case you meet one, you can bet your lucky dime that their going to be packed with a 10-minute lecture as to why Gary Moore never outperformed Lynyrd Skynyrd.
And what is the reason that you or I or our friends should resort to this need to disagree or play mine-is-better-than-yours? Is it just for the sake of thrusting our opinions, or to emphasize our unique eccentricity? Is it really that important? Are we really that bothered? I think we are very concerned. I think that for folks whose characters and personalities have been shaped by music or art we swear by, we replicate just as easily the next day to people we interact with; by beliefs that make unquestionable significance or make so trivial significance that we venerate them all the more; by those long stretches of time we give to them and by the effort it takes to adopt them, not just for a moment but to be dependent on it for life -- that is not anything you can admit defeat to so effortlessly or willingly. You wrangle with and you go against the standard not just to be an arrogant prick, but to stick up for all that you've held onto over the years…. even if you're absolutely wide of the mark.
In other news, saying that someone sounds a bit like a bunch of other singers might seem a bit like a mash up. True, it reads like Lior Narkis is going to sound like a mass confusion of influences and styles and run on sentences. And while his sound is varied and complex I would never for a second suggest that he is anything less than brilliant. Underrated yes. Conflicted yes. Great musically and lyrically, double yes.He’s not to be confused with the pop artist who goes by the same name, who is also from Israel and far more famous than he is. What sets him apart other than the genre of music and the distinctive sound; is that he spells superb originality. What he does have is a weight and sound that is captivating. By this track you’ll have already decided that you’re going to listen to the song one more time, maybe more, and you’ll want to understand what he’s talking about because those who hear him want to be a part of something this wonderful.
Here’s the one and only Lior Narkis featuring Sia on this track ‘I’ll forget you’
