Walking around the streets of my East Town neighborhood I see people with flock of seagulls hair cuts and tight jeans and it seems like there are many people who want the 1980’s to come back in full effect. When it comes to hearing the influence of the 80’s in music you don’t need to go much further than the Australian musician Walter De Backer, or as he is better known Gotye.
His 2011 album, Making Mirrors, has seemed to take the United States by storm recently. The hit “Somebody That I Used to Know” has been getting plenty of airplay and thrown him into a spotlight to get his work out there in a way that his previous album did not. One of the previous albums biggest criticisms was that it did seem a bit scatter-brained and was a little too jumpy from style to style, while this record seems to walk the fine line from style to style on the album and seems to flow so wonderfully.
From the beginning I see a story being unfolded in this album starting with the slow quiet intro breaking into the powerful “Easy Way Out” and going straight into the hit of the album, the duet with Kimbra “Somebody That I Used to Know”. The lyrics of that song, the feeling of loss and hurt followed by the helplessness and awareness of “Eyes Wide Open” are chilling and can not help but evoke memories of pain and loss. It seems to come back and add the 1980’s Paul Simon/Hall and Oates feel when you hear the tracks like “I Feel Better” and my personal favorite “In Your Light”. Those songs can put a smile on your face and you immediately are put into a montage that the late John Hughes would be proud of and you are dancing and singing out loud as you walk down a crowded street on the way to work.
It is with those pairings that I think the album is anchored and it allows him to get away with the bit of techno-electronic experiment that is “State of the Art”. While I can not explain the song and it does sound a bit like something from an AutoTune the News clip on YouTube, even that screams 1985 to me. He seems to strike on the soft spot once again at the end of the album with the heartfelt lyrics in “Save Me” and “Giving Me a Chance” and you see the redemption side to the coin that “Eyes” and “Somebody” had in the beginning.
Very much like the 80’s, not always knowing exactly what is happening and not understanding parts of it at all even after it is over, this album seems to bring a level of pop and experimental to life that anyone has the ability to relate to. I would give it a 8 out of 10 and recommend you give it a listen to. I think you will be hard pressed to not find something you like.
Dom's Playlist 