Algiers' "The Underside Of Power"
- chicagomusicsource
- Oct 10, 2017
- 2 min read
Introducing a brand new blog series "Naked Track Tuesday," each week I'll pick one of my favorite songs I can't stop listening too and sharing it with you.
ANGRY MOTOWN MUSIC
This song, or rather, its music video found me as I was browsing various acts playing Chicago shows in October. I was hooked, even before the hook came. The visuals of the video. The slow burn build of the first two verses. It was like if Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson suddenly got really fed up with everything and everyone all at once. Maybe they do, I don't know. It wasn't just Motown anymore, it was mad Motown.
IF HOOKS COULD KILL...
The chorus of this song is a thing of beauty. Simple in both its chords and lyrics, it gives the listener exactly what we need after the bleak opening verses, a moment of relief, a chance to reflect on what we've seen and experienced and realize that we can learn from the past and make things better for ourselves and one another.
A CHANGE IS GONNA COME
The song, and the album that shares its name, explores social and political themes many will be quite familiar with at this point. The systemic oppression of African Americans by our social structures and laws, and the desire to meet the violent circumstances head on by its most desperate victims. In the moment when all seems lost and violence has one, a voice emerges from the fiery rhetoric and repeats the hopeful cry from generations before, "A change is gonna come."
Like what you hear, check out more by Algiers on Spotify and YouTube.
Algiers plays The Empty Bottle this Thursday, October 19th. Get your tickets here! https://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=7650945
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