“Beautiful Things” - 3Ds
(Words/music: The 3Ds , available on The Venus Trail, Merge Records 1993 and Old Enough to Know Better: 15 Years of Merge, Merge Records 2004)
As I’m writing this, I’m on an airplane flying down to North Carolina to attend the Merge Records’ 20th anniversary celebration XX Merge. Right now, it feels like a sort of musical pilgrimage as I”m traveling to Chapel Hill to see a few bands that I absolutely adore and a fair number of bands that I barely know. A lot of the focus on Merge’s anniversary and their continued success ends with the conclusion that a label like Merge endures in a crumbling music industry because they focus their energy in the right places. Rather than chase after bands with blog buzz, Merge supports music that they love. If it were personified, Merge would be the friend perpetually proclaiming “you have to hear this” to anyone who will listen. In short, Merge endures because they act likes fans, making it easy for fans to connect with the label. This is how you end up blogging on an airplane heading to a five day festival with a limited knowledge of a lot of the bill strictly based on a label’s endorsement.
One of the biggest factors that earned my trust as a fan was that Merge shares a similar broad definition of “pop” music. For example, “Beautiful Things,” a song by New Zealand’s 3Ds, never scaled the Billboard charts, yet it’s an incredibly infectious piece of popular music. Both the guitar riff and the melody stick with me for days after I listen, wedging itself into my brain the same way that the best pop songs stick to my insides. However, “Beautiful Things” isn’t as slick as typical pop fare – the guitars fuzz at times and a mandolin joins in at the perfect moment at the end in order to add a different texture to the mix. Rather than hide the song’s strengths – it’s simplicity and it’s melody – the band augments the song’s simple core with these instrumental touches. The final product reaches that point where it works so well that it sounds easy (and songwriters will tell you that is easier said than done). I hear this and marvel at how perfect the whole things sounds, yet there’s a part of me that say “I could do that” if I dedicated enough time to it. It’s this recognition (however errant it might be, and in my case it’s probably totally false) that gives songs like “Beautiful Things” their charm. This is the work of “normal” people rather than untouchable media icons, making the music instantly more relatable and inspiring. Merge recognizes the beauty in songs like this and puts their weight behind it in order to have as many people hear it as possible. It creates this kind of cycle – Merge introduces us to new bands, we love these bands and dig deeper into the label’s catalog, and some people will hear it and go start a band themselves. Who knows – the next great Merge band could be in the audience this week, inspired to create their own beautiful things for the listening audience to consume.
More on 3Ds: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
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