Authored By Joshua Pickard
The music of Superbody doesn’t care what you think. It exists in its own parallel universe where the ‘80s continued on for a few more decades and pop music never stopped being the one thing that could unite the world. And in the band’s own subversion way, they kept the emotive, synth-driven euphoria of those years relevant but ultimately unaltered. Their pop was mutated—it could be lanky and awkward but also driven by a breathless creativity and spirit. From the dark heart of Southern pop on “Hades Land” to the gauzy fluorescence of “Youth Music,” the band has always shied away from convention and embraced a powerfully strange landscape of sugary melodies and off-kilter rhythms. Initially built around the considerable talents of Robert Gregg McCurry 2nd and Caleb Jackson Dills, the band has recently shrunk to a solo act with McCurry taking the reins and guiding the music into the furthest reaches of his own warped inspirations. For his latest single, “Hollywood,” he’s teamed up with fellow Chattanooga musician Carl Caldwell (the architect behind indie-electro outfit Summer Dregs) and built an ‘80s-obsessed pop explosion that revels in tumbling basslines, sun-soaked guitar lines and shivering synths that stretch out to the horizon. Like most of his work, the song effortlessly undermines our expectations at every turn, allowing the buoyant melody to rise and fall in a great heaving motion. Directed by Playground, the accompanying video finds McCurry cavorting around Hollywood while trying his hand at ultra-low budget smut films, taking in the sights at the beach and doing his best to impress less than attentive casting directors. It’s a send-up of the hopes and dreams of all those fresh-faced wannabes who see Hollywood as their salvation. It’s a campy and energetic look at the things some people will do to get famous and how those aspirations often act as their only source of protection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRzqXDG13i0 Joshua Pickard covers local and national music, film and other aspects of pop culture. You can contact him on Facebook, Twitter or by email. The opinions expressed in this column belong solely to the author, not Nooga.com or its employees.
