Pick four songs from any band and you can tell a lot about their sound. This summer, I’m featuring #RockBlocks, four picks from bands across various genres. They might be wildly different from each other, but what binds them together is the fact that they’re all a part of my life soundtrack.
This might be the one song on Turn on the Bright Lights that continues to grow on me with every listen. Released about a year after 9/11, “NYC” gave us a glimpse of the city that was here before and after the attacks. It’s an unglamorous treatise on the alienation and the pressure to keep “turning on the bright lights”. It’s a side to New York City that’s surprisingly absent in music.
Paul Banks’ vocals are the centerpiece of the song, and they’re even more haunting than usual on “NYC”. It sounds like he’s singing beneath a subway grate, but the echo effect convinces you he’s not really there. Everything else on the track is subdued. This isn’t the edgy, rhythmic Interpol we know and love. The bass and drums are deliberately scaled back — and Daniel Kessler’s guitar riffs are quieter, using a variety of tamer strums and slides. “NYC” is a song with millions of different interpretations for each person that lives here — and it has taken on a whole new meaning during the pandemic.
“I had seven faces. Thought I knew which one to wear. I'm sick of spending these lonely nights training myself not to care.”