Single Review: Self - "Monogamy" / "Could You Love Me Now?" 7"
There shouldn’t be any doubt that Matt Mahaffey, the
driving force behind the oddball indie pop outfit Self, can write a pop
song—look no further than “Runaway,” my favorite pop song of 2014.
“Runaway” was culled from the Super Fake Nice EP, the first official Self release in well over a
decade; combining that with the reissue of Self’s debut from 1995, Subliminal Plastic Motives by Fat
Possum, 2014 was the year that Mahaffey’s long dormant project had been
revived.
That revival streak has continued into 2015 with a Record
Store Day (sigh) special release of the “Monogamy”/ “Could You Love Me Now?” 7”
single. This was one of two releases from Record Store Day 2015 that piqued my
interest—however not enough to go wait in line with all the other losers at the
Electric Fetus. Thankfully, a handful of these singles was made available
online in the week following RSD.
The single represents the first time either of these songs
has been made available in a physical format—both have existed online for a
number of years as one-off digital downloads.
Thematically, the songs are both very similar, so it makes
sense that they were paired together for this release. And musically, they are
both incredibly slick, well crafted pop songs—it’s almost astounding, especially
with the A side, “Monogamy,” which sounds like a song the Electric Light
Orchestra meant to write but never did.
It’s a huge pop statement—relentless percussion, rollicking
piano, ELO-style string arrangements, and a big pop hook that takes you from
verse to image-heavy verse.
A way to look at Self’s self-aware, humorous pop music is as
a proto-Eels, in a sense. Mahaffey has never taken himself too seriously as a
lyricist, which is part of the charm of Self as a project. This is something to
keep in mind with the B-side, “Could You Love Me Now?” when he drops this
somewhat hilarious lyric—“She said she
was addicted to Anne of Green Gables—parts one, two, and three. I guess I never
got into Canadian fables as deep as she seemed to be.”
“Could You Love Me Now?” is a mid-tempo, kind of goofy love
song, but the goofiness makes it so endearing. It’s not nearly as straight
forward of a POP song as “Monogamy,” but it doesn’t have to be. It’s still
catchy; just unassuming.
Both of these songs date back to at least 2010, and “Could
You Love Me Now?” has been commercially available in iTunes. And I mean you
could just use a YouTube to mp3 ripper to cop either of them, really, if you
wanted. So why spend your hard earned cash on this Record Store Day ephemera? Well,
it’s because sometimes you don’t want to be tethered to the computer or to a
mp3 player to have to listen to music. Maybe sometimes you want to turn on your
stereo and listen to good pop music every once in awhile, and that’s the
purpose this 7” serves.
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