1000 Tiny Birds

Grace Ives - Janky Star (2022)

2023-01-02

I feel unqualified to adequately review - or not even that, comment on, even - pop music. It’s not that I dislike it, and it’s not that I’m snobbish about it. I just can’t see the distinction points. What makes this better than that? Or, further, what makes this different from that? Take Grace Ives’s 2022 album Janky Star. Pitchfork gave it Best New Music, and even if to not assume Pitchfork know what they’re talking about at all times, there clearly must be some differentiation possible. The songs are catchy enough in the moment, fireflies in the night, until onto the next self-contained one. I can’t tell you what the songs I liked from this album sound like. I can tell you I liked them. I can tell you I liked them for the instrumentation, occasionally moving beyond standard synth fare. I can tell you Ives has a taste for a good variation in vocal melodies, making the most of a voice that is distinct from the hushed whisperings of the de mode, flicking it up and down at the intuitively correct moments of emphasis. But ask me to hum them? Nothing. It’s only been a couple of listens. Maybe they’ll catch.