Review
Genre and Mood
Bedouin Soundclash and Cœur de pirate make Brutal Hearts a pop duet from a band best known for reggae and ska, an alternative act stepping sideways. Its mood is bittersweet and playful at once, full of longing: the BBC heard a sinuous and witty study of dysfunction, a song about wanting one night together.
Song Summary
Brutal Hearts is the fourth track of Light the Horizon, the Toronto band’s fourth studio album, released on 28 September 2010. Its singer Jay Malinowski shares the song with Béatrice Martin, the Montreal singer who records as Cœur de pirate. The title is a question, whether the other is the brutal heart the singer has been looking for, and the answer the song gives is a plea of two words repeated: “use me”. It lasts three minutes ten.
Musical Breakdown
No source walks through the song part by part, so this breakdown follows the descriptions we found rather than a fixed structure.
The Duet
The BBC describes it as a duet between the band’s vocalist and the Canadian chanteuse: two voices, two sides of one relationship.
The Sound
For the same review it sounds something like Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra attempting Europop, the band once again blending disparate elements into a startlingly coherent whole.
The Videos
The band released more than one video. The second, labelled V2 and the Eon & Sekou cut, was directed by Bruce McDonald.
Concepts in Focus
A <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist is a guest credited on another act’s song. Cœur de pirate is a francophone from Montreal who sings mostly in French; her debut album appeared in 2008. Her credit here is more than a cameo, since the BBC hears a duet. The meeting outlived the song: Malinowski and Martin performed together on CBC Radio’s Q in May 2010 and then formed the duo Armistice, whose five-song EP followed in February 2011.
A music video is usually one film per song, but Brutal Hearts has two official versions, V1 and V2. The V2 on the band’s VEVO channel names its director and carries the first names of the band’s bassist Eon Sinclair and drummer Sekou Lumumba.
Artistic Context
Bedouin Soundclash formed in 2001 when its members met at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and took their name from a 1996 dub record by Badawi. Their sound is usually described as a combination of reggae and ska; in 2006 they won the Juno Award for New Group of the Year. Light the Horizon came out on their own label, Pirates Blend, distributed by Sony, with King Britt producing. For the older duet tradition the BBC invokes, hear Nancy Sinatra in Nancy Sinatra – Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).
Impact and Reception
The BBC called Brutal Hearts the album’s peak. It became a single, the band and Cœur de pirate sang it live at Toronto’s CASBY Awards in 2011, and a Flic Flac remix later came out on Kontor Records with a video of its own. Listen for the two voices pulling at each other.
