Review
Genre and Mood
Junior’s “I Don’t Listen Much” is electro-pop with a funk spine, groovy and catchy on the surface and ironic underneath. A cool voice, a bubbling bass and a few synths make a dance song whose words, one reviewer wrote, are cynical.
Song Summary
“I Don’t Listen Much” is the second track and the first single of Self Fulfilling Prophets, the debut album of Junior, released on 28 February 2014 by popup-records with Cargo. It runs 3:47. MusikBlog called it a prototype of the album, a song that gathers all of the record’s qualities, and gave it real chart chances. Beatblogger heard Ian Fisher’s laconic vocals over a bubbling bass and simple, hypnotic synths, close to Hot Chip, in a presentation that was spartan and, perhaps for that reason, exciting. Terrorverlag simply called it driving.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found walks through the song from intro to outro, so this breakdown follows the layers the reviews describe.
The Bass
The bass is the engine: bubbling, in Beatblogger’s word, under everything else.
The Synths and the Beat
The synths are simple and hypnotic. MusikBlog heard the album’s beat as a simple 1980s drum machine, with whirring synths and a Wurlitzer piano that is as rhythmic as it is melodic.
The Voice and the Guitar
Fisher’s delivery is laconic, and MusikBlog heard soul in his voice. A guitar is there too, though here, Beatblogger wrote, it fights in vain against the cynical lyrics.
Concepts in Focus
A bassline can do the work of a melody and a beat at once. Here the reviews put the bass first, and the song’s groove grows out of it.
The synthesizer parts are deliberately plain: repetition rather than display, which is what makes them hypnotic.
A drum machine, or a beat that sounds like an old one, gives the song its steady, unshowy pulse. Compare Say Yes Dog – Plastik, electro-pop that reviewers also heard beside Hot Chip.
Artistic Context
Junior is a German-American duo: the songwriter Ian Fisher from Missouri and the Berlin musician and producer Fabian Kalker. MusikBlog summed it up as Berlin meets Missouri, urban electronics meeting American songwriting. Terrorverlag reported that their lyrics draw on texts by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm to question postmodern fun culture, a point it felt the party music sometimes buries.
Impact and Reception
The song was around before the album: in September 2012 Indie Shuffle wrote about a remix by the Swedish house duo Mercury, calling it a dance-tastik vocal romp. The duo had played Reeperbahn Festival the autumn before the album. MusikBlog ended its review predicting a big career, at least in small, initiated circles. Put it on and listen past the groove to the words.
