Skip to content
Published in electronic ·

Say Yes Dog

Girlfriend

A 2015 single from Say Yes Dog's debut album Plastic Love, recorded in Haarlem: synth-pop that one critic heard as a nod to the Neue Deutsche Welle and another singled out for its funky keystrokes and echoing choruses.

By korczis 2 min read
Share on LinkedIn Share on X Share on Facebook

Review

Genre and Mood

Say Yes Dog put Girlfriend on their first album as synth-pop and electro-pop, played on real synthesizers with live drums. The feelings here, melancholic and groovy, follow the German webzine Terrorverlag, which heard a melancholic streak across the album, and Renowned for Sound, which picked this song out for its funky keystrokes.

Song Summary

Girlfriend was one of the two singles of 2015, with Stronger, from Plastic Love, the trio’s debut album, released on 4 September 2015 on Diskodogs Records with Cargo. The band put the song online in June, ahead of the album, noting that it was recorded by Say Yes Dog and Shai Solan at Helmbreker Studios in Haarlem and mixed by Ash Workman. The reviews describe it in a line each: for Terrorverlag it is a greeting from the era of the Neue Deutsche Welle, the German new wave of the early 1980s.

Musical Breakdown

No source walks through the song part by part, so this breakdown follows the details reviewers named and points at what to listen for.

Main Section

Aaron Ahrends sings, Paul Rundel plays bass and Pascal Karier drums. Listen for the keyboard figures around the voice, the funky keystrokes Renowned for Sound heard.

Chorus

The same review heard echoing choruses. Listen for what makes the echo: an effect repeating the voice, or other voices answering it.

Outro

Listen for how a song of under four minutes closes. MusicBrainz gives the album track 3:40; the band’s own upload runs a few seconds shorter.

Concepts in Focus

The synthesizer is the centre of Say Yes Dog’s sound, and Terrorverlag stressed that the trio play real ones, with live drums rather than programmed beats. Terrorverlag did not say what reminded it of the Neue Deutsche Welle; listen for whether it is the synthesizers.

BlackPlastic heard the album’s bouncy electronic melodies as being there to support the band’s vocal harmony, and named Girlfriend among the songs where the record’s sophisticated pop ambitions show. Listen for whether the voices stack in the choruses.

Artistic Context

Say Yes Dog are a German-Luxembourgish trio: Ahrends and Rundel grew up in Berlin, Karier comes from Luxembourg, and all three studied sound engineering and jazz at the conservatory in The Hague. Their 2013 EP Say Yes Dog – A Friend came first; Plastic Love followed two years later.

Impact and Reception

Reviews were warm but measured. Renowned for Sound counted Girlfriend among the songs with a distinct edge; BlackPlastic felt the album’s ambitions, hinted at here and on Say Yes Dog – Stronger, were never quite realised in full, but called the record a touching mission statement from a band of huge promise. Put it on and decide which side you are on.

Learn from this track

Introductory

What you will learn

  • Describe how a trio of voice and keyboards, bass and drums plays synth-pop with real synthesizers and live drums.
  • Recognise what a reviewer might mean by a nod to the Neue Deutsche Welle in a 2015 song.
  • Listen for keyboard figures and choruses that make one album track stand out from the rest.

Listening guide

  1. the keyboards What Renowned for Sound called funky keystrokes, one of the details that made Girlfriend stand out on the album for that reviewer.
  2. the chorus The echoing choruses the same review named; listen for what makes the echo, an effect or other voices.
  3. the overall sound Terrorverlag heard a greeting from the Neue Deutsche Welle era here: listen for what in the synthesizers and the beat might sound like early-1980s German pop.

Concepts in this track

vocal harmony

21 tracks

Two or more voices singing different notes at the same time, so that together they sound a chord. Stacked harmonies make a chorus feel wider and warmer.

synthesizer

66 tracks

An electronic instrument that generates sound from oscillators and shapes it with filters and envelopes. Synthesizers define the sound of electronic pop, house and techno.

Listen next, and why

Questions for discussion

  1. One critic heard this song as a nod to the Neue Deutsche Welle. Can a band of the 2010s recall an era of pop without copying it?
  2. Another critic thought the album's pop ambitions were never quite realised. What would a fully realised version of Girlfriend sound like to you?
  3. Is Girlfriend melancholic or playful? What in the music, rather than the title, decides it for you?

References

  1. Wikipedia. Say Yes Dog. Encyclopedia
  2. BlackPlastic. Album Review: Plastic Love - Say Yes Dog (2015). Review
  3. Renowned for Sound. Album Review: Say Yes Dog - Plastic Love (2015). Review
  4. Terrorverlag. SAY YES DOG Plastic Love CD-Review. Review
  5. MusicBrainz. Girlfriend (recording). Database
  6. Say Yes Dog. Say Yes Dog - Girlfriend (Audio) (2015). Artist

More like this

Weighted overlap of genres, feelings and moods.

Neighbourhood

This track, the tracks most like it and theirs. Drag, zoom, hover; a dot opens the track.

Show as table