The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #208

#208: "Postcards from Italy" (2006) - Beirut

The new year officially starts now (or, rather, second semester starts today for the missus and me, meaning we go back to work today after our two-weeks' vacation), and what better time than to take a fresh approach to life, to bring in something new and different, so I'll begin by bringing some Italian music straight from Beirut. Huh? Really? Well, not really. The music's American, and Beirut is the name of Zach Condon's band--and sometimes it's just the name Zach Condon gives himself.

No matter what he calls himself or his songs, Condon defintely brings a fresh--if not entirely new--approach to typical pop/indie music. In his best song, "Postcards from Italy," Condon gives us a ukulele, mandolin, a mariachi trumpet (as those three instruments represent the song's title...I guess), a martial snare, a spare piano, and some percussion instruments I can't quite identify. It's Fellini for the AmerIndie pop crowd; it's neo-Nito Rota; it's latter-day Paul Simon with a '30s crooner at the mic--and it's all a pose, but that's alright with me, 'cause it doesn't sound like a pose, just as CCR's music sounded like genuine Southern swamp rock even though the lot of them were San Francisco hippies, just as The Band's Americana was all written by a Canadian: the music sounds genuine, sounds authentic, do it shouldn't matter whether or not Condon really travelled through the Balkans and lived with gypsies. The music sounds like he did, like he recorded it live from a gypsy carriage, and it's lovely music--especially that trumpet--and when music sounds this beautiful and fresh and new, who cares where it originated. It's the New Year, folks. It's 2009. So face your fear with a little freedom. Me? I have no fear. I have only love.