(pair of mirrors)

Sometimes you hear a song or an album that people have told you will you love… and you just can’t see what all the fuss is about. You’re left confused… uneasy even. Why don’t you love it? But then… you hear it again and you don’t hate it as much, or maybe you even like it a little more. Suddenly, a few random plays later this song is so incredible that you want to listen to it over and over and even when you do, you still don’t tire of it. This has happened to us at Pair of Mirrors more times than we can count. It took some work, but we have compiled a list of our favourite 15 “Songs That Get Better With Age” 

You know what we’re talking about. The first time you heard Dirty Projectors it was too weird for words, or with so many LCD songs at first you wonder what is even going on. But then, suddenly, you can’t get enough and you know you will always hold a special place in your heart for that particular song.

The defining example? ‘I Will Possess Your Heart’ by Death Cab:

‘You’ve got to spend some time, love
You’ve got to spend some time with me
And I know that you’ll find, love
I will possess your heart.’

And the truth is, if you wait it out with this song-if you really listen and you take time to see what its all about-it will possess your heart.

In somewhat particular order:

1. LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great

2. Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

3.Death Cab For Cutie - I Will Posses Your Heart

4. Arcade Fire - City With No Children

5. Dirty Projectors - Remade Horizon

6. Best Coast - Honey

7. Gillian Welch - Look at Miss Ohio

8. Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal

9. Yeasayer - Madder Red

10. Phoenix - Love Like A Sunset

11. Metric - Waves

12. The New Pornographers -Go Places

13. Broken Social Scene - Sweetest Kill

14. Ryan Adams - Come Pick Me Up

15. Dead Weather - Bone House  

Give it time to sink in, and enjoy. 

-L+M

White Stripes, The Raconteurs, Dead Weather, I don’t discriminate…

“Yaaa-ee! Icky thump, whoda thunk, sittin’ drunk on a wagon to Mexico…” - Icky Thump, White Stripes

“Yeah all the white girls trip when I sing at Sunday service” -Blue Blood Blues, Dead Weather 

“You’ve had too much to think, now you need a wife” - “Steady as she Goes, The Raconteurs 

“You’re not hopeless, or helpless, and I hate to sound cold, but you don’t know what love is you just do as you’re told” - You Don’t Know What Love Is, White Stripes

“Are you part of this khakhistocracy?” - Intimate Secretary, Raconteurs 

“Hustle and cuss, and lick on the dust” - Hustle and Cuss, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals) 

“I ain’t the reason that you gave me no reason to return your call!” - Effect and Cause, White Stripes 

“You want everything to be just like the stories that you read but never write” -Together, Raconteurs 

“Let’s go where no one can see us, and find the difference between us” - The Difference Between Us, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart Vocals) 

“If you can hear a piano fall, you can hear me comin’ down the hall” - Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, White Stripes 

“And I got all I got all despite you, and I get what I get just to spite you.”- Salute Your Solution, Raconteurs 

“I’d call you a heartbreaker, but I reserve that for nicer things”- Jawbreaker, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals) 

“One two three four, take the elevator, at the Hotel Yorba I’ll be glad to see ya later” - Hotel Yorba, White Stripes 

“Take it as it comes, and be thankful when it’s done. There’s so many ways to act, and there’s many shades of black” - Shades of Black, Raconteurs 

“I don’t want a sweetheart, I want a machine” - Gasoline, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals) 

“Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping. Can’t keep away from the girl, these two sides of my brian need to have a meeting” - Feel in Love with a Girl, White Stripes 

“Hooked up to my motor all day long, we go down to Texas, up to Montreal” - 60 Feet Tall, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals) 

“Tonight I’ll dream, when I’m in bed, and silly thoughts go through my head, about the bugs and alphabet, and when I wake tomorrow I’ll bet, that you and I will walk together again.” - We’re Going to be Friends, White Stripes 

“I’d like to grab you by the hair, and drag you to the devil” - Hang you from the Heavent, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals) 

“You’re a prick with a pin woman” - I Cut Like a Buffalo, Dead Weather 

“Some people die in the middle. I live just fine on the top.” - Die by the Drop, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals)

“We named him Baby, he had a toothache, he started crying, it sounded like an earthquake” - The Hardest Button to Button, White Stripes 

“I had a pony, her name was Lucifer” - New Pony, Dead Weather (Allison Mosshart vocals)

“Life is boring, it really got me snoring, I’m wearing out the flooring in a cheap motel” - The Air Near My Fingers, White Stripes

“Check your lips at the door woman. Shake your hips like battleships.” - Blue Blood Blues, Dead Weather 

“What a season to be beautiful without a reason”- Now Mary, White Stripes 

Eagerly awaiting the restraining order from the White family any day now. 

-L

Dead Weather

Saturday, June 12th. 6:00-7:30. What Stage. 

I won’t lie, I wasn’t that excited for the Dead Weather. Though I am quite aware that Jack White is a total legend, and that the Dead Weather is like, the ultimate supergroup, I just thought they weren’t really my thing. When it comes to music I am—I concede—a bit soft. I am a sucker for the slow and pretty, or the soft with an edge, and the Dead Weather is like the darkest, hardest thing I’ve ever remotely enjoyed, let alone seen in concert.

Minds have been blown and opinions reversed. I have now fallen for them—hard. The Dead Weather are fucking incredible. Their set was one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. It totally embodied rock-n-roll like nothing I’ve ever encountered. Jack White was the mad hatter - a little frightening, and a lot awesome. Watching him play live was both a humbling and a surreal experience. One second he’s being the ultimate musical god on the guitar, the next he’s singing and playing the drums - simultaneously. Next to me, L was freaking out and falling completely in love with Jack, along with seventy thousand others. I think even my boyfriend was falling pretty hard for Jack, but I’ll give him (and the rest of the male Bonnaroo population) the benefit of the doubt.

And, once again, I have a girl crush on my hands: Alison Mosshart. This fucking girl—I mean I have never laid eyes on such a rockstar. Alison just killed it. She looked so badass and scary and yet like absolute sex. She stared down the crowd like she was about to scratch our eyes out. Her body shook with every Jack White kick-kick-snare. She convulsed with every Dean Fertita power chord. She and Jack entered a whole new universe when they shared a microphone for “Will There Be Enough Water?” Like, sexual tension does not quite encapsulate what was going on on stage. I thought they were just going to rip each other’s clothes off right there and then and do some really freaky dark musical business…but of course Jack White is married (dammit).

Apart from Allison and Jack, credit must also be extended to Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita. Rocking out so stone faced in his nerdy glasses, Lawrence he was another fabulous character in the wonderland that is The Dead Weather. Last but not least there was Dean Fertita pulling everything together with the synthesizer, or the piano, or the drums, or some more vocals, or bass. Actually, perhaps the best part about watching the Dead Weather in live action was the constant switching of instruments. Like, I swear somebody was playing something different every single song. They polished off the show with all for of them in the front in a row, the three guys on guitars and Alison on tambourine. People, it was epic. Epic. 

The Dead Weather was so good and so crazy live that it all seemed almost impossible, fictional, dreamlike. The Mad Hatter, Allison, Jack Lawrence and his John Lennon specs, all these things reminded one of Alice in Wonderland, of Harry Potter, of Peter Pan. But then you remember, oh right, this isn’t magic, it’s better. It’s music, and music always trumps magic in my books. 

-M