(Single from album, "Tourist History")
This song is actually beautiful. Quite unsuspecting, but actual genius. I'm not particularly a fan of Two Door Cinema Club's other work, but this - well, this is very, very special...
This really was 'my sweet beginning' with guitar music. Before I began getting slowly into The Smiths in April of last year, this song jumped out of the February radio airwaves and hit a Depeche Mode fan round the face like a very large, very wet fish. It was a proper musical punch in the face. Maybe that was because it sounds so synthesised, so polished - so perfect. It is just so fast, so complicated, so intelligent and so indie that I was entranced by it. To later discover it was a single from a debut album did it for me - I was officially astounded.
The guitars are wonderful. Picture, if you will, a car crash of sound at a four-way junction involving Radiohead, The Smiths, Squeeze and New Order, with ELO colliding in from above. Its like the ultimate amalgamation of sound. Lyrically, there's something to be desired - its not exactly the poetry standards of Morrissey, Dylan, Springsteen or Bragg. But that's not really important here. This sonic orgasm of clean cut indie brilliance is polished, sharp and best played LOUD.
Perhaps the very best thing however, is how it makes you want to get up and dance. Normally when writing one of these, I listen to the reviewed song on loop - which is why writing this has been very difficult. Have you ever tried navigating a keyboard whilst a sporadic fit of disco fever is overcoming every inch of your physical presence? It feels like some kind of uncontrollable seizure, and whilst it means I got this written down pretty quickly, the bastard was littered with typos! Seriously though, if the opening guitar meandering at 0:12 doesn't make you want to get up and dance, there's something wrong with you. Its just so.....well......groovy!
This track doesn't, however, get away cleanly. It has proven to be, after some listening, both to 2010's "Tourist History" and the new, second album, "Beacon", the only really decent Two Door track, and with no good remixes or live versions, it looks like its going to stay that way. Maybe its a matter of opinion, but for me, nothing came close to this. Oh, well, at least, you could say, the Irish trio had us bopping for 3 minutes of our lives when we weren't depressed by the samey, weekly delivery of manure that is the rest of the UK chart - I'm looking at you Nicki Minaj...
And what the hell happened chart-wise? #64! You're killing me British public. 'Talent' like The X-factor's Rylan is allowed precious television air-time, and genius like this Two Door track is left to suffer in the acid filled, bottom-half belly of the charts...appalling...well, you never know; maybe the low chart position saved the song from being hideously over-played on radio and ruined for all of us...I still can't quite forgive the masses for this one...
Despite all of these downs, it was very comfroting too see the band appear in the NME's special interview video a few years back regarding 'your favourite Smiths song'. The boys went for "This Charming Man" - as far as I'm concerned, I can hear that choice in this song and, don't tell anybody I said this, but......."What You Know" mightactually be better a better record...
★★★★★
Versions of “What You Know”
Album/Single Version – 3:12