Ok, so… As I hinted on the last list, I get pretty angry at pop and non-rock acts performing well on the alternative and rock charts at the expense of less well-known rock artists.  Let me explain myself.  In the history of music, indie has generally been a genre where rock artists who don’t fit in with Guns & Roses and Led Zeppelin get to shine – too weird for the standard rock chart, but too hard for the pop chart and the Billboard Hot 100.  So it was hard for me to listen to a genre that, by the second half of the 2010’s, had essentially become another pop chart.  Add to that the fact artists such as Lorde and Billie Eilish performed just as well on the Alternative charts as they did on the Billboard Hot 100, and I’m just confused as to what “Indie” means today.

But I should also state… I don’t necessarily have a problem with a non-rock artist performing well on the alternative charts.  When you go back and study the charts heading back to the dawn of Nirvana, there have been plenty of not-necessarily-rock artists who have found a home.  Trip hop acts like Massive Attack, electronic artists such as The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers who were big forerunners to the EDM sound of today… they all more than qualify as alternative artists.  The real message is that alternative music needs to live up to that word… “Alternative.”  It should sound like a completely different world than the one that caters to pop music, with different influences, different instrumentation, a completely different vibe.  When I think “Alternative pop song,” I don’t think of Imagine Dragons, AJR, or even Twenty One Pilots.  I think of songs like this.

“Hell N Back” – Bakar

Alternative
#10 peak, #30 year-end

Bakar is a British alternative artist from Camden Town, London, yet his sound couldn’t be more different than the Britpop scene that spread from Camden Town in the 90s.  On “Hell N Back,” Bakar provides us with a reggae sound with a hip hop inspired beat, and the results are glorious.  “Hell N Back” is best described as a song that is light-hearted, calm, and relaxing – the song that happily skipped past most of the eligible songs for this list on vibe and atmosphere alone. 

Bakar begins the song with the instrumentation that repeats throughout its remainder: a soulful 60s piano, a chirping reggae rhythm with electric guitar, and a hip-hop drumbeat.  It’s very simple with the song just repeating two chords, but with the chilled out atmosphere of the music, you just want it to play forever.  This is the music you want to hear when you’re stuck on an elevator on the way to your next meeting.  Not stupid muzak.  But what holds the music together is a whistling pattern, the main hook of the song.  Normally whistling is one of those things that needs to be cut or severely reduced in songs – it often drowns out the instrumentation, and even worse is annoying – but here it fits right in.  The whistling in “Hell N Back” is soft and inviting; the type that sounds more like a songbird and less like an autotuned shriek.  And then to cap it off is the horn section, a soulful yet subdued addition that just adds to the song’s relaxing vibe.

Adding to that is Bakar himself.  While our last song discussed being so desperate for love that The 1975 would go through any means to get it even if it meant settling for online people they’d never see in person, Bakar sings about true love.  In a world where so many people get love wrong, Bakar’s message is sobering and, best of all, sweet.  This is best exemplified by the chorus:

Could you tell where my head was at when you found me?
Me and you went to hell and back just to find peace
Man I thought I had everything, I was lonely
Now you’re my everything, I was lonely

The romantic sentiment is further heightened by a few comparisons that may be cheesy, but add to the song’s charm.  We get a Michael Jackson-inspired comparison for the woman in the song, saying she’s the “P.Y.T. walking down Portobello.”  Between this and Drake awkwardly claiming he could dance like Michael Jack…………………………………son in “Toosie Slide,” I think it’s safe to say Bakar wins this year’s round.  I can go for a reference to one of MJ’s lesser hits from Thriller.  And then near the end of the song, she compares the love interest to an actress who won a BAFTA.  Where does he get this from?  Either way, it helps the song stand out, because I hadn’t thought of comparing an attractive woman to a TV show award winner.  Even the drug references to ecstasy fail to weaken the song’s happy feeling.

In the most tense, ugly year of our lives, “Hell N Back” is a song that we desperately needed with its sweet love story and its calming vibe musically.  Its success on the charts, where it completed the longest journey to number one in the history of the Adult Alternative Songs chart, isn’t surprising as it is a song a lot of people can appreciate.  Of course, being an Alternative hit, “Hell N Back” got a role in a commercial when it was featured in NFL Shop commercials this season.  But the fact that a truly unique and good Alternative song got the role this time means that the future is already looking brighter in this case.

IMAGE SOURCES

Single cover from Spotify

Image of Bakar from NME

BAFTA awards from MARCA