Monday, March 11, 2013

Kavinsky - "Outrun"


           Cee-lo is grinding gears in a black Ferrari Testarossa down a seedy Miami sidestreet and does a perfect 75mph-Tokyo-drift-break-slide-parallel park in front of Mac’s Club Deuce.   Herbie Handcock rocks a pink keytar while Steve Stevens does his Top Gun era guitar acrobatics in M83’s barband rendition of Thriller.  It’s 2 am and they all fill a gangster booth in the back of the bar to discuss a rock opera based on Dexter.  Two years later, Outrun emerges with a bullet.  It’s 1986.
            If you are asking yourself, “Who would listen to that shit?”  Well, the 10 year old in me hasn’t had as much fun with my headphones on since I was rocking out to Thriller and The Miami Vice Soundtrack.  It just works.  I don’t want to love it and I don’t even want to admit that I love it in public.  But, I want everyone to listen to it because it’s so ridiculous in the same way that the song “Thriller” and the accompanying video “just work.”  Would you think putting Vincent Price and Eddie Van Halen on the same album as Michael Jackson would ever sell 65 million copies?
            Of course, the world will not fall in love with Outrun.  Kavinsky creates a world that listeners would be afraid to visit but can’t fight the curiosity to see for themselves.  Kinda like a vacation in Detroit - take the tour to Eminem’s boyhood home, check out Motown, and the Henry Ford Museum.  Most would have the reaction, “You’re kidding, right? All that stuff sounds cool…but, it’s Detroit.  There’s murder, poverty, no vegetables…Kid Rock.”  Most of us would at least drive through, right?  I have and I loved it!
            It’s difficult to pick standout tracks as it works loosely as a concept album, but to get the idea check out “First Blood.” B -