Radio Guy was right.

If you've been paying attention to Facebook, you're probably already aware I don't exactly love the radio station we play nearly every day at work. It plays a lot of really forgettable, generic-sounding rock music. Every once in a while there will be a song I do like, but other than that it's pretty bland, and since the radio is playing all day, the repetition gets to me, especially when it's stuff I genuinely dislike. I definitely don't hate it, and I'm sure there are plenty of worse stations we could be listening to, but it's not my favorite by any means.

Today, the announcer was introducing a song, and he was saying something like, "You'll still have this tune running through your head at eight o'clock tonight." My immediate, cynical thought in reaction to this was, "Yeah, I strongly doubt that." But when he said the name of the song, I knew he was right: It had already happened the day before.
Yesterday, in the early afternoon, the song had played on the radio; I wasn't immediately sure how I felt about it, but the melody stayed with me for the rest of the day, and I eventually determined that I did like it. Today, after hearing it again, I came to the more concrete conclusion that it is basically brilliant.
The song is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. You may have heard it, but if you haven't, here's a link to the video.

 The verses have this muted, noisy, nigh-atonal sound to them that I find strangely appealing, probably because of all the chiptunes and such I listen to. I wouldn't like it at all, though, if it didn't break into a nice chorus (noise, I feel, is only effective if complemented by something strongly melodic). It does, though... very much so!

The tune is so folksy and carefree; it just has an amazingly positive sound that I haven't heard anywhere else in quite some time. It all feels so chilled and refreshing, and it has this California-summer-y feel that vaguely reminds me of the Beach Boys in a really great way.

Now, let's be straightforward and realistic about this: Somewhat stunningly, this song, despite its fun sound... is about a very disturbed kid who dreams of shooting up his school (or, if interpreted more extremely, is about a very disturbed kid who is shooting up his school). Don't think I'm so cold that this didn't make me rather uneasy about liking the song. It bugged me, so I went to go read some interviews with the band.

The strong disconnection between the mood and the content is not because the subject is being taken lightly. Mark Foster had some nice, interesting things to say about the topic brought up by the song:

"To me the epidemic isn't gun violence; the epidemic is lack of family, lack of love, and isolation -- kids who don't have anywhere to go or anyone to talk to and that's what makes them snap."

(from this interview)

This song intentionally takes a different angle than the traditional "this is a sad song; it's about the victims of a tragedy" route. It's written from the perspective of the troubled child, which puts an interesting spin on things. It's all done very tastefully; it's narrative, but it doesn't talk in detail about the kid killing people; as I alluded to earlier, I feel like it's ambiguous enough that it could reasonably be interpreted as a yet-unrealized fantasy. Meanwhile, the music video has absolutely nothing to do with the song's story (instead it just features the musicians performing), which, again, I found to be a tasteful treatment.

Overall, I honestly find the ironic contrast between the lyrics and the music to be very clever. The song brings up a serious issue, but that doesn't seamlessly fit in with the music, so it doesn't automatically invoke a particular reaction to it. Sad songs about sad subjects generally do one thing: They make you sad. What's that going to accomplish, exactly? It might move some people to try to take some kind of action to reverse the problem, but what's that action going to be? In this case, we're telling a story of a kid who is experiencing problems brought about, apparently, by loneliness and depression and the like; is making you sad about that too going to help you keep stuff like this from happening?

I hear this song and I think, "Go out; brighten a kid's day. You don't know what it could mean." No, it's not straightforward. There's irony here, and it is pretty quirky and unsettling that it's a happy song about a kid who wants to shoot his classmates. A lot of people aren't going to be comfortable with it; I get that.

But as for me, personally... Well, pass me my hipster glasses. I don't feel guilty liking this.