Iyaz – ‘Pretty Girls’ (ft. Travie McCoy)

Guest post by Hugh Robertson.


[or, 'Context Is Everything']

Austin is one of the live music capitals of the world, and any given night on 6th Street the bars are packed with blues bands, country & western bands, solo acoustic performers serenading girls with Bright Eyes and the obligatory Top 40 doof-doof. But after our posse had been at Buffalo Billiards playing pool for 20 minutes, we realised the same generic hip-pop track had been playing on a constant loop the entire time we’d been in there. And we soon found out why. Around the corner from us were a group of six Texas bros all singing and dancing, with their arms around each other and goofy grins on their faces. They were celebrating the bucks night for one of their number, and this was the song he and his wife were planning to walk down the aisle to. Needless to say, we all rolled our eyes and started taking bets as to how long that marriage was going to last – the general consensus was probably about as long as the song itself.

But after threatening death by pool cue if they played it again, and one of the bartenders walking out to the jukebox and physically skipping past it, our party realised we all had it stuck in our heads. And when the bros managed to sneak it back on to the playlist we all found ourselves gleefully singing along, dancing around the pool table with stupid grins on our faces. And god knows it isn’t an especially great song, even if it is a welcome change from the four-to-the-floor monsters that currently dominate the charts. And Travie McCoy’s verse is pretty terrible (especially the part where he says he needs to find a girl that matches his shoes) – although he redeems himself with just a hint of emotional vulnerability right at the end.

But there’s some strange alchemy in Iyaz’s voice, and the joyous, shimmering sounds behind it. There’s that unbeatable call-and-response that allows everyone to yell and throw their hands in the air, and a roll call of cities around the world that can be easily modified to include wherever Iyaz is playing. And it’s an overwhelmingly happy song, with barely a trace of misogyny or objectification – the simple message is that, despite all the pretty girls that Iyaz sees around him, he only wants to be with the right one. And he thinks it’s you, girl.

And in the same way that finding that ‘right one’ is often a total, irrational fluke, equally inexplicable are those songs that worm their way in to your brain. And it might be that I only like this because it will forever remind me of dancing around in Austin, and being young, wild and free, but I swear there’s more to it than immediately reminiscing. And if you don’t hear it, I’m sure you’ve got your own songs that remind you of the ghosts of roadtrips, holidays and girlfriends past.

After all, this song here is about you.

Iyaz – ‘Pretty Girls’ (ft. Travie McCoy)