Left With No Reason, We Come Undone
Pendulum’s “The Island” is the most perfect pop song to ever exist
In high school, I spent a lot of time reading the book 1,001 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. There’s a lot of good content in this book, even if it was released before a lot of my favorite musical genres even became a thing. I’ve found some fantastic music through reading it — Dead Cities… by M83, who are now one of my favorite bands, and Decksandrumsandrockandroll by Propellerheads, for instance.
The one thing I have to argue with in this book, though, is their spotlight on “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, and how in the “other songs you should listen to if you like this” section it says something like “none. This is the most perfect pop song to ever exist.” Granted, again, a lot of my favorite music came out long after the book was published, but still. Were I in charge, I would submit for consideration “The Island” by Pendulum to challenge “Good Vibrations”.
Go ahead, cry heresy. I’m the guy who wrote the article about the Soska sisters and got a ton of online crap for it. I can handle it.
Maybe it’s just because I have a penchant for electronic music, or maybe it’s because I think Brian Wilson’s falsetto sounds weird, or maybe I’m just closed-minded as all hell. I just really, really like “The Island” a whole lot.
If you aren’t aware, Pendulum are an electronic/rock band from Australia, consisting of a pretty large cast of players, but the main members involved with “The Island” are singer and producer Rob Swire, bassist and producer Gareth McGrillen, and drummer KJ Sawka. Their main thing is guitar-driven drum and bass music, such as “Propane Nightmares”, “Blood Sugar”, “Crush”, and all kinds of other fantastic tracks, but once in a while, they do something unusual. They’ve done breakbeat stuff with “Different”, dubstep with “Set Me On Fire”, and even a weird sort of progressive pop thing with “Encoder”, but for my money, their most successful experiment is “The Island”.
Swire and McGrillen continue to do experimental stuff to this day as EDM duo Knife Party, whose discography includes, among other things, a song in which the hook is “ain’t washed in three days, eat some ass at the rave”. They’re known to goof around and be dance music trolls in their recent work, which makes “The Island” so surprising. While it shares electro house rhythms and styles with some of their later work as Knife Party, it’s all played completely seriously, without a hint of irony (aside from one sampled “HOOOOOO!” during the latter half of the song).
“The Island” is a two-part dance-pop odyssey. Part 1, “Dawn”, is Swire going pure pop, singing verses and choruses about lovers overcoming adversity alongside a simplistic synthesizer melody that I constantly find stuck in my head. Part 2, “Dusk”, takes everything from “Dawn” and turns it into a wild, glitchy, wobbly club remix. All together, it’s nine-and-a-half minutes of absolute dance bliss.
This song’s brilliance exists in its initial willingness to break everything down to the basics. “Dawn” and “Dusk” are broken up into their own songs on the album, and “Dawn” stands on its own as an incredible pop song in its own right, but combined with the second part, it acts as the perfect setup before the bottom drops out in act two. It’s got lush melodies, a catchy chorus and chord structure, and Rob Swire’s vocals, which are just as perfect as ever (the man can sing the HELL out of every song he ever performs on). Its infectious rhythm is the perfect hook to lure you in and get you invested.
You could stop there and be satisfied, but for the full experience, keep listening on to “Dusk”. Pendulum knows you’re comfortable now, and right as you’ve settled in and you hear that buildup again, you think you know what you’re in for. You’re wrong. The lead synthesizer pitches down, and before you know it, the song is crackling with a new energy, dissonant yet not abrasive, ready to make you absolutely lose it on a dance floor (or in my case, in the car on the highway).
Nothing in the lyrics mentions an island, but in my head, it makes sense — the first half feels like a journey across a bright ocean, while the second half feels like a storm coming in, not enough to deter you from your journey, but just enough to keep things interesting. It’s wave upon wave of energy and fun, and I will never get tired of it.
“Good Vibrations” may have impacted the pop world in ways that Pendulum never did, but “The Island” is its own innovation. It’s dance-pop in a world where dance-pop was everywhere, but it manages to stand out in its own way. There’s nothing shallow about this song, even when it transforms into a bubbly house anthem. Give it a try. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
“The Island — Part 1 (Dawn)” and “The Island — Part 2 (Dusk)” are available on Pendulum’s album Immersion. The full version with both songs mixed together is available on the deluxe edition. It’s worth it.
