The Shining Hour: "Before You Know It"

The Ramones’ promise that anyone can make rock music inheres not in the DIY laptop studio but at the edges of the scene. Yes, technology has created the long tail, but that has only made success more elusive, based on connections, luck, and having an extremely cool personal brand. Head on over to the Shining Hour website (itself a frame-based, animated GIF dinosaur) to see the antithesis: Marc Cohen, by all indications an exceedingly normal Horsham, UK citizen who’s been releasing music on CD, CD-R, and tape (!) since 1985. Though he has worked under various monikers, his current nom de plume has come one step closer to the centre as it moves from self-released, friends-only records to niche labels in the indie-pop scene.

“Before You Know It” is the third and final track on Cohen’s (sadly sold out) Cloudberry single. Sounding no more anachronistic than its retro-fetish brethren, “Before You Know It” is a tight knot of jangle and an exhortation to appreciate what you have: “Hold on to love / before you know it / it will be gone.” Love is fleeting, as is pop’s shelf life, so put this glimmering fist in your genius machine (iTunes 8, y’all) and enjoy the inner city commute to your creative media job a little bit more than usual.

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