Man, I’m bummed that I missed Okkervil River at Lollaplooza. Their new record The Stand-Ins is another great album in their history of great albums. But, I wasn’t feeling too well, so what can you do?

MP3: Okkervil River – Pop Lie
“Pop Lie” doesn’t have the best lyrics of an Okkervil River song, but it deserves an award for its premise, if not its catchiness. Though unfortunately it’s apparently not an answer to Prince’s “Pop Life,” “Pop Lie” makes me grin each time I listen to it. In a way it’s absurd: people becoming riotously angry because a pop singer lied in a song. I mean really, how many times have you listened to pop songs that told you that everything works out and love wins in the end? You didn’t actually believe them, did you? Well the people in “Pop Lie” did — and they’re pissed. It’s like Nick Horby said in High Fidelity: “People worry about kids playing with gun, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands — literally thousands — of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”

Well here’s a song for the people who do worry.

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