10 Totally Cheesy Songs (That Are Still Awesome)
6. M83 - Midnight City
'Midnight City' is a song about waiting for a multitude of possibilities, all of which can be found in a metropolis utopia bursting with them.
It is the sound of "waiting in a car" and anticipating the night, evoking memories of sitting in the backseat of a long-forgotten teenage friend's parent's car, dreaming of the night ahead. The refrain of high-pitched synthesiser bursts ebbs into a rumble of bass, and back again, combining the mild, non-specific dread of a night in the unknown with the euphoria of finally stretching out into and luxuriating in it. The euphoria is simply being in that car, racing past the lights you only ever saw from your bedroom window.
And then the saxophone careens into view, the inevitable, exhilarating conclusion of Anthony Gonzalez's career-long fascination with the sound and feeling of the 1980s. The saxophonist is definitely imagining himself, legs straddled, on top of a skyscraper, as they belt out a riff teeming with life.
It is the sound of pulling, of f*cking, of dancing like a dork, not that you'd know it then.