[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGrQQ09Cs5g&hl=en_US&fs=1]
On a pure surface level listen, Moumoon’s “Sunshine Girl” comes off like a ho-hum, kinda stupid summer song. It’s got a beat as threatening as melting ice cream and lyrics featuring such observations as “Weather is great/it’s your holy day/we get to party all day long.” At best, it’s a completely inessential pop track about nice weather.
Yet listen a little closer and “Sunshine Girl” starts sounding really creepy. Either this song is intentionally subversive or Moumoon somehow stumbled just enough to accidentally make this song strangely compelling. Whichever option, listen past the prominent beat and focus on the weirdo stuff in the back. Like the whistling popping up every once in a while – it doesn’t sound like particularly happy whistling, more like the intimidating “Cheese Stands Alone” stuff Omar did on The Wire. Or the electric ripples passing by between each one of Moumoon’s lines? They turn this song into the aural equivalent of a family picture shot on Polaroid with a ghostly image lurking in the background.
The most damning evidence…or maybe just evidence Moumoon needs vocal help…is the singing. For a summer pop song, she sounds rather…robotic? Check the chorus, where she recites lines like “happy days/summer days/sunshine girl” with all the joy of composing a grocery list. It’s pretty unsettling. Even more are the moments (which would be the coolest moment of the song regardless) when her voice seemingly draft back into the song, almost like she wants to slip away from it all. I might just be acting a little too X-Files right now and this song just happened to luck into something interesting, but regardless “Sunshine Girl’s” unsettling nature helps it to be much more listenable than it should be.