Save Some Happiness, the newest project by A Mess, a Danish pop-punk band, is a pretty natural progression from their last full-length project, WOMAN NO MAN. On that record, lead singer, Dorte Hartmann, almost sounds like Shirley Manson on some of the more pop-leaning songs like Aquarium and We Gonna Fight, and a little like Courtney Love on the more pop-punk-leaning tracks like Binging and Champagne. And since A Mess characterizes themselves as a “Rock n’ Riot Grrrl” act, it is safe to assume that bands like Garbage, Hole, Bikini Kill, and The Regrettes are a source of inspiration for them, and they may have emulated elements of their style or gimmicks in their own music.
This brings you to the newest single by A Mess: Save Some Happiness. While WOMAN NO MAN did have some bona-fide pop-punk moments, it never fully committed to the genre wholeheartedly, at least not the way Save Some Happiness does. This is a track akin to a Garbage song that has been sung by Courtney Love or, perhaps, Joan Jett that would reside pretty comfortably at the beginning of the soundtrack of any 2000s coming-of-age movie. In the best way possible.
The grit would remind you of The Runaways, but the exuberance that uplifts it resembles some of the lighter Teenage Fanclub songs, especially on Bandwagonesque.
The ethos of the song is pretty cut and dry: you are responsible for your own happiness, and you should not spend all of your energy, love, and attention on everybody else and end up having exhausted your supply of all of those things without ever having shown yourself any care or consolation. “Release the beast you had / Since coming of age / It’s time for you to turn the page,” Dorte sings, encouraging and hell-raising. The song is meant to stir something inside of you, something dormant, but excitable. Something that is ready to be tapped into, welcomed, and embraced. Maybe a kind of rage that you can sublimate into a kind of motivation to move forward. That might be why this song is such a paradox of fuzzy, jingling guitars and abrasive vocals.
The chiming guitars on the bridge contrast the throaty, raspy, gravelly vocals in a way that suggests the song does not want to alarm or alienate you; it just wants to galvanize you into realizing that you need to look after your own happiness. The song is very satisfyingly cohesive in that way; it balances the sweet and sour very inconspicuously, in a way that you don’t even notice what should be sweet and what should be sour. A Mess makes it work, presumably while saving some happiness for themselves, so maybe you should take your cue from them and save some happiness for yourself.
Written by Leo August
