It’s always fascinated me that “Tattva” was the song that broke Kula Shaker into the mainstream in the UK, if only because there’s not really a song there; it’s a chant with a guitar riff behind it, alternating with a simple verse with instrumentation lifted from “I Am The Walrus,” with only a guitar solo and bridge to break it out of the repetition (The single had an earlier version of the song on it, with the bridge absent; apparently it was added at the suggestion of producer John Leckie). That bridge is easily my favorite part of the song, as simple as it is; it starts at 2:31, and keeps up the glossy George Harrison retread aspect of the song while somehow adding a (tiny little) bit of extra depth, or at least variety. But, really; there’s nothing to “Tattva,” which makes it especially surprising that this song made the band into a success in the UK. Perhaps we were all ready for a modern George Harrison to listen to in between Oasis’ stabs at being both the modern Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
366 Songs 252: Wake Up Boo!
I hated this song when it first came out; it sounded overproduced, overly twee and everything that I didn’t want in my pop music at the time (It was the height of Britpop, and I wanted my pop to have some surreal idea of authenticity and noise amongst its stylized, idealized sixties retro). Since then, I’ve found some charm to the Boo Radleys in general (The album following Wake Up, C’Mon Kids, is rather great), and found myself wanting to revisit this song in case I was wrong the first time around. And… I was? Maybe? Possibly?
What may have happened is that, even though I still have the same objections to the song, I’m less bothered by twee and overproduction. I mean, sure; everything sounds too shiny and the horns sound fake, and yes, “You can’t blame me/Not for the death of summer” is trying a little too hard, but still: There’s something appealing about the song, despite all that: The harmonies as the backing vocals do their “Wake up/Wake up/Wake up” thing, or the way the song reminds you – very purposefully, I think – of “Good Day Sunshine” off Revolver, perhaps. Perhaps realizing that “Wake Up Boo!” isn’t the worst thing in the world is a sign of old age. I’m due, after all.
366 Songs 251: The Concept
Listening to “The Concept” again, years after I’d heard it last, it strikes me that the line “She’s gonna buy some records by the Status Quo” isn’t just a throwaway reference to the old-fashioned nature of the song’s subject, or a pun about her conservative tastes; the chugging guitars of the song reference the Quo in all their denim glory as much as the Byrds, and as such weirdly predicts the appeal of Oasis, who’d make their debut a couple of years or so after this song was released.
It’s that mix of jangle and thud, of comfort and curiosity, that drives “The Concept” through its first half; an oddly-grounded, oddly-singalongable song that hints at a sadness it refuses to name (“I didn’t want to hurt you/Oh yeah”). But then it gets to 3:14, and the song turns into something more obviously old-fashioned and out of step with contemporary tastes, something that sounds like nothing as much as a lost backing from the second Big Star album, and it’s just… lovely, and – because of the fade at the end – unfinished. The whole song, then, is something that refuses to reveal everything or tell all, but what it does share is something that makes you empathize, worry and want more.
As far as first statements go, it’s hard to beat that kind of impact.
CHUUNK!
Chuunk indeed. Radio silence recently has been down not, for once, to overwork but to the opposite: I’ve been trying to cut back on work last week and this – I’ll actually be entirely offline for Tuesday through Thursday, shockingly (That said, my Time essay should be running on Wednesday, so you won’t miss me at all) – and so, this blog has been suffering. All apologies, as the saying goes.
366 Songs 250: Hush The Warmth
If you have to wake up with a song in your head, you could do a lot worse than this one, from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s Gorky 5 album. I always meant to get into Gorky’s more than I actually did; I never bought one of their albums, and only know – and love – this song because it appeared on a compilation given away free with a copy of the NME years ago. But despite my apathy in exploring the band’s wider catalog, this remains a favorite song of mine, for the innocence it displays, the purity of emotion throughout the whole thing. That it also has a folky sound, a mellow relaxation across its longing, merely underscores the… niceness of the whole thing. Something being “nice” may not be the best selling point for many, I know, but yet for me, it works just fine.
Outlook Unclear; Try Again Later
I said I was crazy busy, right? That’s why I’m not even going to try and dress this up: Look! It’s my new Time essay, this week about political conventions and comic conventions. It’s another one of those that turned out being written multiple times; the first time I wrote it, I ended up going out on an entirely different journey than I’d intended to and, more importantly, than what I’d pitched to the editors. It wasn’t a bad journey, but it wasn’t what I’d promised, and that was a problem. Sometimes, such things happen, and occasionally they’re a good thing – I love the happy accident of writing, I promise – but I always wish that they’d take less time when they do happen…
366 Songs 249: Funky Fanfare
I am way too backed up with work, deadlines and preparation for life in a cabin this weekend, and so instead of a traditional song, you get Keith Mansfield’s spectacular “Funky Fanfare,” a piece of music created to be of use for radio shows, television shows, commercials or whoever else wanted it, as long as they could afford it. Mansfield did a lot of these types of pieces, but this one for whatever reason really caught the imagination of people in recent years; it shows up in Grindhouse as the “coming soon” music before the fake trailers, and was also sampled for Danger Doom’s “Old School”:
Mansfield is one of those forgotten geniuses of pop culture. One day, he’ll get his due. Here’s more of his work, the spectacularly-titled “Young Scene”:
366 Songs 248: Rude Boy Rock
Pop Quiz time! Is this track:
The answer, of course, is (C), but I suspect that the David Holmes thing is somewhat accidental seeing that “My Mate Paul” is, after all, little more than a version of “Smokey Joe’s La-La” by Googie Rene:
Holmes’ track definitely samples the Rene track; I’m not sure if the Lionrock track does, but I’d be very surprised if it didn’t, considering the beat and the horns it uses – I feel that it’s pretty much a direct translation, but your mileage may vary, as ever. I love the Rene song that seems to be at the heart of both subsequent tracks, and love even more the idea that two different producers rediscovered the song months apart, and used it as the basis for their latest dancefloor fillers. If only more forgotten classics had such impact.
Odd but true; the single version of “Rude Boy Rock,” almost 90 seconds shorter, is by far the superior because of the edited opening:
See? Isn’t that better?
366 Songs 247: She Cries Your Name
For all that I will complain about William Orbit’s production on Blur’s 13 – and I will, just be glad I haven’t really started here – his involvement in “She Cries Your Name” almost absolves him of any aural sin in my book; the swooping strings, double bass and shuffling drums in this song gave Beth Orton’s solo career the best launchpad it could get, and a far more interesting surrounding than almost everything that appeared on the following album, Trailer Park. There’s a jazz influence at play in this song that matches and sounds wonderful next to Orton’s at-times-overwhelming folk meandering, giving the song a snap and drive that, judging by her other songs from the same period, it may have missed otherwise. If only Red Snapper had been her backing band for that first album…
“He Was Operating, Most of The Time, Without A Safety Net”
Lehrer’s transgressions are inexcusable—but I can’t help but think that the industry he (and I) work for share a some of the blame for his failure. I’m 10 years older than Lehrer, and unlike him, my contemporaries and I had all of our work scrutinized by layers upon layers of editors, top editors, copy editors, fact checkers and even (heaven help us!) subeditors before a single word got published. When we screwed up, there was likely someone to catch it and save us (public) embarrassment. And if someone violated journalistic ethics, it was more likely to be caught early in his career—allowing him the chance either to reform and recover or to slink off to another career without being humiliated on the national stage. No such luck for Lehrer; he rose to the very top in a flash, and despite having his work published by major media companies, he was operating, most of the time, without a safety net. Nobody noticed that something was amiss until it was too late to save him.
From here, an article by Charles Seife, the man hired by Wired.com to look into whether Jonah Lehrer’s (unedited) blog posts for the site contained the same kind of recycling, plagiarism and lies that he has been found guilty of in his books and at the New Yorker. Short version: Yes, so much so that Seife suggests that Lehrer’s “moral compass” may be broken when it comes to journalism. Which, you know, is kind of a bold thing to say, really.
Over at Poynter, Seife is interviewed about the article, and he says something that really resonates with my experience as a blogger-turned-journalist (If that’s what I am?):
Seife worried that this sort of instant publishing “is a double-edged sword.” Editors might have slow you down as a writer and robbed you of some freedom, but “at the same time they protected you,” he said.
“They made sure they challenged you. They forced you to think harder about your work, and if you screwed up, they kicked your ass. Lehrer, I think it’s really sad because I do think he’s a very clear writer, he’s able to distill ideas very well.
“And I think that if he had a bit more oversight early on in his career, if he had a good editor or two to kick his butt, I think he might have become a star that would never have fallen.”
I remain compelled by this whole thing, for selfish reasons. I can’t stop myself hoping that someone writes a book about it, weirdly.