Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
And while I’m talking about (a) nostalgia, (b) Matthew Sweet and (c) great opening tracks to albums, the quasi-glam stomp of “Dinosaur Act” was the song that almost made me learn to play the guitar, way back when, just because of all the feedback noodling in the background.
(And, again: Matthew Sweet loves his harmonies. Gotta appreciate that.)
Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend was a massively important album for me in… 1993, I think? When I started art school, anyway. I was just discovering bands like Big Star and the like, and “power pop” as a genre, and “Divine Intervention” – despite its religious theme (Hardly subtle: “Does He love us/Does He love us/Does He love us/Does He love us?” it goes at one point, “I look around/And all I see is destruction/Guess we’re counting on His/Divine intervention”) – blew my mind with its arrangement, as much as anything. The harmonies! The guitars! And, more than anything, that opening, which remains one of my favorite album openings ever (especially if listening on headphones, to get the full effect of the switch from right to left channels). This is just a great pop song, and was enough to convince me to follow Sweet’s music for at least two albums longer than I should’ve.
The Bangles’ “Walk Like an Egyptian” is one of those songs you grow up with and never really think about; it’s catchy, it’s dumb and you sing along without giving it any real thought. But I’ll admit it: “All the school kids so sick of books/They like the punk and the metal bands” is oddly one of my favorite pop lyrics ever.
And another admission: I still have a massive crush on Susanna Hoffs in this video, especially between 2:45-2:55. Swoon.
Also, because it’s wonderful (and maybe my favorite version of the song), here’re the Puppini Sisters:
I am, again, horribly behind with keeping vaguely current with 366 Songs. So, again, here’s lots of music with even less writing than usual.
Billy Bragg is the sound of the 1980s for me; the late ’80s, admittedly, like, maybe 1988, ’89? But he was someone that my older sister was into for awhile, and so I heard a lot of his stuff and it sunk into me without my realizing it. I got into him for myself, years later, when he released his Don’t Try This At Home album, and worked backwards. When I heard this song again, back then, and actually listened to the lyrics for the first time, I realized that this was the kind of awkward, stumbling poetry that I wished I could write. “If your bed is wet/I will dry your tears,” indeed.
It’s been years since I’ve really listened to “Glory Box,” probably the biggest hit from Portishead’s first album Dummy; it was one of those songs that I was convinced I had over-heard, that I was too used to from listening to the album endlessly when it came out, and then the single came out and it was everywhere… But it’s playing in the cafe that I’m sitting in right now, and it sounds much sharper, much less bloated and self-obsessed than I remembered it. It’s as if I had replaced the original – with Beth Gibbons’ voice cracking with emotion and the retro guitar twanging shamelessly, not quite a cliche just yet, months and countless rip-offs yet to come – with some idea of what it sounded like.
There are some songs that I wish I could hear for the first time all the time; relive the thrill of that first listen, the zigging when I expected a zag, or whatever, and be surprised and impressed every single time. This is definitely one of them; it was worth ignoring the song for years to hear it again as if it was, if not the first, then surely not the one hundredth, time.
The best song hastily rewritten around a misheard/misspoken lyric ever (“Dare” coming from Shaun Ryder’s pronounciation of “It’s there,” said while setting recording levels in the studio). There’s something so joyful and effortless in the finished song that it shows how necessary accident is, sometimes.
Quite why this song has been in my head for the last week or so, I have no idea, but that riff keeps returning when I least expect it.
It’s a riff that I want to be stolen by something else, to be used in a way it deserves instead of this treacley, over-produced tweefest with the syrup vocal and trite lyrics, not to mention the light entertainment strings, but… Man. That riff. Somebody, sample it and save it. Please.
(The riff comes from Cliff Richards’ then-backing band, the Shadows, who also did stuff like this:
The Shadows had their moments of awesomeness, as you may be able to tell.)
I’m tempted to just say “This” and leave it as that, as if no other kind of explanation is necessary, but… More than the rap from Guilty Simpson or MED (Although, man: rhyming “humorous” with “A lot of MCs got one style/Me? I got numerous” is awesome), this track from Quakers is all about finding a purpose for the great riff that was Radiohead’s “The National Anthem” from Kid A (the riff is great, the rest of the original song less so), especially when it’s translated into the marching band arrangement. Horns, you sound so good like that.
(Another plus: This is a short track! Less than three minutes, just enough time to get in, be great, and get out before you get bored. More pop songs need to do this.)
Bjork is one of those artists that I listen to in waves; there are times when I am very much not in the mood for her vocal stylings or song constructions (She’s definitely someone who doesn’t believe in the traditional verse-chorus-verse as tradition, if that makes sense, and I sense that she’s more of a fan of her vocal tics than most), but other times, very few things in the world sound as necessary or beautiful to me. “Bachelorette” is definitely one of my go-tos for when the latter takes me, filled with everything I find appealing about her music: Amazing arrangements (Those sweeping strings! Especially when they shift key towards the end of the song, at 4:27), a fearless vocal performance and lyrics that offer up phrases that stick in the brain and feel heavier and deeper than they were perhaps intended (“I’m a tree that grows hearts/One for each that you take” is a lovely couplet, in this one, as is the opening “I’m a fountain of blood/In the shape of a girl”). That the song fades, but Bjork’s vocal remains until the accordian brings her out, is just an added plus. This is a lovely, lovely song that makes me feel things I still don’t know what to call.
Here’s an odd one: This was a favorite song of mine way back in the mid-90s, albeit one that I possibly only heard… what, maybe three times at most? I didn’t own it, because it wasn’t a single and I didn’t want to buy the entire album for one song; I knew it because it was a Tricky collaboration and happening at the time when I was very, very into all of the Tricky stuff. There’s something somewhat forced about it, listening to it now, something trying too hard to be quirky and off-center (The lyrics, in particular, are countless moments of “What…?” after another) with the random noises and lazy, loutish attempts at off-kilter harmonies as the song finishes, but I’ll admit it: I’m still sucked in by the simplicity of the chorus. “I can’t help it, I think you’re really kickin'” is the kind of lyric that can only be created by someone with English as a second language (Whale were Swedish, as far as I remember), but it has the goofy grin and appeal of one newly smitten, and for that alone, I’ll always have a soft spot for it. I can’t help it.