You say I only hear what I want to. You say I talk so all the time so. And I thought what I felt was simple, and I thought that I don’t belong, and now that I am leaving, now I know that I did something wrong ’cause I missed you.
-Lisa Loeb
Songs of the Year: “Stay” Lisa Loeb; “I Should Be Allowed to Think,” They might Be Giants Runners-up: “Better Man”, Pearl Jam; “Animal”, Nine Inch Nails Honorable Mention: “21st Century Digital Boy”, Bad Religion; “All Apologies”, Nirvana
1994 was the year that, for however brief a moment, cardigan sweaters were cool. Thick-rimmed glasses were no longer tokens of an embarrassing limitation but rather a sign of honor from a glorious Geekdom. Green Day were geeky punks. Weezer sang a song about 12 sided die.
1994 saw the release of albums that surprised and stuck around. I still remember the furious onslaught of the The Lead Singer as he tried to persuade me to love Green Day’s Dookie by enumerating everyone he knew (who was cool) who liked it. He should have known that this was the wrong tack to take with me. Contrarian I was.
The list of great albums that came out in 1994 is long, but a few highlights include: Nine Inch Nails’ Downward Spiral, Weezer’s Blue Album, Ill Communication by the Beastie Boys, Stranger than Fiction, Bad Religion, Definitely Maybe, Oasis, Ready to Die, Notorious B. I.G., Ruby Vroom, Soul Coughing. Tracks from these CDs would dominate the world for the next few years. But not me. Not yet.
It sounds like Skynyrd and good 80’s country….not a bad thing as long as it’s more Dwight Yoakam than George Strait. We learned to play this song and it’s my favorite so by the group. The progenitors of southern rock were the Allman Brothers Band and you can certainly hear that influence in this song, the solo specifically. Also, damn does the lead singer have some serious side burns.
Blackberry Smoke is from Atlanta, Georgia and the man with the burns is Charlie Starr, an excellent guitar player and front man. I go between really liking this band and thinking that they sound too much like modern country (which I hate). I’ve mentioned my love of honky tonk many times and I still listen to artists like Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Sr. and Hank3 on the regular. I’m trying to find new bands I dig in any genre so I can start going to see live shows again more regularly. My band decided to all go see this band two weeks from today and, although I like a lot of what I hear from them, I am not completely sold.
Their covers, however, are basically amazing through and through so here’s a great example.
I think everyone who likes country of yesteryear likes George Jones, “the Possum”. He passed away last April and his legacy will never die. “White Lightning” is one of his more famous songs and I think nearly everyone can agree that the occasional foray into moonshine is a good thing.
I think there is a real void in southern rock right now and a general lack of respect for it. J. Roddy Walston and the Business come from the south, but are not what I would consider Southern Rock (but obviously they are still amazing). Skynyrd has come to represent Southern conservatism and I believe that would make the late singer Ronnie Van Zandt roll in his grave. They toured a few years back for their album God and Guns which has a lot of thematic material on the loss of roots in America and things of that nature. I live in a small town in America and I feel the roots are deepening with the economic disparity. Also, they seem to forget the hippie leanings of the original incantation of the band and even the 70’s era song “Saturday Night Special” which suggests destroying all handguns because of their lack of application beyond murder, but I digress.
The Only D mentioned Manchester Orchestra as a possible Southern Rock band a while back and this song is not unlike a song such as “On the Hunt” from 70’s era Skynyrd.
I only hear a little Southern Rock influence in here, but a lot of excellent grunge motifs with a slice of down home Georgia grit. Smoke is a lot more southern rock than these guys, but I can see some trappings of Southern musical sensibilities. I will probably spend some time with this band and I thank you for the tip Only D.
I saw Blackberry Smoke on the Palladia live music channel playing at the Georgia Theater and that is how I learned who they were. I sat and watched the entire show, even recording it. The recording remains on my DVR list two years later and I still pick out tracks like the first one to listen to all the time. This band has the look of the third generation Allman Brother offspring and a sound that is country enough for Kenny Chesney fans and Outlaws enough for my tastes. They have some sweet slide solos as well as great guitar harmonies and a talented keys player with a solid rhythm section. Their sound dynamics are great and judging from their video, their live show will be fun.
This is like an exact homage to early 70’s Allman Brothers and Skynyrd and sounds almost perfect to my ears. Literally, I hear parts of “Blue Sky” in there in the middle. Lots of time to groove over to the beer tent and still be back for the second half of the song too.
More importantly, their live show seems great from the video and I think it’ll be a great time watching them. I think a band’s stage presence is equally if not more important than anything they record. I mentioned just recently, while confessing my love for J. Roddy, that I like the Rolling Stones more than the Beatles because the former has toured for most of their career while the latter hung up their live show spurs in the mid 1960’s after playing shows where the screaming fans made the music nearly impossible to hear. You can have a band that produces true works of art in the studio, but if they can’t recreate it live, that’s a big turn-off for me. Kurt Cobain took special pains to not do a lot of overdubs while making Nevermind so they could still play all the jams out.
This sounds very much like the old country music I love and references bourbon which I also love.
The music I’ve heard by this band is pretty good and I think their live show will sell me on whether I think they are highly average or awesome. I am going with the lead singer and lead guitarist in my band. It’s the first time we have all gone to see a show together since Waylon Speed and I’m really looking forward to it. My days of going to see shows all the time have been gone for a while and I think if I want to push my band forward and my musical tastes, I need to start doing this again. Thus, I will provide you a full report of the Blackberry Smoke experience after I go and will leave you with a cover by them of quite possibly my favorite song by Willie Nelson.
The lead singer does repeat himself here and it must be a recording era, but you get the point that this song is great. I love the pedal steel and I wish they had it all the time. They do an equally good job with honky tonk country as they do with southern rock. I hope this show has a lot of ladies who love country AND southern rock, I think we’d get along great.
Note: I find myself beginning a chaotic and promising semester. I can’t say I won’t blog as much, but I can say that it won’t be as consistent. I can also promise that after two years of writing pretty heavily, we may re-post some oldies (but goodies?) on and off. Here is one of my favorite (because every horrible world is true). Yes, Bakhtin and Limp Bizkit.
“There is neither a first nor a last word and there are no limits to the dialogic context (it extends into the boundless past and the boundless future). Even past meaning, that is, those born in the dialogue of past centuries, can never be stable (finalized, ended once and for all)—they will always change (be renewed) in the process of subsequent, future development of the dialogue…Nothing is absolutely dead.” –M. M. Bakhtin
“I did it all for the nookie / C’mon / The nookie / C’mon / So you can take that cookie / And stick it up your, yeah!!” –Fred Durst
I once broke up with a girl because of Limp Bizkit. Seriously. And this wasn’t some ephemeral or disposable relationship. We had been a couple on and off for over two years throughout high school—which is, in high school terms, practically being married. How did this happen? What does this say about me?
The mid-nineties were a heady time for music lovers, especially for adolescent malcontents. Before the debuts of Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten when alternative music went mainstream, college music stations, independent record stores and word-of-mouth were the primary avenues to “coolness” for those who were otherwise barred by ability, class or disposition from conventional approaches. Even more crazily, for a brief period the worlds collided—in the mid-nineties, nerd chic was all the rage. At my high school, football players new Weezer’s “Sweater Song” and cheerleaders wore Dinosaur Jr. Shirts. Which, of course, made isolating and securing the “cool” that much more difficult. Today, the internet, with its damnable democratizing power, can put anyone “in the know” within a few mouse clicks. Social networking disperses “cool” like fluoride in public water. Does this dispersal make it too diffuse? How do geeky adolescents gain the higher ground any more?
Even after Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” won a VMA and bands like Butthole Surfers and Jane’s Addiction were in the day-to-day rotation on MTV, there were still subsections of alternative music that remained on the margins. Sometimes, late at night, you might catch a They Might Be Giants video; but seminal bands like the Pixies and real warriors like Fugazi were still part of the realm of the select few. During these years, what and who you listened to helped to define who you were; or, whom you chose to allow people to know you listened to was an important part of the creation of self-identity. To be lame was to listen to anything in the top forty.
My circle of friends was organized by the (1) aesthetics of the obscure and unknown (Red House Painters), (2) the almost-cool but turning mainstream (Green Day), (3) the ironic but still earnest obsession (Elvis), (4) the almost lame but sort-of acceptable mainstream (Dave Matthews, Blues Traveler), (5) ‘connoisseurship’ (Pre-1990 R.E.M.; U2’s Boy but not Joshua Tree and certainly not Achtung Baby), (6) the geeky but cool (Dead Kennedys), (7) the intentionally offensive (Gwar) and then me. I couldn’t commit to one pose long enough because of my fear that any purchase on ‘coolness’ was temporary. So, I decided to hate everything (or at least almost everything).
Wanted to be Frank Black, but was really Fred Durst
The girl in question in this story just loved music—she could listen without irony to Madonna and Michael Jackson in 1994 (which, for those of you who don’t remember those days, was an accomplishment). But she also espoused the insider’s pose of knowledge as she proudly claimed to have bought Live’s first album before they were cool or as she included Fremke and Smashing Pumpkin B-sides on mix-tapes. I guess in the end it was my own continual uncertainty and insecurity that did us in. If someone loved everything and showed no disdain when it came to music, how could her opinion on more important matters (read: me) have any significance?
In truth, the relationship had been heading south well before the Limp Bizkit incident—I was going to college and, in my own mind, had stayed with her primarily because of convenience. But, when on some weeknight at her house I sat at the kitchen table and saw the brand new Three Dollar Bill Y’all$ still in cellophane, I lost it. Now, this was one album before the world learned about what Fred Durst did for the “Nookie”; two years before violence and sexual assaults at the nearly apocalyptic Woodstock ’99, but from even my tangential knowledge, I knew that Limp Bizkit was musically impoverished, tonally challenged, wannabe hardcore.
To wit, I have no problem with hardcore, but without an ethical and aesthetic center, it is nothing but noise. Again, great artists don’t necessarily need to be musically talented. But, in retrospect, a phenomenon like Limp Bizkit was the death knell for mainstream alternative rock (if that oxy-moron makes any sense), the only nostrum for which was the several years of boy-band pop hell that descended around the same time. To give Durst his due, he was a great showman and his cover of George Michael’s “Faith”, for the time period, was genius.
In all honesty, at the kitchen table on that evening, I knew very little about Limp Bizkit. I knew I didn’t like the name; I knew I didn’t like the cover art; and I had a vague idea that ‘posers’ and ‘losers’ liked them. I asked the girl about it, perhaps hoping that it was a lame gift for or from a friend. But, to my chagrin, she said she bought it and added that she was really excited about it. I said “what?” She told me that they were “cool”. I don’t have the best memory about what happened next, but it may have started with “we need to talk”.
Of course, none of this reflects on me too well. And it shouldn’t. If anything, she was being genuine in pursuing what she liked regardless of external associations (and, regardless of my standards of ‘taste’). I was judgmental, narrow-minded and an overall prick. I broke up with a girl over Limp Bizkit; all I can say to console myself now is that at least I didn’t “do it all for the nookie”.
This is from their album In Utero which was the last album before Kurt Cobain killed himself. My recollection is that I got into this album before Nevermind because I bought it when it came out. I thought the cover of the disc was creepy in a cool way.
My old college roommate came to visit this weekend and as usual, we talked about music and he mentioned he did not like any of the Nirvana he heard on the radio. Well actually, he said he didn’t like the band at all and this alarmed me as even now twenty years later, I love that band. He brought up a very good point though which is that if you don’t ever hear a band’s other non hit songs, it’s hard to really gauge if you like them or not. “Smells like Teen Spirit” is certainly an awesome song, but we have all heard it about a million times now and it’s gotten old. It must be “Stairway to Heaven” syndrome. Great song the first hundred times you hear it.
I used to listen to this song before school like everyday in fourth grade. No, I was not depressed or suicidal and I never even questioned whether fish had feelings or not. I could see why this song would make someone morose, but now, I think it really displays the other side of Nirvana, the quiet as opposed to loud dynamic they borrowed heavily from The Pixies.
Nirvana has ton of good songs and I’m far more familiar with them as a band than Pearl Jam. It is unfortunate that the public at large doesn’t know more of the deep cuts but that is not their fault. I would lay the blame on the record industry in the last thirty years and iPods, where there is no emphasis on the album. It’s all about the single and how much quick money can be made with minimal effort. It’s a damn shame, I miss cohesive long form albums.
“Pennyroyal Tea” is one from the unplugged album, which my old roommate assured me he’d heard many times so I chose the version off In Utero. The tea is supposed be able to act as an abortive and I guess part of the song is a message to his hippie friends in Seattle that this method does not work. It also seems pretty emblematic of his growing suicidal tendencies which is sad.
Kurt Cobain was definitely a pseudo-hero to me growing up, as I am sure he was to many both now and then, even if he was a drug addled self-destructive mental case. I remember seeing interviews around age 8 before his death and thinking that there must be something wrong with him because he’s so unhappy. At that point, it made no sense to me why someone who so many people loved and had so much success could be feel so down and out. His suicide really confused me for this same reason. I had only a vague idea of the self-inflicted deaths by misadventure by people like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and it still made little sense to a fourth grader.
This one was the new song that came off of the greatest hits album in 2002 and apparently was the subject of a long running lawsuit between Courtney Love and the rest of the band. She felt it should be released as a single off of a Beatles “1” style record which it ended up being, while Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic wanted it to be on a B-Side/Rarity record. Love won, it looks like, but I’m sure they all made money off of it.
It’s hard sometimes when I talk to current students about Nirvana because they seem to think he’s their generation’s hero and that I probably don’t know anything about Kurt or Nirvana. I think it’s also a sign of me getting older because I’ve said more than once to them that I was listening to the band before they were alive. I think it’s good kids these days like the band as opposed to most of the bullshit music put out today, but it also concerns me that their fandom is interwoven with the glamorization of suicide and drug addiction. With the prevalence of suicide and self-harm in the teens today, which probably has more to do with mass media coverage than actual statistics, it is a legitimate concern that I try to mitigate whenever I talk Nirvana with the kids. My stock phrase is “Even though I love Jimi Hendrix, doesn’t mean I think it’s cool to overdose on sleeping pills and booze. What a waste of talent”.
I’ve listened to very little live Nirvana which is why I chose this track. I actually like this version more than the unplugged version, probably because I listened to it so many times as a youth.
So, I hope I have illuminated my old friend and anyone else who feels they don’t like Nirvana based on the popular radio hits. With so many internet radio options and some cool radio stations in existence, I could be wrong in thinking that any of these are even new to anyone. For my own interest, I did hear a few songs I’ve never heard and some maybe only once. The last track is one I don’t believe I’ve ever listened to before and that is super cool as I’ve been a fan for so long. For all his faults, Cobain will be remembered as a voice cut short for the 90’s generation and I hope the youths appreciate the music and take a positive message away from this loss rather than a negative one. As for my former roommate, I sure hope this post gave you something to like about Nirvana.
These last two tracks are off of Bleach and Insecticide, the two albums I never owned and that are a lot more punk rock then Nevermind.I was never a big punk fan but these songs sure make me want to be. Hope you found some peace Kurt, rest easy.
So, I was listening to Pandora again at the gym and enjoying a station a created based off of the Pixies when I heard an
You know what clung to the box? Hope.
advertisement for the genre channel called “Cover Songs Radio. There were two things that made me continue to think about this channel over the next day.
First, as some might remember, I have sort of an embarrassing obsession with cover songs. I have theorized about them (twice), I have gone through an intense period of watching amateurs perform them on youtube, I have fantasized about impossible cover songs and I have objected to particularly bad ones.
But what really go me going was the advertisement selling “Newstalgia”, claiming that this is the feeling that a cover song inspires you with because it is both something new and something old. This neologism freaks me the hell out because (1) the Greek compound nost-algia is one of my favorite words and this new word reveals absolute ignorance about the root words “homecoming-grief”) and, more pedantically, new is not a Greek root. The Greek word for ‘new’ would create a perfectly acceptable word “Nealgia”.
(I know. I know. A silly thing to get angry about. And just do a google search for “newstalgia” and see how many others have committed the same unforgivable barbarism.)
So, the idea of a station dedicated to pop songs stayed in my head for a day and a night. The next day I returned to my office and committed myself to listening to the first five songs on the station and writing them down. Here’s what happened: I got excited, I got sad and then I got angry.
In classic and typical Van Halen stlye, the vocals are sufficient but forgettable and there is way too much guitar soloing. The simplicity and the masculine directness that make the original so powerful are lost on this one. I am sure that the different style was really fascinating in the hoary year of 1978, but years later, it just seems obnoxious
I was surprised when this song came on because I still think of it as a such a revelatory moment for Nirvana. For one, I actually heard this song for the first time when Nirvana covered it in the unplugged show. In this version, the bass is so beautifully and simply played, the guitar-line is like some type of call-to-arms, and Cobain’s voice works well with its under-played presentation of the song. By contrast, when I listen to Bowie’s version, it seems almost cheesy. This cover, then, shows the power of a song translated from one style and time to another with the potential to characterize artist and song alike.
3. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, “Over the Rainbow” (do you need to ask?)
I wasn’t at all upset to have this song show up. For one, I have heard it about a thousand times but I didn’t know who sang it or really helped to redefine (for me and for a generation at least) what can happen when you transform a song from one genre to another. The ukulele is simple and his voice is a little thread-bare, but every time I have ever heard this song I have gotten a little sad.
Maybe it is the memory of this song and my youth. When I was a small child CBS or one of the networks used to play the Wizard of Oz one night a year. My mom and dad made popcorn, opened the sleeper sofa, and let me stay up late to watch it. I don’t know what inspired that, but I can’t think of or hear of Wizard of Oz without that thought. Even as I type this out, I am blinking away tears–the song is just too sad, to filled with that sense of the ephemeral nature of life.
And this is even more messed up. Israel Kamakawiwo’ole died at the young age of 38 in 1997 after fighting obesity his entire life. Is there a foreboding tone in this song? What is the song about but the desire for transformative change, for the release from this life to a better one.
When this song came on after the first one, I decided that I should just stop doing anything for the rest of the day. “Hurt” is a powerfully harrowing song in its original high goth form. When Cash sings this song at the end of his life and after the passing of his wife, it is just way too much to process emotionally. Poignant doesn’t even begin to describe this shit.
I didn’t skip the song, though. I don’t pay for Pandora!
I did not know that Aerosmith covered this song. I can be quite honest about this. It is terrible. Tyler has such a unique voice that it does not meld well into other peoples’ songs–and this range is quite wrong for it. The over all tone of the song is really ill-fit for Aerosmith and the time period. I really don’t care that much for The Beatles, but after hearing this abomination I listened to the original as a type of soul cleansing. This is the worst type of a cover song: it reveals the weaknesses of the the band performing and makes you want to hear something else.
So that ended my day with Pandora’s cover songs. Anything new to you hear my brother?
Top five of my favorite Pixies songs and classic example of the loud-soft dynamic.
Since we have covered multiple bands from the nineties recently, specifically Pearl Jam and Soul Coughing, I wanted to go back a little further before writing on the latter band (because they are also one of my favorites). When “Smells like Teen Spirit” dropped back in the early 90’s, Kurt gave an interview saying he was trying to rip off the Pixies on that groundbreaking song. They were one of his favorite bands he said with a smile, with their loud to soft sound dynamics. Let’s be honest, that’s what made the song work, the juxtaposition of of the mumbled vocals with the loud and nearly grating crunchy guitar licks and shouts. This song will probably always represent the Gen X slackers and grunge sound and we have the Pixies to thank.
The dynamic here is almost all vocals, my favorite being when Frank Black screams “THEN GODDDDD IS SEVEN”. I have a good friend who only listens to Hip Hop, but for some reason, I got him into the Pixies and he routinely cites this as his favorite song. Also, I learned about this song via the Bloodhound Gang and their hit “Fire Water Burn”.
After Bloodhound Gang, I stole the Elder J’s albums by the Pixies and became transfixed. I was already into Led Zeppelin, the Foo Fighters, Nirvana and The Beatles amongst all my other early musical influences. The Pixies fit right into this mold, even without a lot of guitar solos that I loved even at a young age. They write interesting songs lyrically with a consistent unique sound that is never overbearing, which may be antithetical to my love of prog rock but I’ve always liked a variety of tunes. I didn’t know until recently that the band started at UMass at Amherst and that Kim Deal didn’t even own a bass when she answered lead singer/songwriter Frank Black’s ad for someone who liked both Peter, Paul and Mary and Husker Du. That’s funny stuff.
Kim Deal is not a crazily intricate bass player, but she is solid and inventive while also laying down some sweet backing vocals and the occasional lead like on this track supposedly dedicated to well endowed males. She left the band as of June 2013 which sucks because she was a driving force and an inventive artist while not being the most musically trained individual. Hey, maybe it’s Breeders reunion time!
From the early touring years, after getting big in Europe, problems arose between Kim Deal and Frank Black with one incident where Frank threw a guitar at Kim while on stage. They butted heads due to musical/personal differences and what sounds like Frank’s desire to be the sole writing force. Kim was a headstrong woman and never fully warmed to the fact that Frank saw himself as the leader because he was the lead singer. They didn’t even talk for much of the last few years in the early 90’s before the hiatus and she quit for what sounds like forever last June. On one hand, this sucks. On the other, the tension helped to create some of my favorite music of the last thirty years and make a permanent mark on alternative music.
This was probably the closest they came to a pop song and another one of the first few that I heard by the band. It was this song and “Monkey’s Gone to Heaven” that got me to delve into their albums further and discover tracks like “Caribou” and “Gigantic” amidst what is quality output pretty much throughout. A big selling point for me has been that you can listen to their albums all the way through and never need to skip a track. Few bands are like this anymore.
The Pixies never got huge, getting most of their airplay on college radio and alternative stations. They never to my knowledge got into heavy drug use, with Frank Black once saying the hardest stuff he ever got into was marijuana and it never allowed him to do anything more “creative than parallel parking.” They also never got big enough to become real conceited, except for a few things I’ve read about Frank Black. They don’t even take credit for creating anything new with sound dynamic, with Frank saying they didn’t know how to play any other way except for loud and soft, even calling it “dumbo dynamics”. Their uniqueness and a few other reasons is why they may be the coolest alternative band ever.
My brother wrote on this song before and it deserves another mention. The use of it in the end of Fight Club may be my favorite use of a song in any movie ever. I’m thinking it’s right up there with “Born to be Wild” in Easy Rider and “Damn it feels good to be Gangsta” in Office Space. I believe Frank wrote the song about scuba diving in the Caribbean while abroad at UMass.
The Pixies are cool for a myriad of reasons. First, they seem to be very modest about their role in alternative music and I think that’s rare in a recording industry rife with arrogance and narcissism. They’ve been compared with the Velvet Underground in that they never had mainstream commercial success, yet they have influenced scores of other bands. Secondly. they have a very unique sound which is unlike any other band I’ve ever heard. As with Primus, progressive rock and most of the bands I really like, I think this is important above all else. Not just in their music, but also in their lyrics which often deal with Biblical themes and other topics atypical of traditional alternative music. Lastly, I have loved them since about elementary school and this can be said about very few bands for me, Zeppelin being the only band that comes quickly to mind. I haven’t seen them live but I hope to and I hope Kim comes back. Long live the Pixies!
This has always been high on my list of favorite Pixies jams. I love the “Buy me a soda” lyrics, even though it sounds like it has to do with a hands preacher when I read the song’s lyrics as a whole. What I’d do to be able to go back to 1987 and see them in their prime.
I can’t think of many other bands that have been so successful for so long without impressing me (well, the Eagles, R.E.M.).
I cannot tell a lie: I owned this t-shirt
I can think of some pretty terrible bands that people seem to like regardless of all taste and reason (Maroon 5, Foo Fighters) but it is hard for me really to figure out the place that Pearl Jam should occupy. The band was huge in the early 1990s. It consciously and intentionally bowed out of MTV and its world but continued to release albums. I never listened to them. Was I wrong?
I am not completely alone in being confused about the attraction: LA Weekly lists Pearl Jam as one of the worst bands of all time describing the sound as “Boring, tepid, rehashed classic rock with a thin veneer of alt” . Now, while this declaration is in part meant just to raise some hackles and eyebrows, I have to add that it is rare that my brother and I completely agree in ignoring something. Generally, what I don’t care for, he will defend. And, generally, if we both ignore something, well…
But the litmus test for a band that transcends general mediocrity and confounds even those who would like to hate it is whether or not a majority of people who know of the band can identify a song they actually like by it despite whatever reservations or misgivings they have. I can think of at least five songs (maybe more) that I really do like (“Even Flow”, “Daughter”, “Better Man”, “Nothingman”, and Yellow Ledbetter”). So, I guess I need to revisit this.
A few months back I was shopping for clothing for my toddler son at Target and I was immediately taken by a pint-sized Pink Floyd t-shirt. I know: I recognized immediately that this was a simple but effective ploy to play upon a combination of adult nostalgia and a parental desire to make children look ‘cool‘ (especially for those Gen Xers and younger who were always too cool to want to appear to try to be cool.)
My wife mocked me a little. I felt both less and more self-critical when I saw not one but two little boys at day care wearing the same t-shirt. I over-compensated by getting a science officer Star Trek (original series) shirt for my son and trying to squeeze him into a one-year old’s shirt emblazoned with Carthago Delenda Est.
Hey, there’s nothing in my heart. I’d rather be cool than be smart. Hey, What I’m thinking of. I’d rather be cool than be loved.
Here’s what I feel, Ba ba ba ba. Just want a girl, as cool as Kim Deal.
–The Dandy Warhols, “Cool as Kim Deal” (1997)
Sure, start off a review of one band’s album with somebody else’s song. That’s rational.
I started out on this blog writing some reviews of albums that I considered classic with the intention of trying to explain what makes them timeless and not just tied to their trends and historical context. Recently, but without regret, I have focused a little more on contemporary releases. This doesn’t mean I have forgotten about some older albums—I have just been letting them ‘age’.
One of my favorite solos ever, almost certainly the favorite for the mighty Led Zeppelin. I’ve loved this one for over a decade which is not the same I can say for those old Foo Fighters records. Just listen to how he keeps building the solo until there is a climax, not unlike a sexual experience. Many people, including an interview I can now not find with Jimmy Page, have ascertained that songs like “Stair way to Heaven” are modeled like this for that exact reason.
The Elder and I talked about Mumford last week and he commented on my post after some back and forth that he thought most guitar solos are “superfluous ostentation” which I think is the equivalent of tail fins on a car. They look cool and add to the overall picture but don’t really do much for the ride. (He continues the debate here.)
thebrothersj 