Silverchair gets an understandably rough rap from anyone who isn’t Australian, it seems. They released their first grunge-heavy album before they turned sixteen, then aged musically & temporally in alarming parallels; as a fan growing up with them, it was truly fun to watch, & anticipate their next sound, the new bold reconfiguration of their image. By Diorama, the trio had lived & breathed the sex/drugs/rocknroll myth for years & had battle scars to prove it – the deepest of those scars, though, ran through the album’s strongest songs. With a Van Dyke Parks string section working for their benefit, songs like “Tuna in the Brine” were epics like the world of alt-rock had never heard before: these vocals were finally fine-tuned, these instruments used for exactly that which they were made. But nothing shines more brilliantly in this song than its structure & lyrics, a combo that kills climaxes & surprises like song construction were just another easy everyday job. In my mind, this song epitomizes an otherwise forgotten, unimportant rock group at their absolute strongest, & after a couple spins of this track your view of what it means to write music in the twentieth century will hardly be the same.
Everyone my age went through their Bright Eyes phase somewhere around the eighth grade, after which Conor Oberst’s pitchless self-deprecation became not only hard to swallow but hard to stomach at all. There will always be the strength of his lyrics, it’s clear, but Bright Eyes’s earlier work is an especially good example of digging through the rough (& sometimes the very rough) to find the diamonds; “When the Curious Girl” is almost unarguably one of those diamonds. The shifty background noise, lo-fi distance, & stripped down singular piano work all work perfectly to frame the equal parts hurt & desire in Oberst’s words, & the little sound effects are just the icing that this cake needs. It’s a tough song to feel, but with further listens it becomes more worth the effort.
There are probably better Postal Service songs to put up here, but what it comes down to is that the hipster in me will come out no matter what so I might as well pick the one that really haunts me. The female interjection about halfway through is what makes this song, & that’s honestly all it comes down to. It’s a simple band making a simple album where every song is instantly memorable, & for that we give endless pop love for them. The Nintendo sound effects throughout are also something to pinpoint, making this song the messiest on the entire tracklist somehow. Chalk Give Up to the list of albums I was skeptical of for years before settling into their respective grooves. It can be a shaker if you let it.
The first time you listen to Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), besides the fact that it is a life changing experience for just about every teenager in the world since 1993, you’re almost unsure why there are two versions of the same song. With further listens, & the more you keep the damn thing on constant repeat, you start to learn that the album should have 2 or more slightly altered versions of every track, & it’s this that makes the record something special: that gritty eye for detail the RZA kept at all times, & the insistence on constant glitches & buzzes & slight bass-tune changes – it’s the art of guerrilla warfare turned towards the turntable. Innovation in hip hop never seemed as easy or as unstable, & the genre hasn’t looked back since. “7th Chamber, Pt. 2″ is simply the nastiest hip hop posse track recorded, tumbling Tribe’s “Scenario” out of my top spot only recently; every rhyme is perfectly grimy, every tooth covered in dirt.
Not only a musician, but an inventor, & one without qualms about blurring the line between the two roles. Can an artist be better for having not influenced anyone famous at all? I think Laurie Anderson is the rule here, the exception being her unchallenged place in underground performance art history. The violin work here is artistic mastery, but the handclaps are art-pop finery & which is more important I could never say. Big Science is another forgotten classic, shamelessly driven into the cracks of music history; you can find it in droves, you can enjoy it for a lifetime.
There’s a lot to be said about nostalgia. It can be a tricky thing, & more than any other human emotion serves most often as a hologram: that which seems certain & important is only a trick of the light; that which is memory is merely personal. Having said that, Blind Melon may forever be the band that defines my personal memories, & I return to their three albums frequently if only to sit down & determine where the line is between my sweet nostalgia & sturdy musical merit. In my opinion, “Car Seat” is that line: my favorite song in middle school – & one I felt a burning connection to – & at the same moment a song that proves everything I’ve always liked about this band is truly praise-worthy. Here are the painfully human lyrics, the experimentation with alternative instruments, the unabashed bravery in shifting directions right when a song is getting really interesting. Blind Melon was always a band that kept you on your feet, & there aren’t many semi-popular alt-rock bands from the early nineties that could say that; they will always hold a special place in my life, but more than that they will be looked back upon as one of the more unappreciated one hit wonders of an era not remembered with enough fondness.
There is nothing noticeably punk rock, classically undiscovered, or elite about this song – for once I offer only a tune that I find truly engaging &, at times, carelessly beautiful. One-man bands are still somehow the biggest craze these days, but I won’t be the one to poo-poo on that style; I think if it’s done right it can be nearly catastrophic. There are moments in this song that really hit the spot: the drums kicking in, the banjo popping in & out, every single thing about the vocals (but especially how goddamn BLUESY they are). Watching Sam Beam play solo live is an emotional catalyst to search out the studio material, & music could really take a page out of that book; the heart translates wonderfully, but on different levels, in unprecedented ways.
The concept of this band’s only album is titillating even now looking back on 1968: make rock music without guitars. It would be more than possible for it to go wrong, & perhaps even inevitable that it would not be warmly accepted into the rock canon, but The USA managed it with flying psychedelic colors. Find here the roots of electronic experimentation, the methods of tape manipulation & mic loops that Miles Davis would perfect on On the Corner just a few years later, & the nod to old-time American music seemingly draining from the excess tape left on the track. This album is a moment that should be an integral piece of American rock history but has gone lost in between the cracks, & lives only on hip know-it-all lists & elite conversations. I say bring the Wooden Wife to the surface! Blast it from the serene suburban rooftops!
I thought I was a Talking Heads fan for a solid 2 or 3 years, until I heard this song & realized I didn’t even know who the Talking Heads were. “A Clean Break” opened up the world of unbalanced proto-artpunk nonsense for me on a scope that’s a bit hard to describe; the rhythm of the song is too strong to be simply heard – it must be felt, be danced & shouted, be spit with every lyric. The only place where this song can be found is on the live double-LP The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, which means this was recorded on cheap equipment, caught in a live atmosphere, more likely than not in a sweater-wearing 70’s hipster’s living room. It’s the perfect snapshot of an era, the unbelievable crossroads of energy, tight workmanship, & David Byrne before he was THE David Byrne.
