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Run –Air
A Björkish track (well, it’s got a music box, on it, doesn’t
it?) from 2004’s ‘Talkie Walkie’. Something terrible and cute
has been done with computers to the lead singer that thankfully doesn’t
detract from the warm wash of the ‘I Found A Reason’-era VU backing
vocals.
Tear
In Your Hand –Tori Amos
Ah, the mighty Tori. It’s amazing how many people love Tori and hate Kate,
but where would Amos be without Bush? This is the song from 1992’s ‘Little
Earthquakes’ (still her best –anyone want to argue?) with the bizarre
Neil Gaiman references (see the Death character in ‘The Sandman’)
and a fantastic middle eight: ‘Maybe / I ain’t used to maybes / Smashing
in a cold room”. I’ve listened to ‘Scarlet’s Walk’ a
couple of times without understanding it, but unlike ‘Think Tank’,
I think I’ll persevere.
The following of Tori Amos is varied and devoted,
from teenage girls who draw on their binders and have just bought
their first bottle of black nail-polish to computer programmers
in their forties who fondly remember Kate Bush. Despite a low current
profile -even though she's just released a new album, I know- Tori
Amos is a perfectly poised modern celebrity. Although she is famous
and successful she is not too famous, which means she
can get on with recording quality songs with a large degree of
personal control. Her work is too sophisticated for the Top 10
(the surprise remix hit Professional Widow was
more Armand van Helden’s than hers) but she has the kind
of dedicated and loyal fanbase that you sense someone like Britney
could really really use now. She was also lucky enough
to rise to prominence just as Kate Bush stopped making albums.
I realise
this is heresy to the majority of her fans (and I have actually
made a Tori fan clash his teeth in frustration at the mention
of Kate Bush), but the fact remains that despite her apparent
originality
and amazing career, once the new Kate Bush album is released
this year and people under thirty start discovering her back
catalogue,
Tori is going to have some serious explaining to do. There is
not really such a thing as a typical Tori Amos song, but most
involve
a mighty Bösendorfor piano underpinning her keening lyrics,
which are dafter than a trouser-wearing giraffe. The title track
of her 1992 debut album Little Earthquakes (ignoring ‘Y
Can’t Tori Read’) is a slow-burning widescreen piece
with solemn ‘When the Levee Breaks’ drums. What is
it about? I could not say. 1994’s excellent sequel ‘Under
the Pink brought us Space Dog, glorious sophisticated
piano-driven nonsense that mixes poignant childhood memories
with sci-fi and lemon pie and even namechecks Neil Gaiman. 1996’s ‘Boys
For Pele’ is still her most sparse and challenging album,
and includes the prickly harpsichord tinklings of Blood
Roses, cherished for the line “I shaved every place
where you been”. A thousand bedroom cults started here. 1998’s ‘From
The Choirgirl Hotel’ is a more accessible album, but still
contains the loopiness of Hotel, which is strangely
reminiscent of Babylon Zoo. “Lollipop Gestapo"? “King
Solomon’s mines”? “Where are the velvets?”?
There are websites devoted to unravelling the meaning of this
stuff. Bachelorette is
a fine B-side from the same time that struts like a German cabaret
number and explodes into giggles at the end. 1999’s ‘To
Venus And Back’ came too soon after ‘Choirgirl’,
although the live album has some terrific versions of her older
songs on it, and 2001’s ‘Strange Little Girls’ cover
album was more mystifying than essential. However Tori rebounded
in 2002 with her thoughtful late-spring-tinctured ‘Scarlet’s
Walk’, which includes Carbon, a complicated
piece which begins like a soundtrack instrumental and develops
an odd choral chorus –and just when you think it’s
finished, it starts up again.
Don’t
Worry Baby –The Beach Boys
One of those achingly sad Brian Wilson songs, similar in tone
to ‘Pet Sounds’ but
from 1964 when most of their songs were still centred around cars and surfing.
The chorus was namechecked by Garbage in ‘Push It’ and the entire
song crassly covered by Kiwi band Zed, who seem to have missed the point entirely. Professor
Booty –Beastie Boys
“Professor, what’s another word for pirate treasure?” Rude,
compelling, playful…from when Eminem was still living with his mother.
From 1992’s funk rudiments restatement ‘Check Your Head’. When’s
the next album coming out?
For
No One –The Beatles
One of Paul McCartney’s dry little filmic songs and only two minutes long,
from 1966’s excellent but tediously overlauded ‘Revolver’ (the
smartarse’s favourite Beatles album –see below)
Too
many books, too many articles, Paul McCartney is too damned
nice, but when it comes down to it, The Beatles are
still The Best Pop Music Can Do. Once the baby-boomers are
dead we’ll be able to gain some perspective, but until then it’ll
be It Was Forty Years Ago Today until we scream. Unfortunately
at the moment the Beatles are in the midst of one of the most clever
and cynical marketing campaigns in recording history. It began
in 1994 with the massive Anthology project, and ever since then
a series of immaculately-timed releases and re-releases have kept
their profile high. I imagine the next stage for EMI will be to
take their cue from the Rolling Stones reissues and re-release
the original albums as full-price 5.1 mixes aimed at recent retirees
seeking to update their 1987 versions. The main justification for
2000’s ‘1’ album seems to have been to
demonstrate how great it all sounds remastered. Although Every Little
Thing from 1964’s ‘Beatles For Sale’ is
a standard relationship song like any from their previous two albums,
the timpani combines with their standard beat-combo sound to make
it unusually dramatic. A throwaway song from 1965’s ‘Help!’ (from
the side not featured in the film), It’s Only
Love features
sardonic Lennon vocals –you can tell he’s trying not
to sneer. Just as cloying but far more sincere is McCartney’s Here,
There And Everywhere from 1966’s mighty ‘Revolver’,
with close-harmony singing which makes it sound like a ‘typical’ Beatles
song, and is also reminiscent of a melancholy Beach Boys
number. Your
Mother Should Know is a corny but irresistible song
from 1967’s ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, rendered
magnificent by the appearance in the film of all four Beatles
descending a
staircase in matching white tuxes. I’m So Tired is
a short and languid Lennon number from 1968’s ‘The
Beatles’ which characterises the typical claustrophobic atmosphere
of that album –sounding much more ‘interior’ than ‘Sgt
Pepper’, with the windows opened by their previous
albums tightly sealed. Dig A Pony is from
the live rooftop performance which ended 1970’s ‘Let It Be’,
the sound that of a band who have travelled a million miles
in just
seven years, and are struggling to remember the skills and
attitude which made them good in the first place.
End
Of the Day –Beck
From the mournful 2002 album ‘Sea Change’ –worth persevering
with, though. It’s one of those albums (like Smashing Pumpkins’s ‘Adore’)
which doesn’t yield anything much for a while but is actually quite beautiful.
The
perennially youthful Beck has been cranking out
albums for more than ten years now, and although he will never
recapture the commercial heights of 1996’s ‘Odelay’,
it can also be presumed he will never make a boring album.
First appearing on pop culture’s radar in 1994 with a certain slacker novelty
song, the accompanying album ‘Mellow Gold’ was a rough and rude collection
of lo-fi country which also included the song Soul Suckin’ Jerk,
a fuzz-loaded statement of defiance. The big album ‘Odelay’ is still
brilliant, even the minor songs like Lord Only Knows shining
with laconic confidence. His awkward major-minor label deal lead to 1998’s ‘Mutations’ being
dismissed as a mere side project while he worked on the ‘real’ followup
to ‘Odelay’ Personally I’ve never understood how someone decides
whether or not an album is ‘real’ or not, especially if all the songs
are new. PJ Harvey’s ‘Dance Hall At Louse Point’ comes under
the same category. When an album’s been recorded quickly and lo-fi to accompany
a dance piece or something like that, it just means it’s uncommercial,
not that it sucks. Anyway, ‘Mutations’ was low-key and sometimes
difficult to listen to, but contains the lovely Nick Drake-meets-sitar Nobody’s
Fault But My Own. He produced many fine B-side and soundtrack songs
from this period as well, especially Halo Of Gold, which is
glam-country with obscure Bowie and Johnny Cash references. The supposed ‘real’ followup
turned out to be the perplexing and uneven Prince tribute ‘Midnite Vultures’,
and after the disappointment from that one settled (well, I liked it) he came
up with 2002’s ‘Sea Change’, which sounded like ‘Mutations’ plus,
even more Nick Drakeish with some sterling songs, like the majestically resigned Guess
I’m Doing Fine. His latest album, ‘Guero’, is his
most accessible for years, and certainly sounds like a followup to ‘Odelay’.
The range of songs is wider than his previous three albums, with a blues and
Depression-era folk influence. Broken Drum sounds like ‘Adore’-era
Smashing Pumpkins (another incredibly difficult album which I quite like).
Roam
-The B52's
Hard to think of them now as inspiring R.E.M., but they both
came from Athens,
Georgia, and it was the B52’s success on the New Wave scene which showed
Michael Stipe just what could be achieved by singing the words properly.The refreshing
kind of sound that makes uplifts the hearts of most citizens and makes ad executives
stroke their chins thoughtfully. From 1989’s ‘Cosmic Thing’.
Fooled
Around And Fell In Love -Elvin Bishop
A genuine Glorious Pop Song from immediately before all was laid waste
by Johnny
Rotten. Technically this is ‘blues rock’. From 1976’s ‘Struttin’ My
Stuff’.
There
was no guarantee Björk would have any kind
of career after The Sugarcubes, the eccentric Icelandic ‘art terrorist
band’ who had an unfortunate habit of dividing singing duties between
her and ‘rapper’ Einar Örn… let alone the extraordinary
progression from pixie to hit machine to experimental adult artist of the
last ten years. She moved to London, developed a fractured Cockney accent
and delivered ‘Debut’, a 1993 album with some of her most conventional
yet beautiful songs, including Come To Me, arranged for
strings, voice and electronics. Produced by Nellee Hooper, this classy album
quickly created a rather patronising popular conception of her as a kind
of mad pixie. The potential of her range was demonstrated by 1995’s
eclectic ‘Post’, helped by equally innovative and bonkers music
videos, the graphic design of Me Company, and numerous carefully executed
remixes. Enjoy is a menacing track co-written with then-boyfriend
Tricky and sounds rather like an evil train –late in the song a horn
blast sterilises all before it. Instead of doing the easy and lucrative thing
and delivering ‘Post II’, Björk retreated into the soundscapes
of 1997’s ‘Homogenic’. Apparently influenced more by the
Icelandic landscape than what was being played in the clubs at the time,
this may be her finest album. Alarm Call is one of the warmest
songs, and like the rest of the album, sounds like nothing else on earth.
After a poor-value soundtrack for ‘Dancer In The Dark’, 2001’s ‘Vespertine’ was
yet another transformation, as she experimented with music boxes and unusual
stringed instruments. This was a beautiful if not powerful album, accompanied
by some eye-poppingly adult videos. Unison is the last track,
and is a typical love song. Amphibian is a B-side from this
period, and combines the strings of ‘Vespertine’ with the experimental
mouth-sounds she first tried on ‘Post’s Headphones. Her latest
album, 2004’s ‘Medúlla’, is mostly a capella, and
includes Triumph Of A Heart, possibly her daftest single
yet (see the Spike Jonze video on her website). The question is, what does
she try now?
Big Red –Frank
Black
Frank Black has always had an amazing voice, and on this track from 1994’s
very long ‘Teenager Of The Year’ that voice emerges from the murk
of the verses to wiggle like a dog’s chew toy in the chorus.
Remedy –The
Black Crowes
I haven’t really got a lot of time for ‘The Black Crowes’,
although their ‘Live At The Greek’ album with Jimmy Page is interesting.
This song benefits from sounding like Lenny Kravitz covering ‘Exile’ era
Stones. From 1992’s ‘The Southern Harmony And Musical Comparison’.
I
Know But I Don’t Know –Blondie
This song starts out wry, swinging and deliberately dumb, and
somehow turns into a weird bubbling epic. From their world-eating
1978 album ‘Parallel Lines’.
Worth listening to just for Debbie Harry’s Stooges referencing and doggie
howl.
Legend
In My Spare Time –Bloodhound Gang
Offensive, sick, and funny as hell, like the Beastie Boys locked in a room
with
Frank Zappa and a sequencer. From 1995’s ‘Use Your Fingers’ …does
that mean they’re pushing 30 now? Sweet
Song -Blur
This song is indeed sweet (referencing ‘Jealous Guy’), but 2003’s ‘Think
Tank’ for me marks the sad point where Blur’s album tracks become
inferior to their old B-sides. Most bands seem to reach this point eventually
if they go on long enough –certainly Oasis reached it as long ago as 1998,
when ‘The Masterplan’ was received better critically than ‘Be
Here Now’. ‘Think Tank’ is not growing on me with repetition.
They seemed to have absorbed a lot of dampness and I miss the nimbleness of ‘Parklife’ and
even the pretentious narcotic swirly blippery of ‘13’. Even the playfulness
of ‘Gorillaz’ wouldn’t come amiss. Their time is past. Who
Can I Be Now? –David Bowie
A outtake from 1975’s ‘Young Americans’, featuring a blond
Bowie from Philadelphia, already his seventh incarnation in as many years. The
soul sound is a trifle try-hard but his talent for melody is intact –despite
the appalling retread of ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’ from the
same era, which is about as funky as a haddock.
Chihuahua –Bow
Wow Wow
Even more bizarre than the B-52’s dog-orientated ‘Quiche Lorraine’,
this 1981 single (available on any of their compilations) is a typically daft
song from a band who surfaced in that brief period between Punk and the New Romantics
when it was possible be original and incompetent and fun without worrying about
all that synthesiser and pastel suit nonsense. They sound like a younger Blondie
with a set of Burundi drums. Bands like Bow Wow Wow would never get on the radio
now, and I think our sonic landscape is poorer for it.
She
Fell 21 Stories –The Brainchilds
What New Zealand band The Six Volts did next (see below).
This track from their eponymous 1993 album unfortunately demonstrates how thin
their sound was as a four-piece. Funnily enough it covers similar lyrical territory
to Björk’s ‘Hyper-Ballad’. The soundtrack business beckoned.
Funky
Drummer -James Brown
There is nothing as scary as watching white bands attempting to emulate
this
particular pioneer. Talking Heads’ ‘Mr Jones’ is my least favourite
song by that great, great, but very pale band. Marcella Detroit (formerly of
Shakespears Sister) came a cropper with ‘James Brown’ and even Iggy
Pop was lowered in mine sight by a particularly awful version of ‘Sex Machine’.
The problem is, even James Brown can’t really do songs like James Brown
anymore. If you think about it, it’s amazing that you can get a cohesive
sound at all out of a room full of improvising musicians. And it’s very,
very hard to prevent horns from sounding awful. This particular song from 1970
is famous for a particular drum part which has been sampled by everyone from
Sinead O’ Connor to George Michael.
You
kind of had to be there to appreciate Kate Bush. At her
worst her work tends towards the breathless Livejournal end of woman songwriting,
at her best she achieves a transcendent daftness equal to Björk. Until
2005, she hadn’t released an album since 1993, but continues to
exert an influence over women singer/songwriters as
strong as Joni Mitchell in the ‘70s and Alanis Morissette in the ‘90s.
Her first album ‘The Kick Inside’ was released in 1978 just before
she turned 20. Although the subject matter of the songs comes over as a bit
torrid (Wuthering Heights, anyone?) she was already stamping more character
on her sound with piano and vocals than most people do in their entire careers. James
And The Cold Gun has a backing vocal which I can only transcribe
as “J-J-Jame-ah-HE-ya!” The second album she released that year, ‘Lionheart’,
is even quirkier. Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake sounds
a bit like a good Elton John song and is lightyears from the contemporary
punk scene. ‘Never For Ever’ in 1980 was the first number one
album in Britain by a female artist. All We Ever Look For is
a Japanese-sounding number with a bizarre middle-eight consisting of doors
being opened onto various soundscapes. ‘The Dreaming’ is 1982’s
infamous ‘mad’ album and certainly Leave It Open is
dafter than anything Tori ever came up with, and a demonstration of the crisp
Fairlight sound she perfected on 1985’s ‘Hounds Of Love’. My
Lagan Love is a beautiful a Capella B-side, a traditional tune with
lyrics by her brother. Her only album of the '90s was 1993’s ‘The
Red Shoes’, which contains such intense songs as Big Stripey
Lie,
which would not be out of place on a Morrissey album and has nothing to do
with tigers. Moving
Away From The Pulsebeat –The Buzzcocks
One of the poppier English punk bands, the Buzzcocks are most famous for ‘Ever
Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve)?’, one of those
tracks which appears on every godforsaken punk compilation. ‘Moving Away
From The Pulsebeat’ is unusual because of its length –over 7 minutes-
and the fake fadeout before returning as something Kraftwerk could have knocked
together. From 1978’s ‘Another Music In A Different Kitchen’. She’s
Mad-David Byrne
Practically every solo release by David Byrne is described by critics as
sounding
like Talking Heads, “before they lost focus” or “on form”.
1992’s ‘Uh-Oh’ is typical of his early solo releases, graced
by Latin horns without that grafted-on feeling Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’ suffers
from.
David
Byrne is a perplexing man. His work is quirky and rich, but
never especially intimate. Like Paul Simon during his Graceland period,
or Shane
McGowan and the Pogues, the lushness and emotion of the music is rarely
matched by his dry, strained, precise voice. Although Taking Heads was
one of the biggest and most critically successful bands of the ‘80s,
Byrne seemed largely forgotten until his cameo on the dance hit Lazy by
X-Press 2 in 2002. He has successfully developed a solo career outside
the mainstream, unheard on radio and quite hard to get hold of in places
like New Zealand. His first solo work (apart from a collaboration with
Brian Eno in 1980) was music for the Twyla Tharp ballet ‘The Catherine
Wheel’ in 1981. The Red House is fast and furious,
sounding a lot like what Talking Heads were doing at the time. Can’t
imagine anyone dancing to it. Byrne’s initial solo albums continued
the fascination with world music which led to the creation of his label
Luaka Bop. Don’t Want To Be A Part Of Your World is
from his 1989 Latin music album 'Rei Momo’, and features intricate
drumming and horns overlaid with his cool vocals. This was also a feature
of his 1992 album ‘Uh-Oh’, although there was more variety
in the songs, such as the New Orleans voodoo of A Walk In The Dark.
The year before he’d released the extraordinary ‘The Forest’,
which was derived from a 1988 stage work by Robert Wilson. This largely
instrumental album includes the suite Ava which develops
over twelve minutes from chello into a full orchestra and bizarre choir,
with Byrne’s strained vocal over the top. After the sparse ‘David
Byrne’ album of 1994 he released ‘Feelings’, which
featured a collaboration by what remains of Devo, amongst others. This
1997 album
includes Finite=Alright, which names reassuringly quantifiable
amounts, such as the number of teeth in the human head. After that came
the disappointing ‘Look Into The Eyeball’ album, which was
a more perfunctory work than usual but includes the rollicking Desconocido
Soy (2001) which features NRÜ from Café Tacuba. His
latest solo album ‘Grown Backwards’ is quieter but more eclectic,
if that makes sense.
Perfect –Eliza
Carthy
A pragmatic love song from the not-quite-folk Eliza Carthy whose more recent
albums cover traditional English folk songs. Sophisticated but slightly gauche
at the same time, confusingly enough. From her 2000 album ‘Angels & Cigarettes’. Immediate
Circle –Catatonia
Blarey, annoying, soaring, from their excellent last album, ‘Paper Scissor
Stone’. Cerys Matthews’ new solo album is very different but well
worth seeking out.
Far
From Me -Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
“You were my brave-hearted lover / At the first taste of trouble went running
back to mother”. Ouch. The best reason not to go out with Nick Cave: he
might write an album like 1997’s ‘The Boatman’s Call’ about
it. Painfully personal and one of my favourite breakup albums (the others are
Pulp’s ‘This Is Hardcore’ and Blur’s ‘13’.).
PJ Harvey’s equivalent album was the far cooler ‘Is This Desire’,
so you could say she won that competition. The
State We’re In –The Chemical Brothers
The song of a giant sweet-voiced machine shaking dust motes into the air
and spilling reels of tape over the floor. Vocals by the inconsistently
good Beth
Orton from the underrated 2002 album ‘Come With Us’.
Time
Is Tight –The Clash
Clash fans are often extremely uptight about issues of ‘authenticity’ and ‘sincerity’ in
popular music, and many breathed a sigh of relief after the initial shock of
Joe Strummer’s death, because it neatly foiled any potential legend-destroying
reunion plans…the sort that nobbled the Sex Pistols’ legacy a few
years ago. This is an atypically frivolous but fun cover from 1994’s ‘Black
Market Clash’ compilation.
A
lot of rubbish has been written about The Clash, and I am
not keen to add to it. Were the Sex Pistols a greater band? Who cares anymore? ‘Never
Mind The Bollocks' is brilliant, but so is ‘The Clash’ and ‘London
Calling’. And yes, The Clash never sullied their legacy by reforming,
but they didn’t do themselves any favours by releasing ‘Cut The
Crap’ did they? It’s amazing that a revolutionary movement like
punk, with its initial focus on honesty and rawness, could so quickly be
overcome and hidebound by Stalinist judgements on what was ‘authentic’ or
not. A lot of The Clash’s musical exploration was misguided, but at
least they weren’t afraid to challenge and expand the incomprehensible
self-imposed limits of this ultimately conservative genre. The famous debut ‘The
Clash’ in 1977 (Year Zero, of course,) is still a punk template. (White
Man) In Hammersmith Palais is a 1978 single poking fun at their
own Caucasian fascination with reggae. 1978’s ‘Give ‘Em
Enough Rope’ is a lot more clearly produced, which was sacrilege at
the time, but now mean we can hear blistering anti-tourism songs like Safe
European Home more clearly. I’m Not Down is
an inspirational song of survival in the same eager style of Train
In Vain from the mighty ‘London Calling’ of 1979. Stop
The World is the discordant dubby B-Side of 1980’s The
Call Up, and sounds like something one of the punkier Britpop bands
(early Blur, perhaps?) could come up with 15 years later. Ivan meets
G.I. Joe is an inventive Cold War song (using space invader noises)
from the triple album ‘Sandinista!’ which is frankly the biggest
drag they ever released. It’s said that most double albums have a great
single album in them –well, this is a triple album with a great single
album in it somewhere, once you’ve waded through endless dub versions
and quavery filler novelties to find it. It makes ‘Melon Collie’ look
cohesive. Straight To Hell is a beautiful haunting immigration
song from their last good album, 1982’s ‘Combat Rock’,
with a riff that gets the combination of dub and punk exactly right. Trouble –Coldplay
I don’t consider Coldplay depressing, but then again, I’ve never
paid much attention to their lyrics. Certainly there will always be a need for
music which celebrates interiority. Their passionate performance at the MTV video
awards (the same show with the Britney/Madonna/Aguilera snog) showed up most
of the other acts as the insincere nonentities they really are. From the 2000
album ‘Parachutes’.
World
of Love –Deborah Conway
Distantly related to ‘Nothing But Flowers’ by Talking Heads with
kettledrums. Deborah Conway is an Australian singer-songwriter who has been releasing
solo albums since 1991. From 1993’s ‘Bitch Epic’, with the
notorious cover image of her smothered in chocolate spread.
Shipbuilding –Elvis
Costello
Although written about the Falklands War, it’s possible to imagine this
song being sung by Dusty Springfield. This is the sort of heartfelt stuff Costello
stuff does well, whether the emotion is anger (‘Watching the Detectives’)
or angst (‘I Want You’). From 1983’s ‘Punch the Clock’. I
Wish –Graham Coxon
“I wish I could bring Nick Drake back to life” Shouty Graham has
now left Blur, of course, but not before ramming a big fat dose of Pavement into
their nice little Kinks surburban cul-de-sac, a shtick which was charming in ‘Parklife’ and
wearisome in ‘The Great Escape’. Coxon has issued a series of terse
little lo-fi solo albums on which he plays everything and even draws the sleeve.
This is one of the best songs from the first, 1998’s ‘The Sky Is
Too High’. When
You’re Gone –The Cranberries
Although it’s been nearly ten years since their days of world dominance,
the Cranberries are still intact. Reappraising their albums reveals a pattern
scarily similar to that of Oasis –a charming but overlooked first album,
an excellent zeitgeist-defining second album, and then a third album which blows
up in everyone’s faces. As for the fourth and fifth albums…you didn’t
hear those? Neither did anyone else. This song is a gorgeous doo-wop pastiche
from the mostly appalling 1995 album ‘To The Faithful Departed’.
I
Remember –Julee Cruise
Awkward time signatures, mournful saxophone, Julee sounding like the spirit
of
a recently departed doo-wop singer, it’s all there. Julee Cruise sang on
two albums written by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, who also did the music
for Twin Peaks. The results are disturbing and small-town beautiful. Each song
sounds like it was recorded inside a cavernous bar after dark. From 1989’s ‘Floating
Into The Night’.
A
Forest –The Cure
An early fan favourite with a compelling, liquid melody which sounds a
awful
lot like Joy Division. The trees in the song feel as though they’re being
picked out at night by your car headlights as you speed past...on to that all-night
place which sells black nail polish, probably. From 1980’s ‘Seventeen
Seconds’.
For
some music critics, The Cure were their only friends when
they were 13, so reviews of their infrequent new releases are often loaded
with scorn as the critics attempt to demonstrate how far they’ve put
away childish things. Mike Leigh captured this complicated attitude of fondness
and derision in his 1997 movie ‘Career Girls’, which soundtracks
the heroines’ dank student days in the late ‘80s with Cure hits.
Ten years later the sensibly-dressed beige-wearing thirtysomethings are confounded
by the lurid primary colours of a poster advertising ‘Wild Mood Swings’.
Listening only to their singles makes it hard to understand how such a blistering
vaudeville pop group became so identified with Goths –but their album
tracks often sound like they come from a different band. They will always
be remembered for their morose, draggy soundscapes of the late ‘80s
(their most popular period). At least Robert Smith’s voice has remained
surprisingly young. Released just before 1982’s ‘Pornography’, Splintered
In Her Head sounds like a cross between Joy Division and Bow Wow
Wow, stuck with shards of psychedelic harmonica. Gorillaz were paying attention.
1985 B-side New Day comes from their most drug-addled period,
and sounds like a long moan of depair. In-Between Days is
a dynamic New Orderesque single from 1985’s ‘Head On The Door’,
the result of a new, poppier lineup, that was launched into wide popularity
a year later with the release of the singles compilation 'Standing On A Beach’.
At this point they became Big In America, and released a series of bright
singles and mordant albums. One of many songs about Robert Smith’s
wife, Just Like Heaven is from the popular and eclectic
double album ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’ (1987). Accelerating
through nearly ten years and many lineups, Gone! is a swinging
single from 1996’s ‘Wild Mood Swings’. By this stage The
Cure was releasing albums only its fans liked, but what’s wrong with
that? 2000’s ‘Bloodflowers’ featured Maybe Someday,
which melodically is a close re-write of ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries
and ‘San Francisco’ by John Phillips.
A-C D-J K-Q R-Z
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