Review Summary: Pretty much a fascinatingly interesting and delightfully lovable album, I suppose.
I guess there are lots of words I could use when discussing Beat Happening like “indie” and “minimalism” and “female vocals” and “cool” and “unique” and “they don’t have a bassist” but I’m not actually going to use any of those words when I talk about Beat Happening. I’m also not going to go into a long history of the band because, in all honesty, I know next to nothing about them except that the singer’s name is Calvin something and I like the music they made when they existed.
I suppose I should explain why exactly I love the album
You Turn Me On as much as I do. Well, first of all, it is an extremely sweet and nice album with childish and lovey-dove lyrics that make me feel quite young again, which is honestly one of the only things I look for in music anymore because I’m now in my later teenage years and I miss my early childhood but we won’t go into any of that. Probably the best example of the delightful childishness is “Noise.” It’s quite a pretty song with female vocals and quite honestly one of the better tracks on the album, and whenever I listen to this particular song I get the remarkable urge to do something absolutely ridiculous, like suddenly kiss an attractive girl that I barely know (and use my tongue of course) or throw something delicate (like glass) at a wall or hit a large person, but we won’t go into any of that now of course. Most of the songs bring me an overwhelming sense of happiness, with the exception of “Tiger Trap” which seems to be quite sad, though it is does seem to possess a sense of
“quiet acceptance” I suppose you could say and it is incredibly good and not even remotely bad at all.
I suppose I should probably mention the singer’s fascinatingly interesting voice. I think someone on another website likened it to that of a “zombified Lou Reed” and I think that’s really an excellent description. This especially shows in the title track, which kicks ass of course. His voice is very low and droning in contrast to the soft, whispery singing of the girl who sometimes sings. This creates a very interesting sound and puts a nice spin on these nine fascinating pop-songs, perhaps best shown in the closing track “Bury The Hammer” which is also one of the finest.
Of course, one of the most fascinating and interesting things about
You Turn Me On is the way the band manages to create remarkably simple songs with sparse arrangements but somehow make them last for more than six minutes or more (nine minutes in the case of the wonderful “Godsend”) without it ever becoming boring or dull. In fact, this album feels remarkably short when listened to as a whole, while at the same time it seems complete. I guess this is because it succeeds in pretty much everything it sets out to do and every track is fascinatingly excellent.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that Beat Happening has made a truly classic record with
You Turn Me On. It may not seem that way on the surface or when listened to the first several times, but its beauty and excellence becomes apparent after awhile and whatnot. I was listening to the album while I was writing this, and now that it’s over, I believe I’m going to listen to it again and become flooded with childlike wonder and nostalgia all over again.
Thank you.
