Now this is just creepy. There’s such an unsettling vibe to this whole thing, from the band name to the artwork to the massive industrial groove beat that throws me all the way back to The Downward Spiral. Oh, and those shrill, shouted vocals, followed by by the low, distorted Frank the Rabbit (Donnie Darko) spoken passage. Yikes. This thing just feels monumental. I get the feeling from the tracklist that there could be some serious political vibes on this thing as well. The band itself has 25k Facebook likes, so this is very much a fringe “under the radar band” (sure, they don’t have hundreds of thousands of followers)…but they have only released one album (as far as my knowledge and a cursory google search can tell) and it was all the way back in 2010. Apparently, Gate of Grief has been 7 years in the making. I have a feeling it will be well worth the wait, and one of those albums that catches everyone off guard when it comes out of nowhere. Consider me as hyped as I’ve been for anything so far in 2018.
The first things which interest me on every play of this album are the parallels between Kids See Ghosts and Pusha T’s DAYTONA. Both albums begin with a slow, surgical verse from Pusha delivered nearly a cappella; both move to a foot-stomping Track 2 built around vintage-sounding guitars with a hint of psychedelia; both repurpose soundbites with positive intentions and turn them to their own twisted ends. (To that last point, “Come Back Baby”‘s flip of Mighty Hannibal’s anti-drug “The Truth Shall Make You Free” as an intro to, uh, a drug song is one of Kanye’s best black comedy moments, while “4th Dimension”’s creepy sample is where the album veers closest to its surreal cover art). This isn’t a direct one-to-one comparison, though, and it’s the divergences between the albums which colour them as much as their similarities. While DAYTONA doubles down on Pusha’s ice-cold raps in its second half, Kids See Ghosts starts to resemble a more complete ye in its emotionally vulnerable second half, when the two rappers begin an unexpected, touching reckoning with their insecurities and mistakes.
This is why a moment which many have justifiably rolled eyes at, namely Cudi’s extended repetition of the chorus at the end of “Reborn”, is to me the most important on the album. This more than anything is music of reclamation – “Freeee” reclaims a line 070 Shake introduced to the project as an ode to emotional numbness and turns it to joyous proclamation, “Cudi Montage” reclaims Cudi’s…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Daryl Braithwaite – “You’re My World”
6 January – 20 January 1975 (3 Weeks).
Perhaps one of the most underrated delights of exploring a history of Australian pop music is that I can accord some attention to songwriters that have either had a minimal presence in the US and the UK, or just plainly didn’t make much of an international dent to begin with. Daryl Braithwaite is one of those performers; having fronted Sherbet, he produced some of Australia’s biggest anthems including “Summer Love” and “Howzat,” whilst topping the charts in his own right with “One Summer” and “The Horses.” As an inductee to the ARIA Hall of Fame, he’s a national treasure; to those North of the equator, he’s Daryl Braithwaite.
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Carl Douglas – “Kung Fu Fighting”
16 December – 30 December 1974 (3 Weeks).
Perhaps the best argument against the posterity of the charts and certain song’s placement within them is that they often fete cultural moments that are decidedly one time only. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with the virtue of being inane and mindless; however, when oriental riffs become lodged into critical discussions like this, it’s hard not to condescend to the source material. Which is a literary way of saying: this thing hasn’t aged well.
Having said that, it wouldn’t have aged well even if society decided that the main riff for this song is just slightly offensive retrospectively. Regardless of all of that discussion, it’s a…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Olivia Newton-John – “I Honestly Love You”
18 November – 9 December 1974 (4 Weeks)
It’s possible that “I Honestly Love You” invented the tired cinematic trope of the ironic soundtrack choice. When it appears in Jaws, Alex and his dog disappear; all the while, Olivia Newton John hums on the radio, soft, lulling, delicate, and unassuming. The song was barely a year old at the time, but its subverted and mismatched application makes it feel as if were always somewhere there, tucked away in the scenery.
In part, that’s because this is the 1970s, and this is Peter Allen, so the nostalgia felt is integral to the composition. Heard as it were, it’s a plainly inoffensive and lilting performance from John, who, removed from Grease…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Paper Lace – “The Night Chicago Died”
23 September – 11 November 1974 (8 Weeks).
It’s difficult to be enthused about Paper Lace in the retrospective; their other hit, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero,” is a relic, and proof enough that chart success does not always signal timelessness, or any measure of ongoing interest. It’s also not very good, but a lot of that can be attributed to production that has naturally deteriorated over time. You can forgive them, but you can also forget them.
Much like “Billy,” “Chicago” found more fame when Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods’ rendition topped the US charts. However, in doing so, they also managed to piss off Chicago mayor Richard Daley, and make an assortment of geographic and…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Stevie Wright – “Evie”
12 August – 16 September 1974 (6 Weeks).
I don’t much care for nostalgia; I especially despise nostalgia that puts the burden of ambition on the present because, supposedly, those in the past were the only ones brave enough to pave the way for ill-thought, impulsive, and indulgent expression. In the context of “Evie,” it’s nostalgia for the plodding, mammoth rock songs of yesterday, and the particular way in which extended suites are apparently not attempted in this modern scene (although the success of songs like “Runaway” certainly challenge that notion, but rockism is only a minor point of contention in this dialogue). Rock songs— specifically, ridiculous and unnecessarily long rock songs— have always had an audience, as “Stairway to…
I must confess that this is not my idea; having recently come across Tom Breihan’s ‘The Number Ones’ column for Stereogum, and in turn, Tom Ewing’s ‘Popular’ column for Freaky Trigger, I felt inspired to approach the format from my own geographical perspective; that is, review every single to reach number 1 on the ARIA Charts/Kent Report, and assign a numerical grade from 1-10. In the interest of brevity (and some pertinence), the column shall begin from July 1974, the date in which the initial Kent Report was first published commercially, and work forwards from there. Dependent upon time constraints and general interest, publishing of these articles will, similar to Ewing and Breihan’s columns, be daily. And now…
Paper Lace – “Billy Don’t Be A Hero”
17 June – 5 August 1974 (8 Weeks).
In the heat of Vietnam, “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” became associated with a reflexive opposition to the condemned Indochinese conflict; pop culture had gone to such great heights to illustrate the crude, imperialistic, and toxically masculine overtones of the war, and, at least for Australia who had contributed more than 7000 military men and had approximately half of them return dead or injured in 1971, the opposition resonated. Not least of all because Vietnam vets were soon being spat on and excluded from RSL clubs and parades; hostility toward military presence in Vietnam lingered long after the conflict, as it did in the US and elsewhere.
That moment when you first hear a song, and you can’t fight the beginning of a smile. Uplifting music has sort of become a lost art, at least to me. I’m always searching for the next earth-shattering revelation, as if a song is going to help me understand the universe or something. I don’t often take the time to stop and appreciate the most basic benefit of music: making you feel good.
For me, I don’t ask for much: I just want something upbeat, catchy, and entertaining. I’m not sure why, but lately I can’t seem to stop finding these kinds of tunes – and in places I wouldn’t necessarily expect. These are not radio staples or bangers from female pop stars…they’re mostly intriguing pop-rock tracks from artists that haven’t really made it “big time” yet, which is perfect because it keeps with my theme of discovering under-the-radar music in 2018. Here’s 3 songs that lately have been making me want to dance through the day – or at the very least, be okay with the shitty realities of everyday life.
Enjoy.
(1) Mother Mother – “Love Stuck”
It’s like a ‘Mr Blue Sky’ or ‘You Make My Dreams’ for this generation. I dare you to listen to this and have a shitty day.
“Bit of a dark spiral with no end, I thought” – Algeria Touchshriek
For brevity’s sake, I’ll leave my thoughts on the first three decades of Bowie for another time, except to say that his 70s output is among the greatest run of any artist in history and his 80s output is… not. Even in his worst decade, the man remained a fascinating enigma, screaming his lungs out over Japanese spoken word and Robert Fripp’s angle grinder on one album, giving us “Let’s Dance” on the next. His tacky 80s pop set the stage for a massive comeback that wouldn’t really come until The Next Day or Blackstar, if it came at all; which leaves the 90s and 00s as somewhat stopgap decades, a time period most Bowie purists consider to be when he released stuff that was better than Never Let Me Down but worse than most of the rest. Conversely, though, this stopgap holds two of Bowie’s absolute best; and the first of the two sounds little like pretty much anything else.
So: Outside, or to be pedantic, 1. Outside. A frustrating listen from the outset, if you go in with the knowledge that it’s the first in a pentalogy that was never completed, one inspired by the fear of the upcoming millennium and built on a concept about art crime serial killings investigated by a noir detective who talks out of the side of the mouth. Even writing it makes it sound like a Blade Runner…
To be fair to CHVRCHES, I’m not entirely sure what progression for them sounds like. Does it sound like some backwards adoption of analogue synths and sound collage as an experimental form? The alternative to that would be to go bigger, less subtle, and more infectious with their pop songs, and I don’t know if they’re capable of that. They’ve already perfected vague ennui and a handful hooks for a few years now, and so the success of their songs relies almost entirely on their quality, rather than they do the scope or breadth of their ambition.
Which is why it is difficult to assess “Get Out,” because on first listen it’s just not very good. The verses aren’t especially memorable, which automatically robs them of a place to put at least one good hook, and the chorus is only memorable because it’s basic, not because it’s familiar. You’ve heard it before, but it’s not nostalgia; it’s just another pop rock song in a litany of others. But fans of Every Open Eye can make the credible case that, as it became clearer and clearer that CHVRCHES weren’t going to be doing much other than writing a few good songs, it slowly revealed itself as a decent enough album. There exists the possibility that the same might happen for “Get Out,” and so I won’t go too hard into its faults (moreover, it being boring). The fundamentals of the song remain the same, however; its melody isn’t impressive, its instrumentation is lifeless, and…
As I see it, over time, the music of The Fall has become the staunchest formative presence in my life. Found out at fourteen, picking up a bootleg cassette of Dragnet at an outdoors market. And all through the years that followed. Blasting ‘Garden’ on long night walks. Drunkenly hopping to ‘The Classical’ at my wedding. ‘Fiery Jack’ on my headphones on repeat as I cowered in a vomit-spackled corner of the main room of that overnight Japan-Korea ferry that spent ten agonizing swinging hours moving through a Pacific tsunami. ‘Totally Wired’ rattling in my brain as I repeatedly walked out of jobs, careers, relationships, lost schmoozing opportunities, ambitions, refusing to yield, however self-effacing. ‘No Bulbs’ becoming the centerpiece of my chemical afflictions. And ‘Fantastic Life’ playing at full tilt in a bar in New Orleans outside which I got into a bloody fight with that Kentucky marine (lost a tooth, broke his jaw). As hokey and idiotically juvenile as it might be, it’s something that helped me zero in on what it meant to preserve a bit of primal soul. I danced to this music in dark rooms, and my guts were on fire.
A small lifetime ago, I worked at a record shop for an old burnt-out Brit who used to say that a proper Englishman listened to Blue Orchids in the summer, Joy Division in the winter, The Damned in autumn, Sex Pistols in spring,…
An astoundingly large portion of Pink Floyd’s back catalogue was unceremoniously released into the world in 2016. When I say ‘unceremoniously’, I mean a lavish multi-disc, Blu-ray and DVD boxset which extensively covered their first seven years of life; but when you consider this music one of life’s finer pleasures and these rarities as basically a wellspring of lost gold, the boxset feels a lot less than they deserved. In fact, the not-insignificant price tag of The Early Years would have undoubtedly turned some fans off from digging into material that should be in everyone’s collection.
I mean, just try some out for size – like the brilliantly loopy lost Syd Barrett cuts “Vegetable Man” and “Scream Thy Last Scream”. The former features some of the band’s all-time catchiest melodies against a disturbingly self-reflective lyric from Syd, reportedly blocked from A Saucerful of Secrets for being “too dark”, while the latter boasts Nick Mason belting out a rare lead vocal of surreal rhymes over chipmunk backing vocals ripped straight from your nightmares. Or maybe the half-hour long “John Latham” jam, an extended improvisational soundtrack to an early piece of British surrealism that makes “Interstellar Overdrive” sound pretty tame. Or, moving past the Syd years, you have The Man and the Journey, a legendary live show that combined musique concrete, pastoral folk and explosive psychedelia as the band tried to re-jig songs from their first four albums into an impressionistic concept piece involving pink jungles and temples of light. There are diamonds on…
There’s little sentimental to be had about “Spotlight,” because throughout his career, Lil Peep has always sounded like this; awash in syrupy, Xanax-fuelled haze, doing his best to sound just like Blink 182’s Blink 182. The same goes for Marshmello, whose “Wolves” and “Silence” rise and fall in similar fashion to the production delivered here, churning up some of Peep’s emo and pop punk instrumentals and giving them a muted, subtly anthemic undercurrent. It’s probably the closest Peep had come to a pop single before his passing, and its why the song’s opening declaration, that, ‘this time, I’ll be on my own, my friend / One more time, I’m all alone again,’ is ever so slightly more potent. Yes, Peep could be making a farewell, but he’s also saying everything he has already said before, succinctly, and better.
So, chalk it up to kismet or chalk it up to progression, there’s a lot about “Spotlight” that sounds like just another long wave goodbye. There are prophetical lines, and there are clichéd cries for love; there’s a constant, droning melody, and there’s a big, power ballad of a chorus, too. And in between, Peep’s lines never sound uncharacteristic, particularly his drearily declaring that he’s ‘faded,’ or that he’s, ‘all alone again.’ This was and always will be the public image of Lil Peep: a miserable 21-year old, battling with sobriety and dependency, motivated by little other than a desire to feel something, whatever that something might be. At junctures, it could sound empty, and…
I’m glad this isn’t a country song, or a rap song, or a country rap song; I’m glad it doesn’t sound like Joanne, or Forever Young; I’m glad Juicy J, Dave Berman, or Al Gore aren’t rapping on this thing; I’m glad this doesn’t sound like “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” The 20/20 Experience, Future Sex / Love Sounds, or Justified. These are all things to be thankful for.
I’m not glad that Justin’s having his Yeezus moment. It didn’t suit Taylor Swift’s Reputation, as was evidenced by that album’s awkward sounds and playfully muddled production, and it doesn’t suit “Filthy,” which takes Justin’s falsetto and puts it over top of a distended, grand ‘70s rock sample and a screwy, unrelated wobbly bass thing. ‘Hater’s gon’ say it’s fake,’ spits Justin, rolling up the sleeves on his suit jacket and informing us that this ‘ain’t the clean version,’ in case there was any confusion. It’s not as terribly stilted or as unsexy as “Look What You Made Me Do,” this song’s closest recent compatriot, but it’s also overreaching for something entirely weird and unnecessary. Honestly, did Justin not leave N*SYNC a few decades ago? Aren’t we all use to him being sexy? Did he not write a song about bringing sexy back? Did he not release an album whose title alluded to his ability to court, fuck, and marry you? Why must he insist that this particular song is real, or a moment wherein he ‘gets [his] swagger back?’ Has the…
