Category Archives: Controlled Explosions

Shared Name/Shared Love #4: ‘Black History Month’

Posted on 31 January, 2012 | Leave a comment

Welcome back to the Shared Name/Shared Love series – those posts in which I take a brace of identically-titled songs and explains why I love each of them (and then usually why I love one slightly more than the other). In Episode Four, things get a bit racial… Well, not really.

Death From Above 1979 – ‘Black History Month’ from: You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine [2004]	Saul Williams – ‘Black History Month’ from: The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! [2007]

Like many, I imagine, Death From Above 1979 first greeted my ears with the string-scraping intro to ‘Romantic Rights’. They sounded great. Plus they had added novelty value with their line-up: there were just two members, but unlike the White Stripes, it was a bassist and a drummer – no guitar – and the drummer did the singing.

Soon after that initial exposure, I went out to make a purchase. I can’t remember when this was exactly. It was sometime in 2004. Definitely prior to the release of their debut album – which came out in October that year. But it can’t have been too long before, as it was in video form that I encountered ‘Romantic Rights’ – and the version in the video is the album version (as opposed to this version from the Romantic Rights EP, which I just heard for the first time right now – released very early in 2004). The Internet doesn’t seem to know when the video came out. I’m fairly sure it was before they had to append the 1979 to their original name (because of a dispute with James Murphy’s DFA Records) too.

Anyway… at some point in the middle of 2004, I went out to make a purchase of whatever Death From Above release I could find. And all I could find was the Heads Up EP. It kicked ass – particularly the opener, ‘Dead Womb’ and the outstanding ‘Do It!’. It still kicks ass. It’s quick, but relentless. Every song is a short, sharp blast.

Reframed by this hitherto unknown frenetic earlier release, ‘Romantic Rights’ actually lost a bit of its edge. It is, relative to the EP, a softer song. But this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It felt more well-rounded and accomplished. It made me suspect the band had more to offer. I became excited at the prospect of hearing a full-length album.

I got the album, You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine, upon its release. And I was not disappointed. The general level of energy, though inevitably down from Heads Up (which probably wouldn’t have been sustained over an album anyway), was still high, with a great opener and a firecracker of a second single. And there was some subtle variety too, though mostly staying within the bounds of ‘Romantic Rights’.

Except for the real surprise – the album’s most subdued, contemplative song, placed smack bang in the middle of the album (okay, so “subdued” and “contemplative” are relative terms. It’s still fairly loud. But it’s a restrained kind of loud…). And it was called ‘Black History Month’:

Actually, what I like most about this song are the lyrics. This is rare for me. I can’t recall if I’ve gone into detail in any of these posts about not being a lyrics person. But, yeah, I am not a lyrics person. For me, the words are almost always the least important element of a song, especially when it comes to first listens. However, there are always instances of words slowly coming to the fore. And some exceptional cases where they jump out at me.

I don’t know if the lyrics to ‘Black History Month’ jumped, exactly, but I was quick to latch on to them.

Do you remember a time when this pool was
A great place for waterwings and cannonballs?

Perhaps nostalgia and regret speak to me?

The lyrics don’t seem to have anything to do with Black History Month, though. Apparently, the song is so-titled simply because it was written in a February – February being Black History Month. Not that I knew that, as I did not grow up in North America. (Nor am I black… but I definitely think it’s more to do with not living in the US or Canada.) Two white guys doing a song about Black History Month would probably be a bit weird anyway.

Saul Williams‘s ‘Black History Month’, on the other hand, was always going to be a more likely candidate to relate to the titular month – the black experience frequently being subject matter in Mr Williams’s work. A quick listen to the incredible ‘Black Stacey’ will give you an idea, if you are unfamiliar.

I mentioned that I am not a lyrics person. As you would imagine, I am not much of a poetry or spoken-word person, either. And all this has undoubtedly contributed to my relative lack of enthusiasm for hip-hop – I rarely focus on lyrics, so why focus on music in which lyrics are the focus? (Teenage me’s guitars-only rule probably also played a big part.)

It’s highly unlikely that I would have ever gotten in any way entangled with Saul Williams’s material had it not been for a certain Mr Trent Reznor. At that Nine Inch Nails gig in Glasgow, Saul Williams opened the show, having been invited by Reznor to join him on his European tour. His performance was electrifying – and very well-received by the audience, which consisted almost entirely of dour-looking pasty-faced goths, remember. The aforementioned ‘Black Stacey’ stood out. So did the enthralling ‘List of Demands (Reparations)’.

Soon, word on the NIN grapevine was that TR and SW were collaborating on something while on the road. That something turned out to be the next Saul Williams album (his third), dubbed The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, released online (for either zero or five dollars – I was scabby and went with the free version. Sorry Saul. And Trent) in November 2007.

On its surface level, this is Nine Inch Nails fronted by a hip-hop artist (like How To Destroy Angels is, superficially, NIN with a lady vocalist). That alone makes it a fascinating prospect. But the level of collaboration and integration goes much further – even deeper than Trent’s dalliance with Dr Dre (ho ho ho). The resulting blend of styles yields quite a unique album.

Some highlights include ‘Break’ and ‘WTF!’. They do a pretty interesting version of U2′s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, too. But for me, the best track is the very first track. A raucous call to arms to open the show:

Of course, these lyrics do nothing but jump at you. They attack:

Can you feel it? Nothing can save you
I’m tougher than bullets so, baby, pray to your savior
I never been shot, but I bet you I’m braver
I’m taking my spot, nigga, I ain’t afraid to…

But the backing track isn’t passive either: driven by violent, distorted, degraded, pummeling loops. And then, for the refrain, a chorus of dehumanized, manipulated backing vocals “chime” in. Next to this, the DFA79 track seems even more subdued.

Then two minutes in there is this bizarre eye-of-the-storm break. One of the oddly shifted vocals loops persistently in the left channel while Saul unleashes line after line, somehow covering a couple of millennia in about three-quarters of a minute. Before all those voices return for the end.

It’s a thrilling piece of work. So thrilling that it probably does the rest of the album a disservice, by obliterating the listener before the other songs even have a chance.

Listening now, it has kind of obliterated Death From Above 1979′s song’s chance of remaining in my mind. When it comes to this direct head-to-head, I think DFA79′s relative restraint is their undoing, as Saul’s track’s power dominates.

Or am I wrong? Which ‘Black History Month’ does it for you? Have your say:

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Posted in Shared Name/Shared Love

Tagged Death From Above 1979, Saul Williams

Self-Retrospect #7: ‘Snug’

Posted on 15 January, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Self-Retrospect posts are the ones where, instead of talking about how other artists’ songs or albums impacted upon my life, I egoistically attempt to elevate the stature of my own music by discussing it in a similar fashion. (Notice the use of the phrase “other artists” in that sentence.)

In this seventh edition, focusing on the corresponding seventh track on the Projects compilation, things get a little bit quiet…

On 21 March 2003, I recorded a mostly improvised piece called ‘Soothing Effect’. The title was intended to be somewhat ironic, as a listen to the track will demonstrate:

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[download 'Soothing Effect' mp3]

I was going to say “a quick listen”, but at just under eight minutes in length – the longest track I’ve ever put out – it’s anything but quick. Like ‘Apple Tree’, this used a Sonic Youth-style tuning (GGBBDD in this case). Unlike ‘Apple Tree’, however, this one also stuck firmly with the Sonic Youth aesthetic, i.e. it’s fairly fucking noisy.

This was pretty much the culmination of my SY emulation attempts. There wasn’t really a way I could have pushed it further on that front. (Which is not to say that their influence on me dissipated, by any means – just that when it did show up, it was less overt.) As if to commemorate this, the next song I did - the following weekend – was possibly the quietist, most subtle track I’d ever done.

Of course, this new track was mostly an attempt to emulate another band, Beat Happening. I’d come to know Beat Happening through two books: Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life and Everett True’s Live Through This. After being intrigued by both books’ accounts of the band and their lo-fi, low-tech, DIY approach to songwriting, recording and performing, I went and downloaded some of their songs (via Audiogalaxy – without a doubt the greatest P2P file-sharing system of its time!), like ‘Our Secret’ and ‘Hot Chocolate Boy’.

And ‘Indian Summer’, of course.

It’s essentially impossible to mention Beat Happening without mentioning ‘Indian Summer’. Whether or not it’s their best song is debatable, but it’s certainly their most enduring. And I can’t deny the influence it had on that song I went on to write, called ‘Snug’.

For the bulk of its less-than-bulky two minutes and thirteen seconds, the instrumentation consisted of just one clean electric guitar and an unintrusive bass. Atop this, I recorded some detached, unenthusiastic vocals, singing lyrics which were probably a little too twee for comfort. I made a deliberate point of avoiding any rhymes.

All of which makes it sound a bit lame. And perhaps the bulk of the song is a bit lame. But its saving grace – perhaps even a coup de grâce (?) – is the instrumental bridge. For about 18 seconds (from 1:17 to 1:35-ish), four or five extra guitars come in, each playing delicate little lead lines, combining to create this warm, lush blanket of sound. (This might have been where the title of the song came from. I really can’t remember, so let’s say it was.)

This part, along with the extra guitars’ little encore at the end, managed to lift the humdrum majority of the song and take the whole thing to a higher level.

Well, that’s what I thought, anyway. Have a listen for yourself, see if you agree:

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[download 'Snug' mp3]

That instrumental break had a couple of different parents of its own. As I said, Sonic Youth’s influence didn’t go away – and my love of the more mellow, intricate guitar work on the (underrated!) A Thousand Leaves album, such as on ‘Hoarfrost’, showed here. I’m not sure if my timeline’s in check, but this could also have been about the time I was deep into the Velvet Underground’s self-titled third album and ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ in particular – another spark.

But the key inspiration for that part was actually from quite a different breed of song. The intention was that there would be two cycles of verse, pre-chorus and chorus with just the single guitar and bass – centre-panned, so the stereo image was as “narrow” as it could be. And then, in one moment, all these additional guitars would come in, placed “around” the original instruments, with two of the guitars panned to the extremes – hard left and hard right. Directly contrasted with the preceding narrowness, this makes the bridge part sound big, wide, …expansive.

It’s not a particularly original or inventive trick. I’m sure it has been done a zillion times by a zillion different acts. But the single instance of this that stuck in my head – and which is still one of my favourite moments in any song – is in the Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Stand Inside Your Love’. The song’s verse keeps the guitars near enough to the centre. There is an increase in intensity in the pre-chorus (“But for the last time…”), but things remain relatively narrow. Until it kicks into the chorus, with Billy singing the word “dreamed” and those hard left and right guitars crash in …voom!

Mine didn’t go voom, but I think I got the effect I was aiming for.

Having the use of mixing technique as the key element of a song means you have slight problem when it comes to performing it live. Without the big multiple intertwined guitars bit, the song is reduced to its insipid core – and I don’t really think it’s strong enough as such.

Also, particularly when I first started playing gigs, I’ve always found it a lot more difficult to play quiet stuff in front of people. It’s so much easier to be loud and abrasive. When I did my first “David Ding” show (accompanied by my friend Peter on drums), ‘Snug’ was actually on the setlist. However, when it came time to play it, I chickened out and decided to go straight into ‘Flare’ instead.

The only public airing ‘Snug’ ever got was not very public at all. It was at a little show I put on with and for some friends …in my living room. In that quite intimate setting, it was still a bit limp. Since then, it has remained outside of the live repertoire. And until I’m in a position to get five other guitarists to join me on stage, I have a feeling it’s going to stay out there.

I’m not sure if that counts as me letting the song down, or it me. Either way, there’s a letdown in there somewhere. Oh well.

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Top Ten Albums of 2000-2009: #4 – Fever To Tell

Posted on 10 January, 2012 | Leave a comment

We continue counting down my top ten albums of the last decade, with the debut album of a certain bass-eschewing triple-word three-piece – the highest placing release by an American act on the list.

#4
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fever To Tell
[2003]

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs first appeared in 2001 or so, riding the wave of interest in the supposed new-new-wave scene that had sprung up around The Strokes and their highly successful first album Is This It. They didn’t have a full-length album of their own at the time – just a five-song, self-titled EP, which caused quite a few folk to question the level of hype that surrounded them. There were accused of being all style and image – just a troika of poseurs.

That EP was fantastic though. Not that I heard it at the time. I did read about the minor controversy when BBC allowed ‘Bang’ to be played uncensored on daytime radio. (The chorus consists of Karen O repeating: “As a fuck, son, you suck.” - apparently the manager told the Beeb that she was singing “as a funk song you suck”.) I also missed out on the follow year’s three-song EP, Machine, with its fantastic, all-too-overlooked title title track.

It is possible – nay, probable – that my first experience of hearing the band was seeing the video of the first single from Fever to Tell on TV.

But it didn’t stick in my mind, so let’s pretend it didn’t happen.

My first experience of hearing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs occurred on trip to the United States in the summer of 2003 – my first and, thus far, only trip across the Atlantic. First stop was Boston – and it wasn’t long before I found myself in a music shop (or “record store”). One of the first things to surprise and amaze me was a fairly obvious, but foreign to Ireland, technological innovation: listening posts with barcode readers. You scan the CD and you have a listen. Simple, but brilliant. (I’d later find the same thing in Japan, but I still have never ever seen it in Ireland.)

And it was very near one of these magical listening posts that I saw the brash, in-your-face, violent cover art of Fever to Tell. If they were only style and no substance, at least the style stuff was interesting.

I plopped on the headphones. Scanned the disc. And was greeted by some effects-laden guitar harmonics. Then some pounding drums. Then a little sly hint of some other, louder guitars, ushering in a cocksure female vocal. Then feedback. Then riff. Then a break. Then “HEY!”:

I don’t think I even listened past that first song. I just went and bought it. If I’d kept listening I would have gotten a blast of that first single I somehow managed to ignore before. Listening to the song now, it seems inconceivable that it could not have generated some interest. Even after the hundredth listen, ‘Date with the Night’ still grabs you by the fucking balls:

I didn’t get to give the album a full listen until I got back to Ireland. It didn’t take me very long to get into it, though. The songs were short, sharp and to the point. The first five songs fly by in less than thirteen minutes. Each visceral – both musically and lyrically. Sexual too.

The sixth song changed the game in two minutes. That song, ‘Pin’, also released as the album’s second single, traded in the aggression for something more playful and melodic. Poppy, even. Maybe:

On all of these songs, the setup – just vocals, guitar and drums – allowed each member of the band to shine, without treading on each other’s toes. (Not unlike how The White Stripes, more indirect beneficiaries of The Strokes’ success, operated – although in their case, one person was responsible for two of the three elements). Karen O’s had incredible presence. I know that quality is usually described when talking about live performers, but with her you can hear it on the recording (though she seems to have plenty of presence live too…). Brian Chase’s drumming somehow managed have both a light touch and raw power. And Nick Zinner’s guitar work was very literally music to my ears. None of what he plays is superfluous. Every bit of sound he rings out, whether it’s a distinct note or sheer noise, is essential.

Getting back to the album… after ‘Pin’ popped things up, the album got a bit darker. ‘Cold Light’ and ‘No No No’ remain my least favourite songs on the album. But they’re a necessary part of the running order – taking the album down a more off-beat route before revealing its trump card(s).

With the possible exception of ‘Our Time’, Nothing on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Machine EPs really hinted at a softer side. But that’s what comes right to the fore for most of the final third of the album. The last song on the track list, ‘Modern Romance’ and the CD’s hidden track, ‘Poor Song’, are both contenders for the slow set. The former a gentle lilting number, the latter a drunken, end-of-the-night, hold-each-other-up stagger.

The real jewel, of course, was the song – and the video – that made the band:

You can’t ignore the greatness of the song. And on the album, especially after the relative dirge of ‘No No No’, it commands your attention. And I know that I should only really be talking about the music, since it’s the album I’m praising. But that video – it’s impossible to deny. A simple performance set-up, with only some coloured lighting and a couple of lens flares to embellish it. All the power comes through Karen O. She’s absolutely incredible in it.

Song and video together, ‘Maps’ probably remains the band’s finest moment.

But when I do manage to abstract the song from the audio-visual combination, although I still love it, it wouldn’t be my pick of the album. For a bit, that honour went to ‘Tick’. Appearing in that blitz of songs on the first half of the album, it’s undoubtedly the most urgent on the album:

Alas, its reign at the top was, though not as short as the song itself, quite brief.

I said a few paragraphs ago that the soft side of the band came to the fore for most of the album’s final third. That qualification was because one of those later songs was not soft at all. Coming right between ‘Maps’ and ‘Modern Romance’, this song ensured that the album did not fade out quietly. And released as the fourth and final single, ‘Y Control’ gave the band’s Fever to Tell ”cycle” a blistering send off:

(I could only find the uncut/uncensored version of Spike Jonze’s video, which is a shame – the censored version worked a lot better.)

‘Y Control’ takes the energy of the earlier tracks on the album – even mirroring the harmonics of the first track ‘Rich’ with a siren-like looping guitar line – but adds to it the depth of the latter half of the disc. And taking the best elements of the album, it manages to pull them together without diminishing either. Indeed, it creates something even better. It does everything right.

Even when I go back and watch that ‘Maps’ video, when it gets to the end – my main feeling is one of disappointment, because it doesn’t follow through on that retained mini-segue into the next song and just cuts off instead.

But I’m getting a bit nitpicky now…

Overall, the album is a powerhouse. The band would go on to do very different things with the following albums. And not without success. But there’s something about the energy of Fever to Tell that makes it stick with you more instantaneously – and more indelibly – than its successors could achieve.

I don’t love them like I love you.

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Posted in Top Ten Albums of 2000-2009

Tagged Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Non-Album Tracks #6: ‘A Life Less Ordinary’

Posted on 30 December, 2011 | Leave a comment

My sixth Non-Album Tracks post. Like the last one, this one’s a soundtrack track. Its parent film may not have been as good, but the song’s a winner.

Ash – ‘A Life Less Ordinary’
Released on:
A Life Less Ordinary [Soundtrack - 1997]

Also available on:
‘A Life Less Ordinary’ [Single - 1997]
Intergalactic Sonic 7″s [Compilation - 2002]

The summer of 1996 was a coming-of-age summer for me. I was twelve. Just out of primary school and due to start in the big bad world of second-level education – and officially become a teenager – that September. During this time, I was a Scout. A Sea Scout, in fact. And that year, I attended a large camp (or jamboree, if you will) held at Lough Erne in Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. (Fact: this remains, as of Dec 2011 – over 15 years later – the one and only time I have ever been to Northern Ireland.)

Over the course of this camp I met a girl from Dundalk, with whom had my first proper kiss. And quite a few further kisses – she was even kind enough to pass on to me a case of strep throat. Soundtracking a lot of this were several singles from the album 1977 – the debut full-length from the Northern Irish band Ash. The songs were ubiquitous: especially ‘Girl From Mars’, ‘Goldfinger’ and, what seemed to become the unofficial theme of the camp, ‘Oh Yeah’.

I don’t know if it’s because of the inevitable associations I’ve made with the time that it was, but the songs have a definite “young” quality. The fact that two-thirds of the band were under 20 at the time probably helped. But they’re all short, simple, unpretentious (not to say young people can’t be pretentious…). Young

In the summer of 2001, Ash singles were ubiquitous once again. Their third album, Free All Angels, was everywhere, thanks mainly to its two popular lead singles: the masterfully melodic piece of genius that is ‘Shining Light’ and the good-but-actually-quite-overrated-especially-when-compared-to-Shining-Light ‘Burn Baby Burn’. And though the band were five years older, the songs still had that young, effervescent, teenage feeling.

In between these periods of omnipresence? Well, in late 1998 they released their second album, Nu-Clear Sounds, which was not as well-received as its predecessor. It was edgier, occasionally darker and lot less “young”. I say this listening to it now. I don’t remember hearing it or its singles – or much about it, really – at the time. I probably did hear ‘Jesus Says’ at some point. And I remember there being some controversy around the video for ‘Numbskull’ (NSFW). It clearly wasn’t controversial enough, however, as the album kind of vanished into obscurity, dragging the band with it.

Before this sophomore slump upturned the boat, Ash managed to release one standalone gem to the world:

A Life Less Ordinary was Danny Boyle’s third film, his first to be made in America. After the one-two punch of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, the film was a seen as a disappointment. I thought it was pretty good, though it certainly had its flaws. Holly Hunter was great in it. I love Holly Hunter… Anyway… the soundtrack album also failed to live up to Trainspotting‘s. If not in quality, then certainly in cultural penetration. Beck’s ‘Deadweight’, however great it was (and however fantastic Michel Gondry’s video for it was), was never going to outdo ‘Born Slippy’. And the soundtrack committed a heinous crime by including the horrible alternate version of R.E.M.’s best song, instead of the original album version, which features much more prominently (and memorably) in the film.

Ash’s title track appears only instrumentally in the film itself, where [spoiler alert] Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz’s characters successfully rob a bank, then afterwards, in the heat of the moment, share their first kiss – complete with a fairly un-Hollywood shiny string of saliva connecting their mouths as they pull away. It’s that kind of messy urgency you get with the whole young, teenage love thing that I seem to be going on and on about.

But that is still its appeal. ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ succeeds for the same reasons ‘Goldfinder’ and ‘Oh Yeah’ do. It might be slightly more developed in terms of songwriting and production – possibly aided by the augmentation of the line-up, with Charlotte Hatherley joining as a second guitarist. But its core is the exact same. It’s that simple, primal yearning – exemplified by the first line of the chorus: “so take me in your arms again.” It isn’t complex, but it doesn’t need to be. Any complexity would lessen its effect.

When the band resurrected itself, storming the charts with Free All Angels and touring extensively in 2001 and 2002, their sets were dominated by the new tracks and the 1977 singles. The Nu-Clear Sounds material didn’t get much of a look in. ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ was a staple though. And, as far as I know, has remained so since.

Justifiably so.

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Posted in Non-Album Tracks

Tagged Ash

Shared Name/Shared Love #3: ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Posted on 10 December, 2011 | 3 Comments

Shared Name/Shared Love: a series looking at pairs of songs I like, both with the same name. In this, the third installment, we have a band I know I should love, but still haven’t really got around to it – and a band I didn’t like, then liked and am now a bit indifferent to…

Yo La Tengo – ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ from: I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One [1997]	Muse – ‘Stockholm Syndrome‘ from: Absolution [2003]

I first became aware of Yo La Tengo, around the time their Summer Sun album came out in 2003. I remember reading a couple of articles about them, being intrigued by the band’s name and some mentions of Sonic Youth. But the intrigue was not enough to get me to pick up the album.

They remained on the outskirts of my radar, their name popping up on music sites every so often. I built up a picture of them in my mind. They seemed to have a reputation for having great versatility, a good sense of humour, for being a great live act, etc. Everyone seemed to think they were brilliant. I had no reason to doubt this, I just didn’t have that impetus to dive in.

The deadlock broke a couple of years after first hearing about them, when I spotted their best-of compilation Prisoners of Love on special offer in Tower Records. The collection had 26 tracks from 1985-2003, spread over two discs (there is also three-disc version – the third CD dedicated to rarities). I brought it home and prepared to have my first ever Yo La Tengo listening experience.

‘Stockholm Syndrome’ is track five on the first disc. To be honest, on first listen, it did not stand out for me at all. I instantaneously latched on to the noisier numbers, like ‘Sugarcube’ and ‘From a Motel 6′ - and fell in love with their delicate cover of George McRae’s ‘You Can Have It All’. But after repeated listens, ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ began to shine through.

To be fair, it is – on first impression – quite a subdued, downbeat song. It chugs along sedately at first, with James McNew’s plaintive vocal questioning “what’s the matter?” It sounds pleasant and simple enough, but nothing particularly spectacular.

The magic really starts with the chorus, when McNew reaches for the higher notes, with Georgia Hubley’s husky backing vocals coming in underneath. The blend of their voices is sublime. And then, out of nowhere, we get a bruising, distorted lead guitar crashing in for a brief solo. The song is then inverted, going back to the chorus and finishing with another sombre verse. The palindromic structure reflects the heartbreak that comes from having gained something, built it up – and then losing it. Or something like that…

Despite really liking that compilation. I never really went on to become a full-on Yo La Tengo fan. I’m still not really sure why. The potential is still there. I just need to find some time…

When Muse first showed up, I loathed them. This was around the time MTV2 had launched – and we finally had a channel constantly playing “alternative” music. Unfortunately, it did feature a bit of nu-metal Papa Roach/Limp Bizkit shite – and then it kept showing videos from this three-piece English band with a really whiny lead singer who did loads of masturbatory guitar stuff. And the videos themselves were so annoying, with their heavy-handed concepts of girls seeing shit in mirrors or getting lost in anonymous buildings or – most irritating of all – that one with everyone crying their eyes out.

Things obviously got worse when everyone started heaping praise on them and making them really popular. People went nuts over the first single from their second album and I couldn’t understand it. The vocals were even whinier and the guitar parts even wankier. Ugh.

The first chink in my armour appeared when they came out with ‘New Born’. I really wanted to hate it – and thought I was going to be vindicated when the song opened up with a minute long intro of Matt Bellamy wailing over a twinkly piano part. But then that riff kicked in. I couldn’t help it. It was undeniably brilliant. Damn them!

I had a soft spot for the next single, ‘Bliss’, but with ‘Hyper Music’ and that grating cover of ‘Feeling Good’, I could comfortably go back to disliking/trying to ignore them.

And then, sometime in the summer of 2003, probably not too long after I was first reading about Yo La Tengo, they came out with the first single of their third album. And it kicked my arse:

(embedding disabled on the official video, you can see it here – though it’s a bit meh, so…)

I’m not sure exactly what it is about this track that got to me. I mean, all the ingredients are pretty much the same things that pissed me off about them all along. But it all just came together brilliantly. For once, the shreddy, wanky guitar and the moany shrieking vocals served the song, elevating it to some higher level. And that line in the chorus, “this is the last time I’ll abandon you.” – simple, powerful.

I ended up getting – and liking – the Absolution album. And the album after that too. I even went to see them live in Fukuoka. And enjoyed it. But then they went and released The Resistance and made it difficult to keep liking them. Sadly.

Re-listening to the two ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ songs back-to-back, it’s tricky to pick one over the other. They’re two completely different types of song. The Muse track packs much more of a punch. But then Yo La Tengo’s, guitar solo excepted, isn’t really aiming for a punch. It’s wrenching power vs low-key subtlety.

I think I might have to go with Muse’s, simply due to its ability to actually induce a sort of Stockholm syndrome in me – where I actually began to have positive feelings for a band that had held me hostage with tracks that had irritated me so.

What do you reckon yourselves?

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Posted in Shared Name/Shared Love

Tagged Muse, Yo La Tengo

Category Archives: Controlled Explosions

Shared Name/Shared Love #4: ‘Black History Month’

Self-Retrospect #7: ‘Snug’

Top Ten Albums of 2000-2009: #4 – Fever To Tell

Non-Album Tracks #6: ‘A Life Less Ordinary’

Shared Name/Shared Love #3: ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

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