#1450: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Universally Speaking

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Not so long ago, I was writing about another Red Hot Chili Peppers song on here. That too also happened to be a single. The Peppers are a really good singles band. I don’t think people would disagree with me on that. Every song of the band’s that I’ve covered on here just happen to be one. ‘Under the Bridge’, that was a big single, I told you all about it already. ‘Universally Speaking’, not so much. It was the fourth and final single released from By the Way, in June 2003. That album had been out for almost a year by that point. But it was another successful one, and the record label were gonna take whatever monetary gain they could get. The song’s music video usually played on Kerrang! more than anywhere else from what I remember. It’s the sequel to the ‘By the Way’ video, seeing the crazed cab driver from that – played by Dave Sheridan (Doofy from Scary Movie) – attempting to return the magazine he took from Kiedis, by sneaking into Coachella 2003. He gets up to all sorts of nonsense and eventually succeeds in his mission. Nothing to do with the song, but it’s funny nonetheless.

The story you hear about the making of By the Way mainly revolves around how Flea was quite close to leaving the band because John Frusciante seemed to be rejecting every musical idea he had. But one idea brought in by Flea that was deemed worthy by Lord Frusciante was ‘Universally Speaking’. I’m being facetious. But it’s no joke, the song was something he brought to the group. And it’s placed in the second spot on the album, which I think kind of indicates some strong feelings for it in part of the bandmembers. So imagine, you’re going through By the Way the first time. The opener, the title track, gives that mix of exhilarating funk and melody that the Chilis are known for, loved for, adored for. Then ‘Universally…’ comes along. Slows things down a little, but still really impactful with the stomping rhythm established by drummer Chad Smith. Frusciante plays some steady guitar chords over the top. Flea rounds it off with a warming bass line that rings out underneath it all. It’s a solid introduction. The instrumentalists doing their thing to build anticipation. And then Anthony Kiedis starts singing. He sounds fine. He’s sort of singing in the lower part of his register, which I don’t think he did all that often up to that point. I think he’s got that recognisable tone in his singing voice he, displayed in places like ‘Otherside’, ‘Californication’, or even ‘By the Way’. It makes for a nice change up in this situation.

The meme goes that Kiedis’s lyrics are only about women, or the state of California, or women in California, and then he’ll put some nonsensical words for good measure. ‘Universally Speaking’ is very clearly about a woman of Anthony Kiedis’s desires. He sees her, he’s entranced, he’s got to get her and judging by the words in the chorus and those sections where the song’s title is said, he does. But there’s no nonsense here. He does have a style of putting words together so they can sound good to the music, I think even he’s said before. Like, “Silveretta, the chance of a lifetime”, doesn’t make much sense, but with the music alongside it, it somehow means a lot. ‘Specially the way it’s sung. And especially, especially when John Frusciante joins in with the harmony in the final chorus. That outro with Frusciante’s solo is quite special too, really puts the cherry on. I’d also like to shout out that key change that happens when Kiedis sings “Come on, baby, ’cause there’s no name for…” etc., again with Frusciantes harmonising “Ooh” alongside. Don’t think that sort of practice was ever put into place in an album of theirs before, which really puts into perspective that focus on melody that was the lynchpin behind the sessions for that album.

#1449: Blur – The Universal

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Readers from the UK, it is that song from the British Gas adverts. There will be people out there who would have been introduced to Blur’s ‘The Universal’ through its use on the company’s advertising campaign in the early-2010s. I wasn’t one of them. It was those instances where I’d catch its music video on the TV somewhere, about ’05/’06 time. When it came to ‘The Universal’, I found myself changing the channel, the song’s video would be playing, but it would almost be at its end. It seemed to be a pattern that I’d never catch the beginning of it. YouTube was just in its early stages of being a working company, I didn’t know about its existence. But I did watch the video online on a site that I can’t remember and is probably irrelevant now. It wasn’t like I was missing out on much. The opening just shows a microphone, its cord being pulled and a long pull-out shot of the band as they mean-mug the camera. All an imitation of A Clockwork Orange, if you didn’t know already.

I mean, it’s ‘The Universal’, innit? I think even fans who don’t regard The Great Escape as one of Blur’s finest moments – again, I’m not one of them – can still put their hands up and admit that the track’s one of the band’s best. You ever see the group play it live, it brings the people together. It’s that “really, really, really could happen” refrain, just grabs you. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to pin down what the track is about. It seems to be about everyone and everything. When I say “everyone”, I mean the people of Britain. That was Damon Albarn’s whole thing for a while back then. It’s about being under surveillance, it’s about nights out at the karaoke bar. I think the “Tomorrow’s your lucky day” and “Really, really could happen” stuff refers to the National Lottery, which was a relatively new thing in 1995. It’s a subject “discussed” in fellow album track ‘It Could Be You’ too. The track has a sort of ‘The Future Is Now’ theme going on, heightened by the musicality with the horns and choir sections, but undercut by the mundanity of society as observed by Albarn.

Once I found the video online and heard the whole song in full, it was pretty much a given that ‘The Universal’ was gonna be a tune I’d return to for years. By 2006, or whenever it was, that had already been the case for millions of other people. But it goes to show how strongly the song held up even 11 years from its initial release. Let’s take away Albarn’s vocal, which he provides so effortlessly across the board, from the coolness in the verses to the rousing delivery in the choruses. Graham Coxon provides two guitar parts, the stabs in the left ear and the pretty, fluttering pattern in the right. Alex James alternates between ‘silky’ and ‘busy’ in terms for settings for his bass guitar work. And I’ve got no complaints about Dave Rowntree’s drums, he gets the job done. It’s a tight band performance. But the strings, the horns, the “Just let them go”s from the harmonizing lady vocalists. Those are what takes the song to another level. Imagine the song’s triumphant almost-instrumental last-minute ending without those three components. The section would end up sounding very empty. But the mix of the band and the outside performers altogether, that’s what gets the people tearing up at their shows. It’s right in the center of The Great Escape. I have no problems with ‘Yuko & Hiro’ as the whole closer. But I’ve seen a complaint saying ‘The Universal’ should have been, and I see it. It at least closes out the first half.

#1448: OutKast – Unhappy

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Guys, I swear, I do like songs by OutKast that aren’t on Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Not that it should matter whether I do or not. But you click on the ‘outkast’ tag at the bottom of this post and see that the only songs by the group on here are from the double album, you might think it a little strange. I was eight years old during that era of OutKast. ‘Hey Ya!’ and ‘Roses’ were everywhere. ‘The Way You Move’ to a lesser extent, but that was in the UK. I liked ‘Hey Ya!’ just like everyone else. I wanted the single. My aunt got me the double album. And so, that was from where I got the OutKast songs to put on my iPod, iPhone, whatever, up to 2021, which was when I decided I needed to stop adding songs and eventually bring an end to this entire series. Any additional tracks of theirs are in my Liked Songs playlist on Spotify. But in this space, it’s the double album all the way. There are much worse options out there.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve come to prefer Speakerboxxx over The Love Below. The latter has the big, big hits, it was the first big artistic statement of André 3000. But I find myself returning to Big Boi’s half more often. There are more posts on the blog from Speakerboxxx than from The Love Below, so my feelings on the two were always kind of present. One of the songs on Speakerboxxx that I’ve been going back to for a while now is its third song on there, ‘Unhappy’. I didn’t really get around to this one until about 2010 or something. Think it came up on an iTunes library shuffle session when I was playing a FIFA game at the same time. Or maybe I just decided to listen to the whole double album one day… Either way, I got to know the song a lot better. I feel like ‘Unhappy’ could have been a single. But maybe it’s the pessimistic overtone of the lyrics that prevented it from being so. “Might as well have fun ’cause your happiness is done, and your goose is cooked” is the hook. Sung with a real warmth with all the vocals alongside the upbeat production, there’s that melody that sounds like a ringtone in the right channel chirping for most of the track. The “flip that smile upside down now” phrase, first sung by Big Boi (I’m sure) and then later by Debra Killings, are almost childlike in their respective deliveries. But I think it’s all a trick to distract you from what’s relayed in the words.

Scattered in between the hooks come Big Boi’s three verses in which he provides some life lessons and gives the listener a look into his own experiences. Just a couple of those lessons as detailed in the first verse include staying out of harm’s way and to prevent people from taking advantage of you. He tells us that happiness can’t be bought and ties that in with how his mum and dad would earn enough money to get by and keep up appearances, only to end up in debt by the start of the new year. He reminisces on a time in 1979 when things weren’t particularly great within the household. But then he grounds himself in present-day 2003, where he’s confident with who he is as a man and proud to have achieved the success he has. So there’s a little light there by the end. I once read an interpretation in a comment somewhere that the finished happiness as referred to in the chorus is that of the true kind you had when you were a child. Less inhibitions, the innocence and all of that. So the hook is telling us have as much as we can in this life, ’cause we’ll never truly be happy as were when we were young. And the way the hook repeats with a fade-out to silence, makes it feel like a very unresolved type of situation. Had to bring the mood down a little after ‘Ghetto Musick’ somehow, I guess.

#1447: Jupiter One – Unglued

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Another post inspired by my fascination with FIFA soundtracks. As you may or may not recall, I owned FIFA 07 and the previous games going back to 2003. I was a major fan. September 2007 came around, and the brand-new edition, FIFA 08 was released. 07 was old and busted, 08 was the new hotness. I had to get it. And I did. It was the first FIFA game I bought with my own money, at the old Woolworths store down the road from my secondary school. No Christmas / birthday gift here. I recall using a £50 note to buy it. Only God knows how I managed to get a hold of that. 2007/08 as a period in my life is one that I can barely remember for some reason. The facts then were I was now in Year 8, and I was 12-years old turning 13. Maybe it was all the hormonal changes going on, changed the brain chemistry. But a lot of time was spent playing FIFA 08, I know that for certain. The stuff was addictive, I couldn’t help myself.

Jupiter One’s ‘Unglued’ was a tune that appeared in the game’s menu music. Again, it wasn’t one of the moments where I first heard the track and was stopped in my tracks. Even if it was, it wouldn’t be a moment I’d clearly remember, ’cause of the whole memory blank on the time thing. But I feel like after playing the game a few times and getting used to the range of songs that played in the navigational sections, ‘Unglued’ eventually became one of the few that was a standout to me. I do want to say that when I did start enjoying the track as a thing in itself, what popped out initially was the melody in the verses. It sounded so familiar, like a melody that should have been existing for decades up to that point, like a “Singing in the Rain” type of situation. I think I liked that the title itself isn’t sung in the choruses, but rather slipped in twice during the first pre-chorus and the second verse. Thinking about it now, I do also remember being dramatic, staring blankly into the wall, miming to the unexpected, minor-key “Twice in my life…” coda. I guess I was trying to be “part of the song”, trying to capture the feeling it was going for. Definitely had some theatre-kid energy when I was younger, I must admit.

Seems to me that ‘Unglued’ sort of builds a narrative between past and present. It’s in the verses where singer Kaoru Ishibashi depicts a scene of being in a cemetery, describing the trees around him and being on a beach somewhere. Very in the moment. And then in the pre-choruses, he turns to nostalgia and begins to remember how things were. The second pre-chorus in particular, beginning with “And people never used to smile…” ending with, “Looking like I never win, but I feel fine”. The chain of lyrics there, I really like ’em. Just how Ishibashi brings up this sort of pattern from the past and finds a kinship with it, it’s nice. And he sings it all very nicely too. The choruses are a thrill, and after the last one there’s the aforementioned coda where things take a left turn and get a little spacey and floaty in the process. I wonder when those two times Ishibashi thought there was a wall at the edge of the world occurred. This was my introduction to Jupiter One all those years ago. EA Sports probably liked the band or their sole album at the time, their self-titled LP, so much so that another song from there was on the soundtrack of FIFA 09. You know I got that game too. But ‘Unglued’ always did the job for me.

#1446: Pavement – Unfair

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Before I get to the subject of today’s post, I think we should get into the background of another Pavement song. ‘Two States’. Now, that’s a number from the band’s debut album, Slanted and Enchanted. Sounds a lot like The Fall. Written by guitarist Scott Kannberg, usually referred to as ‘Spiral Stairs’, the track expresses a desire to split the state of California into two separate ones. ‘North and South’. I don’t know if there’s some historical context there. Any readers from California, please enlighten me on the subject if you have the time. ‘Two States’ is a fun track. A little primitive. Tom-tom heavy with a swinging tempo and chants of ’40 million daggers’ for a chorus. It’ll get the crowd involved when Pavement bring it out live, which they can do now since they’re a functioning act again. Saw them in Barcelona at Primavera 2022, myself. Was a fantastic night. That’s something I can tick off my metaphorical list of things I want to do in this life.

Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain followed as Pavement’s second album a couple years after. On there as its sixth track is ‘Unfair’, which sees Stephen Malkmus addressing the North / South California divide this time round. While Kannberg asks for the complete split in his song, Malkmus makes note of the disparity between the two areas here and outlines his disgust for the southern half of the state. Pavement originate from Stockton, Northern California. I think it’s something they pride themselves on. Because of Hollywood and the glitz and glamour found in the South, the North usually becomes the forgotten part of the entire state, hence the song’s title. “The South takes what the North delivers” is probably the lyric that sums up the song’s entire sentiment. Starting off as this sort of unassuming, catchy, upbeat indie rock song, it takes a turn when Malkmus declares to “burn the hills of Beverly” with a yell and the band then launch into the roaring chorus where Malkmus wails about swinging credit cards in the air and sucking sour kisses. Goes back and forth between the “quiet” / loud dynamic. Makes it another one of the thousands to make that classic move in a rock song during the ’90s.

I enjoy this one a lot. I’ve been made aware I listened to Crooked Rain… in bits and pieces around 2012/13, which sounds about right. But I don’t think I really got into the album as a whole until 2014, when there were a lot of 20th anniversary celebration articles going around for albums released in 1994. I think it’s cool that the two songwriters in the band each gave respective takes on the same overarching topic, coming up with completely different results. ‘Unfair’ is much more fiercer and a little snotty, which I think pins Malkmus down as a person. Probably more so as a person in the ’90s. The ending is chaotic. Malkmus, again, wailing all over, dismissing someone or something as ‘Bakersfield trash’ amongst siren-like-sounding guitars and the bass guitar doing some crazy work. If you were still into vinyl back in the day, this closed out the first half of the record before you’d have to flip it around. Very emphatic statement to end a side of music on. And that’s it for Crooked Rain… on here too. We’ve had some good times together.