Monthly Archives: November 2014

My iPod #403: Manic Street Preachers – Further Away

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Well. Here’s the final song from the “F” section. It’s been a while. It should have come yesterday, but university work took over. Hope you understand.

And to cap it all off is “Further Away”, the penultimate track from Manic Street Preachers’ stellar album “Everything Must Go”. Understandably, the band had a horrible time (to put it lightly) after guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards’ disappearance in Febrary 1995. But only a year and a bit later, despite everything they’d gone through, the three remaining members pulled off one of the greatest comeback albums. That was “Everything Must Go”. And it all just went on from there.

“Further Away” is great. Very underrated, though some may say it’s one of the weakest on the album. I disagree. I think it’s as strong as any other song on there. I do actually prefer it to “A Design for Life”. Yeah. That’s right.

Why? Because I feel so emotional listening to it. The track was written Nicky Wire when the band were on tour and he was having a bout of homesickness, and who better to sing his lyrics and write the music than James Dean Bradfield? Honestly, his vocals just tower over everything. Over what are pretty simple chord changes throughout is a voice so powerful, but intricate and melodic at the same time. Staying restrained for the most part in the verses Bradfield then proceeds lets it all out in the chorus leaping from one syllable “FUURRRR-“, and the next “THER”. Just glorious in every way. Majestic. Everything about the track is wonderful, I can’t express it enough.

I also own the 10 year anniversary remastered version, so everything sounds just a tad clearer and sharper. Sounds like you are right next to the amplifiers there and then in the studio. Good to experience at high volumes.

And there it is. Another letter done. It’s been fun. What a great way to end it too, but that’s just me. You may not like the song.

Be back soon.

My iPod #402: Supergrass – Funniest Thing

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“Funniest Thing” is an album track from Supergrass’ first release of the 21st century, “Life on Other Planets”. Of course, Britpop was well and truly over at this point, and Supergrass carried on exploring new sounds just as they had with “In It for the Money” in ’97.

On “LOOP”, some tracks are very guitar-heavy and give off a great hard-rock feel bordering on T-Rex territory at some points. But they still have that fun Supergrass attitude to them, and their then-recent acquisition as Rob Coombes as permanent member seemed to give the group an even bigger dynamic then they had before.

“Funniest Thing” begins with a mysterious keyboard line backed with sighing backing vocals and shimmering ride cymbals which give quite a psychedelic feel to it all. This all changes when the whole band kick into gear for the chorus; Gaz Coombes sings about seeing all these weird things happening around him, and even though this event is the ‘funniest thing [he sees]’… it is still a bit too hard to bear.

I’m thinking the lyrics are meant to be from the perspective of someone in a hospital after breaking a part of the body, who is then given morphine to relieve the pain and ends up having all these weird hallucinations because of it. That’s just from the lyrics though. Could be about something else completely. It probably is.

‘F’ section ends tomorrow.

My iPod #401: The Beach Boys – Fun, Fun, Fun

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So one day, a few years back, I listened to The Beach Boys’ album “Pet Sounds”. Would it be as good as I was led to believe it would be, due to the acclaim and praise it gets by critics and fans alike? It would be, I was very pleased after hearing it. It was a great listening experience. Although “Pet Sounds” was the album where The Beach Boys (or more specifically Brian Wilson) set out a mission to put more work into a song’s arrangement and lyrics, no one could forget that only a few years prior the group were making songs about girls, surfing and being young and free.

It was during that phase that “Fun, Fun, Fun” was written. The track tells the story of a chick who takes her dad’s car for a ride without his permission and gets all the attention from other jealous ladies and lustful men. The fun ends when the dad catches her out and takes the set of keys away. But it’s all fine, ‘cos…. Mike Love supposedly arrives to make things all better. A creepy thought, but that’s how it goes.

This is a fun, fun, fun one to listen to. Filled with everything you’d expect from an early Beach Boys release. Well-executed harmonies all round covering all vocal ranges, and a general lively, peppy performance. Nice little nod to Chuck Berry right at the start too. Solid track.

My iPod #400: Nine Black Alps – Full Moon Summer

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Nine Black Alps’ third album “Locked Out from the Inside” owns. Unlike “Everything Is” where there are two solely acoustic tracks to slow down the album’s flow and mellow things out a bit, “Locked Out” provides one stormer after another. “Full Moon Summer” is the seventh one in the track list.

I can’t remember how I felt about the track when I listened to the album for the first time. As a whole, I was just very happy to be hearing a new Nine Black Alps album; the excitement took over and I knew that I was hearing stuff, but it didn’t really sink in. But after inevitable repeated listens of it, I weirdly came to the conclusion that “Full Moon Summer” is the album’s centerpiece.

I hear this song and visualise the band playing it on a stormy day under skies in the mixed colours of pink/blue/black/purple that you see on the album’s front cover. Generally,  I find something very mystical and highly dramatic about it. Mystical because I think it’s about a ghostly presence (if not I have no idea), and dramatic just because of how every note and sound is pummeled into your ears. It’s intense.

My iPod #399: Babyshambles – Fuck Forever

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“Fuck Forever” was the second single from Babyshambles’ debut album “Down in Albion”; it was the first track I’d ever heard by the band when I was about ten years old, and its music video played regularly in the mornings on MTV2 – part of its countdown in the channel’s ’10 newest/hottest tracks’ programme. Or a name similar to that.

Obviously, the song’s title was censored as well as anytime Pete Doherty uttered the word ‘fuck’ or stuck up two crooked fingers to the camera. But at ten years old, I was surprised that a song with such a title could ever be played at that time. Or even be released as a single. And I also did think that it sounded fucking awful the first time. Doherty can barely sing on this one, the part where he belts out ‘ANNNNNNNND’ for the lead-up into the final chorus cracks me up every time, and the song’s overall instrumentation has a really sloppy feel to it.

I still have those feelings today. But even at that time I grew to appreciate the track more and more. The song was actually memorable and catchy in its own shitty way. It is a beautiful mess.

This track rules. Doherty has problems, but he can write good music.