Monthly Archives: July 2020

#735: Billy Talent – Lies

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From the age of ten to about seventeen, Billy Talent was my favourite band. It’s a long story that I could go into. I may have already done so in a previous post of a song by them. I’ll probably save it when I get to ‘River Below’ because that’s the first song I ever heard by them. I’ll gush all about them then. To put it short though, every time Billy Talent put out a new album I thought they could do no wrong. Dead Silence was the last new album of theirs I’ve listened to in full, I’ve never had the urge to listen to Afraid of Heights. I think my interest has obviously dwindled a bit. It’s their first two albums, though, that I can still play in full today and still feel the same way I did when I was younger when listening to them.

‘Lies’ is the fifth track on Billy Talent’s first album and is probably the hookiest one on there, with a very memorable and repetitive chorus that is also mimicked by Ian D’Sa’s guitar playing. The one aspect of Billy Talent that impressed even when I was ten was how D’Sa was able to use his guitar in a way that sounded like there were two guitarists playing at the same time and that is on show here, as he plays the song’s main riff while also keeping rhythm on the lower pitched strings.

Since I was ten years old when I heard this song for the first time, I’ve been singing along to it for all these years without really taking into consideration what it’s about. The melody of the chorus is so earwormy, it’s like one of those teasing ‘you can’t catch me’ taunts that schoolchildren sing. Not as annoying though. A quick look through the lyrics will more or less show that the track is about how lies can be disguised and come in all shapes and sizes, how they are essentially a part of life, and how they can come back to bite when someone finds that liar out. I don’t know what other Billy Talent fans think of this song. I’m not sure if the group have ever had the will to perform it in recent years. I think it’s a great album cut though. I feel like it could have been a clear single for a lot of other bands, but that would have been the easy route for this lot.

#734: They Might Be Giants – Letterbox

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One of my favourites from They Might Be Giants’ album Flood from 1990, ‘Letterbox’ sees John Flansburgh and John Linnell sing in unison with a rapid pace amidst a backdrop of a warm synth bass and quick acoustic guitar strums in a waltz time. It’s one of the shorter songs on the record, coming in at a minute and 25 seconds, but still filled with the many things that make a Giants song great. It’s all about those melodies, man.

It’s been about nine years that I’ve had Flood in my iTunes library now, and the songs I enjoy most from it I could serenade you with as easily as I could recite the alphabet. Though this one starts with a little difficulty. Flansburgh and Linnell are able to cram a large number of syllables into a matter of seconds with each line during the verses, delivered to you like a musical tongue twister. The two known to be quite reluctant/secretive when it comes truly revealing what some particular songs of theirs are about. Not a lot is known about this one. I definitely couldn’t tell you. But it sounds fantastic to the ear.

Not only do the two Johns sing in unison; they also switch things up by providing harmonies to one another. Linnell sings a falsetto harmony in the left channel during the second verse and then sings the bridge by himself, before Flansburgh comes in with an emphatic higher harmony during the final verse at which things come to a thudding stop. I sometimes wish this song was longer; it really doesn’t need to be. It does its job.

#733: be your own PET – Let’s Get Sandy (Big Problem)

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The video for ‘Let’s Get Sandy’ by be your own PET appeared on MTV2 one day when I was eleven. Before I had enough time to digest what was going on, the song was suddenly over. This track is only 58 seconds long which blew my mind at the time. I didn’t think you were even able to have songs that last for that short amount of time. But alas, there it was. And it turned out to be a single as well. That music video may have been shown once or twice afterwards, at least that the amount of times I saw it again, and then it disappeared from rotation. It is above though, and sees the band members and random people in strange costumes playing a game of hide and seek in the woods.

‘Sandy’ is a ball of energy. Quite the cliché thing to say but if there was a song that saying applies to, it’s this one. 264 beats per minutes is what I’ve gathered from my calculation. That’s fast stuff. And something to look out for is drummer Jamin Orall’s performance on the kit; he’s thrashing away on the cymbals and snare like his life depends on it. It’s not told what the ‘big problem’ as listed in the title is, but singer Jemina Pearl tells us that she didn’t want to make ‘it’ one. And then afterwards goes on about not being let into the ‘news, film, and park’ and breaking a twelve year old’s arms in two places. It’s a bunch of nonsense really, but I still like it to this day.

#732: The Rutles – Let’s Be Natural

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Another great Beatles parody courtesy of musician, comedian, actor and all round nice man Neil Innes as part of the Rutles All You Need Is Cash film project from 1978. Innes sadly and quite suddenly passed away last December, but his work under the guise of Ron Nasty lives on. I got to know the music of the Rutles more or less around the same time I was on my Beatles tip of 2009/10. Unlike other parody acts that can make a proper half-assed effort in portraying their sources, Neil Innes and The Rutles were always very respectful in their mimicry while also maintaining humour and making great music in general.

‘Let’s Be Natural’ closes out the soundtrack album that accompanied the Rutles film and was released on both the original LP in 1978, and the 1990 CD reissue which included seven more songs not found on the vinyl release. It’s a clear nod to the Beatles song ‘Dear Prudence’, even taking that track’s bassline for its own during the choruses. There’s a bit from ‘If I Fell’ in there too. Innes sings with John Lennon’s trademark nasal tone among some relaxing arpeggiated chords and ‘aaah’ backing harmonies. Man, it’s a very soothing track. But I guess you could ask why you would want to listen to this if you could listen to The Beatles at any time. Probably because if you got to a place where you got tired of listening to them, this would be the closest you would get to their type of music without it actually being by them. Plus all four Beatles approved their music. Paul McCartney less so, apparently. The point still stands.

So I hope you enjoy it. The song’s message is all in the title. R.I.P. Neil Innes.

#731: N-Dubz – Let Me Be

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OK, let me explain. From about 2008 to 2011, N-Dubz were everywhere in the UK. The trio of Dappy, Tulisa, and Fazer could do no wrong in the eyes of the British youth. Their debut album Uncle B included hits of theirs that had been known since about 2006 but just about missed out on a top ten position in the charts. But then they got their first number one hit as a feature on Tinchy Stryder’s track, coincidentally titled, ‘Number 1‘, a tune that just takes me back to Year 9 every time. I had a friend in high school who downloaded every song by N-Dubz to his tiny Sony Ericsson phone. He pretty much had every lyric of theirs nailed to a T, but he would rap them in a mocking and strange way which I found hysterical at that age of 13. While I didn’t really care for them – I was more the Linkin Park, Eminem type person at that time – you could never really avoid the hype that came when N-Dubz released a new single or collaboration.

The 00s were coming to a close. And N-Dubz blessed the public with a new album, almost a year to the day that they released their first one. Against All Odds was its name, and it was preceded by the first single ‘I Need You’. Not gonna lie, I thought that was song was banging from the day its video showed up on YouTube. The lyrics didn’t have much depth, but the production was great. It actually had me looking forward to their album release. It came. I listened through it. I got great entertainment out of tracks like ‘Playing with Fire’ and ‘Duku Man (Skit)’. The rest I didn’t care that much for. Except ‘Let Me Be’, which I actually think is their best song and no one can tell me otherwise.

The track got no attention in the UK, but somehow got a music video made for it. I’ve come to the assumption that it was a release in Greece because of Greek rapper Nivo’s appearance where he raps only in Greek. I still have no idea what he’s rapping about to this day.* Oh, and because both Dappy and Tulisa are of Greek ancestry too. On the track, Dappy raps about a girl who’s getting a bit too clingy and even if he does like the sex they have, he’s not sticking around. This then leads into the melodic chorus where Dappy then sings about being watched and followed by everyone now that he’s famous, and comes to a conclusion that this girl probably really likes him because he’s on the TV a lot of the time. Fazer and Tulisa get their verses in nearing the end of the track, the latter gets her iconic ‘ha-ha’ ad-libs in too. What actually impressed me the most about this track all those years ago was how the whole vibe of the track shifted beginning with Fazer’s verse. It just sounds a lot sadder somehow, can’t tell whether it’s a change in key or chord progression but it’s a moment in their discography that I don’t think they ever matched. Not saying it’s some huge musical jump, loads of artists do that type of thing, but from N-Dubz it was quite unexpected.

I can’t believe I’ve typed this much out about N-Dubz. This is the only post on them in this whole blog series that I’ll do so I might as well get it all of my chest. If you want to know what happened to the group, they split in 2011 following the release of their third album. Lowkey, a lot of people want a reunion.