Monthly Archives: March 2022

#932: Green Day – No Pride

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After becoming jaded with the phenomenal success of Dookie, Green Day headed into the studio to begin work on that album’s follow up. Angry at the world, fuelled on methamphetamine, and, in particularly Billie Joe Armstrong’s case, walking around having barely reached the minimum hours needed to sleep because of a newborn child, the band produced track after track of no nonsense, pissed off punk rock that was eventually unveiled to the world as Insomniac in October 1995. The album was a lot darker in tone, from the artwork to the lyrical content, a lot of which took on a point of view along the lines of “why bother with anything in life because we all die and everything in between is pointless.”

A lot of tracks on there take on this nihilistic approach. ‘No Pride’ is a prime example. Its first line, “Well I am just a mutt, and nowhere is my home”, sets a base straight away. From there, Armstrong tells the listener to forget about hope, forget unity, don’t stand up for what you believe in, forget about your morals and values. Basically disregard all things that arguably make you a decent human being. At that point in time, he must have done so and felt no shame hence the track’s sentiment of having no pride. There are two verses and two choruses. And after a rushing instrumental break which repeats the opening chord progression four times with no solo or change up, the track falls right into the final chorus, tail-ended with the closing lines where Armstrong tells us to “close your eyes and die.”

It’s a good time all-in-all. The subject matter may be a downer, but is elevated by the simple yet effective melodies throughout and the propelling speed that track is played at. All three members perform at their most forceful throughout this album, and with an attitude that they’d never fully revisit again. Dookie may be the more popular record, that goes without saying, but those who really know about Insomniac recognise its power.

#931: Mac DeMarco – No Other Heart

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‘No Other One’ is a track from Mac DeMarco’s mini-album Another One, released back in 2015. By that time I had a been a fan of the guy since the arrival of Salad Days the year before. After having watched visited 2 and watched a large portion of YouTube videos concerning him, the announcement of Another One was a cause of great anticipation on my part. I even had a try of sort-of reviewing its lead single around the time. The mini-album came, including seven songs (all more or less about love, gaining it, losing it, wishing that you had it, accepting when it’s gone) and an instrumental. The title track is a favourite of mine. ‘No Other One’ follows it, very much containing the same situation, but is delivered in more of a deceptively cheerful manner.

That situation being that the narrators in both songs have feelings for a lady who is already in a relationship with someone else. The old case of unrequited love. Hurts for a lot of people. But DeMarco lays it down in the lyrics that makes it so relatable for many listeners. In this case, he notices that this girl has been feeling low for some time. He wants to be the man to make her happy, but then he realises that she’s already taken and so has to let things be. But there’s still that yearning and wanting that makes things harder to accept. This is all stated under/over soft piano chords, that noodling guitar-style that was something of a trademark of DeMarco’s at the time, and a really groovy bass that ties everything together. In fact, if you’re zoning out on DeMarco’s vocals and noticing other things in the music, the bass will probably be the next thing you’ll pay attention to. Very melodic. Very tasteful.

Seven years on, I kind of see Another One has bit of an era-ending document of DeMarco’s. After this, his music never sounded quite the same. Though some cynics out there might laugh at that notion and argue the opposite. From what I’ve noticed, he moved down more of an acoustic route with more varied instrumentation on 2017’s This Old Dog, and then followed that by taking his tracks to their basic elements on Here Comes the Cowboy in 2019. There was definitely a sound to his earlier releases that tied them all together. Maybe it was simply that shining guitar tone that was present on all of them. I could ponder about this for a long time.

#930: They Might Be Giants – No One Knows My Plan

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They Might Be Giants’ 1994 album John Henry was the first where Johns Linnell and Flansburgh were accompanied by a live band rather than the drum machines and synth-instruments that had been their go-to method up to that point. Upon the album’s arrival, fans were greeted with guitar-prominent instrumentals, an actual bass guitar and live drums, and brass. There’s a lot of horns on this album. Today’s track, ‘No One Knows My Plan’, is one of those tracks to feature them. Brass can sometimes be one of those instrumental groups where, if heard too much in one sitting, they can be a bit overbearing. But you’ve got to appreciate the instrumental melody of the trumpet that triumphantly opens this song. Once you do that, it’s plain sailing from there.

The track arrives at the album’s midpoint, acting as something of an opener to its second half. With its conga-esque rhythms and ascending/descending scale riffs, it helps pick up the momentum after the contemplative turn the preceding song takes. In ‘No One Knows…’, the narrator is planning an escape from a prison cell, and the track is practically the tale of the narrator’s thoughts, feelings and experiences they’ve had while trying to fulfil this act. They tried to escape before, but have since realised that they’ve had to change their tactics. They’re always scheming, but they’ll never tell anyone the full angle. All this described under a skipping drum pattern, a horn group that undergo the role that a rhythm guitar would usually cover, and with a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave put in for good measure.

This one’s been a favourite of mine for the longest time. Not just from John Henry, but out of the whole TMBG catalogue. The melody’s so infectious. Once you’ve got that in your head, it’s hard to get rid of it. I’ll go ahead and admit that the album in particular isn’t one of my favourites by They, but it’s not without its highlights. ‘No One Knows…’ is for sure one of them. Back in the day, someone at the Cartoon Network offices must have liked the track too. It was used as the intro music to Cartoon Planet for a while.

#929: Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows

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I think just about anyone who’s into rock music likes this track, right? One of those songs you know without properly realising it. It’s Queens of the Stone Age’s signature track. The one with the riff that goes “duh-duh-nerner-duh-duh-nerner-vrrrm”. Close to that, anyway. The one with the video where a deer plays dead, beats up the band members and then hangs up their heads on the wall at the end. And, look, it’s everybody’s favourite person Dave Grohl on the drums. ‘No One Knows’ is the second song on the band’s Songs for the Deaf album from 2002, was the first single too, and I think it’s okay to say that in the 20 years that have passed it’s now come to be seen as one of the best 2000s-era songs of its genres.

I don’t think even I could tell you precisely when I first heard this one. ‘No One Knows’ is one of those tracks that always just seemed to be there, floating around in the ether, available on my computer or phone available to listen to. Though I’ll take a guess and say that its video would have been the main gateway toward knowing it. However old I was at the time, I’m sure I was amused by the video’s concept. Josh Homme, Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan run over a deer who unbeknownst to them is playing dead, once they get up close to it to see how it’s doing, the deer wakes up, knocks them out and ties them up, goes on a driving rampage and props their heads up on the wall of a house after he falls in love with one of those fake prop deers you’ll find in a a garden somewhere. It’s funny stuff, co-directed by Michel Gondry who’s been the man behind many an iconic music video.

Then there’s the other half of the video that shows the band “performing” the track. And I think as I’ve grown older, it’s that part of it that I appreciate more. Although they’re merely miming the track, it puts into perspective who’s playing what and the work they put into their instruments. Dave Grohl’s thrashing away at those tom-toms like an animal, Nick Oliveri pulls off those runs on the bass like it’s nothing, and Josh Homme’s doing his thing of being all ‘badass’ and playing these riffs and solos while staring deadly into the camera. But forgetting about the video for a moment, solely listening to this track does something to you. It’s a complete powerhouse that fires on all cylinders. Just an all-round solid rock-band performance. Once that riff gets going and the rhythm sets in, you can’t help but get caught in it. Guitars are good, drums – good, bass – gooood. It doesn’t disappoint.

#928: Weezer – No One Else

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Not sure if there’s a catchier power pop tune about a possessive and controlling boyfriend than Weezer’s ‘No One Else’, the second track on the band’s Blue Album from 1994. Seeing that title for the first time, your mind go to something like, “Oh, it’s one of those songs where the narrator doesn’t want to be with anyone else than the person they’re currently with.” But then you hear it and realise that a completely different angle is taken. Instead, the narrator doesn’t want his girl to have a life, go outside, or laugh at anyone else’s jokes. And if anyone sees her out in the town, the relationship’s as good as over. Some could say that a track like is a little problematic. I think Weezer fans realise this too. If only the musicality on display was bad, then I would be inclined to like it a lot less. As it stands now, I still see it as a favorite of mine.

Compared to the swaying feel of preceding track ‘My Name Is Jonas’, ‘No One Else’ ploughs on with your standard 4/4 rhythm, falling right into its first verse with a descending guitar riff. Those crunchy-toned guitars take up the soundscape. Rivers Cuomo sings the first verse, bassist Matt Sharp joins in on the chorus with that somewhat iconic falsetto, Brian Bell harmonises on the chorus’s final line and with the return of the opening riff we’re back to the second verse. This has all happened in just under a minute. The track goes under a ‘intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus’ structure, but it subtly adds these layers and changes as the track progresses. Cuomo, Sharp and Bell are all singing together during the second chorus instead of coming in one-by-one. There’s a tension-setting one-chord-playing guitar that comes in during the second verse. Cuomo never sings the chorus the exact same way each time it comes around. Just these little things that keep you engaged while the track goes on.

The track’s side-eye inducing take on relationships makes it something of a precursor to what Cuomo would make a full nose-dive into when it came to writing and recording Pinkerton. But while I think you can somewhat sympathise what Cuomo was going through with some of the lyricism on that record, at least after having read up on the context of what was going on during the making of that album, the narrator on ‘No One Else’ is a straight-up unlikable person. Everything’s just so easy to sing along to though, and it’s full of cathartic moments of tension and release. It’s a sleek three minute package.