Monthly Archives: May 2024

#1149: Soundgarden – Rusty Cage

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You ask Soundgarden fans what their favourite album is and it’s a guarantee that the answer provided will mostly be between Superunknown or Badmotorfinger. At least that’s the feeling I get when I visit the subreddit for the band and see threads that usually praise the two. Down on the Upside is more for me, but that’s getting away from the point. I’ve listened to Badmotorfinger just the once, was a while back, I have to revisit it one day. But from what I remember, it was heavy. Heavy, heavy stuff. Stuff to properly thrash and headbang to in comparison to those other two aforementioned albums. And it all begins with ‘Rusty Cage’, a song that’s come to be one of the band’s most popular and the song that brings this ‘R’ series to an end.

‘Rusty Cage’ has been one of my favourites for a while now. Couldn’t even say how long for. I want to say since 2011/2012? Would have to get on the old, old computer to check. Though it was sometime before I got listening to Badmotorfinger, so I was well-acquainted with the track when listening to the full album. It was through watching its music video (above) on either MTV2 or MTV Classic, when that was a channel for a small bit, that I came to know it. Chris Cornell was all grimacing into the camera while lip-syncing the words, and the guitar riffage just never seemed to end. The song’s motion is continuously on the move. It’s like that X-Men scene where Vinnie Jones is Juggernaut and he’s running through the walls without feeling any effect whatsoever. It’s the musical equivalent. But then with a minute and a half left, it suddenly changes direction and trudges to an end through the grimy, nasty breakdown.

Think what the song’s message comes down to is a basic cry for freedom. Its narrator’s been put through the wringer too many times by someone. When they release themselves from this other person’s unforgiving grip, the narrator makes it clear that all hell is going to break loose. We’ll rule the day that their freedom comes. The big implication of the lyrics though is that this day is far, far away in the future. Very unlikely it’s going to happen any time soon. The wish of breaking free is just a dream. It’s a situation left unresolved, which I guess is why the band choose to end it in the unresolved manner it does. Helps to reinforce that lingering sense of yearning and all. Times like these when I think about Chris Cornell and his passing. He’s missed immensely. Too sad.

So that’s it for the R’s. I’ll be back again. Next time with the S’s, which, along with the T’s will probably take me two years to complete. There’s a lot of songs that begin with those two letters, you know.

#1148: Stephen Malkmus – Rushing the Acid Frat

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On a post from a couple months back, I gave a small recap of Stephen Malkmus’s burst of productivity nearing the end of the 2010s. There must have been something in the air because from 2018 to 2020 we got three different albums with the songwriting guitarist’s name on there. Today’s track comes from the record that came around in 2019, Groove Denied. Though his previous self-titled debut and 2005’s Face the Truth were labelled as solo albums, they were still technically Jicks productions as plenty of songs on both contained performances by the whole band. On Groove Denied, Malkmus was properly on his own, making it his first true solo effort after 30 years in the business.

The lead-up to the album’s release was exciting. There had been lore for a while that Malkmus had an electronic record stored in a vault somewhere, and Groove Denied turned out to be it. Turned out that the whole ‘electronic’ bit was just a tad exaggerated. But before I found that out, ‘Viktor Borgia’ was released as the first single a couple months prior. It was certainly different from Malkmus’s usual bag. I liked it though. Reminded me of a rougher LCD Soundsystem. Listeners were left to ponder on it for about a month, and then ‘Rushing the Acid Frat’ came as the next single. The track brought things into more familiar territory, coming along with a trippy video where an animated Malkmus walks toward the camera with a stride in his step while the visuals in the background get all psychedelic.

The song’s lyrics appear to detail types of imagery one might envision while on a heavy acid trip. At least that’s what I’ve always thought. According to Rolling Stone, Malkmus stated that he imagined a fraternity where they just took LSD all the time and attempted to write a song à la The Kingsmen’s ‘Louie Louie’ that these acid takers would hear while tripping,. Thinking of that now, I can see a similarity between the two. Though while ‘Louie’ sticks to that four-chord progression, Malkmus goes into dreamlike choruses where the stereo space opens up and his vocals spreads into the left and right channels with a higher countermelody popping up in the middle. The guitar (or is it a synth?) that comes in at points is wild too, not making any attempt to give a melody, but just providing some straight up noise to add some chaos to the song’s mellow rhythm. Big fan of it. But I’m just a huge Malkmus fan, anyway.

#1147: Hot Hot Heat – Running Out of Time

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Hot Hot Heat were one of the first bands I witnessed when I was really getting into rock music, thanks to the video for ‘Bandages’ being played in the morning one day on MTV2. Not too far from that point, the group came back with their second album Elevator, promoted by singles ‘Goodnight Goodnight’ and ‘Middle of Nowhere’. Both fine, fine songs. And it was those two, along with ‘Island of the Honest Man’, that gave me the urge to download the album years later. This is all a very roundabout way of saying this is how I came to know today’s song ‘Running Out of Time’, which is the first proper track on Elevator following a short little introduction that opens the album.

It’s a slamming start to the track that greets the listener, putting things into high gear before Steve Bays goes in observation mode and dedicates his verses to a bunch of kooky characters. In order of appearance, he sings about: himself, an art history dropout, a screenplay player co-writing a screenplay (a lyric which I’ve never fully realised how clunky it is till now), a Hollywood waiter and a retired ball player. They’re all going through their own situations, all of which seem to freak Bays out in a way and lead him to the conclusion that he’s ‘running out of time’. Maybe these characters are reminding him of his age or something. But he would have been relatively young while writing the lyrics. I don’t know. It’s a guess. I could understand someone not liking Bays’ style of singing. I read the lyrics online and wonder if they’re the words that are actually being said. But he has enough power and melody in his delivery that it wins me over anyway. And also Dante DeCaro’s guitar fills throughout add a little extra eccentricity to the action. It’s all very good stuff.

I’d gotten used to fact that Hot Hot Heat were no longer a band. The Canadian group hadn’t been a functioning unit since 2016, I believe. They released a final self-titled album, called it a day, and that was that. So it was strange to me when maybe a couple weeks ago I read that the band had split up again. Again? When did they reunite? Apparently in November last year. They released a new song and everything, which I completely missed. But the comeback didn’t last long, as vocalist Steve Bays felt he “couldn’t participate”. A fair enough reason not to do something, I guess. There’s probably something more behind that statement, but also probably best not to probe.

#1146: Kings of Leon – The Runner

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Can you believe Kings of Leons’ Because of the Times turns 20 in three years time? It just doesn’t seem right. I was alive and well during that whole era of the band, but it doesn’t feel like it was happening 17 years ago. In the place of the band’s discography, it sort of captures a transitional moment where the band were sticking to the rawer deal that people came to know them from their first two albums while exploring a wider territory, going bigger in their soundscapes that would fit in a stadium setting. Then they properly went for the latter on Only by the Night, and we all know how that went. The transitional aspect gives it a charm that I appreciate it for, even if it may not be my favourite album of the band’s. I’m one of those people who’ll say it’s probably their last great record though.

‘The Runner’ is the tenth song on Times. It’s only struck me now how quite similar it is to ‘Rememo’ from Aha Shake Heartbreak. They both depend on the 6/8 waltz time. They sort of have this Western-wandering-on-the-range atmosphere about them. Though while ‘Rememo’ is delivered with an intimacy that could lull you to sleep, ‘The Runner’ is handed a bigger soundscape that properly comes into life when the enveloping guitars enter the frame during the swaying choruses. It also doesn’t rely on a two-note melody, which makes things a lot more dynamic. I like that there are two guitar riffs the song revolves around. The first being Caleb Followill’s lone guitar that opens the track and then the acoustic guitar melody which is then mirrored by the vocal during the verses. Both memorable in their own respective ways.

The track, in my view, seems to be from the perspective of a narrator who tends to be on the move a lot of the time, having to spend large periods of it away from his lady as a result. The song’s title phrase doesn’t appear in the lyrics, but I usually assume it’s the nickname of this narrator. They handle whatever comes their way, whatever life brings them, praying to Jesus that they’ll be guided through hard times ahead. The first verse depicts the scene of ‘The Runner’ on the rails on their latest travel, with the second focusing on the lady left behind and giving the listener a little glimpse into her backstory. The choruses bring the two characters together, with the Runner detailing their worry about the lady’s whereabouts and implied infidelity. I mean, that’s what I get from it all, anyway. I’ve always enjoyed this one. It’s a little under the radar, but it’s very much rewarding after every listen.

#1145: Kanye West ft. Pusha T – Runaway

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September 12th 2010. The day of the 2010 MTV Music Video Awards. I remember that show. Well, not really. I was kind of watching it out of the corner of my eye while I was browsing the Internet for whatever reason. The big news about it was that Kanye West was going to be performing a new song on there, returning to the same ceremony where a year earlier he had interrupted a young Taylor’s Swift acceptance speech and became the most hated man on the planet for a hot minute. Barack Obama called him a jackass, it was a wild time. ‘Runaway’ was the new song, and I have to admit I wasn’t really into it. I thought Kanye was gonna come out rapping and making some huge statement. ‘POWER’ had come out earlier in the year, so I had some expectations. Instead he was on a singing tip that reminded me of 808s & Heartbreak, which I’ve never been the greatest fan of, no matter how influential it might be. Went to school the next day. Friend asked what I thought. I said I didn’t really like it. He said the same. And it was left at that.

So that was my initial feeling on ‘Runaway’. It was one that lasted for maybe a couple months before hearing it properly, in good headphones, amidst the other 12 songs it was accompanied by on Kanye’s brand new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. That album, to me, was a strong return to form. The chopped-up soul beats were back. He was in his rapping bag. All the songs sounded massive. It was such a thrill for 15-year-old me. But ‘Runaway’ was there, looming. With a duration of nine minutes and eight seconds, it was the longest song on there by just over a minute. Had my reservations about it based on those September “feelings”… But from the moment that lone, repeated pinging E note on the piano came in, played 15 times by the way, I found myself captivated by the entire production. As the song continued, I’m sure I wondered if it was even the same song I heard on the TV that September. But it was. And I was entranced, even through its three-minute outro, which I never skip and neither should you, where Kanye’s heavily distorted vocal riffs over the piano hook and string section.

Kanye West essentially explores his shortcomings as a person in the song, particularly when it comes to relationships, knowing that he acts the wrong way too much of the time to be worth the object of affection of his significant other. He acknowledges his less-than-graceful behaviour with a sarcastic toast to the ‘douchebags’, ‘assholes’, ‘scumbags’ and ‘assholes’ who act the same way, leaving his lady with the advice to run away from him and get as much distance as she can between he and her. Kanye’s singing isn’t the problem I initially it was. It’s pitch-corrected, but not as obnoxiously as it was on 808s…, leaving his melodies to sound much more human and personal. Pusha T comes in with a verse to counteract with Kanye’s sections, going further in-depth in the hedonism that’s the cause of these selfish actions. The whole thing’s a masterpiece, I don’t know what else to say. The song has an actual music video, which itself was taken from the Runaway short film made to accompany the album, but it cuts the song down by quite a bit. It’s down there if you want to watch, makes for a nice visual. The longer album cut is always the way to go.