Monthly Archives: September 2024

#1155: Lou Reed – Satellite of Love

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I have a big, big feeling that Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’ was a song that had an immediate impact on that first listen back in…. I want to say 2012. Was going through that ‘Best Ever Albums’ list on besteveralbums.com that I’ve sometimes talked about in other posts, and its parent album Transformer was on there at a decently ranked position. It’s got ‘Perfect Day’ on there. That’s a good one. ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ is a classic (though not one I go to, myself). But ‘Satellite of Love’ drew me in for sure. It begins with the piano, Lou Reed sings a succinct melody followed by that bass run and piano line. That’s all in the first 10 seconds. It’s catchy stuff, and it all carries on from there.

Influenced by the space race, the moon landing and lunar activities in the late ’60s, Reed wrote the track in 1970 when with The Velvet Underground and did a demo with the group during sessions for the band’s Loaded album. It didn’t make it on there. But two years later, with the aid of David Bowie and Mick Ronson, the track underwent changes to give it an air of wonder, flamboyance and slight campness and turned it into a glam rock number. There’s quite the all-star ensemble behind the performance with Reed singing and on guitar and Bowie on backing vocals, Ronson on piano and recorder, Beatles mate Klaus Voorman on the bass guitar and John Halsey AKA Barry Wom of The Rutles on drums. They all very much kill it in each of their respective positions.

As much as I do enjoy the main core of the song, particularly the contrast between Reed’s dry vocal with those bright “bom-bom-bom”‘s during the choruses, a huge part of my appreciation for the whole track goes towards its ending. With about a minute and 10 seconds left, the track builds layer and layer, starting with Ronson’s piano, followed by Reed and the sassy backing vocals by the vocal group Thunderthighs. And then to cap it all off, David Bowie comes in with a piercing falsetto to leave the track fading out on this massive bed of harmonies and countermelodies. It’s a shame that Bowie and Reed didn’t collaborate more after this and Transformer. Think I remember that they a falling out of some kind? They strike me as two people who would want to do their own respective things anyway. They performed live with one another in the end, so whatever beef they had was clearly squashed.

#1154: They Might Be Giants – Santa’s Beard

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Ah, the first They Might Be Giants song to appear in the ‘S’ section. An appearance by the group was bound to happen at some point. They’ve occurred in almost every other letter. One of my favourite bands. Appreciated their music for a long time. It’s a story I’ve told in nearly all the other TMBG posts that have come before, so to not sound like a broken record those previous two sentences make up the summary. The band’s album Lincoln, their second, released in 1988, is one I got to know fairly well once hearing it in full for the first time in late 2010 or so. It contains a few of John Linnell and John Flansburgh’s highly adored compositions. You get ‘Ana Ng’. You get ‘Cowtown’. It also contains ‘Santa’s Beard’, which I’m not sure is as rated among TMBG fans. But I like it. So here it is.

What the track is, is essentially a twisted take on that old song ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’. Replace ‘Mommy’ with ‘My Wife’ and you’ve got the message. I feel the lyrical content is the main reason why the song is currently ranked #737 out of 1010 on TMBG’s fanmade Wikipedia site. I guess you can never really be in the right frame of mind to hear a song about a man being cuckolded by jolly old Saint Nick. But it’s just a song and obviously nothing to take very seriously. It’s a harmless bit of fun, a sub 2-minute power pop tune with rollicking guitars, spindly keyboards and a synthetic slap-bass that makes its presence felt within the mix all throughout.

Well, I guess all that’s left to talk about is John Flansburgh’s vocal. He does sing this one really well, got that gritty rocker feel to his delivery. He could really get some power on those notes in those earlier years, and ‘Santa’s Beard’ is a good showcase of it. Especially on those ‘breaking up my hooooome’ lines in the choruses, and particularly at the end where he holds that ‘home’ out for longer, with the word transforming into a growling tone that disappears in the exploding final chord. Or penultimate chord that’s then followed up by the final beat that properly closes the song out. Yep, yep. It’s some good listening. Maybe not so substantial in the running of the album, depending on who you ask. But it’s a guaranteed good time whenever this one comes on.

#1153: Jamie T – Salvador

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You know what? I think ‘Salvador’ was the first song I ever heard by Jamie T. Just like many of the other songs I’ve written about through the years, its music video popped up one day on MTV2. Couldn’t tell you what the context was. Most likely it came under the ‘Brand New Spanking Music’ slot that would usually occur on the channel. Jamie T only appears in the video for the song’s intro, after which he’s replaced by this dramatic little kid who truly hams up his performance while lip-syncing. It’s an act that I found very cringy when I was younger. But looking at it now, you can’t lie, the kid’s got spirit. There also appears to be an alternative version of the video where Jamie T appears a couple more times, but that’s not the one I remember airing all those years ago.

If this was the first song/video of Jamie T’s that I ever saw, then I guess it must have been released as a single. According to the official UK singles website, the song didn’t chart. But he soon released ‘Sheila’ afterwards and things really started looking up. ‘Salvador’ was eventually released again, appearing as the second track on Jamie T’s debut Panic Prevention album – properly getting the momentum of the record going after the acoustic bass introduction of ‘Brand New Bass Guitar’. As its says on Wikipedia, most of the songs deal with aspects of modern youth culture in the UK. And with Salvador, the aspect of nights out on the dancefloor, particularly from the point of view of us desperate men looking for a fine lady to get close to, is the main focus here.

Sometimes, when this song appears out of the blue on my phone when I’ve got it on shuffle, I actually tempted to skip it. Jamie T’s howling vocal alongside the copied/pasted guitar chord that twangs out might not be the utmost pleasing sound to hear if you’re hearing it the first time. But it all changes when that two-note bass pattern comes in and the groove gets going. Can’t help but move my head to it, it gets me under its web. The same will probably happen to you too. The vocal take, words punctuated here and there by Jamie’s unapologetically British delivery, is one that I can’t help but exaggerate when I ‘sing’ along to it. Even being from the UK myself, I can’t match that singing style. And there are other little audio oddities within the track that may prick up your ears. But I’ll leave those for you to hear. And that’s that for Jamie T on the blog. But you can see any previous posts through the ‘Artist Archive’ link above.

#1152: Mac DeMarco – Salad Days

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Mac DeMarco’s Salad Days turned 10 this year. Back when music release dates were on Mondays (or Tuesdays in the US), it was released on March 31st or April Fools’ Day 2014 depending on where you lived. I was in my first year of uni, checking out Pitchfork on my old laptop. The album got the Best New Music mark. I listened. My following of the dude started right there. I was hooked. So much so that I even dedicated a post to it on here. Check out the writing of the 19-year-old I was. Had so much to learn. Now I’m six years older than DeMarco was when the album originally came out, and I find myself relating more and more to the lyrics as the time passes.

Although my previously linked article of my initial impressions of the album may be underwritten and not so substantial, the points I make on there still hold up. The album is indeed ‘sweet’, the eleven tracks on there are ‘enjoyable’ and I still really like the guitar tone on there to this day. The record is most definitely my favourite of DeMarco’s. The melodies are on point. Each tracks flows by like a breeze. And the whole package begins with its title track, a good old existential crisis indie song in which Mac sings about potentially having passed his peak in life but also telling himself to get over it and try again for another year like all the rest of us have to. Quite a melancholy way to start things off. But it’s real, it’s a universal feeling and the deliver of it makes it easy to digest. A very fine combination.

Seems appropriate that this song will be the last representative of the album in this whole series. Finishing off where my Mac DeMarco discovery began and all that. There are still more songs of his to come though, so stay tuned if you’re really looking forward to them. I would have written about a couple other tracks from Salad Days had the stars aligned. ‘Blue Boy’ was an instant favourite on the first listen. ‘Brother’ took some time, but I eventually got ’round to it. I noted ‘Chamber of Reflection’ as a highlight in that old, old post, but I sort of fell out with it quite quickly actually. Think I just found it to be a drag. That’s just me. But all in all, this album means a lot to me, no doubts there.

#1151: Pavement – Saganaw

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Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich and Steve West of Pavement were in a studio one time waiting for their good friend David Berman to arrive so a Silver Jews recording session could take place. At the last minute, Berman became unavailable. Not wanting to waste the studio time, the three guys remaining quickly recorded four songs that went on to be released together in the form of Pacific Trim, an EP made to coincide with Pavement’s Australian tour in January 1996. You can’t get Pacific Trim anywhere these days. Been out of print for ages. But the songs on there made it onto the Sordid Sentinels edition of Wowee Zowee. Alongside ‘Give It a Day’, ‘Gangsters & Pranksters’, and ‘I Love Perth’ came the EP’s longest track, ‘Saganaw’. It’s one that I don’t see any Pavement fan talk about in any great length. So I can at least try.

The song contains one of Stephen Malkmus’s more dramatic vocal performances. There’s nothing to prepare you for it either. He comes straight out of the gate, wailing the word ‘Great’, elongating the vowel sound while putting his descending scales to good use, which then segues into the first full lyric, “Great seekers of violence, go away”. So it seems that the message so far is a massive plea for peace. The rest of the words I think can pretty much be taken at face value, even if they may seem to not be related to one another or connected in any kind of narrative way. Really, what I think the song’s main point comes in its final verse where Malkmus states that he wants to pack up a small bag and go on his merry way to Saganaw, inspired by the country music he listens to. (We’ll assume it’s the Saganaw in Michigan, which is actually spelled ‘Saginaw’).

Trying to think of a way to describe the music that drives this song. Or drags it, depending how you feel. I’m sure I’ve heard a song somewhere that sounds just like this or would have inspired it. There’s a definite country feel behind it. I envision the track playing in the background of a cattle trail scene or something. Malkmus belting out the notes from the top of a high mountain. Helps that his voice reverberates just the right amount to emphasise that effect. After the first chorus comes a guitar solo that is typical Malkmus, very in the moment and relying on feel, before transitioning back to its droning note that buzzes behind the verse again. Each drum strike has a booming tone behind them. The Mellotron strings add a surreal quality to the proceedings. And it closes out with Malkmus howling into the distance as the song fades out. Big, big fan of this one. Very underappreciated, I think.