Category Archives: Music

#786: The Used – Lunacy Fringe

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‘Lunacy Fringe’ is a track that has always stuck out to me from The Used’s 2004 album In Love and Death. Instead of the standard rock-band performance with all guitars blazing and pummeling drums, ‘Fringe’ is instead carried by what sounds like a string quartet. There are theses buzzing violins that set the tone from the start; I’m sure that a bass guitar is swapped out for a double bass on here; and, although you can hear some electric guitar vamps throughout, there are a lot more licks carried out on the acoustic guitar. The change in style makes the song sound like it’s really coming out from the darkness. Except for the major-key choruses which sound like the sun’s come out.

Bert McCracken’s vocals sounded like an almighty force to me when I was 13 and hearing this album for the first time. I would try and sing along but, obviously, couldn’t. 12 years later and the results are still the same. I still like his vocals now. He can shout, whisper and then yell all in a matter of seconds. He’ll let his voice crack right at the end of a lyric… you can tell he really gets into it when he’s behind the microphone in the studio. His style definitely hit me a lot more in my adolescent years but, however emo it may be or whatever, I still think it’s a brilliant track. So atmospheric with its production choices too.

I’ve always sang along to it but because of its title and the descriptive lyrics, I’ve never come to the conclusion on what it’s about. Though looking at them now, I think I’ve just figured it out. Hear me out. It’s about a narrator who hasn’t had sex in a long time (“So far gone/Running on empty/Do you know how long I’ve waited?”), finds someone who wants to do the dirty (“Do you want to take me on?” and does (“Look up from below“) and falls hopelessly in love with this girl so hard that he could kill himself if things went wrong. Is that fair? Makes sense to me. It all seems so clear now.

#785: Radiohead – Lull

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Originally released as a B-side on the ‘Karma Police’ single back in 1997, ‘Lull’ was remastered and re-released alongside the other OK Computer era tracks on the album’s 20th anniversary edition in 2017. That was the first time I’d ever heard the song and, for a while, it was a favourite that I would repeatedly listen to. With its short length and simple structure – only consisting of two verses and two choruses before finishing – you can probably tell why it was left off the album, but it certainly makes it stand out from many other Radiohead tracks.

Immediately, the song starts off with a shimmering arpeggiated guitar chord created and played by guitarist Ed O’Brien. This riff is practically what the whole song is based on, and as those opening seconds continue a sudden xylophone comes in the mix on the right before a harmonising Thom Yorke joins in. The track describes a narrator who seems to freak out or overreact at the smallest of things compared to another who ‘wakes and smiles’ and ‘stops the crowd’, I’m guessing with a sense of calmness and ease. The narrator seems to put his irritable state down to the stress and tension and his ability to get distracted by things that shouldn’t really matter in the chorus, and states that he’s in a lull to separate himself from everything. The rhythm section comes in after the first chorus, and the track’s then given this nice groove to really set things off. There are parts where Yorke sings in his lower register, which is always a warm welcome in any Radiohead song.

I think I read somewhere that the band had given thought to making an album full of shorter 2/3 minute songs; if that were to have happened, ‘Lull’ was a sign of what would be expected. I don’t know whether that’s true. It’s certainly an interesting idea. It’s a song that no one knows a lot about. The band have never performed it live. But I reckon it’s a bit of a hidden gem in their discography.

#784: Radiohead – Lucky

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Although Radiohead’s ‘Lucky’ is a track that will come to mind whenever you think of the band’s 1997 album OK Computer – seeing as it’s one of the songs on that record – it’s a song that was written and recorded when the group were on tour in 1995, promoting their second album The Bends. The high pitched squealing that can be heard at the beginning and throughout was created at a soundcheck by guitarist Ed O’Brien, and the band decided to develop the song around it. The song was recorded in five hours on 4th September 1995 and released on a charity compilation in the same week. The band thought it was the best song they had ever done to that point; Thom Yorke later stated that it set the direction for what the band were to do on their next record.

You could argue it’s a bit of a cop out to include a track that had already been out for two years on your new album, but somehow ‘Lucky’ manages to fit perfectly in its place on OK Computer. It’s a very cliché thing to say – though when it came to this song when listening to the album for the first time when I was 14 or 15, it was certainly unlike any song I had heard prior to it. It was a track that had a definite emotional weight to it. I thought ‘yeah, this is some sophisticated music’. It was definitely different to what was usually on MTV2. The song’s lyrics are unusually optimistic for a Radiohead song, but then they’re countered by the minor key, sad-sounding chords that make things sound like something terrible is about to happen. It’s very conflicting but it works tremendously and is a change from the usual sad/bad lyrics with happy music dynamic.

A list of elements that I thoroughly enjoy about this one: Thom Yorke’s vocal (a GLOOOO-rious daaaay), the ghostly choir-like keyboards that come in during the second verse, every crash cymbal hit during the choruses pack a punch, the descending chord progression of the bridge and its climactic transition into the instrumental end… You’ve got to hear it for yourself, it would be a good use of 4 minutes and 20 seconds.

#783: Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong – Lucio Starts Fires

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If you’re seeing the same message above that says the video can’t be played on here, then please follow the ‘Watch on Vimeo’ link.** A bit annoying that it isn’t on YouTube, especially considering that they have an alternate video for the same song on there. The one on Vimeo is the one I prefer, and the one I first saw back in 2007.*

So this is ‘Lucio Starts Fires’ by Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong. It was their first ever single released in the aforementioned year. The video played on MTV2 one day and I was immediately hooked, just in terms of its melody and rhythms. There’s an ashy sound to the guitars which caught my ear too. Its lyrics look at a narrator who seems to always be around whenever trouble starts brewing, though it’s never his intention to cause any harm. He also seems to be great at making friends with people. Or at least tries to be friends with people who don’t really reciprocate the relationship. It’s a typical NME indie 2007 era song that’s really good and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Big things were meant to come from this band. Following this song came ‘Lonely Buoy’, a track I didn’t warm to immediately but got accustomed to eventually, and ‘Where Do You Go’, the big single that was meant to lead right into the release of their album. NME hyped up the record giving it an 8/10 rating. But the album never arrived. The band felt that the music didn’t reflect their true potential, something along those lines, and to this day the album has never seen the light of day. The group split up in 2010, another casualty of the ‘landfill indie’ scene – a term I didn’t know was a thing until I read this VICE article the other day.

*09/01/2021 – Alternatively, you can just listen to it here.

**15/06/2024 – Hey, the vid’s on YouTube now.

#782: Jay-Z – Lucifer

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Welp, you’re gonna have to do with this live performance of today’s song; its studio version can’t be found anywhere online. Streaming platforms are the way to go here: Spotify, Apple Music, or preferably TIDAL in Jay-Z’s case. This appears to be the first Jay-Z song I’ve covered in this long, long seven year list I’m in the process of doing, so I’ll just give you my small and insignificant thoughts on the man. I’m not the biggest fan. He’s regarded as one of the best rappers of all time, that’s fine. What do people think of when Jay-Z comes to mind? Probably Beyoncé. But then there’s his voice. Again, one of the most iconic voices behind a microphone. When he starts rapping, you instantly know it’s him. Have I ever wanted to listen to that voice on a regular basis? Can’t say yes. But the man makes good music, I can see that.

‘Lucifer’ is the 12th track on The Black Album, a record released back in 2003. That album was promoted to be Jay-Z’s last before going into retirement, and there was this whole documentary on the making of the Black Album following Mr. Carter as he worked with Kanye West, Rick Rubin, Timbaland and many more producers to get the job done. Alongside fellow album track ‘Encore’, Kanye West produced ‘Lucifer’ taking a sample of Max Romeo’s ‘Chase the Devil’ and layering a piano riff and a whole lot of percussion on top. Jay-Z raps about sinning under the eyes of the Lord, and seeking revenge on the killers of his late friend and hip-hop legend The Notorious B.I.G. The final verse is also dedicated to Robert “Bobalob” Burke who was killed in 2003, and Jay-Z prays to God that Burke is allowed into heaven because, even though he may have sinned in his lifetime, he was an overall good man. The match of Kanye’s production with Jay’s vocal here is just perfect. It wasn’t the first time the two collaborated, but everything from the groove to Jay’s confident delivery works too well. Well, the kick drum may be a bit overbearing to some, I don’t know.

My sister got The Black Album, I want to say in 2004, and I have vivid memories of that ‘LUCIFER-LUCIFER SON OF THE MORNING’ sample blaring from the computer speakers as she played it on Windows Media Player. I think that’s just been ingrained in my head ever since. I also like the song ‘Change Clothes’ from the album; that song features the one and only Pharrell Williams. I would suggest listening to the album as a whole. Below is a clip from the aforementioned documentary, showing Jay-Z and Kanye West working on this song together in the studio.