I didn’t know Yeah Yeah Yeahs until 2006, the year the band’s second LP came out. It was that year that my sis started to like the one-woman-two-men group and borrowed “Fever to Tell”, the band’s first album released in 2003, from a friend.
“Date with the Night” was Fever’s first single. It is about getting ready for a night out, looking forward to what awaits and wishing to fulfil expectations.
This song is noise. It isn’t one you want to listen to if you need to relax. Guitars are screeching, drums are booming, lead singer Karen O moans and howls endlessly at various points of the track. Pretty hot stuff. Very hot actually.
Today’s song is by Pavement, and taken from the band’s fourth album “Brighten the Corners” released in 1997.
Unlike the majority I have on my iPod just because Stephen Malkmus basically wrote almost everything else, this Pavement track was written by the other guitarist in the band Scott (Spiral Stairs) Kannberg. He wrote quite a few for the group, getting two songs at the most on each of their albums bar “Terror Twilight”.
What can you expect from this Kannberg composition? He’s not that great of a singer (worse than Malkmus; he’s not so good either) and the chord progression is quite basic. In fact it’s the same one as that used in “Kennel District”, but in a different key and everything. But it is a really enjoyable tune.
The title is a bit abstract; there is no mention of it in the lyrics. I never really think what it is about. I just sing along, and enjoy the music.
Sorry, the post is a bit late. Had some work to do, you know.
I had never listened through song fully by Modest Mouse before “Dashboard” appeared on the TV seven years ago. The last few seconds of “Float On” were the only thing I had witnessed when I changed the channel onto MTV2 one time, but unsurprisingly those seconds didn’t last long in memory.
The video for “Dashboard” was regularly advertised, being shown as the ‘brand new single’ from the band’s then forthcoming album “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank”. It was their first album in three years, and Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, had recently joined the band’s lineup so interest was high. I say this like I know; I only assume, I was twelve at the time.
Dashboard is about taking the positive aspects from a less than satisfactory car journey. Or a car accident. Maybe more the latter. The dashboard melted, but hey look on the bright side…. they still had the radio. Even with the positive message, the song itself is not bright and happy melodically. There’s something about those strings after the first chorus that reminds me of being on the sea during a thunderstorm. Like a pirate sort of thing. But maybe that’s because of its music video.
The video is funny too. Apparently Seasick Steve is the barman who has the guitar fretboard for a leg at the end (you’ll need to see it to understand)…. but I swear it looks nothing like him.
This is no mistake. I have no song by another artist between this one and yesterday’s, so here’s Franz Ferdinand again. This time with “Darts of Pleasure”, another track from their debut album. It was actually their first single, months before anyone would know about “Take Me Out”, and just missed out on a Top 40 place reaching #44 in the UK singles chart. The song itself is about the use of words to seduce somebody. The words are the darts of pleasure.
I can’t exactly remember when I first saw the video for “Darts”, but I have a feeling that the other singles from the album had already been released before I saw it on MTV2. It seems to be on a low budget compared to their later videos which is standard as it was their first single. In it, the viewer sees life from the point of view of Alex Kapranos’ mouth where various antics occur. It’s funny or icky depending on how you look at it.
The best part is definitely the coda with the German lyrics during the final minute, why the band chose to use it we’ll never know but I’m not complaining.
According to Kapranos, or what I could make from him before he introduced this song at a festival, the track is about skiving off school and hiding away in the shadows of the matinée. Every music channel showed the song as simply “Matinée” which is (I’m guressing) what everybody generally calls it. Maybe even some Franz Ferdinand fans if they’re too occupied to say the full title. Either way it is the same song, but it is the darkness of the matinée which is being specified that is being established as the hiding place, and not just the building itself.
Whatever.
It is remarkable to think it has been ten years since I first heard this. This was one of my favourite songs at the time. I thought the video made the song even better. The ‘robotic’ choreography, Alex Kapranos’ fringe and the huge painting of Terry Wogan during the final verse. I had daydreams of being in a band and making a video like it. I wanted Looking at it now makes me want to that eight years old who would wake up early in the morning to watch MTV2, actually watch music videos and discover bands for the first time all over again.
It wasn’t as successful as “Take Me Out”, which I’ll get on to ages from now, but to me it certainly brings back some good memories.
