#1221: Gorillaz – Slow Country

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Moving out of the city and into the countryside is a theme that Damon Albarn explores a lot, at least that I know of from listening to the stuff he does with Blur. The earliest I can think of is on ‘Chemical World’ from Modern Life Is Rubbish in ’93. There’s a b-side of the band’s called ‘Get Out of Cities’, which is pretty self-explanatory. And in 2003, he sings about the country having a hold of his soul and having no town to hide in in ‘Good Song’. I guess there’s something about the natural landscape that interests him. And I’m also gonna guess that it was on his mind again when he was casting off his Blur shackles for a while at the start of the century, started Gorillaz with Jamie Hewlett, and wrote a song called ‘Slow Country’ that was included on that project’s debut album.

I don’t think it’d be a wrong thing to say Gorillaz gave Albarn a sense of freedom that he probably wasn’t able to fulfil, being in a band with three other guys for a good part of a decade up to the point of Gorillaz’s inception. And with this reinvigoration, he laid out bare his interest in dub and hip-hop that no Blur fan would have guessed existed. ‘Slow Country’ is a track indebted to the former, led by a thick bass line and formed by a generally spaced-out soundscape, reinforced by the windy sound effect sampled from ‘Ghost Town’ by The Specials. A lot of the lyrics on the Gorillaz debut, I feel, were mostly written around the music, written more for the sake of feel rather than a narrative standpoint or having a sense of direction. Albarn also found that he could sing in any way he wanted, switching up the timbre of his vocals plenty of times throughout. It’s no different on ‘Slow Country’. Sometimes I think any lyrics site that has the words to the track on their pages don’t have the correct ones, just because of the loose and playful way he enunciates the words.

From what I’ve come to understand after hearing it for so many years is that ‘Slow Country’ may be about Albarn getting out of the city, no matter how attractive it might be with all those vices and all, and focusing on upping his funds and generally getting his life sorted out. It’s quite serious stuff. But with this new Gorillaz project, he could disguise it in a way that made it off-kilter and quirky. He didn’t have to deliver his words as earnestly and could instead joke around and have fun a little. Instead of electric guitars, there’ll be a piano playing a childlike melody. Musical breaks with drifting synthesizers that make you feel like you’re floating in space. And of course those unforgettable “noot noot” vocalisations that remarkably sound very similar to those of everybody’s favourite animated penguin.

#1220: The Strokes – Slow Animals

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And just like that, The Strokes’ Comedown Machine will have been out for 12 years this coming March. But I was there to report when it was streaming on Pitchfork before it was officially released (if you scroll a bit further down after clicking the link). The album gets unfairly shafted because the band didn’t do any kind of promotion for it. Everyone thought it was a fast-release thing so they could get out of their record contract with their label at the time. But they still released The New Abnormal with RCA anyway, sort of. When it comes to Comedown Machine, I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite Strokes album. But it definitely has a few of what I think are the best songs ever on there. That makes me appreciate it a whole lot more. Have always thought it was much better than Angles, personally.

‘Slow Animals’ is the seventh song on the album and another that sees Julian Casablancas continuing to explore other ranges of his voice, something that happens a lot throughout Comedown. With ‘Animals’ he adopts a very soft delivery, it’s almost like a whisper, guarded by larger presence of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jrs’ guitars on their respective left and right hand sides of the sound space. I’m a person who’s usually looking more for the feel of the music rather than the words that are sung, and there’s always been a smooth, night-time drive atmosphere to the track that I’ve always appreciated about it. Even looking at the lyrics now, although they sound so pleasant the way Casablancas sings them, they’re quite abstract though still very evocative. They’re an observation on romantic and familial relationships. Whether there’s anything deeper there, I couldn’t tell you.

I don’t know if what I’m about to say was a factor in why Comedown… was criticised in those earlier times, but Julian Casablancas’s vocals always seemed strangely recorded to me. On a lot of songs, it sounds like there was one microphone to capture the reverb with the other placed directly in front of him, with the former being the most prominent of the two in the mix. It’s more obvious on a couple other numbers, but it does apply here too. The softer vocal that starts it off is almost ghostly and not directly in the centre. Then in the pre-chorus, another vocal take with his lower register enters the frame which then switches up for the busier choruses. But that initial reverby vocal is the one that gets the more attention. It’s a weird one to describe. Maybe in the next Comedown Machine song I write about on here, it’ll make more sense.

#1219: The Who – Slip Kid

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Sometime in 2012 when I should have really been focusing on studying for my A-Levels but also going through what I think was a sort of depression at the time, I got round to listening to The Who by Numbers. Wikipedia showed that this was the album that the band came back with after Quadrophenia two years before, and through listening it became clear why the record was named the way it was. It was no rock opera like Tommy or Quadrophenia. There was no overarching theme tying the songs like on …Sell Out. No, this time round was a standard, simple ten-track album brought to you by the four bandmembers, just under 40 minutes, doing what they did best. No sign of pretension to be found.

During the album’s sessions, guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend turned 30. Feeling the pressures of feeling like an old man in the young man’s game of rock and roll and becoming heavily disillusioned with it all, he laid out his feelings in the tracks that would go on to make up …by Numbers. The album begins with ‘Slip Kid’, a warning to the kids who were looking to get into the music business disguised as a track about a young man who has to go to war alongside these older people who have led a long life and are providing this unwanted advice. I’m sure that the whole track is one big metaphor, to be honest. I think the crucial line that really tells what Townshend’s message is in the final lines when Roger Daltrey sings, “You’re sliding down the hill like me” a nod to being “over the hill” which the whole album goes on to delve into for the next half-hour.

The song begins with a loop of handclaps and percussion (cowbell on the left, tom-toms on the right) which persists throughout, with the rest of the band joining in together after a swift count-in by Townshend. Two simultaneous riffs provided by premier session player Nick Hopkins on the piano and Townshend on guitar get things going, before Daltrey gets his gritty vocals. Just in the introduction alone, there’s enough memorable melodies to go around. Daltrey’s tougher vocals contrast with the softer tones of Townshend and John Entwistle’s backing harmonies with fine effect. The latter’s bass line is one to recognise as per usual, particularly how it mirrors the backing vocals during outro. And unusually Keith Moon takes a bit of a backseat on the drums, staying mainly on the hi-hat and snare. Slip Kid’s a very steady number. Doesn’t announce itself with a bang like ‘The Real Me’ or possess the wait of anticipation like ‘Baba O’Riley’, but does the job in its own firm, secure way.

#1218: The Futureheads – Skip to the End

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Goddamn it, it’s been nearly 20 years since this song came out, and I vividly remember watching MTV2 when its music video was showing on the regular. That places me at the age of 11, nearing the end of my days in primary school. ‘Skip to the End’ was unveiled as the first single from what was going to be the new second album by The Futureheads, News and Tributes. It was something I wasn’t expecting because 1, I wasn’t reading up on music like that back then, and 2, another song by the band had been released some months prior that had been announced as a standalone thing and nothing more. But none of it mattered. The band were officially back, back. And owning the band’s debut album on CD like I did, and still do, it was an exciting thing.

I wouldn’t be able to specifically remember the very first time I watched the video/heard the song, but I do recall at least thinking initially that it maybe wasn’t as immediate as a ‘Decent Days and Nights’ or ‘Area’. The verses hopped along with clicking cross-sticks and stabbing guitar chords. Guitarist/singer Barry Hyde delivers his vocals, unusually without the notable backing vocals that were ingrained in the Futureheads DNA. But then the chorus comes in, those backing vocals arrive with it and everything felt all right again. It took a while to get there, but that familiar Futureheads feeling was established. And after hearing it probably almost every morning before school in that time, it made sense that it would stick in my head and I would add it on a phone so I could write my feelings about it nearly two decades later.

The lyrical matter is pretty simple. The narrator here states that if there was a chance to somehow go forward in time and witness the end of their relationship with someone, they would do so to see if there was any point in starting it in the first place. Whether it’s a happy end or a broken heart is the main factor with which they would make their decision. There’s no answer to how the relationship in question goes because obviously it isn’t something anyone’s able to do. It’s just a song to say if they could, they would. But if the second verse is anything to go by, Hyde sings about “going through the roof” (getting very upset) when his lady makes sense, it may be fair to say that things could be going a little better.

#1217: Supergrass – Sitting Up Straight

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Just over a month ago I was writing about a Supergrass song from I Should Coco, and now I find myself in the same situation. ‘Sitting Up Straight’ is another tune from the LP that I remember liking very much immediately. Coming right after preceding track ‘Strange Ones’, which alternates between upbeat, in-your-face pop rock for the choruses and bluesy-waltz timing for its verses, ‘Sitting Up Straight’ fixes the listener with the former all throughout its duration. It does start slowly to begin with, a loungy performance of what later makes itself known as the song’s chorus lulls you in, before things properly get underway after 20 seconds.

“Sitting up straight on the back of the bus / Mimicking time as evening turns to dusk” is the first lyric, it’s one that bass guitarist Mick Quinn admits to not knowing what it means. But it firmly places any listener in the scene. A narrator’s sitting at the back of a bus and listing the things they see and do. They make note of a boy with his “face on the floor” – a British saying, meaning he’s looking glum – before empathising with them in the joyous choruses where the guitars really come into life among some rapturous harmonies. That first chorus comes in with an entire different key to what the song initially set off with, begins in G before switching up to D I think, and remains in that until it all finishes.

I enjoy this one quite a bit actually. I see YouTube comments that read along the lines of “Yeah, the song’s good, but the chorus could be better”. Which… I can maybe kind of see. But I consider them to be the best part. As choruses usually are wont to be. But in general, the song’s very easy to get into. The previous track throws you in a few different directions. But with ‘Sitting Up’ you know where you stand. That is, at least, after 20 seconds of waiting. It’s like an “Enough of that, we know you want to hear more of this” kind of thing. That’s how I sort of see it. Plus, if you get the words down for the first verse and the chorus, no more work has to be done on your part because the second verse is the exact same. All in all, a fantastic punkish package of Britpop.