Tag Archives: my ipod

#1179: Madvillain – Shadows of Tomorrow

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Almost slap-bang in the middle of Madvillainy, the certified classic alternative hip-hop album made by the legendary pairing of producer Madlib and rapper MF DOOM (RIP) comes ‘Shadows of Tomorrow’. I’m trying to think of how I felt about the track when I first heard the LP sometime during 2013… Nothing comes to mind. But I do remember playing it to a good mate of mine when I was visiting him in university the following year. One of those times where I was like, “Hey, have you heard of this album, Madvillainy? It’s sick, man.” Played it really loudly too. It probably sounded strange to the people he was sharing his accommodation with. But I think by that point I’d become friends with all of them at that point, so anything was fair game. Safe to say, it must have clicked with me somewhere along the way.

The track’s first half is rapped by Lord Quasimoto who, for those not in the know, is just Madlib but with his voice altered to a higher pitch. If you’re interested in what you hear, The Unseen would be a good place to start in order to obtain more knowledge on the Quasimoto character. For the second half, Madlib raps with his normal voice. And I want to say that this was the first track where he had ever done this. If not, someone correct me please. But I want to say I read that somewhere. Left me thinking maybe he should rap with his natural tone a lot more often, he’s got the voice to do it. But only he could find the records he does in order to make an instrumental like the one here. Sometimes you just have to stick to what you know you do best, I guess.

All in all, ‘Shadows of Tomorrow’ is a tribute to other legendary artist, composer and all-round cosmic man Sun Ra. In fact, the lyrics are one of Sun Ra’s poems entitled ‘The Shadow of Tomorrow’. So really, all of Madlib’s work on the track goes onto the instrumental, as he pretty much recites the poem word for word – maybe adding an additional word here and there. The ode to Sun Ra is further emphasised by the sampling of the man himself, with excerpts of his dialogue taken from the 1974 film, Space Is the Place, in which Sun Ra stars. The instrumental’s enough to put you in a trance. I think it’s the fact that the music stays in one chord, led by that droning note, which also gives it this mystic Eastern quality. And if you’re one who’s deep into philosophy and the workings of time, then I couldn’t think of a better song to listen that would get your brain working.

#1178: The Beatles – Sexy Sadie

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Beatles fans know there was a point where things for the band would never be the same again. Well, more than a few points, to be fair. The death of their manager Brian Epstein in August 1967 is one that can be brought up. But for the purpose of this post, I’ll bring up another. The trip to India in 1968. Before they left, they made ‘Hey Bulldog’ and ‘Lady Madonna’. According to their engineer, everyone seemed to be in great spirits. The group went to India for their Transcendental Meditation course under the tutelage of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Then they came back to the UK, began work on what became the White Album, and as we all know, they weren’t liking each other quite as much anymore. A few things happened on that India trip, one in particular was the inspiration behind the song in question today.

‘Sexy Sadie’ was originally titled ‘Maharishi’. John Lennon wrote the song and had every intention of releasing it under the original name before George Harrison implored him not to and provided the alternative title. While on the TM course in India, Lennon heard through the grapevine that the Maharishi had been making moves on some of the female students, acting in a very un-Maharishi way. Turned out this may have not even been true and was just a rumour started by a hanger-on of the band. Nevertheless, Lennon was angered and immediately disillusioned, completely lost faith in whatever he felt he was being taught and wrote the song in response. Lack of better words, it’s a diss track. So whenever the phrase ‘Sexy Sadie’ is said, just replace it with ‘Maharishi’ and you gain a little more understanding.

I really enjoy the way John Lennon sings this track. Think it may be one of his most underrated performances. The vocal melody’s one that continuously rises and fall, contrasting between his falsetto and his natural voice, stretching out syllables and elongating vowel sounds seemingly with little effort. And alongside you get the backing vocals of him, McCartney and Harrison throughout, piping up with “wah-wah-wahs” and “see-see-sees”, culminating in the part where they all sing the last line, which in turn falls into the song’s outro. That was also meant to be much longer, by the way. Must have been edited down for space on the LP. You can hear the track’s unedited ending section below. Would have been cool if it was left in, but the song’s great all the same. And that’s White Album out of here. No more songs to come. But click on the little “white album” tag below and you can read about all the songs I like from there.

#1177: Dananananaykroyd – Seven Days Late

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After having known Dananananaykroyd’s second and final album There Is a Way for 13 years, listening to it since near the day it was released in 2011 and becoming very familiar to every song on there in the process, I made the decision to buy it outright and get a physical copy back in January. It wasn’t cheap. Almost £20, it was. But I knew the music was good, so it was worth it. A lot of things became clear once the copy came in the mail and I opened those liner notes up. For one, I’d been singing along to the majority of the tracks on there, completely differently to how they were originally written. And two, almost all of the music was written by guitarist David Roy and, bar three songs, the lyrics were covered by John Baillie Jnr, who’d been more of the backing vocalist on the band’s previous album while mainly acting as the second drummer. I guess that’s why those two stuck together in a new band when the ‘Kroyd split up a few months after the album’s initial release.

I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent there. Let’s take it back to the point about singing the wrong words. Yeah, that’s what I’d been doing all this time. ‘Seven Days Late’ is a track on the album where there’s a lot of shouting involved. And being the people of Glasgow they are, they were unapologetically Scottish in the way they enunciated their lyrics. It’s an endearing quality. I could only mimic what I could understand, apart from those phrases where it was very clear what was being said. ‘Seven Days…’ is the most intense song on the album. I remember being sort of blown away by Bailie Jnr’s scream at about 2:20 when I first heard it. Bear in mind, I was 16. But there was nothing from Hey Everyone! that made me think they had that kind of scream in them. Really from the chest, sounded truly pissed off. And I’m sure the whole song is simply about someone deciding to stay in a room somewhere and do nothing until their mum and sister comes to take them away.

Thinking about it, there should be no reason why a simple subject like that should be matched with such ferocity and urgency in the music. And if it does, you’d think it probably wouldn’t work out too well. But that’s exactly what goes on here and, in contrast to what I stated in the last sentence, it works out very well indeed. This track makes me damn-near want to punch a wall. Multiple times or something. That’s sometimes what it has to come down to. There’s a frustration and tension that builds and builds throughout, and when the track leaves you hanging when things pause for a brief second near the end, those anxious feelings are beautifully alleviated by the final chord where the band members breathe an almighty sigh of relief – like sitting in a nice, warm bath after a tiring day. It’s such a good moment, I get goosebumps every time.

#1176: Nirvana – Serve the Servants

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While thinking about what I was gonna write for this song, its chorus just kept on repeating itself in my head. It’s a funny thing about ‘Serve the Servants’. This was the opener to Nirvana’s In Utero, the album consciously made, at the behest of main man Kurt Cobain, to sound a lot more unpolished and possess a rawer feel to counter the “overproduction” of Nevermind. And sure, it gets that theme going from the first second with the sound of a drumstick count-in and that blast of an opening chord. But once its rhythm and near-groove properly sets in with melody in tow, it’s just as catchy and much of a tune as anything that came on the album before. It’s not the most massive of changes. That shock really comes in on the song after.

I first listened to In Utero just over 11 years ago. It might have even been during this month in 2013. That was a special year for the album, ’cause it marked 20 years since it was originally released and there was a whole special 20th anniversary release that was coming around the corner at the time. My take on it? I like it a bunch. It’s probably my favourite Nirvana LP. Nevermind will always been seen as the outright classic, but I just prefer a lot of the songs on Utero. The majority of the first half of the former has been overplayed over the years to the point where I can go long points without having to listen to it. Plus, might be a little silly, but there’s something about Nevermind that’s a little too perfect to me. It’s the little oddities and things left in on In Utero that I’ve always felt have made it the more rewarding listen.

‘Serve the Servants’ is a tune that I’ve never really been able to figure out. It appears to be about a lot of different things all brought together. Cobain touches upon his own boredom with the music business, getting older and the pain that comes with it, relationship issues with his dad and references the Salem witch trials. So, maybe it’s fair to say it’s a bit of an autobiographical thing going on with a totally different subject put in to throw the listener off. Maybe it’s all just words Cobain put together to sound good. Too bad he can’t tell us now. But it’s always been an engaging tune to hear. In comparison to the power chords of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, ‘Servants’ rolls along with this odd riff which usually shouldn’t work but very much does. Cobain sings louder in the verses compared to the choruses where he’s nearly mumbling. The solo’s a trip and doesn’t just follow the vocal melody of the verse, and at 2:42, something I’ve just noticed, someone flat-out coughs in the middle of it. You gotta dig that sort of stuff.

#1175: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Senator

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I became acquainted with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks’ Mirror Traffic properly during my first year of university. How could I be so sure? Well, the year was 2013. I’d been into Pavement for years up to that point, and the Jicks’ material was the logical step to hear more stuff by the guy who usually wrote the Pavement songs. It was announced that the new album by Stephen Malkmus and the band, which turned out to be Wig Out at Jagbags, was to be released in the first month of 2014. Might have even been the first or second week of January. So it made sense to listen to the most recent album at that point, just for preparation.

It’s not my favourite Malkmus and Jicks album, I must admit. But there are a select number of songs on it that go up there as some of Malkmus’s best work, in my eyes. A couple more from the album are to come in this series. But today, the focus goes to the third song on Mirror Traffic, ‘Senator’, which was also released as a single, alongside a neat video featuring Jack Black and other recognisable faces. Something’s telling me I may have been aware of the song before properly listening to it in the context of the album. I want to say there was an article I read making light of the fact that the “What the Senator wants is a blow job” lyric had to be changed to “What the Senator wants is a snow job” for the radio edit.

‘Senator’ appears to be a track concerning the USA’s attitudes concerning the environment. And he sort of implies that the USA, particularly the people in power, aren’t really focusing enough attention on taking care of it. Instead, what the office representative wants put into action is a blow job. And in the middle, there’s a little bit where Malkmus reminisces about smoking weed with a friend of his back in the day, narrowly being avoided by the cops. How it all ties together, I don’t know, but it somehow works and is all good stuff to listen to. It’s marked by this start and stop motion, alternating between Malkmus’s sole vocal and the whole band coming together. Some nice little descending guitar scales pop in, and a solo at the end brings everything home. A very complete track, I think.