Tag Archives: my ipod

#948: Sum 41 – Nothing on My Back

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Here’s another fill of early-2000s pop-punk for ya. ‘Nothing on My Back’ is the first real track on Sum 41’s 2001 debut, All Killer No Filler. The combination of this track and the jokey faux-heavy metal speech ‘Introduction to Destruction’ delivered by drummer Steve Jocz properly introduced listeners to the band’s world. That is of course if they had gone blindly into it and somehow not heard ‘Fat Lip’ being played everywhere before the album’s release date.

And it kicks off with a riff in 7/4 time. I’ve always thought that was an interesting move. I didn’t get to listening to the album in full until about 2010, when I thought about downloading other LPs that weren’t in my own personal collection of CDs. Standard pop-punk it might be, but that opening riff at least differentiated a bit from other bands I knew like Blink-182 or Green Day. Can’t think off the top of my head of any of their songs which mess around with timing a bit.
The riff ends, going into this tom-tom heavy breakdown, before transitioning into the first verse in which the song’s theme is sort of established: Feeling low and sad when there’s nothing to really be sad about. It becomes a lot clearer in the choruses. With nothing on the narrator’s back, there’s still something out there that brings them down. I’ve always appreciated how the second verse took on a completely different melody from the first. Usually you’d just repeat the first verse melody, very sure that’s how it goes most of the time. Just another small thing that’s got my attention over time.

I think the big highlight of the whole track is the instrumental breakdown that occurs after the second chorus is over. Steve Jocz pounds on the tom-toms accompanied by Cone McCaslin’s bass, the guitars join in, forcing out these strident chords and ringing harmonics alongside every heavy thrash of the cymbals. And it’s not until Deryck Whibley starts singing again that you realise that the song’s key has changed entirely and gone up a few notches. It changes right when the breakdown begins, but it’s so subtle that it doesn’t come off as those typical cheesy key changes. With Whibley now singing the chorus with a more intense delivery, the whole musical aspect brings a thrilling conclusion to what’s been a fantastic opening to the album so far. Just when you think the guitars will fade out, they fade in again and abruptly end to give way to following track ‘Never Wake Up’ – a hyper sub-minute song that I’ve written about before. Judging by the album’s first three songs, its title wasn’t something to laugh off.

#947: Blink-182 – Not Now

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I’ll always think of this track as Blink-182’s last ever song. It was the track released after their break-up in 2005, and its music video consisting of clips from their old videos and footage of Tom DeLonge, Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker goofing off or posing for pictures, very much gave off the idea of “This is the end, but thanks for everything.” Then as we all know, they got back together a few years later, Tom then left, Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio joined and they’re still going somewhat strong today. But this definitely capped off what was the band’s golden era. And I guess their cover of The Only Ones’ ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ was the coda in a way.

‘Not Now’ was recorded during the sessions for the band’s untitled/self-titled record that was released in 2003. You can find a documentary online based on the making of that album, and you’ll come across footage of DeLonge working on the song’s acoustic guitar in there. The song wasn’t included on the final product though, and was instead giving the bonus track treatment on some versions and placed as a B-side to ‘I Miss You’ when that was released as a single. But fast forward two years and it was selected as the single to promote the band’s Greatest Hits compilation. With an overarching theme of death and going into it head-on, I’m guessing that it was considered to be the most appropriate song to represent the band’s end.

But man, this track contains one of Blink’s best performances as a group. Travis Barker is firing on all cylinders, I don’t think there’s a large period of time where he stops hitting the drums. Tom DeLonge’s voice is maybe at its peak here. Its at that point where it hasn’t transitioned to his vocal shift that was present in his first Angels & Airwaves album, but it’s getting there, yet it still has that youthful punk energy to it. Everything’s delivered at this frantic pace. Things calm down for the choruses, but then the music always explodes back into the instrumentals. It’s such a great dynamic. Hoppus doesn’t have much of a standout presence on this track, I’ve noticed. Of course he plays bass, and I think he has a harmony vocal at one point. I’ll assume that’s another reason why he was against having ‘Not Now’ as the lead single for their Greatest Hits. But really, I don’t think there could have been a better choice.

#946: Nine Black Alps – Not Everyone

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Back in 2005, Nine Black Alps released their debut album Everything Is. Now, I can remember being alive at that time, seeing songs like ‘Unsatisfied’ and ‘Just Friends’ being played on MTV2. I thought both tracks were all right, didn’t grab me too much. But I distinctly remember an advert promoting Everything Is showing up on TV, and a little clip of a music video by the band that I hadn’t seen before was used in it. That small clip turned out to be from the video for ‘Not Everyone’, and I liked it so much that I went to search for the full video. Luckily, the band had it on their official website. This is back when YouTube wasn’t existing. And when I found it, I repeatedly watched it on Windows Media Player, even if my old computer’s poor Internet connection meant that I had to suffer through long moments of buffering.

All these years of listening to it, I don’t think I fully know what it’s about. I don’t think there are any widely available interviews out there that could help me in telling you either. What I’m sure of though is that it doesn’t hold the most positive of sentiments. What drew me in initially was the riff during the intro. Once I got into that, there wasn’t much going back as it repeats itself through the song’s verses. Beyond the riff, I really appreciated how the instruments sort of played with one another. Like during the pre-choruses when the guitars drop out to let an emphatic strike of the tom-tom ring out. Or how during the verses, one guitar’s feedback will be blaring in one ear while the other guitar plays a riff in the other. Everything section has a smooth transition into the next, from intro to verse to pre-chorus to chorus and the same again, but it turns out that the track is heavy and quite intense, which makes it all the more awesome.

If it wasn’t for this track, I don’t think I would have became as big a fan of Nine Black Alps as I ended up becoming. ‘Not Everyone’ was great, that was clear. The two songs I mentioned in the first paragraph were up in the air. But then it turned out that Nine Black Alps would be in the soundtrack of almost every game by EA that was released later in the year. I’m exaggerating of course. But ‘Cosmopolitan’ appeared in FIFA 06, and ‘Shot Down’ in Burnout Revenge. It only made sense that I got the album, based on how many good times those games and songs brought into my life. Good decision too, ’cause Everything Is is a personal 10/10 of mine. Doesn’t feel like it’s aged at all.

#945: Big Thief – Not

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When Adrianne Lenker was touring for her solo 2018 album, Abysskiss, ‘Not’ was a track that she would bring out from time-to-time during some of her performances. It seemed to be the one that stuck out the most out of the newer material she would play, which got the inevitable question rolling: “When are we gonna hear a studio version of this?” Well, it wouldn’t be on the next Big Thief album. But there was great excitement when another album by the band was announced for release not to soon afterwards, coming as a surprise to everyone, and included ‘Not’ in the tracklist with a runtime of six minutes and seven seconds.

So what is ‘Not’ about? Well, it’s about the things that “it” is not. What “it” is exactly isn’t revealed in the song. But one thing’s for sure, “it” is definitely not any of the things that Lenker lists throughout. Lyrically, the song is genuinely one of a kind. Never heard a track that took an angle quite like this one. But I think what grabs everyone the most is the tight band performance and just its intensity overall. The song’s already in a minor key which sets things off with an uneasy feeling, like something’s amiss and not quite right. The feeling simmers with Lenker on guitar on the left, Max Oleartchik and James Krivchenia on bass and drums respectively, during the first verse, then Buck Meek enters on the right midway though with these eerie sustaining notes that add to the creepiness of it all. Backing vocals come in for the choruses to add some progression before everything returns to the form of the first verse.

Things take a more ominous turn about two minutes in when the guitars drop out of the mix leaving just the vocals and the rhythm section before they exploding back in again alongside a growl from a Lenker. Her vocals grow more impassioned, transitioning from yells to full-blown screams before the track takes another turn and dedicates itself to a ripping guitar solo from Lenker that lasts for almost half the track. It has to end at some point, but even when it does reach that conclusion it doesn’t sound like the band were ready to stop. At live performances the track can go on for more than eight minutes just because people appreciate the solo so much. Though it has to be said that it’s a hell of a way to cap off one of Big Thief’s strongest moments put on tape. I think I might prefer other Big Thief songs to this one. But I’m very sure that for a while when Two Hands had been digested and discussed, it was quietly agreed that ‘Not’ was the band’s best song by a mile or two.

#944: The Beatles – Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

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The Beatles’ ‘Norwegian Wood’ is a tale of infidelity… going wrong? Not that infidelity is the best situation, but in John Lennon’s case he was ready to go until seemingly being mislead and left hanging. Affected by the ordeal, he wrote what became the second track on 1965’s Rubber Soul. Worked on together with the input of the other three guys, it became the first track of its kind to incorporate an Indian instrument into a Western rock recording through George Harrison’s work on the sitar and essentially started the whole India craze in music that lasted for quite a while in that decade.

So, yes, Lennon was gonna cheat on his wife on one occasion, with whom it’s never been revealed, but as we can assume from this song nothing happened leaving him frustrated. He’s invited in, admires the decor, thinks things are going somewhere, the lady has other ideas and leaves, Lennon wakes up from a bath and finds out she’s gone, and whichever way you interpret the ending, he lights a fire and continues admiring the house or burns the whole place down as revenge. The things men think of doing when blue-balled, eh. But the story is delivered in a calming setting, aided by Lennon’s soft vocal, his strong acoustic guitar work, and of course the sitar by Harrison. It’s all so innocent sounding, like a cool breeze, which I think helps in giving the lyrical content another angle. Sometimes you get so lost in the instrumentation that a read of the words would bring on some different feelings. But for me, once that acoustic riff starts it off, I can only ever feel relaxed and not the least concerned about anything else.

I don’t think I knew this song existed until the release of The Beatles: Rock Band in 2009. Rubber Soul was released on the game as DLC, allowing players to go through the whole album with “dreamscapes” included which provided some nice visuals. Probably the closest thing the song could have to a music video. I’m guessing the track was a highlight for me from that point on, but there are a lot of things from when I was 14 that I can’t quite remember clearly. What matters is it’s been a mainstay for all these years. Nice how these things turn out.