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#934: Manic Street Preachers – No Surface All Feeling

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‘No Surface All Feeling’ was one of the last tracks Manic Street Preachers worked on as a quartet before the sudden disappearance of guitarist and lyricist Richey Edwards in February 1995. When he vanished, the band’s three remaining members went through a bit of a crisis wondering whether they should continue working together. Thankfully they did. Despite the circumstances, they got to work and returned in the spring of ’96 with Everything Must Go. The album contained a few tracks with some of Edwards’ lyrics that had been given to each member before he left, and ‘No Surface’ closes the record out as the full dedication to him.

A lot of the track’s elements seem to be directly taken from its original demo. While the demo pushes Edwards’ rhythm guitar right into the back of the mix with James Dean Bradfield’s lead guitar right up front, the decision was made – and suitably so – to make Edwards’ guitar prominent. His power chords effectively drown out Bradfield’s guitar and vocals during the introduction and the choruses. The lyrics of ‘No Surface’ were written by bassist Nicky Wire, and I can only think to describe them as the account of a man disenchanted with the rock ‘n’ roll life looking in the mirror and telling the listener what they see. Though Wire is essentially describing himself, the lyrics took on another level upon Edwards’ leaving.

Up to 1995, the Manics had established an image of being something of an outsider band. An outspoken one at that. Before they even had one album out there, they announced that it would be the greatest rock album ever. Wire wore dresses on stage. Edwards carved the words ‘4 Real’ into his forearm with a razor blade. They appeared on Top of the Pops wearing military clothing, Bradfield wore an IRA-style balaclava on his head. ‘No Surface’ was made to say that whatever they did or said or sung, it wasn’t for show. Every sentiment was straight from the heart.

#933: Enter Shikari – No Sleep Tonight

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If I was writing this to you on the home computer rather than my personal laptop, I could tell you the exact date I downloaded Enter Shikari’s second album. I guess I was something of a follower; I owned a physical copy of Take to the Skies, and if the first single ‘Juggernauts’ was anything to go by, Common Dreads was going to be massive. And it was. At least to me anyway, I think a lot of critics weren’t feeling it at the time. I think it goes down as their best these days.

I have to admit, ‘No Sleep Tonight’ didn’t make that big an impression on me on that first listen through. It was probably a track I’d forgotten about until its music video started playing on MTV2. It was going to be the second single. Through repeated watches and listens, the track inevitably seeped into my consciousness. The video’s entertaining enough. A narcissistic businessman bumps into frontman Rou Reynolds as they pass each other on the street, and for revenge the band and a crowd of fans gather in his back garden and play a concert until the dead hours of the night. It certainly depicts a disdain for those types of people, a theme that runs throughout a lot of their music. But the track is properly about wondering how scientists accept money from companies to deny climate change and are still able to sleep at night. Enter Shikari also care about the environment, another major theme in a lot of their material.

Listening to this through headphones rather than the TV speakers particularly changed my feelings on the whole track. Obviously, there would be, I hear you murmur in your heads. But to the teenager I was then, I didn’t understand. It begins with a bit of rhythmic ambiguity. When the bass initially starts playing, you might be thrown off thinking that it’s come in at the completely wrong time. The drums start to kick in though, and things start to properly set off. What I really, really enjoy about this track though is the music during the chorus. There are no cymbal strikes during them, so it’s like this huge glossy wall of guitars and synths blaring at you while Reynolds belts out the refrain. You’ve got to love the sudden key change that occurs for the final choruses, cheesy as they may be, but you may notice that Reynolds subtly changes the melody of the refrain so he doesn’t reach a high note. Got to do what you’ve got to do to save your voice, but I sometimes wish he did.

#932: Green Day – No Pride

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After becoming jaded with the phenomenal success of Dookie, Green Day headed into the studio to begin work on that album’s follow up. Angry at the world, fuelled on methamphetamine, and, in particularly Billie Joe Armstrong’s case, walking around having barely reached the minimum hours needed to sleep because of a newborn child, the band produced track after track of no nonsense, pissed off punk rock that was eventually unveiled to the world as Insomniac in October 1995. The album was a lot darker in tone, from the artwork to the lyrical content, a lot of which took on a point of view along the lines of “why bother with anything in life because we all die and everything in between is pointless.”

A lot of tracks on there take on this nihilistic approach. ‘No Pride’ is a prime example. Its first line, “Well I am just a mutt, and nowhere is my home”, sets a base straight away. From there, Armstrong tells the listener to forget about hope, forget unity, don’t stand up for what you believe in, forget about your morals and values. Basically disregard all things that arguably make you a decent human being. At that point in time, he must have done so and felt no shame hence the track’s sentiment of having no pride. There are two verses and two choruses. And after a rushing instrumental break which repeats the opening chord progression four times with no solo or change up, the track falls right into the final chorus, tail-ended with the closing lines where Armstrong tells us to “close your eyes and die.”

It’s a good time all-in-all. The subject matter may be a downer, but is elevated by the simple yet effective melodies throughout and the propelling speed that track is played at. All three members perform at their most forceful throughout this album, and with an attitude that they’d never fully revisit again. Dookie may be the more popular record, that goes without saying, but those who really know about Insomniac recognise its power.

#931: Mac DeMarco – No Other Heart

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‘No Other One’ is a track from Mac DeMarco’s mini-album Another One, released back in 2015. By that time I had a been a fan of the guy since the arrival of Salad Days the year before. After having watched visited 2 and watched a large portion of YouTube videos concerning him, the announcement of Another One was a cause of great anticipation on my part. I even had a try of sort-of reviewing its lead single around the time. The mini-album came, including seven songs (all more or less about love, gaining it, losing it, wishing that you had it, accepting when it’s gone) and an instrumental. The title track is a favourite of mine. ‘No Other One’ follows it, very much containing the same situation, but is delivered in more of a deceptively cheerful manner.

That situation being that the narrators in both songs have feelings for a lady who is already in a relationship with someone else. The old case of unrequited love. Hurts for a lot of people. But DeMarco lays it down in the lyrics that makes it so relatable for many listeners. In this case, he notices that this girl has been feeling low for some time. He wants to be the man to make her happy, but then he realises that she’s already taken and so has to let things be. But there’s still that yearning and wanting that makes things harder to accept. This is all stated under/over soft piano chords, that noodling guitar-style that was something of a trademark of DeMarco’s at the time, and a really groovy bass that ties everything together. In fact, if you’re zoning out on DeMarco’s vocals and noticing other things in the music, the bass will probably be the next thing you’ll pay attention to. Very melodic. Very tasteful.

Seven years on, I kind of see Another One has bit of an era-ending document of DeMarco’s. After this, his music never sounded quite the same. Though some cynics out there might laugh at that notion and argue the opposite. From what I’ve noticed, he moved down more of an acoustic route with more varied instrumentation on 2017’s This Old Dog, and then followed that by taking his tracks to their basic elements on Here Comes the Cowboy in 2019. There was definitely a sound to his earlier releases that tied them all together. Maybe it was simply that shining guitar tone that was present on all of them. I could ponder about this for a long time.

#930: They Might Be Giants – No One Knows My Plan

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They Might Be Giants’ 1994 album John Henry was the first where Johns Linnell and Flansburgh were accompanied by a live band rather than the drum machines and synth-instruments that had been their go-to method up to that point. Upon the album’s arrival, fans were greeted with guitar-prominent instrumentals, an actual bass guitar and live drums, and brass. There’s a lot of horns on this album. Today’s track, ‘No One Knows My Plan’, is one of those tracks to feature them. Brass can sometimes be one of those instrumental groups where, if heard too much in one sitting, they can be a bit overbearing. But you’ve got to appreciate the instrumental melody of the trumpet that triumphantly opens this song. Once you do that, it’s plain sailing from there.

The track arrives at the album’s midpoint, acting as something of an opener to its second half. With its conga-esque rhythms and ascending/descending scale riffs, it helps pick up the momentum after the contemplative turn the preceding song takes. In ‘No One Knows…’, the narrator is planning an escape from a prison cell, and the track is practically the tale of the narrator’s thoughts, feelings and experiences they’ve had while trying to fulfil this act. They tried to escape before, but have since realised that they’ve had to change their tactics. They’re always scheming, but they’ll never tell anyone the full angle. All this described under a skipping drum pattern, a horn group that undergo the role that a rhythm guitar would usually cover, and with a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave put in for good measure.

This one’s been a favourite of mine for the longest time. Not just from John Henry, but out of the whole TMBG catalogue. The melody’s so infectious. Once you’ve got that in your head, it’s hard to get rid of it. I’ll go ahead and admit that the album in particular isn’t one of my favourites by They, but it’s not without its highlights. ‘No One Knows…’ is for sure one of them. Back in the day, someone at the Cartoon Network offices must have liked the track too. It was used as the intro music to Cartoon Planet for a while.