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#925: Foxygen – No Destruction

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There was a time when I thought Foxygen was going to be my new favourite band. In 2013 I was looking for new music to hear and stumbled upon the Best New Music review for the duo’s Peace & Magic album. The logical thing to do was to listen to it, after reading the review it seemed like a good idea. And it started off well. Opener ‘In the Darkness’ had a nice invitational tone, the lead singer had this sigh-like delivery to his vocals, and the melodies were all on point. But it was only two minutes long. You could say that things properly get underway with the following track “No Destruction”, also released as the album’s third single.

And really it’s more of the same. The track flows at a much slower pace, but is led by these pleasant piano chords, a steady rhythm and possesses more of a country-rock sound. Vocalist Sam France continues his sigh-like approach to his vocal delivery, singing about forgetting someone who he used to be quite close with, seeing them with a new partner sometime down the line, and proceeding to shut them out of his life completely because they were never that great in the first place. He perceived their behaviour to be destructive, and now that they’re gone there’s no destruction. Everything’s at peace. Overall, the music has a great relaxed feel to it. One of those tracks that suit those moments where you’re looking out the window and watching the scene fly by. There is a moment when France pulls out his best Mick Jagger impression, watch out for that, it’s almost uncanny. And I think a big nod has to go to Richard Swift who produced the album and provided a lot of the instrumentation on it. He passed away in 2018. The whole record wouldn’t sound the same if not for him.

“So why didn’t Foxygen become your new favourite band,” I think you’re all asking. The answer is, I just didn’t feel so strongly about ’em. They released ‘How Can You Really’ in 2014, the comeback single to promote what was to be their new album. Thought it was okay, but that was about it. Then that new album turned out to be a double album. If I wasn’t that excited about the lead single, I probably wasn’t going to listen to 82 minutes of additional material. And so, the support faded away. Still think Peace & Magic is a good time.

My iPod #381: The Beatles – For No One

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A slow song about the gradual ending of a relationship, “For No One” written by Paul McCartney and performed by The Beatles is one of the saddest tracks in the group’s catalogue.

McCartney was going through a rough patch with a girlfriend many many years ago, and this is one of many songs that he wrote about that point in time. This seems to detail the eventual end of that ‘patch’ ‘cos from “Sgt. Pepper” onwards he didn’t write those types of songs anymore. In fact, it seemed to be getting so much better for him from that point onwards. Still, “For No One” is details McCartney’s regret and sadness caused by the situation.

Accompanied by only by drums (courtesy of Ringo Starr) which you can barely hear and a mournful French horn that gets its own solo and appears again near the song’s conclusion, “For No One” is the one track from “Revolver” that will have you tearing up and feeling Paul’s pain. John Lennon was a fan of this one too, but probably not because of that reason.

My iPod #325: The Strokes – The End Has No End

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“The End Has No End” is a track by The Strokes that can be found on the band’s album “Room on Fire“, their second album released in 2003.

Although it was released as the final single from that album and The Strokes had been around for about two/three years by that time, this was actually the first Strokes song I ever heard. I distinctly remember watching its video on MTV2, right around the time that it had probably been released or something.

The song’s music video features appearances from hot ladies Mila Kunis and Eva Mendes, though surprisingly they didn’t do anything much for me as much as Julian Casablancas’ voice did. That sounds very wrong, I know. But his general lower register singing voice as well as the repetitive melody of the chorus got stuck in my head for a while. That was until I forgot it some time later. It was until I was lying in my bed looking outside one of the windows of my house when “The Ennnnd Has Noooooooo Ennnnnnd” silently started playing in my head, and I just carried on singing it over and over again.

I like this track a lot. It’s probably one of my favourite Strokes songs just because it was the first one I heard by them. Was very lucky to be watching MTV2 all those years ago.

My iPod #190: Arcade Fire – City with No Children

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“City with No Children” came at a point in my life where I had no idea what my future held in store for me. I’ll tell you more, I just have to state the basic information first.

Ahem… The song is on Arcade Fire’s third album “The Suburbs” from 2010, and was released as a single too.

So as I was saying earlier, “City” came at a time when I was… quite depressed actually. I hadn’t done so well in my AS levels but did well enough to get back into the second year of sixth form. Every day I went into school wanting to be somewhere else. It was not fun anymore. My friends were the only thing that made the sixth and three quarter hours bearable. I was always thinking towards the future because of uni and everything else. Times were bad.

I’d known the song was on “The Suburbs” and I downloaded the album right when it came out three years ago, but it was in September last year when I decided to listen to the album the whole way through again. The track was the one that caught me on that second listen, just because it was so calming and relaxing. It took me away from everything, you know? You know.

To a lesser extent, the song felt great as the seasons changed from autumn to winter. It seemed to fit the atmosphere perfectly.