Tag Archives: not

#1251: Enter Shikari – Sorry, You’re Not a Winner

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Back in the mid-2000s, MTV2 had this show called “Text, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll” where viewers could request what they wanted to see on the channel via their phones and have some banter with the MTV employee/moderator person who went by the name of ‘Moo’, it might have just been ‘Cow’ actually, and had an avatar of the animal next to their messages, all of which appeared on the TV screen. The video for ‘Sorry, You’re Not a Winner’ was showing up on the channel for what felt like every day when it was really popping off, but the chyron that displayed the song name and who it was by was never appearing. Cow admitted one day that the people of MTV2 offices didn’t know what the song was called. So 11-year-old me, with my little cheap mobile, texted in, “It’s called Sorry You’re Not a Winner”. I can’t remember how I even knew that. Must have shown on Kerrang! or something, where they knew the business. Cow said thanks, and I swear from that moment on whenever the video was up, “ENTER SHIKARI – SORRY YOU’RE NOT A WINNER” was popping up on the screen, exactly like in the embedded video above. So you’re welcome, former employees of MTV2.

‘Sorry…’ was the first Enter Shikari track I heard, and I think from the backstory provided in the previous paragraph you can gather that it was because of the music video. The band play in a small, small room amongst a crowd of rabid fans. The energy bounces off band to crowd, the energy’s reciprocated and mayhem breaks loose. It’s quite the classic. The more times the video showed, the more I got into the song. A bit of a Stockholm syndrome thing going on, I guess. But I actually did come to really appreciate it for the great track it was and is. And as 2006 turned into 2007 and more Enter Shikari singles kept on appearing on the TV, it was like “Well, I like all of these.” So I was glad to get that copy of Take to the Skies whenever I did. Probably a birthday or something.

In the almost 20 years I’ve been listening to this song, I’ve never even stopped to think what it could be about. Is that so bad? Guess to some it would be. Just from reading online, some interpretations say it’s a track about gambling addiction. That could very well be the case. But while people are thinking about what the lyrics mean, I’ll be out here headbanging to the riffs and air-drumming. A lot of great moments happen in the track that always scratch the auditory itch. Like the three claps that come in before the verses. The sudden changes between the screams and singing that Rou Reynolds pulls off throughout. The harmonies by bass guitarist Chris Batten, and the back-and-forths between the two vocalists. There’s a reason why it is Enter Shikari’s signature tune. And unlike a lot of similar songs from that era, it’s aged incredibly well.

#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.

#799: Tom Jones & Stereophonics – Mama Told Me Not to Come

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Um… well, I was five years old when Tom Jones & Stereophonics released their cover of Randy Newman’s ‘Mama Told Me Not to Come’ (popularised in the ’70s by Three Dog Night), and it’s just stayed in my head since then. I think it played at the end of an awards show one time. I may have seen the music video every once in a while. It was a long time ago. It’s just a solid jam.

Stereophonics were part of that ‘post-Britpop’ thing that was going on in the late ’90s in the UK and were getting their places in the charts. They are also a Welsh group. So what could be better than pairing up this current Welsh band with this fellow Welsh legend? The result works very well. Tom Jones owns it, no doubt. Stereophonics’ singer Kelly Jones doesn’t do too bad either. He’s got that gravelly tone in his voice that a lot of people like. Together, the Jones sound like they’re having a great time. The track stays very true to the Three Dog Night cover instrumentally. It’s all about the vocals here.

Looking back on it, I think this whole era was meant to be some sort of comeback to the mainstream for Tom Jones. The album that this song is on, Reload, mainly consisted of cover versions of a lot of songs alongside a star-studded list of featured artists. He covered Talking Heads’ ‘Burning Down the House’ with the Cardigans. That was reasonably successful. The one original track, ‘Sex Bomb’, was massive and I remember that being played everywhere. The album got to number one twice in the UK and became Jones’ highest selling record, so I think the aim of bringing him back to the masses worked.