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#839: Hot Hot Heat – Middle of Nowhere

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So ‘Goodnight Goodnight’ was the first single from Hot Hot Heat’s Elevator back in 2005. And I thought it was okay then. Just okay though. I didn’t think it was as good as ‘Bandages’. That song still rules. I eventually grew to appreciate ‘Goodnight’ more too. But when the hype for ‘Goodnight’ was over, the video for ‘Middle of Nowhere’ started showing itself on television soon after. I thought it was much better. I wasn’t into Hot Hot Heat that much then. I think 2005 was my Green Day year. But the track was one of the reasons why I downloaded Elevator when I started to download random albums in around 2009 or something.

For me, this track goes into that pile of those that I’ve known for so long and sung along to but never thought about in much depth. The stop-starting groove’s very catchy and the vocal melody throughout is infectious, particularly during its choruses. Obviously those moments are when you want to have the memorable parts. I’ll listen to it and it’ll take me back to being a ten-year-old just watching new music on the television. For the sake of this post, I’ll share with you an interpretation I found. The song’s narrator is dealing with a lot of heavy stuff. They’re unable to sleep, think properly. The girl who is being sung about provides some relief from all these problems and frequently meets up with the narrator to see how they’re doing. The narrator gives her something to go on (nudge nudge) before continuing to do the same old same old.

Makes sense to me. Again, I wouldn’t think about it so much, but that’s just me. I’ll carry on listening to it the same way I did when I was younger. Enjoying it all the same. This song was on an episode of One Tree Hill, so this track may be familiar.

#814: Parquet Courts – Master of My Craft

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Parquet Courts, Parquet Courts. Not the hugest fan of them, I have to admit. Not because they’re bad. They do make great songs, but I’ve never been able to fully enjoy their whole discography from front to back. I did a ‘review’ for Sunbathing Animal way back when. It’s not very good. But That was after I had heard Light Up Gold for the first few times and thought, “Wow! This is my new band.” I’ve not listened to that album for a while. If I had started this blog a bit later, ‘Bodies Made Of’ would’ve had its own post on here.

I’m digressing. Continuing on with the ‘songs from the perspective of someone we shouldn’t like’ theme established from yesterday’s post, this is ‘Master of My Craft’. It’s the first song on Light Up Gold, and it’s sung by co-lead vocalist Austin Brown. I think it’s all right to assume that this is from the POV of some sleazy, selfish, corporate business-oriented person who has no compassion whatsoever for other people. This person won’t even take a minute out of the day to talk to you. It’s madness. I’m exaggerating. Brown’s kind-of-distant vocal delivery suits the song’s message well, and I’ve personally liked the almost-monoaural mix the track has. Makes the performance sound all the more compact and tight.

With about fifty seconds to go, the vocals finish and the band jam on two chords with Brown providing a solo in each ear. Listening to the song by itself, you may think that it ends quite abruptly. You would be right. Some would tell you that the best way to listen to the song is when it’s then followed by the next track on the album, ‘Borrowed Time’. That would have had its own post too. That way you get a solid six minutes of some good rock music. You wouldn’t believe that one song ended and the other started the way this transition goes. The band perform the two songs live below.

#780: Coldplay – Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love

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A trick that Coldplay utilised on their 2008 album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was merging two completely different songs together to make one long track. Two of them, ‘Chinese Sleep Chant’ and ‘The Escapist’, were hidden as they weren’t shown on the tracklist. For whatever reason though, the band decided to show that ‘Reign of Love’ was a song that was meant to be shown to all; it enters the frame as the long fade out of ‘Lovers in Japan’ is still happening. The two songs were then placed together, slap bang in the middle of the album.

‘Lovers in Japan’ is the upbeat, optimistic, us against the world type track. The sort of theme that’s been a constant in the band’s discography from about X&Y onwards. Chris Martin sings to lovers, runners, and soldiers telling them to carry on doing their thing in this crazy world we’re living in. Then he turns it round into a first person narrative in the second verse, telling his baby that they’re going to run away from all of their troubles with dreams of getting to Japan. Chris Martin’s lead vocal is probably one of his best performances, containing great melodies throughout. The track also possesses one of Coldplay’s best choruses. That’s just my opinion, though. ‘Reign of Love’ is the comedown. A beautiful, piano-led track with these twinkling loops and a subtle bass that lay the comforting backdrop to Martin’s restrained vocal. Looking briefly at the lyrics, I think the track captures a narrator who has fallen in love so hard that they’re like a prisoner in its grasp. I’ve gotta say I’ve never paid too much to what the lyrics are because the matching of the melody with the production is 10/10.

‘Lovers’ was released as a single in late 2008, a few weeks before the Prospekt’s March EP came out. In this format, it was unveiled with a new mix known as the ‘Osaka Sun Mix’ and this was what was also used in its music video (below). For a long time, that the version of the song I listened to. Upon rediscovering ‘Reign of Love’ it had to go. There are some minor differences between the ‘Osaka Sun Mix’ of ‘Lovers’ and its original album version. I’ll let you listen and find them out.

#738: The Dismemberment Plan – A Life of Possibilities

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Think it was 2013 when I tried to listen to The Dismemberment Plan for the first time. I was on my Pitchfork tip during that time, trying to hear ‘new’ albums particularly in the indie scene. And Emergency & I, the band’s album released in 1999 is considered to be something of a classic in that genre. I went onto YouTube, searched for this track, listened to the first few seconds and really wasn’t into it. Why was this man singing like that? And what was with the squirty keyboard bass? Get that outta here. That was more or less my line of thinking from what I can recall. This was a major error.

Fast forward a few months later. I was in my first year of university and decided to really sit down and give the full album a listen. ‘A Life of Possibilities’, if you don’t know, starts Emergency off so there were the strange vocals and the keyboard bass again. But this time those two things sounded great together, and were backed with an undeniable groove too. This is what happens when you give a song more than a mere few seconds of your time. Then the dueling guitar hook came in and I was instantly hooked. If there is one thing about Emergency & I that I appreciated straight from the bat, it’s that almost every track has a great chorus. There’s no proper chorus in ‘Possibilities’ but those harmonizing guitars act as one, coming in between each verse in which singer and lyricist Travis Morrison goes on about – I think – someone who isolates themselves from society but finds that at some point they’ll have to get out there to truly live their life.

So yeah, do check out Emergency & I if you have the time. Don’t be like me when I was seventeen and disregard it because you don’t like a few sounds on it. The record is suitable for those going through their quarter life crisis, or just those who have hard times growing up in their 20s. That’s a large demographic.

#710: Meat Puppets – Lake of Fire

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Anyone who reads this blog and is very much into the same music will see this and think, “Hey, that’s that song Nirvana covered in the Unplugged concert for MTV”. Then, if you haven’t heard the original, you’ll click on the video above and think “Wow, Kurt did this song way better, this man can’t sing at all!”

Personally, I’m not a big fan of Kurt’s voice in that session and prefer the original by a mile. Curt Kirkwood doesn’t really “sing” the original. It’s more of a strained yelling, (almost) in tune, with a scream that occurs for a split second in the midst of it all. I can’t say that cliché where the singing doesn’t matter because it’s the passion with which it’s sung because Kirkwood sounds either very high or drunk behind the microphone. But I really like it still, I’ve got to say.

Despite it’s almost lo-fi style and the really loose way the music is delivered, there’s still an almighty sense of swing and menace to the track. The bass is thick and melodic, right in the centre, and the lead guitar in the right sounds ferocious with its triplet licks and emphatic downstrokes. It’s clear how Cobain took influence from their music in the first place. There’s also this strange clicking noise that you can hear throughout the track… Don’t know what it is, but it only adds to the dark and quite strange atmosphere.

I’ll leave Nirvana’s cover below – but it’s all about the Meat Puppets for me.