Tag Archives: on

#974: Kings of Leon – On Call

Leave a reply

Two and a bit years on from Aha Shake Heartbreak, the time had come around for a new Kings of Leon album. The music video for ‘On Call’ premiered in the UK on Channel 4. If anyone from the UK remembers when Channel 4 used to premiere brand new music videos, shout out to you. But they always showed them at the latest times of the day. I was 11 years old at the time, and didn’t have enough energy to stay up until 11:45pm or whenever time they were showing it. It was some ungodly time, for an 11-year-old at least. My sister, however, did. When I asked her how it was the next morning, though I can’t remember the specifics, I do recall her making a comment on how the camera zoomed on Caleb Followill’s face every time he sang, “Be there.” I asked, “Kinda like Kurt Cobain in the ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ video?” She said, “Something like that, sure.” It wasn’t too long until the video started regularly playing on MTV2. Followill isn’t as unhinged as Cobain was in that music video. But the similarity was there.

Gotta say, ‘On Call’ is quite a strange choice for a single. Especially the first one for an album that fans would have been eagerly anticipating. In a lot of ways, it shouldn’t work. There’s no guitar-led introduction like the other typical KoL singles. Instead, in came these slow ghostly keyboards, with which Caleb Followill joins in not too long after. Even he delivers his lines, one after the other, quite shyly with spaces in between to really make those keyboards heard. Then that ominous tape-echoed bassline comes in with that chugging guitar line on the right by Matthew Followill. All these elements make for quite the mysterious introduction to a song. Then Caleb really starts singing. The “I’m on call to BE THERE” line is one that has a melody that, again, should not work in any way. But then the band properly fall in at 1:18 and everything comes together, it all starts to make sense. Then by the time the guitar solo comes in, you’ve got yourself another classic KoL track.

Think I’ve made it clear in other posts concerning Kings of Leon, but after Because of the Times, things were just never the same. The video for ‘On Call’ sort of marked an end of an era. It was the last video of the band’s in which Caleb Followill had his long hair, something of a remainder from the Aha Shake era. The band released the track ‘Fans’ as a single, but the next music video they would make would be for ‘Charmer’, where those locks were chopped off. Amazing how he looked almost like a completely different person through that act. But I’m not afraid to say I’m one of those fans who think it all went wrong from ‘Sex on Fire’ onwards. I don’t cry and wish they’d go back to their old style though. No point. By this point I’ve made my peace with the matter. But for a while Kings of Leon had us all going.

#973: Nirvana – On a Plain

Leave a reply

You may be a frequent reader on this blog and think, “Hey, where are all the Nirvana songs around here?” And that’s fair. The last song of the band’s I’ve written a post for was ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ in 2015, when I was nearing the end of my second year of university. To tell you the truth, I’m not the most massive fan of Nirvana. Appreciate the songs the trio made for sure. But man, are their songs played a lot or what? Especially in the case of Nevermind. The first half of that album’s lost its effect on me just a little. Except for maybe ‘Breed’, but even then I don’t go to that too much. Nah, while people are fawning over the usual suspects, and I guess ‘Something in the Way’ now thanks to The Batman, I’ll be in the corner jamming to ‘On a Plain’. It’s my go-to song on Nevermind by a considerable distance.

There are some odd moments on Nevermind, and the beginning of ‘On a Plain’ is no exception. A mixture of guitar feedback and what I think is someone attempting to armpit fart in the microphone introduce things for a few seconds. After a brief silence where you’re left to wonder what could happen next, the track starts for real and turns out to be arguably the catchiest three minutes on the entire album. The band come in emphatically on the downbeat, Kurt Cobain immediately joins in with some low-key vocals before ramping things up on the “Love myself better than you” line, where he’s also joined by Dave Grohl on backing harmonies. You don’t really even need to understand what’s going on during the rest of those verses. Those deliveries on the “Love myself…” lines are always killer. If you do want to pay attention to the lyrics, you’ll find that you’ll most likely gain nothing from them, as Cobain makes clear in the track’s final verse. I think it’s one of those songs where the words were written to match the music, rather than to contain any sort of emotional depth. And a lot of times those types of songs are the best ones. Especially for someone like me who doesn’t place much importance in the words anyway.

Apart from wanting to make clear my appreciation for the “Hmm-hmm” harmonies and that killer chord progression during the choruses and Krist Novoselic’s bassline during the verses, I think everything I’ve said in the previous paragraphs is all I have to say on this composition. It’s a bit of a ‘see you ’round’ moment, something of a happier ending to leave you feeling good, before ‘Something in the Way’ comes in and takes that feeling away. And we all know how ‘Endless, Nameless’ goes. This is the only Nevermind track you’ll get from me on here. I know, I know. It’s a shame. I’m much more a fan of In Utero anyway.

#948: Sum 41 – Nothing on My Back

Leave a reply

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.

#869: Blur – Movin’ On

Leave a reply

Think I read that Blur’s ‘Movin’ On’ was meant to be the final track on the band’s self-titled album from 1997. But then that changed when one day they made ‘Essex Dogs’ and decided that that track would take its place. ‘Movin’ On’ does have that “see you later, we’re out of here” sort of feel about it though. I just get that sense from its musicality, it’s hard to explain. What I do know is that it’s one of my favourites on this album, though I’m sure many wouldn’t bat an eyelid at it because there’s also ‘Beetlebum’, ‘Death of a Party’ and, you know, ‘Song 2’, among many other tracks that people may arguably find more substantial.

What got me hooked immediately to this one was its opening guitar riff, played by Graham Coxon, that goes back and forth with that fuzzy keyboard, presumably played by Damon Albarn. Those two are basically the melodic core of almost the entire track, then when the rhythm section of Alex James and Dave Rowntree join in, well, then it’s just plain sailing from there. The track is meant to be the band’s sort of declaration that they were done with the whole Britpop movement that they seemed to be a major force behind, and were going to continue to make simple indie rock, real band music. Of course, you wouldn’t assume this from the lyrics in the verses where Albarn is really just singing nonsense. Not like stupid things, but I feel they are words that are generally meant to fir the music rather than have a deep meaning behind them. Again, quite similar to what he would be doing with Gorillaz a few years later. Though there’s not much meaning, they’re delivered with a lot of feeling, and that’s all I ask for when it comes to this music stuff.

Some musical highlights in this to look out for… I mean I already mentioned the back and forth between the guitar and keyboard that happens throughout. I’d like to shout-out Dave Rowntree’s drum pattern during the choruses. I’m not a drummer, but there’s something emphatic about the way he switches between the hi-hats, tom-toms and crash cymbals alongside those rising ‘aah-aah’ backing vocals from Graham Coxon. Those sections are very uplifting. And then there are those moments where the band let loose. The keyboards freak out for the entire instrumental bridge, and the song’s end is just the four guys making as much noise as possible. I think it all just reflects the freedom the band must have had, particularly Coxon, now that they were changing their style up a bit. I give this track two thumbs up.

#802: R.E.M. – Man on the Moon

Leave a reply

I downloaded the Automatic for the People album years ago. A website said that it was a very good record. I didn’t really pay much attention to it though. 2018 was the year I really got into R.E.M., and I went through the band’s whole discography in about two weeks. Automatic was an obvious standout. ‘Man on the Moon’ is the tenth track on there.

Drummer Bill Berry came up with the main chord progression of the verses (a slide from C to D) while strumming a guitar alongside the band’s usual guitarist, Peter Buck. The story goes that Berry reached for something and inadvertently changed the chord he was playing. Buck went ahead and developed upon the idea. Singer and lyricist Michael Stipe heard the music they had come up with, and for a long time had some trouble coming up with words to accompany it. In the end, he chose to write about comedian Andy Kaufman, his career highlights and compares those conspiracies about his death with those about the moon landing. The word ‘yeah’ also appears a lot in there because Stipe was inspired by Kurt Cobain’s use of it in Nirvana songs.

Notable highlights in this song for me are the three way harmonies of Stipe, bassist Mike Mills, and Berry. Those vocals were a staple in the R.E.M. catalogue from the band’s first album. After Automatic they weren’t utilised as much. Whenever that ‘Andy did you hear about this one’ pre-chorus starts with Berry on the lower harmony and Mills on the high with Stipe in the middle, it always feels like this huge change in motion from the preceding verses. Peter Buck’s slide guitar during these parts are quite nice too. Released as the second single from the album in 1992, it was part of a run that cemented the hold that R.E.M. had on the alternative world on the time. I’ll never really know how big the band were then. I hadn’t been born. But from what I’ve read, they were a huge deal.