Tag Archives: out

#1147: Hot Hot Heat – Running Out of Time

Leave a reply

Hot Hot Heat were one of the first bands I witnessed when I was really getting into rock music, thanks to the video for ‘Bandages’ being played in the morning one day on MTV2. Not too far from that point, the group came back with their second album Elevator, promoted by singles ‘Goodnight Goodnight’ and ‘Middle of Nowhere’. Both fine, fine songs. And it was those two, along with ‘Island of the Honest Man’, that gave me the urge to download the album years later. This is all a very roundabout way of saying this is how I came to know today’s song ‘Running Out of Time’, which is the first proper track on Elevator following a short little introduction that opens the album.

It’s a slamming start to the track that greets the listener, putting things into high gear before Steve Bays goes in observation mode and dedicates his verses to a bunch of kooky characters. In order of appearance, he sings about: himself, an art history dropout, a screenplay player co-writing a screenplay (a lyric which I’ve never fully realised how clunky it is till now), a Hollywood waiter and a retired ball player. They’re all going through their own situations, all of which seem to freak Bays out in a way and lead him to the conclusion that he’s ‘running out of time’. Maybe these characters are reminding him of his age or something. But he would have been relatively young while writing the lyrics. I don’t know. It’s a guess. I could understand someone not liking Bays’ style of singing. I read the lyrics online and wonder if they’re the words that are actually being said. But he has enough power and melody in his delivery that it wins me over anyway. And also Dante DeCaro’s guitar fills throughout add a little extra eccentricity to the action. It’s all very good stuff.

I’d gotten used to fact that Hot Hot Heat were no longer a band. The Canadian group hadn’t been a functioning unit since 2016, I believe. They released a final self-titled album, called it a day, and that was that. So it was strange to me when maybe a couple weeks ago I read that the band had split up again. Again? When did they reunite? Apparently in November last year. They released a new song and everything, which I completely missed. But the comeback didn’t last long, as vocalist Steve Bays felt he “couldn’t participate”. A fair enough reason not to do something, I guess. There’s probably something more behind that statement, but also probably best not to probe.

#1018: Mac DeMarco – Passing Out Pieces

Leave a reply

Well, damn. Tomorrow, it’ll be nine years to the day that Mac DeMarco’s Salad Days was released. Nine years in two more days if you’re reading from the US. And it’ll be pretty much nine years since I’ve been listening to Mac as an artist, waiting in anticipation for each release that followed. Look at this little post I did when I got the idea to write about how much I was enjoying the record. 19 years of age and wasn’t bothered about proofreading what I was writing. Not much has changed on that front. But the album really was on constant rotation at the time, and it’s probably my favourite of DeMarco’s to this day.

If you did click on that link that goes to that post from 9 years ago, you’ll see the short origin story of how I came across the album. It doesn’t bear repeating. But the gist is its Best New Music review on Pitchfork and hearing minute-and-a-half samples on iTunes. If you also look at the date of that post, I wrote it and got it out there on 24th May, the day after the strange music video (above) for DeMarco’s ‘Passing Out Pieces’ was finally released, five months after it had already been out as a single. By May, the song was a firm favourite of mine. Didn’t think the video matched its tone at all, though.

It opens up the album’s second half with these phat but glossy synthesizers, one playing the melodic hook on the left side and another providing the chords on the right, a thick bass mirroring the left-hand-side synthesizer melody and a steady-going drum pattern. The track concerns DeMarco’s feelings of being this musician man who’s never been hesitant to devote time to his followers whether or not it comes at the price of making a fool of himself in the process. He understands that its the price you have to pay in the business that is music, but admits that the stuff he’s done that he couldn’t never tell his mother has a bit of burden on him. He’s seen some scary stuff. But he closes the song out with a growly “Yeah” as if to say, “You gotta love it, though.” The song’s a jam. Always a good time whenever this pops up on shuffle. Yeah, it’s getting to a decade. But it’s sounds super-fresh, still.

#1005: Adrianne Lenker – out of your mind

Leave a reply

2019. Was a new year, and I had recently been laid off from my first job out of uni. To pass the time, while mind-numbingly scanning through applications, I listened to a bunch of albums that the Indieheads subreddit page had listed as ‘Album of the Year’ for 2018. There were 30 of them. There was only one I properly liked. It was abysskiss by Adrianne Lenker. You see the Wikipedia page I just linked to? I created it. I couldn’t take that a page hadn’t been made for it. Last year November I created a Wikipedia account just to make the thing. Listening to that album began a whole domino effect. I sought out Big Thief, listened to Capacity and Masterpiece. Kinda dug them both. But then ‘UFOF’, the single, came out, followed by ‘Cattails’, ‘Century’ and then U.F.O.F. the album, and just like that, Adrianne Lenker became a new favourite songwriter of mine.

‘out of your mind’ arrives as a bit of an odd one when going through abysskiss. After the four mainly acoustic folky, synth-tinged numbers that come before it, ‘…mind’ opens with a grungy electric guitar. Sprightly acoustic guitars take up the rest of the soundscape in both channels, but what I think the track is based around is Lenker singing the vocal while playing that electric guitar in one take. I’m not much of a lyrics guy, but what I gather is that there is a relationship involved. The whole time you’ll think Lenker’s singing about the person she’s seeing, but it’s when she uses her ‘Annie’ nickname in the last chorus that it becomes clear she’s actually taking on the perspective of her significant other. In that way, she’s reflecting on the way she acts as a person and how her partner may perceive her. It’s certainly a different way of approaching a narrative, particularly in a song.

This track is one of most recent I’ve heard when I had a sort of “eureka/a-ha!” moment. For a long while, I was having some major rhythm displacement with it. Every time I was singing along to it, I always found that the “Is it aaaannyyyy…” line for the chorus came in a beat too late. Everything was all 4/4 until that last bar before the chorus. Turned out I was missing the count-in completely. It sounded to me like the downbeat came on the very first strum of the electric guitar that starts the song. It actually starts on the second. So instead of 1-2-3-4, it’s “and, 1-2-3-4”. It would be a lot handier to visually explain it. But once I realised it, it was like ten lightbulbs going off in my head. I liked the song even with my off-timing, but with it all coming together, it truly secured itself as a favourite.

#1004: Blur – Out of Time

Leave a reply

The beginning of the new millennium was a weird one for Blur. They were all over the ’90s. The band’s singles and albums were a mainstay in the charts, and that whole Battle of Britpop thing with Oasis happened. But then that decade ended, they were all sort of dishevelled and in their ’30s. The band members weren’t sure which direction to go in. The band released a ‘Best of’ compilation (with great artwork), released a new single, and did some promo appearances. Search up ‘Blur 2000’ on YouTube, and it’s a bit of a trip. Kinda strange seeing the band performing ‘Girls & Boys’ with Gorillaz very much around the corner. By 2001, it was all about ‘Clint Eastwood’ and Gorillaz shot off into the stratosphere.

Couple years later, Blur got back together. Much to Damon Albarn’s hesitance as he stated in the No Distance Left to Run documentary. Graham Coxon left the band because of miscommunication, his own problems with alcohol and some strange handling by their manager. Blur continued as a three-piece. ‘Out of Time’ was the first taste of this new lineup as the first single from the then upcoming album Think Tank in 2003. I was eight years old at the time, I didn’t have a clue who Blur was. I didn’t hear Think Tank until 2013, going through Blur’s discography. I wonder how people must have felt hearing the track upon its initial release. It’s such a lowkey, very minimal track to choose as a first single. It does have a breezy groove, the percussion’s light and very tasteful. The thing that blows me away every time I hear it is Albarn’s vocal. Just so pure, clear and sincere, could bring a tear to your eye.

Released at the beginning of the Iraq War, the track asks the question of where civilisation is going with all the madness that was going on, stating that humanity was forgetting how beautiful life can be and that we may have gone too far into the deep end to recover from the devastation. That specific war’s over, but things aren’t going so well these days for anyone, so I think the song’s message still has as much poignancy now as it did then. You may across comments that harp on Think Tank because of how unlike Blur it sounds. To be fair, those may be justified. Coxon did play a massive part in the band’s sound. But this track came out of it, so I don’t complain too much. Contains a couple great ones that I’ll never be able to post about, and a few more that I will.

#940: John Lennon – Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out)

1 Reply

In 1974, an advertisement was made to promote the release of John Lennon’s forthcoming album, Walls and Bridges. His former bandmate but good friend Ringo Starr provided the voiceover, and two of Lennon’s new tracks were previewed. One being ‘Whatever Gets You thru the Night’, his first number one in the US, and today’s song, ‘Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out)’. Decades later, I came across the latter through seeing the advert on YouTube, and that small clip left me wanting to hear the whole thing. So, I guess that commercial fulfilled its job.

‘Nobody Loves You’ encapsulates Lennon’s feelings and cynical takes he had garnered during his “Lost Weekend” period, a time when he was separated from Yoko Ono and spending his days drinking and getting high with his buddies in Los Angeles. He was ultimately depressed and lonely, but also let down by the critical and public reception of his then-latest music. He had given the world hope with the Beatles. He’d been at the forefront spreading the message of peace and love. He’d laid his soul bare countless times in previous albums. But the indifference in return at the time left he feeling cheated and disillusioned with the music industry. Probably why he decided to retire for a bit not so long after.

Lennon said that the track was one that Frank Sinatra could have sung. Listening to it, you can kind of see why. The tense strings and the smoky-nightclub-esque horn section provide the music this grand cinematic feel, and its crawling tempo lend a feel that the best of those iconic crooners could belt out a note to. Though funnily in a way, Lennon doesn’t go the ‘My Way’ route and instead sings the lyrics in a hushed and rather casual manner. The restraint makes it all the more harder when, after a sweet slide-guitar solo, the music rises with tempo and urgency and Lennon lets everything out on the “Well, I get up in the morning” section. That doesn’t last too long though. The music returns to that of the verses, and after the now quite chilling line “Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground”, Lennon sends us off with some happy-go-lucky whistling. To think, had he not come back with a new record in 1980, this could have been his last original song on an album. It’s not a song to feel happy to when you’re listening, but it’s certainly relatable. Not in the way that we could see it from Lennon’s point of view as an almighty mega-rich superstar. But it ultimately distils a sense of loneliness and cynicism that all of us feel from time to time.