Tag Archives: sun

My iPod #112: Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun

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Violent Femmes are a band from Wisconsin that formed back in 1980. They’ve split up twice but have got back together this year.

I’m not a fan of them; this is the only song by the band that I have. Not because I’ve listened to their songs and thought that they were crap, but because I haven’t listened to anything else they’ve put out. Well, apart from “Gone Daddy Gone” (not a Gnarls Barkley song), and “Add It Up” (which I can barely remember). But even those are on the same album as “Blister”.

“Blister in the Sun” came on when I was on the LAUNCHcast internet radio in the mid-noughties. It immediately caught my attention when the catchy riff started, and it’s hard to forget it seeing as the riff melody is the same as the lead vocal too. The song was first released on the band’s debut album in 1983, but sounds like it could have been released in the sixties. I don’t know what it is, when I think of the eighties I think of long hair, Footloose, keyboards and drum machines. “Blister in the Sun” sounds like the complete opposite with it’s minimal instrumentation. It makes for good listening when you’re walking in a park, on a nice summer’s day.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

My iPod #103: Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun

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This may be a short post. I’m not really a fan of Soundgarden, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to say a lot about them. I did download “Superunknown” last year though, thought that was awesome and listened to a few songs of theirs afterwards. But I’ll try and fill the void.

“Black Hole Sun” was actually the third single from “Superunknown”. Huh. I always assumed it was the first, only because it’s considered to be the band’s most popular song. Grunge was still the big thing in America at the time the song was released, but Kurt Cobain was dead too. So the grunge followers needed a song that would reflect the feelings. This eventually became that song.

I watched Kerrang! one day, and the video for “Black Hole Sun” came on. I was pretty weirded out by the whole thing. The whole apocalypse theme, the weird stretching faces… pure nightmare fuel for anybody. ‘Cause of that, I didn’t really like the song. I didn’t want to see the video again for quite some time either. I realised the song wasn’t bad though. I can’t make my mind up on whether the song has a positive mood or a negative one. Stereotypically, grunge never has a positive message. There’s no negative theme in the song, it’s just about who observes problems around them, and yearns for something to ‘wash the rain away’. Maybe it’s the drop D tuning that does it. Makes the track sound dark and moody.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.