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My iPod #439: Queens of the Stone Age – Go with the Flow

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“Go with the Flow” is a song by Queens of the Stone Age that has grown to be one of the band’s most known and beloved songs. Reasons? It’s placed on what is arguably the band’s best album of Songs for the Deaf, it has a brilliant and iconic Shynola-directed music video used to promote its single release, and and because everything about it is just too badass to comprehend.

Though personally it’s not my favourite Queens track, I admire it for its sheer velocity, execution, and quality. The song doesn’t even allow you to settle into the groove. It just explodes into its rhythm and from then on it’s full throttle energy exuded all round by each member. Honestly…. never thought about its meaning that much because to me the music has a lot more impact. But Josh Homme still works it on the vocal area as only he does best, and backs it up with powerful guitar playing alongside Nick Oliveri on the bass and Gene Trautmann (and not Dave Grohl as some may think) on the drums.

If you haven’t heard it before, where have you been? Listen to it now, man.

My iPod #425: Manic Street Preachers – The Girl Who Wanted to Be God

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“The Girl Who Wanted to Be God” is a track from Manic Street Preachers’ album “Everything Must Go“, released in 1996. This album was their first after the disappearance of lyricist and rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards (which happened twenty years ago yesterday, if you didn’t know) though some tracks on it included lyrics that Edwards had left over – today’s track is one of them, though Nicky Wire did contribute lyrics too. I’ve personally never looked into the lyrics much though the title is also the name of a poem by the late Sylvia Plath, whose work Edwards was known to study. Take from that what you will.

Admittedly the part of the track that got me straight away were the sensational strings that give the track this elating feeling of freedom. After seconds of a choppy guitar and a meddling rhythm section that start the track off, the strings suddenly appear to play the chorus melody and I’m launched into the air and find myself soaring through the sky, faster than the speed of sound. And then James Dean Bradfield reinforces that feeling by belting out the title phrase which makes up the song’s chorus. The verses are good; they have a good melody to them. But that chorus…. some days it will pop in my head, and I can be repeating it for minutes on end.

If I were lucky enough to be a member of Manic Street Preachers in 1996, I would definitely have wanted this to be a single. Could you imagine thousands of people singing back that chorus to you at concerts? Man. Better than “Kevin Carter“, I think. Though however glorious the strings and wailing guitar may be, it still reminds me of music that should be in the background of a flight advert or the theme music to a soap opera. I really don’t know why, I just get that vibe from it.

My iPod #422: Super Furry Animals – The Gift That Keeps Giving

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“The Gift That Keeps Giving” is a song by Welsh band Super Furry Animals “conceived as a Christmas single” and eventually released as one on Christmas Day in 2007. It was also the final single to be released from their then most recent album Hey Venus!, their eighth overall.

Although all this time has passed, I have never got round to listening to the album. But “Gift” remains as my constant reminder of why I should one day, never mind the fact that the band’s whole discography is one of the most consistent by any group. I remember its music video being repeated again and again during the festive period on MTV2… it doesn’t quite match up to the tracks joyous message. But it still did its job of getting inside my head because of how warm and homely it sounded.

A track of a steady tempo with beautiful vocal harmonies and rich instrumentation, “The Gift That Keeps Giving” maintains a comfortable groove and infectious melody resulting in one of the band’s most mellow and yet enjoyable pieces of work.

My iPod #420: Nine Black Alps – Ghost in the City

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“Ghost in the City” closes out Nine Black Alps’ third album “Locked Out from the Inside“; after ten tracks of murky guitars and brutal rhythms, “Ghost” arrives as the slow comedown to bring it all to an end.

Maybe one of the softest Nine Black Alps songs with Sam Forrest’s vulnerable and gentle vocals, “Ghost in the City” also creates an eerie and barren atmosphere helped along by a siren-like wailing that appears at various points throughout and its overall production in that it sounds very natural. For instance, in parts where the guitars stop playing or just by listening to the song’s depressing guitar lick, every sound you hear echoes and reverberates around your headphones. It feels like everything’s moving in slow motion, though you’re right there in the studio with the band while they play the song to you.

Just short of five minutes, “Ghost in the City” carries on the themes of alienation and isolation that are noted to within the album though rather than using those themes to make another headbanger, “Ghost” brings to the forefront how miserable and frustrating feeling alone can be.

My iPod #410: Fall Out Boy – Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

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Honestly, I liked this track much more in the past than I do now. If I had the same attitude towards it like I did then, I would have provided the song’s full title, but that is just too much. I’m tired and burned out. Not to say that this track is bad, ‘cos I’m gonna write about it anyway. It has lost its effect on me, that’s all.

“Get Busy” is a very bitchy track. It appears to be from the perspective of a guy used for sex, and eventually dumped by a girl who he really had feelings for. The guy’s understandably pissed, but feels that justice is served when the girl’s ‘secret’ (what it is, we don’t know) comes out and rubs it in by telling her that the secret was shit anyway. He’s over her. She don’t matter no more.

I have always liked the music on this track. The palm-muted guitars add a very sinister tone to the song’s atmosphere, and the track also showcases Patrick Stump’s vocal talents. He doesn’t just sing on here, but he also (kind of) screams along with Pete during the bridge, adding a real harshness on his voice. It did take me a while that it actually was him who was doing that and not just a guest vocalist from another band they knew.

Pete Wentz also reads out a poem as the final chord is struck and fades out. To this day I don’t know what it’s about, but as he continues reading it his delivery rises in intensity as the guitar fades in again until coming to a sudden stop. That ending’s always made me feel a bit uneasy. But it’s a good lead in to “XO”. Very similar to what they did with “20 Dollar Nose Bleed” and “West Coast Smoker” on Folie á Deux.

A shame I don’t feel as excited by the song as I used to. But those were some good few years I had when I was.