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#969: Pavement – Old to Begin

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Stephen Malkmus turned 30 years old in the spring of ’96, and, you know, turning 30 is supposed to be a big change in your life. Meant to be a time of reflection. Have you grown to be the person you thought you would when you were a kid? What’s next? Or is this all there is? I’m getting there, so the existential crisis hasn’t hit just yet. But I think Malkmus had one in his own way, and his concerns and feelings about the milestone were somewhat detailed in Pavement’s 1997 album Brighten the Corners. In his own cryptic, surreal and sarcastic style as always. The music reflected it too. A bit of switch-up from the winding and unpredictable nature of 95’s Wowee Zowee, Brighten… was much more straighter and somewhat digestible. No less entertaining though.

After offering observational takes on the music industry and touring respectively with ‘Stereo’ and ‘Transport Is Arranged’ and contemplating about settling down in ‘Shady Lane’, Malkmus puts the focus of aging within the lyric for ‘Old to Begin’. ‘Embrace the senile genius, watch him reinvent the wheel’ is the song’s first line, which I’ve always thought was a funny way to start things off. Considering he’s probably writing about himself, it couldn’t be a more self-deprecating statement for a guy that was seen as this indie prince-god-man to a lot of adulating fans. From there he puts in an idea of ‘feeling like a fixture set in 1966’, referencing the year that he was born, and in the track’s final verse utlises a list of things that you sort of begin to worry about once you hit the big 3-0, like credit cards, back problems and general stress. I’m telling you, once he hit that age, Malkmus started to feel the hands of time creep up on him a bit. Although, I could very much be wrong and be spewing a bunch of nothing. It’s my take, is all.

I get a personal kick out of the introduction, myself. One guitar strum is followed by a climbing bass guitar chord progression, followed by a synth that imitates the bass, followed by a guitar that plays the same chord progression again before the drums enter and everyone comes in together. It’s an engaging way to start things off for a track that has a real mid-tempo, slow-moving feel to it. For a guy who knows that he can’t sing strong enough, Malkmus can certainly reach those chesty high notes when he wants. His ability to sing low and quiet before suddenly putting some power into his vocal as he does in the verses here is not an easy feat for any vocalist. But he’s able to do so with ease, and it all culminates with the track’s cathartic ending where the intensity ramps up and he’s roaring some “la-la”‘s in your ears. It’s not a track that a lot of Pavement fans will seek out, but it does the job for this guy typing.

#965: Mac DeMarco – Ode to Viceroy

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Honestly, when it comes to ‘…Viceroy’, I’m not too sure I can pinpoint the exact moment when it clicked with me. I can say for sure that I would have heard it the first time when going through Mac DeMarco’s 2 for the first time in 2014, not too long after Salad Days had dropped and was instantly one of my favourite albums of recent times. I do recall wondering how the word ‘Viceroy’ was pronounced before the track started. Being from the UK, I don’t think I’d ever seen/heard that word in my life. Once DeMarco sings the word, it’s actually very obvious. I also remember ‘…Viceroy’ being a bit of a slow burner for me. The track’s the longest tune on the album, but it finishes off just under 4 minutes, which is a pretty standard song length. But still, it took a few listens for it to sink in. But once it did, well, just couldn’t get enough of it. Whoo, it’s a jam.

This jam is exactly what it says in the title. It’s a dedication to Viceroy cigarettes, one that came about after DeMarco started trying another brand of cigarettes, realized they were terrible and fully appreciated how great his beloved Viceroys were. There was a period in the mid-10s where DeMarco was the poster boy of indie rock, and his dedicated followers really wanted to be like him, wearing similar attire to the guy and smoking Viceroys just to be that closer to him. He however has made it clear that this is not a track that is meant to endorse smoking, but rather one that’s meant to put emphasis on his terrible smoking addiction. I think that unsettling outro with those heartbeat-like pulses that go on and on while a deep-pitched DeMarco starts choking puts a highlight on that too. But the glorious minutes are formed by a glorious song, one that only consists of two verses and two choruses, but the melodies are so memorable and the mood is so enticing. Really, it’s no wonder that fans wanted to smoke after hearing it. It’s too good not to smoke to.

What I’ve come to appreciate more and more is the contrast between those reverb-soaked guitars and DeMarco’s drier vocal that sits over the top of them. The juxtaposition is one that works too well. When you hear it, you come to realise DeMarco doesn’t really sing that much, and it’s the guitar that’s doing a lot of the melodic work. A lot of string bends and fills going on in those verses. And then those culminate in the call and response choruses with DeMarco singing and the guitar soloing in response. Man, it’s just good structure. And you can sing along to every part. This song’s great. Centerpiece of 2. Admittedly, I think Salad Days is slightly better. Just a bit more consistent. But 2 has very high highs, and ‘Ode to Viceroy’ is right up there. This’ll be the last track from that album I write about. If I had started just a bit later, ‘Cooking Up Something Good’ and ‘Dreamin” would have had their own posts on here. Wasn’t meant to be, but I’d suggest you check those out too.

#950: Billy Talent – Nothing to Lose

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I’ve done something here that I don’t think I’ve done on here before and that’s put a video of bandmembers discussing a song’s background at the beginning of a post, rather than the music video itself or one of those custom official ones with the album track and cover. I’ve never thought that Billy Talent were one of those bands to be lumped in with those bands that everyone labelled as emo in the 2000s. My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, The Used, you know the ones. But when you hear a song like ‘Nothing to Lose’ and realise the track is about suicide, someone might feel the urge to just yell “Emo” and disregard it entirely. Actually hearing the context the track was based on and hearing about how much it has meant to fans in the years that have passed will hopefully warm your hearts to it. Even if it means skipping the next couple paragraphs to watch the official video.

‘Nothing to Lose’ was released as the final single from Billy Talent’s first album, more than a year after the record had been released. It’s also the second to last song on there, and thank goodness for that because it would have been too much of a downer to end things on. If you didn’t watch the video above, the song was written after lead singer Ben Kowalewicz read a story about a boy in high school who was continuously bullied at school. After a kid asked that boy, “Why don’t you just kill yourself,” the boy went home at lunch period and hung himself in his basement. And so the track is an attempt to take on the first-person view of that boy, or anyone who was generally in the same situation. There’s practically no introduction. Just on straight away with Ben’s vocals and Ian D’Sa’s guitar. And with the first verse describing how alone the narrator feels and the chorus further detailing how if the narrator ends their life, nothing lost because no one cared about them, there’s only one way this song is going to go.

So, yes, the song’s about suicide and bullying and the horrible things a teenager can go through in high school when it really gets to that horrible level. But what I’ve always thought sets it aside from all of those other songs that are about those very things is just how damn passionate it is. Some might find Kowalewicz’s vocals grating, I’m sure I’ve read a few reviews who can’t help but mention their opinion on them, but you can’t say that he doesn’t sound like he cares. And when he’s screaming from his chest during the final choruses, I can’t help but feel those goosebumps. I barely like songs that have screaming in them anymore, but when the final choruses hit here I always nod my head gently and really feel it, you know? It’s very powerful. And plus I’ve got to give a nod to Ian D’Sa’s guitar playing as I do in every Billy Talent post. I can’t help it, his style’s consistently awesome. Just the chords he chooses and the way he plays them, there’s a lot to keep you engaged.

#926: Blur – No Distance Left to Run

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Damon Albarn and former Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann were sometimes labelled the ‘King and Queen of Britpop’ during that time in the ’90s when that whole movement was happening. They were a couple through and through until they broke up in 1998, leaving Albarn traumatised and incredibly bummed out by the ordeal. The fallout of that, plus a dependence on heroin and straining relationships within Blur resulted in 13, the group’s most experimental album, possibly their most sonically adventurous too. It truly goes off the deep end about four songs in and onward. So when ‘No Distance Left to Run’ comes in as the record’s penultimate track, it enforces a sound of band that really has nothing left to give.

The song has to go down as one of the saddest in Blur’s catalogue. It’s about the dreadful realisation that a relationship’s over, one that a lot of years went into with a lot of heart, and tearfully wishing the other person all the best with someone else while you’re all alone and left wanting to die. I may have exaggerated a little bit on that last point. But it’s clear that Albarn wasn’t in the greatest of places while recording this. His trembling vocal take alongside Graham Coxon’s weeping guitar are the highlights throughout. In the band’s 2010 documentary, named after this track as a matter of fact, Coxon mentions that Albarn never told the bandmates what was going on, but it was quite obvious that things weren’t good. So he tried to make a riff and some chord progressions that would match whatever words Albarn wrote down. Fair to say he does them justice. I do particularly like the spacey instrumental in the middle, with those twinkling keys that pan from left to right alongside those smooth ‘ooh’ vocals. I thought it was a choir doing them, but I upon further research it seems they are done by Albarn and Coxon, or Albarn double-tracked. Whatever way, it’s good listening.

I wasn’t properly living around the time of this album’s release or thereafter. Would have been very young at the time. But looking back as a Blur fan and reading up on stuff, ‘No Distance Left to Run’ could very much have been the band’s last track on an album. One on which there’s singing anyway. Going into the new century, it seemed that the group wasn’t sure where to go, releasing a ‘Best Of’ compilation. Then Damon Albarn put more focus on Gorillaz, and forged a whole other path of success. But thankfully that wasn’t the case, and two more Blur albums were made. Let’s hope there’s another soon.

#905: Good Shoes – Never Meant to Hurt You

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Here’s another track by Good Shoes, one that like countless others throughout this series I got to know just by watching MTV2 in the morning. I’ve given something of a backstory as to how I came know the band’s music in the previous post I did concerning them, which greatly decreases the amount of words I’d have to write on here. Also allows me to talk more about the song. I’m by no means a professional, but I’ll try my best.

The track is the tale of a relationship where a girl is infatuated with the man she’s with while he just doesn’t feel the same. The narrator’s remorseful about the way things ended, wishing that things had been different, and trying to maintain the fact that with all that happened no harm was ever meant to be caused. It’s a sad subject. But together with the cutesy stop-motion music video and its general catchiness and urgent melodies, the melancholy tends to float under the radar a little. You can definitely sense a tinge of sadness though. That changes however when after that final instrumental break, the song ends with a joyous repetition of the title.

One thing I’ve noticed about Good Shoes is that there’s barely any bass in their songs, and as a result their tracks can sound very light and easy on the ears, and it also lets those little guitar licks stick out more too. That certain style suits this track perfectly, especially during those instrumental breaks that separates the choruses and verses. I also like singer Rhys Jones’ vocals on this. He pronounces and enunciates words in ways which I don’t think I’ve heard before. He’s not the greatest singer by any means, but there’s a lot of feeling behind it. That’s all you want really. Below’s the album version, which isn’t any different from the video above except that it has the word ‘fuck’ in it.