Tag Archives: today

#1391: Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today

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‘Clint Eastwood’ is the official first single by Gorillaz. I’m sure it goes down as that. When it was released in 2001, I was but a small child, but I have a vague memory of watching The Box or something and seeing Noodle kicking a gorilla in the face, having no idea what was going on. Seemed weird seeing a cartoon set to music. That’s seen as the song that introduced the world to Gorillaz. But a few months before, the first batch of Gorillaz material was released in the form of the Tomorrow Comes Today EP. A very pivotal time in Damon Albarn’s life. Only a month before the EP was out, he was appearing on TV shows with Blur, doing promotional work for the band’s Best Of: compilation. But that work was over, it was a new millennium, and it was time to unveil this new project. Gorillaz, hell yeah. ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’ was really the first Gorillaz song to be unveiled, along with a music video that, according to the Bananaz documentary, was done in two weeks.

I… did not like this song a very long time. I heard Gorillaz for the first time in 2010. I may have heard ‘Tomorrow…’ here and there before then, but here it was in the context of the album. With its placement after ‘Re-Hash’ and ‘5/4’, ‘Tomorrow…’ felt like such a downer. Albarn melodically mumbling syllables over downcast music. It wasn’t for me. I didn’t get it. But then, I remember, I was on a train, more specifically the Underground, back home one day. Couldn’t say what year. I was looking at people’s faces, most of them blank, expressionless, tired. The song came to my head, and that was it. I feel I finally understood what the tune was going for. Even though I don’t think anyone really knows what Albarn’s saying apart from the man himself, I get the feeling it’s about being anywhere else than a place you’re currently in – whether that be physically or mentally too. It might have to do with the rapid development of technology or something as well. Albarn’s vocal’s perfect for it. The best part is probably when Miho Hatori, as Noodle, harmonises with him on the last line. Icing on the cake.

The song goes back as early as 1999. We know this because, in its demo form, it was released as a bonus track on Japanese releases of Blur’s 13. Check out Damon Albarn just messing around on his Casio. Obviously, he saw enough potential in the song he had to develop it into the fleshed-out composition it would become. In its album form, it’s led by a really deep bass guitar, sparse piano tinkles and the melodica, an instrumental you’ll find in many a Gorillaz song. I never realized how sample-assisted the track is too. The drum beat is taken from Allen Toussaint’s ‘Get Out of My Life, Woman’. And if I hadn’t looked at Genius, I would have never known there was a recording of a Gregorian chant during the introduction. Thinking that’s down to the involvement of producer Dan the Automator, who was also working on Deltron 3030 almost at the same time. That’s a whole other bag we don’t have to put our hands into. But to sum things up, ‘Tomorrow Comes Today’ is a song I like a lot now having disregarded it for many years. I can find a lot of solace in its gloom.

#1387: The Smashing Pumpkins – Today

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When Smashing Pumpkins were in their prime, in the ’90s as the classic lineup of Corgan, Wretzky, Iha and Chamberlain, I was barely a human being. I’m thinking the first time I may have become aware of the band was through their guest appearance on The Simpsons, a show you couldn’t get me away from when I was a child, and that would have been a repeat airing years after its premiere. The first Pumpkins release I was around to experience the “hype” for was Zeitgeist in ’07. But in the years leading up to that, seeing a Smashing Pumpkins music video on any music television channel was a common occurrence. It’s how I came to know ‘Today.’ I got a grip of what the band’s singles were about. I properly went through their discography in about 2020. I’d heard Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie… before, but 2020 was the year where I could really absorb ’em. Hence this is the first time I’m covering a Smashing Pumpkins song of any kind on here. I do like a few more. They just begin with letters of the alphabet that come before ‘T.’

The track was released as the second single from Siamese Dream, the band’s second album, in 1993. I believe the story goes the band’s label pushed it to be the first, I think for very obvious reasons too, but the band felt ‘Cherub Rock’ was a better representation of where the band was at that point in time. Gotta respect it. But ‘Today’, man. Might be basic to say it’s a favourite Smashing Pumpkins song of mine, but there’s no point in denying it. The quieter parts of the song are where the choruses happen before they launch into the louder verses, putting a nice spin on the usual ‘quiet verse / loud chorus’ dynamic which was a keystone move in ’90s alternative rock. I appreciate that. That, and what I think is an obvious Beatles reference with the ‘I want to turn you on’ repeats near the finish. But I what I appreciate most is the great melody. I’m a sucker for a melody you can get lost in, and that’s all over ‘Today’. Whether Corgan takes on the breathy, airy tone or a gritter one for the louder parts, the melody at the centre of it is always strong. There’s also a guitar solo buried deep in the middle of the layered guitars during the introduction, which is actually one of my favourite parts of the entire thing. It seems insignificant, but for me it adds so much to it all.

Yeah, watching the music video for ‘Today’ was how I got to know the song. It’s a story that applies to a bunch of other songs on this blog. I think the video played on VH2. From what I can remember, the channel used a clip of the video for one of the various ident adverts it had. I became familiar with the track’s twinkling riff and the drop into the heavy intro. That’s how my association with it stayed for a while. One day the whole video played, and that was all I needed. There’s a reason it’s one of the band’s most well-known songs. It’s so damn catchy, even though it’s written at a time when Billy Corgan was at his lowest and contemplating suicide. In his words, he found it funny to write a song saying “today is the greatest day [he’s] ever known” because it couldn’t get any worse. And yet out of what must have been a shitty situation came this track that makes so many people happy. I most likely took the song’s main phrase at face value those first times hearing it. But even after knowing the song’s dark background for a while now, I hear that small, unassuming riff and the sudden switch into the sunny, distorted introduction and can’t help but smile and feel warm inside.

#1082: Cloud Nothings – Quieter Today

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Well, I guess from this day onward, things will be a bit quieter around here. It’s the last song of the P (and Q) section. It’s the last Cloud Nothings song that will feature on this whole thing too. They had a good run. The first one I wrote for the band came in 2014 with ‘Fall In’. Had I known the band earlier, ‘Cut You’ would have got its own post too. Bit of a shame though because since they released Here and Nowhere Else all those years ago, there haven’t made another record that hit me the same way as it and Attack on Memory did and still do to this day. I did think they would go on to take the rest of the 2010s by storm. Wasn’t meant to be it seems.

‘Quieter Today’ is the second song on Here and Nowhere Else and keeps things rolling on very swiftly after the album’s mood is somewhat established by its opener, ‘Now Hear In’. Guitarist and vocalist Dylan Baldi described it as ‘almost like a pop song’, and I see where he’s coming from. In terms of the structure, you’ve got the standard procedure of verse, pre-chorus, chorus (x2), bridge and outro. So, in that way, it’s easy to follow like a pop song. Though where it differs greatly is that obviously it’s in a noise-rock context where the drums are thrashing, moving almost ahead of where each beat is supposed to go, and where the guitars are playing chords and hooks at a frenetic pace. My favourite moments aren’t even brought on by the performance here. They arrive in those short pauses that occur in between the pre-choruses and the choruses themselves. All the tension built in the former is released in the latter with this great release; it’s so cathartic every time.

Gotta say I have no idea what the lyrics truly are. Genius appears to have what would be the closest-sounding to what can be heard, but I’m still skeptical about them anyway. Though Baldi also stated that the song is about being comfortable in just observing and keeping quiet when around people who talk just for the sake of talking. This is a sentiment that I am on board with all the way. If I didn’t already like the song, that just added a few bonus points in my eyes. Not that I don’t want people to talk all the time. It’s just fine to have those moments of silence where no one feels like they have to fill it with something to avoid things being “awkward” or whatever. Hats off to Cloud Nothings for this song and addressing this topic.

Annnd that is it for now. My goodness, that was a lot of songs. For a bonus, I’ll throw in ‘QYURRYUS’ by The Voidz. It won’t get a post, but I just want people to know that it’s a bop. It’ll feature on the Spotify playlist too. The series will come back, and I’ll be tackling the R’s. See you then.

#1064: Billy Talent – Prisoners of Today

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When I got the first Billy Talent album as a Christmas gift in ’06, or somewhere around that time, I was already well-acquainted with the majority of it. After having rediscovered the group after a chance encounter online, that’s a story for another post, I spent what I assume would have been almost a year listening to 30-second samples of the tracks on there on this website called Artistdirect.com. Back in 2004/05, YouTube wasn’t existing and sites like this were the things I had to resort to to hear just a glimpse of the music I wanted to own without having to pay for it. Songs like ‘Cut the Curtains’ and ‘Lies’ for example, I remember vividly listening to those clips, wishing I could hear the full thing. The band had the music videos for their singles on their own website. ‘Line & Sinker’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’ were able to be played in full on there too.

But when it comes to ‘Prisoners of Today’… well, I can’t remember this track ever being one of those tracks that I sought out to hear the sample for. And to this day, I’m not sure why that is. So it was really like hearing a brand new song when it came ’round for its time to be played when I popped that CD into my computer for the first instance. ‘Course now it’s like water off a duck’s back whenever it arrives on shuffle in the playlist. But it was a bit of an outlier to me for quite a while. That’s enough for the me, me, personal angle. I’m trying to get you to want to listen to these songs at the end of the day. If you’re familiar with Billy Talent’s earlier work, then the song’s not so much different from what you’d expect. Overall a pummeling punk rock performance, propelled by the driving rhythm section of Jon Gallant (bass guitar) and Aaron Solonwoniuk (drums) and heightened by the fantastic guitar work of Ian D’Sa, whose playing I’ve made sure to comment on every time I’ve written a post about a song from this album. Still amazes me to this down how he’s able to play those lines so smoothly and yet with such energy and urgency.

The track concerns being unhappy with the 9 to 5, five day of work/two days of play routine that the majority of the world has to go through for all of our lives, and acts as a reminder to use our initiative and conjure up the motivation to change our ways of living and not feel like we’re being held captive by the seemingly restrictive layout of everyday life. The two verses appear to be from the points of view of two people, or maybe it’s one in both, who have these wishes they want to fulfill but are let down by their own lack of courage or general bleak outlook on life, so much so that they just don’t bother in taking the steps to pursue what they truly want. This track I believe is in a minor key, so you know automatically that there’s sort of something sad about it, but with the furious pace that everything’s delivered, I also think it gives a feeling of ‘Well, if you feel sad, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something, ya bum.’ Ben Kowalewicz builds up into a full-throttle scream alongside D’Sa and Gallant’s backing vocals at the rushing finish, really signifying that pent-up frustration the song suggests, and it’s a moment like that which makes me wonder why it took me so long to warm up to this one.

My iPod #518: The Beach Boys – Here Today

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“Here Today” comes from the wonderful album Pet Sounds, released by The Beach Boys in 1966. Regarded as a timeless classic, the album was seen as a prime example of just how far pop music could be taken during the 60s in terms of its lyrical content and musical arrangement. It was the one where everybody realised that Brian Wilson was practically a compositional genius if they hadn’t done so already, and also influenced many albums to come in the future.

The last song started during the album’s recording, “Here Today” is something of a warning about the unpredictability of love; being in a new relationship may be all fine and dandy initially, but there’s always the chance that it can quickly end in heartbreak and sorrow. Mike Love takes duty of  lead vocal on the track, and does a fine job of it.

Like the rest of the songs on the album “Here Today” utilises a range of instruments to build a lush and ornate sonic landscape, with a piano, Hammond organ, and a variety of horns thrown into the track’s lavish mix. Of course the iconic backing harmonic vocals of the boys play a huge part too, I particularly like those that occur during the choruses. The ascending melodic scales provided by them played simultaneously with the downward melody on the horns makes for an enjoyable listen, but those make up only a few seconds of three minutes of beautifully constructed music.