Tag Archives: we

#1230: Bloc Party – So Here We Are

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I was around when Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm was the brand-new debut album released by the band….. 20 years ago. It creeps up on you, doesn’t it. It wasn’t like I was following the group’s every move, ’cause I was nine at the time and was probably thinking about cartoons and football more than anything else. But I knew of the band as I’d seen the video for ‘Helicopter’ on MTV2, months before the album was out. But as 2005 went on, it was difficult to go onto MTV again, or any other alternative music television channel for that matter, and not see Bloc Party in some sort of capacity.

Every site and streaming platform will tell you that the album was released on the 2nd February 2005, but at least in the UK it came out on Valentine’s Day. ‘So Here We Are’, released alongside ‘Positive Tension’ as a double A-side single, was the first track to be unveiled in the proper run up to Silent Alarm, two weeks before. And it’s a song that I completely missed initially. I remember seeing ‘Banquet’ and ‘The Pioneers’ on a much more frequent basis at that time. I’ve a feeling ‘Two More Years’ was even out as a single before I knew about ‘So Here We Are”s existence. But its video came on TV one day, I was thinking if it was a new song. It definitely wasn’t. But I ended up liking it all the same.

Even if this song were to be an instrumental piece, its effect would be just as strong. The twinkling arpeggiated guitar intro, which extends into the verses and beyond, between Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack is enough to put anyone into a kind of meditative trance. But what I’ve always found to be the highlight of it, along with many other Silent Alarm numbers, is drummer Matt Tong’s performance. Among the serene guitars comes this bustling source of rhythm that adds a huge rush of energy to the track. The drums sound like a loop of a sample or something, they’re done that well. The song has no chorus – made up more of one long verse and the coda – all of which concern how people feel after taking ectasy. And it’s during the coda that Okereke sings about having that MDMA-induced epiphany over a glorious solo. It’s beautiful stuff.

#1002: Fall Out Boy – Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued

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Another album opener, ‘Our Lawyer…’ is the first track on Fall Out Boy’s From Under the Cork Tree. It’s an album that many a fan of the band’s hold dear to their hearts. Has the well-loved classics like ‘Dance, Dance’, ‘A Little Less Sixteen Candles…’ and of course, ‘Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down’. Can’t say I hold the same regard. If there is a best Fall Out Boy, it’s clearly Folie à Deux. Cork Tree for me sounds a bit dated in comparison. A lot of the sentiments on there I just can’t vibe with anymore compared to when I was, let’s say, 13. But it sets off with a great start and a whole lot of self-deprecation and sarcasm, which I’m always all in for – especially when it’s done right.

“Brothers and sisters put this record down / Take my advice ’cause we are bad news” are the opening lines to this track, and for the rest of the track Patrick Stump sings bassist Pete Wentz’s lyrics which further go onto to tell the listeners the myriad ways in which the band will let them down and the superficial things that they’re good for – like celebrity status and fashion sense – that don’t really amount to anything properly meaningful. The track is set to a swinging tempo, but there’s an aggression and heaviness to the way the guitars are played that enables automatic headbanging among the instinctive swaying motion that you have to do with those types of tempos. Patrick Stump sounds like a kid, and he pretty much was – would have been 20 during the making of the album – but for a guy who supposedly wasn’t too confident about his singing, I’d say he does the job well. He’d only become better as the years went on, full embracing his inner soul-singer on Folie à Deux.

The song’s title is one of truth. Its original title was ‘My Name Is David Ruffin And These Are The Temptations’, but the band’s lawyers intervened and made them change the name. Either way, it’s another title of the band’s during that time that were very long, were usually never mentioned in the lyrics at all, and were probably named as such just to get some reaction from the listener. Funnily enough, I think one of the band’s shortest song title is on the same album too, with ‘XO’. That’ll be the next one from the record I do a post on. As I said earlier, not so much a fan of it now. But there’ll be more Fall Out Boy in between, for sure.

#949: Tame Impala – Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control

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Very well might be the song with the longest title that I’ve covered on here so far. ‘Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control’ is the penultimate track on Tame Impala’s 2012 album, Lonerism, a record whose mesh of psychedelia and hard rock with these spiralling synths and accessible melodies warmed a lot of people’s hearts upon its release and to this day. Kevin Parker embarked on going into a more pop-orientated direction, starting with 2015’s Currents and making itself more apparent on The Slow Rush, and sometimes there’ll be a comment or two that I see wishing that his music was more like the Lonerism days. It probably won’t happen. But I silently wish it too just a little. Though maybe he’ll surprise us all.

‘Nothing That Has Happened’ carries a theme that, thinking about it, would be further echoed in the first track of Tame Impala’s next record. Things that arise in life are at the most by chance, and really we have to just let these things happen (nudge-nudge, wink-wink). Tells you everything you need to know about the theme in the title to be honest. But when it comes to the music, it’s a swirling, twisting and turning six-minute experience. What I’ve always envisioned when hearing this song, is it being played live at a concert where people are high and having a good time. But for the narrator here it all gets a bit too much. He freaks out, leaves the room, gets calmed down by his girlfriend (spoken interlude here provided by Melody Prochet of Melody’s Echo Chamber) and goes back in chiller than before, but still having a bit of an existential crisis. And it’s just brilliant how this is all reflected in the production, like how the music goes quieter during the interlude, almost like its playing behind some doors before increasing in volume again. Or how the synthesizers upon the narrator’s ‘return’ to the room, get all hazy and pan all over the place in the ears. Simply a great passage of music to get lost in.

Think a shout-out should be made to Kevin Parker’s drumming throughout the whole song. I remember seeing a video where someone described his fills as the sound of a drumkit ‘falling down the stairs’, and I think that’s quite the accurate way to portray it. I think the same fill pattern is replayed over and over during the verses, but the way they fall from the snare to the toms and then are finished off with the cymbal crashes on each guitar strum is pretty wicked. Hard not to flail along and air-drum to them. Like other songs on Lonerism, the track has a rather long instrumental jam – one where the synthesizers are allowed to do their own thing, blipping in and out of the soundscape and doing some genuinely freaky stuff among the intensifying drums, before proceeding to undergo a solo that leads right back to the song’s introduction. So nice how circular the song is, and its probably the musical climax of the entire album before things slow down for its closer.

#655: R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

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If I were to take a guess, I think I sing this song the same way that the majority of people who know it do. The first three lines are easy as pie, then every verse that follows is just a lot of words smushed up together into a one note melody which is then followed by the very memorable chorus.

‘It’s the End of the World’ is one of R.E.M.’s most well known tracks, one of their most played too – to the point that it may be overplayed for some people. But I only started properly listening to R.E.M. last year. I had heard the song maybe two… three times before? I’ll say five at most. And that was when its video was shown on TV. And in Chicken Little. Actually listening to it with headphones was a very different experience.

‘End of the World’ is the sixth track on R.E.M.’s fifth album, Document, released in 1987. It is not my favourite album of the group’s but this song right here is one of its highlights. The uploaded video above takes all the weight out of the audio quality though which is a shame. When those thunderous drum rolls come in at the beginning, the energy never dips from there. It’s four minutes of relentless, driving momentum. And though I never succeed in enunciating every syllable in the quickfire verses, it’s always fun to try. As said earlier, it doesn’t really matter because it has a hell of a chorus that’s not related to what goes on in those verses in any way.

Going through R.E.M.’s discography (which I had to when I found out they were actually very good) there were a few things I picked up on, especially in their earlier albums. They had a knack for great melodies. And the triple vocal harmonies of Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Bill Berry added a layer that made the band’s songs even better when they were utilised. Melodies and harmonies are present on this track… a few countermelodies too. There’s always something new to pick up on in this track every time I hear it. It’s such a thrill. It’s quite disappointing when it starts to fade out at the end, wish it could go on for ages.

My iPod #524: They Might Be Giants – Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal

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“Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal” was originally going to be released on the Purple Toupee EP, when the title track was to be released as a single in 1989. For some reason the EP was shelved and the song was later placed as the opener to the band’s B Side/Remix compilation Miscellaneous T, two years later in 1991. The compilation is loved by many a They fan due to the fact that for a B Side album, the stuff on there are as brilliantly written and performed as any other song you would find on the three albums they had released by that time.

The song is a tale of a lad who is eager to get his new song on the radio, going to the local DJ to see if he can sort some things out. From the wordy title, you can probably tell that things don’t go as planned. The tale is told accompanied by catchy rhythms, an infectious melody and a delightful Carribean-like (xylophone? glockenspiel?) line and backed up by the witty lyrics of John Linnell. Notice how he cleverly pulls of a ‘Glass Onion’ and sneaks in some references to other TMBG songs in a verse. So much fun.

I could imagine this being a lead single for any album. Seeing as it was to be released with “Purple Toupee”, I assume that it was recorded during the Lincoln sessions. Goodness. I enjoy Lincoln enough as it is, but it would have been cool to have this on there. Though it’s title would have stuck out like a sore thumb on the track list.