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#1073: Supergrass – Pumping on Your Stereo

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Back in the old days, I’d find myself flicking through the music video channels as per usual. Some of those times, I’d come across the ending of the video for Supergrass’s 1999 tune ‘Pumping on Your Stereo’. I can’t remember ever seeing its video from front to back in one sitting. It’d always be on its way to finishing, and I’d change the channel to find it at the point where the band hit that huge ending chord followed by the studio chatter that comes afterwards. Then YouTube came around and that was quickly rectified. Supergrass videos were something of a regular occurrence on the TV. And after seeing them for myself and coming to the conclusion that this band were actually really great, their albums were a usual request in any Christmas/birthday list whenever those times came around.

‘Pumping…’ is found on the band’s self-titled album. It’s a bit of a party, good times rollin’, sing-along get together of a song. The band repeatedly ask the listener if we can hear them pumping on our stereos. They also don’t hide the fact that they’re clearly singing ‘humping on your stereo’ throughout the entire thing. Even in the music video, the word ‘humping’ is visibly mimed by the band members. Not that I’m complaining though. I don’t mean to be if it sounds like I am. The whole thing reminds me of how the Beatles got away with singing ‘tit’ in ‘Girl’. Someone probably questioned the band whether the band were singing ‘humping’, to which they said no and said they were singing ‘pumping’ instead. At least that’s the story I’ve come to in my head.

Really though, the song’s not really about anything of any great importance. There’s a bit of an allusion about feeling lost while touring and being on the road in the second verse. But everything sounds so groovy and cheery that it very much slips by. I don’t think it’s any secret that the lyrics are something of an afterthought in a lot of Supergrass songs. But what matters is that they all sound good in the context, and the main chorus does its job of getting stuck in your head in the melodic mantra-like way it’s delivered. The track I think is also the first in Supergrass’s discography in which they really wore their glam-rock, Bowie/Bolan, T-Rex influences on their sleeves. They would dive even deeper into them on the album that followed Supergrass. But the seeds were sewn right here.

#1005: Adrianne Lenker – out of your mind

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2019. Was a new year, and I had recently been laid off from my first job out of uni. To pass the time, while mind-numbingly scanning through applications, I listened to a bunch of albums that the Indieheads subreddit page had listed as ‘Album of the Year’ for 2018. There were 30 of them. There was only one I properly liked. It was abysskiss by Adrianne Lenker. You see the Wikipedia page I just linked to? I created it. I couldn’t take that a page hadn’t been made for it. Last year November I created a Wikipedia account just to make the thing. Listening to that album began a whole domino effect. I sought out Big Thief, listened to Capacity and Masterpiece. Kinda dug them both. But then ‘UFOF’, the single, came out, followed by ‘Cattails’, ‘Century’ and then U.F.O.F. the album, and just like that, Adrianne Lenker became a new favourite songwriter of mine.

‘out of your mind’ arrives as a bit of an odd one when going through abysskiss. After the four mainly acoustic folky, synth-tinged numbers that come before it, ‘…mind’ opens with a grungy electric guitar. Sprightly acoustic guitars take up the rest of the soundscape in both channels, but what I think the track is based around is Lenker singing the vocal while playing that electric guitar in one take. I’m not much of a lyrics guy, but what I gather is that there is a relationship involved. The whole time you’ll think Lenker’s singing about the person she’s seeing, but it’s when she uses her ‘Annie’ nickname in the last chorus that it becomes clear she’s actually taking on the perspective of her significant other. In that way, she’s reflecting on the way she acts as a person and how her partner may perceive her. It’s certainly a different way of approaching a narrative, particularly in a song.

This track is one of most recent I’ve heard when I had a sort of “eureka/a-ha!” moment. For a long while, I was having some major rhythm displacement with it. Every time I was singing along to it, I always found that the “Is it aaaannyyyy…” line for the chorus came in a beat too late. Everything was all 4/4 until that last bar before the chorus. Turned out I was missing the count-in completely. It sounded to me like the downbeat came on the very first strum of the electric guitar that starts the song. It actually starts on the second. So instead of 1-2-3-4, it’s “and, 1-2-3-4”. It would be a lot handier to visually explain it. But once I realised it, it was like ten lightbulbs going off in my head. I liked the song even with my off-timing, but with it all coming together, it truly secured itself as a favourite.

#991: Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart

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After discovering Nick Drake’s Pink Moon when I was about 17 years old, I went on a bit of a folk trip and tried to find albums that had sort of the same vibe. Some good came out of it. Some not so much. But through that journey I stumbled upon Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. That album’s the first of his that I ever listened to. I don’t think I’d ever sat down and listened to a single one of Young’s songs before. Upon research, it seemed the album would be a good place to get a feel of what he was about. And upon listening through, I picked up on two basic things. He could write some great songs, and he had a really high singing voice.

‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ is the third song on After the Gold Rush. Whoever sorted out the tracklist knew what they were doing, I’ve come to conclude. ‘Tell Me Why’ starts it all off with its inviting acoustic tone, then the title track arrives as the slow contemplative statement of the ’70s. So it’s only right that ‘Only Love…’ comes as the first track on there that sounds like it’s meant to be the obvious single. And it was, released a month after the album had been available. The song’s a sweet one, bit melancholy too. One about how innocent life when you’re young, naive and single before you fall in love and have a relationship with someone, and how when that relationship ends it’ll probably be the most painful experience you’ve had in your life up to that point. Nicely emphasised by the change from major key to a minor key during the transitions from verses to choruses, signifying the bright, optimistic youthful outlook before heartbreak comes and ruins it all.

I feel like if I was to tell someone that ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ was my favourite Neil Young to someone who’d been listening to the guy for years, I’d probably be met with a scoff and a “Yeah, it’s all right, but really?” kind of answer. “Everyone knows that.” I’m sure they wouldn’t be that judgemental, but every artist/band has those type of people. Even so, I don’t think I’ve listened to enough Neil Young to really confirm what that favourite track is. Going through the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book has helped introduce me to more of his albums. Young taking them off Spotify has hindered that process. Still very much a beginner here 10 years later. But if it turns out that ‘Only Love…’ and ‘Cripple Creek Ferry’ are the only Neil Young tracks I discuss on here, then you’ll probably be able to guess how much of a fan I am of his.

#979: Blur – On Your Own

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Similarly to, I think, all of the singles Blur released up to their initial split in 2003, ‘On Your Own’ was a track I came across when its music video played on the TV. Large chance it was probably on MTV2. That channel had a knack for just randomly showing Blur music videos out of the blue for no particular reason. Not that it’s anything to complain about. I’ve known ‘On Your Own’ for so long now that I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I felt when I first heard/saw it. Would have been about 10 years old or around that age. But I can at least describe what about it has endeared it to me for all this time.

As the third single released from the band’s self-titled album in 1997, ‘On Your Own’ was unlike the crunching band-in-a-room performances of its two predecessors. This track included strange phasing synthesizers and a drum machine, comically performed by drummer Dave Rowntree in what is essentially a hole in the ground in the music video. On top of that steady rhythm comes Graham Coxon on the guitar, pulling off these jagged guitar lines and noises using his pedals which sound like those you hear when your video game freezes, but even more absurdly brutal in its tone. It’s like he’s trying to completely throw the song in the wrong direction, but ends up adding a whole other dimension to it. Then eventually comes Damon Albarn over the top, spouting these surreal lyrics that are provide some interesting imagery. The first verse may or may not be about ordering drugs while the second describes a bad trip/overwhelming reaction someone has to these drugs while on a night out. The chorus doesn’t make much sense at all, but the band sound like they’re having a great time when they’re belting it out. With all this though, the song still manages to pull off this existential bit, reminding us that in the end (death), we’ll all be alone – presumably in our coffins.

The quote most attributed to this track is Albarn’s who considered the track to be “one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes.” Now, I always took that quote to mean that it was an archetype for what would follow on the first Gorillaz album, rather than it being an actual track that he had with Gorillaz in mind but performing it with Blur instead. But I think a lot of people actually think that it was meant to be for Gorillaz just because of that quote. I don’t really see it myself. Albarn sounds too lucid on this track. The lyrics on here seem like they have no meaning to them, but they really do. Well, except for maybe part of the chorus. A lot of lyrics on that first Gorillaz album don’t make much sense at all. You really have to read those ones to try and get something. You want a proto-Gorillaz song? Check out ‘I’m Just a Killer for Your Love’.

#678: They Might Be Giants – Judy Is Your Viet Nam

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They Might Be Giants’ 2011 album Join Us turns 10 next year and, to me, it was the group’s best record they released in the last decade. I like a lot more songs on there than on say, Nanobots or Glean. It was released during a time when I was quite happy with the way things were going in life. As much as things can go when you’re 16. Either way I can’t believe that time has gone by so quickly. It’s still one of my favourite albums by They, and this song is a great offering from it.

‘Judy Is Your Viet Nam’ is the 11th track on Join Us. Sung by John Flansburgh, ‘Judy’ originated as something of a Christmas song. Lyrics from that initial idea can be heard in the background during the “Who knew she could be so reckless?” verse. Somewhere along the line the song’s intentions changed, transforming into a rowdy rocker led by a Keith Moon-esque drum performance by Marty Beller.

It tells the story of ‘Judy’ who was something of a free spirit in the 90s before time eventually caught up with her and life changes had to be made as a result. It’s a weird one to describe because the narrative is in the second-person, so Flansburgh sings as if you knew Judy yourself. We probably do know a few Judy’s as depicted here, honestly.

I think this song’s great. Really enjoy it. Enough to satisfy in the 80 seconds it lasts for.