Category: Tunes

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #10 Chapterhouse “She’s a vision”

<< #11    |    #9 >>

It’s amazing to think of it now with so many bands waving the shoegaze and dream pop banners, ever since those genres saw a huge revival in the early 2000s, because the original scene only lasted for a brief, but shining period in the early 1990s. All the original shoegaze bands attempted to distance themselves and to move on from their original sound in order to find a place in big music and I can’t think of a single one that truly survived at the time.

Chapterhouse’s debut album, 1991’s “Whirpool”, is seen by many to be one of the great examples of the genre, featuring that outstanding single, “Pearl” which appeared on my favourite tunes list of that year. They returned a couple of years later with a very different, electronic-infused sound on their sophomore album, “Blood music”, which confounded their previous fans and perhaps, many of that time’s record buying public alike. Still, that album’s two singles managed to chart on the UK singles lists, one of which was “She’s a vision”, the focus of today’s post.

“She’s a vision
There’s no one who can tell her what to do
She’s a vixen
And she’s the only one that can break it down”

Like the woman, the object of the affection in the song’s lyrics, the four and half minutes of this track are a reflection of pure pop bliss. The wiry and screaming guitars flay and flail, a rattling and ricocheting drum beat endures without end, inducing a need to jump and scramble. The song is massive and explosive. It’s confettii and lazer beams and frantic and frenetic motion.

I remember catching the band on tour for this album, just on chance because they were opening for The Wonder Stuff on that band’s final North American tour. I was standing right in front. Because, of course, I was. This song hit me like a hammer that night and it never fails to get me going these days, all these years later.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2013: #26 Guards “Ready to go”

<< #27    |    #25 >>

Back in 2013, I was into my second year of furiously writing about music on my old blog Music Insanity and I found myself, because of this new hobby, discovering all sorts of new music. Seriously, it was coming from all over the place, from unsolicited emails to reading other blogs, and just plain old-fashioned research. I became even more voracious in my musical appetites*. I felt like I was listening to new bands every other day, some of them stuck, some didn’t, and some were exciting at the time but quickly got lost in the excitement of the next big thing.

Guards and their debut album “In Guards we trust” is a prime example of this last.

I checked out the album when I first heard about it because I’d recognized the name of Guards’ frontman, Richie James Follin, and with a bit of digging, confirmed him as sibling to Madeline, who was one half of Cults. Of course, I had been a big fan of that band’s self-titled debut two years earlier, especially the wall of noise single “Go outside”, and that was enough of a link for me. I was rewarded with a twelve track, forty-seven-minute barrage of stadium ready anthems masquerading as indie pop. And I listened to it again and again and again. It became one of my favourite albums of the year and theirs were one of the sets I was really looking forward to catching at that year’s Osheaga. Perhaps the fact that I missed it due to a conflict might have foreshadowed their fading from the top of my music playlist pile, especially since I can’t recall at all now who it was I saw instead of them.

I had to actually go back and listen to the New York-based trio’s debut album** and its single “Ready to go” when I was putting together this list to make sure it belonged and then, again this week when I was writing this post. Each time I did, the answer was a resounding ,“Yes”! I instantly remembered how great it is, a bundle of revved up energy, retro pop hooks, and fun boy-girl vocal melodies. It’s psychedelic and fuzzy and positively joyous.

“We’re often ready to go
We’re often ready to go
We’re often ready to go
We’re often ready to go”

And now I’m ready to go listen to it again.

*And this would eventually become too much and too stressful keeping up with it all… but that’s another story.

**One of these days, I’ll also check out the sophomore album called “Modern hymns” they released in 2019.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2013 list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #11 The Breeders “Cannonball”

<< #12    |    #10 >>

The Breeders were formed in 1989 as a side project for Kim Deal (Pixies) and Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses). In the spaces between working with their primary groups, they released an album and an EP before Donnelly decided to part ways with both Throwing Muses and The Breeders to focus on a third project called Belly. Deal brought her twin sister Kelley into the fold in 1992 and when the Pixies disbanded the following year, The Breeders became her main creative outlet.

I still have never really explored The Breeders’ early work, nor am I super familiar with the work that came after their reunion* in 1996. However, I am very familiar with their huge second album, “The last splash”. You would have had to live under a rock to have avoided it back in ‘93. It was a huge commercial and critical success, making Deal a bigger name perhaps than her ex-Pixies band mate Frank Black. And a huge part of the album’s success was due to the ubiquity of this track here: “Cannonball”

“Spitting in a wishing well
Blown to hell, crash
I’m the last splash”

Just like how the album takes its name from “Cannnonball”’s lyrics, the tune really sets the tone and represents the havoc that Deal and company create with the album. Its nonsensical lyrics are merely fun to sing/scream along with and Deal does both, taking turns cooing into and trying to exceed the sound limits of the microphone, also employing the use of a harmonica mike at points to create that distorted effect during the intro and throughout the piece. Jim McPherson’s drumming starts off the song with a tickety-tack drum line before devolving into an Animal-like crash and bash course. The gurgling bass line is accompanied by a guitar lick that slithers and slides up and down your spine. The 3 minutes and 36 seconds of the tune’s duration is a seemingly random tennis match between groove and noisy chaos and when you throw in that false ending two-thirds of the way through, that crashing return has you more pumped than ever to jump into that packed crowd on the dance floor or mosh pit and freak right out.

“Cannonball” was all over the radio and its video graced television screens care of MTV and MuchMusic all the time after its release as a single but it was just one of those songs of which you could not get sick. I remember seeing them perform the album live at Osheaga 10 years ago in celebration of the album’s 20th anniversary and everyone onstage and in the crowd just lit up with the song’s energy. And you just watch the Deal sisters having a blast in the video below and you can’t help but join them in being more than a little crazy.

*The group took a hiatus shortly after the release of “The last splash” due to Kelley Deal’s drug and legal problems.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.