Category: Tunes

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Best tunes of 2012: #13 The Tallest Man on Earth “1904”

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“There’s no leaving now”, Kristian Mattson’s third solo album as The Tallest Man on Earth, was my introduction to his music and though I fell deeply in love with its gentle beauty, much as I did his following three albums, I still have yet to explore his first two records. Perhaps it’s a needless worry that his songwriting might not stand up to what I’ve heard is a more bare-bones sound – just him and his guitar – that has kept me from them. I’m sure I’ll get to them eventually and when I do, I’m sure that I’ll love them just as I do the rest of his tunes.

How can I not?

Just listen to our song today, “1904”, with its loving strum and cascading guitar flourishes, and let the wistful joy wash over you. Kristian is channelling Dylan and Drake and Guthrie, jamming with friends by candlelight, seated on sofa cushions pulled from their normal spots and transferred to the scuffed up hardwood of a high-ceilinged Victorian home. He is singing about an earth shattering and earth shaking moment, some have pointed to an earthquake that occurred in his part of the world in the year referenced in the song’s title, but you get the feeling as the song pulls you in, that the actual event doesn’t matter. It’s how you allow it to affect you, how you learn from it, and how you carry on afterwards that really matters.

“And the singing is slow and so quiet
Like the sound when you sweep off the floor
And now something with the dirt is just different
Since they shook the earth in 1904”

I remember when I first heard this song and the album on which it appears and could not believe what I was hearing. Perfect folk, out of time and out of place. Much like Swedish compatriots First Aid Kit, home informs his sensibilities, just as much as his love for those that influenced his sound. It is all so obvious and so passionate and so easy to get caught up in and pulled along in its wake. He has said that in writing this album, he wanted a brittle sound, one that gives a “feeling that it might just fall apart” at any moment. And he’s definitely achieved this precariousness, a moment in perfection that we all know can’t last forever.

But luckily for us, we can simply replay the track and live it all over again.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2012 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2002: #2 The Flaming Lips “Do you realize??”

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Have you ever been so completely turned off by one song that you very nearly missed out on the experience of an excellent band?

This is how it was for me and The Flaming Lips for many years. It was their biggest commercial hit, 1993’s “She don’t use jelly”, that really did me in from the first. Not that it was a particularly bad song, it was just that ultra push foisted upon us by their major label. It was overplayed to the point where they warranted an appearance on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 and gained Steve Sanders’ seal of approval. “You know, I’ve never been a big fan of alternative music, but these guys rocked the house!” Ugh.

Interestingly, it was television that brought me back to the psych-rockers from Oklahoma City. More to the point, it was a television commercial. For many years, I have misremembered the ad being for Volkswagen, probably because it fell in line with the other songs that had been used for their ad campaigns, but when I googled it, discovered that it was actually for Hewlett-Packard (and also featured famed magicians, Penn and Teller). More on that in a minute.

The Flaming Lips actually formed as early as 1983 and they released four full-length studio albums before they caught the attention of Warner Brothers. And then, they released four more albums on that major before they finally found their feet and released 1999’s “The soft bulletin”, an album many critics see as the best album in a decade that included “Nevermind”, “Loveless”, and “OK computer”. And the band didn’t stop there. Indeed, eight albums later and they still show no signs of slowing or falling into ruts or making anything that vaguely resembles pedestrian tunes.

My ears pricked up with the first notes of “Do you realize??” that I heard at the end of that Hewlett Packard commercial. I was at my desktop computer with the TV on behind me and I heard spaceships and angels and beauty. I turned around, made notes, did some google searches, and eventually found the full song. I played it and replayed it and replayed it. Then, I listened to the rest of the album on which it appeared, “Yoshimi battles the pink robots”, and declared myself in love.

These days, I wouldn’t consider myself a diehard of the band. Yet I do very much love “Yoshimi”, along with the two albums that bookend it in their chronological discography, and totally respect everything they do, even if I don’t like it all. I saw them perform live at Ottawa Bluesfest in 2011 and would jump at the chance to witness their live extravaganza again… But I’m once again getting away from our song today.

“Do you realize??” is possibly their most recognizable song. It was honoured by their home state as its official song for a period of time in 2000s and is considered by the band as the best thing they have ever done. It was inspired by multi-instrumentalist Steve Drozd’s struggles with drug withdrawal and by the death of frontman Wayne Coyne’s father. It is about the precariousness of life, the planet, and everything else.

“Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize we’re floating in space?
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?”

It all starts with a robotic count in and the falls up the rabbit hole in the clouds and the ether where everything is in stasis and sparkly. The strumming of the guitar holds everything together and roots you in reality while everything flies around you – memories, feelings, life, death – and everyone is singing along. It is gentle and beautiful and sad and perfect. Just wow.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2002 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 1993: #27 Frank Black “Hang onto your ego”

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By the time I started listening to the Pixies, they had already released their fourth and ‘final’ album*, “Trompe le monde”. That album’s second single, “Alec Eiffel”, became my gateway and my friend Tim did the rest, sharing with me the best of their back catalogue. So though I was somewhat saddened by the news of their breakup in 1993, it was short-lived, because almost immediately afterwards, I started hearing bits of new solo work by the band’s ex-frontman, Black Francis, heretofore renamed as Frank Black. Indeed, the first single off his self-titled debut, “Los Angeles”, got a lot of attention right off the bat, plenty of radio air play, and its video hit the regular rotation on MuchMusic.

That a new release from Black came so quickly after the demise of his band was hardly a surprise to anyone. In fact, some critics had facetiously called “Trompe le monde” his first solo album, pointing out the reduced creative input by bassist Kim Deal. The tensions in the band at that time was palpable to all and sundry. Indeed, even while recording that album, he had discussions with the album’s producer about a possible solo album. He didn’t have a lot of new material at the ready to record so Frank Black had originally planned to record an album of covers. By the time he entered the recording studio in 1992, though, he had plenty of material, much of it a continuation of what he had begun with “Trompe le monde”.

“Hang on to your ego” is the only holdover from Black’s original concept, though when I first heard it on a mixed tape a university friend made for me, I had no idea it was a cover. It’s a great one, too, and by all rights should also appear on my 100 best covers series**.

The original was recorded by The Beach Boys for their “Pet sounds” album in 1966. It sounds of a carnival, slightly off-kilter with a janky piano, a tambourine, and a harmonium and very inventive and cool but you can’t forget that it’s the Beach Boys, all harmonies and wholesome, blonde hair and a tan. The original lyrics were re-written before the album’s release to cover up the drug references and it was renamed “I know there’s an answer”. The original recording with the original lyrics later surfaced on the 1990 reissue of “Pet sounds” and this is the version upon which Frank Black’s version is based.

And his cover betrays no hint that it was such, sounding nothing at all like a Beach Boys track, all driving guitars and drums and synths, a screaming guitar solo and instead of the telltale harmonies, Black’s ultra cool vocals are backed up by robots. Pure awesomeness.

*I am using the proverbial air quotes here because as we all know, the Pixies re-formed a decade after their dissolution to much success and further albums became a reality.

**Spoiler alert: I somehow missed including it on that list when creating it but that’s okay it’s here now.

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