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Best tunes of 1992: #22 James “Ring the bells”

<< #23    |    #21 >>

Now that Christmas is all wrapped up, I thought I’d remind you all what’s happening with my Best tunes of 1992 list before I wrap up the other two lists I’ve been blitzing this month. And this one is pure joy.

Those of you that are not new to these pages will know that I’m something of a James fanatic. I first heard them with their hit single, “Sit down”, and really got into them with the album, “Laid”. Between those two was their fourth album, “Seven”, an album the Mancunian alternative rock band struggled with from the beginning. Half of it was produced by Youth, and only half because they ran out of time with him and given the band’s unhappiness with the results of early recordings. The band produced the rest of the album themselves with some help from Steve Chase. It was finally released almost a year late and wasn’t given the time of day by the music press. However, the band was pleased with the final product and I’m right there with them. I picked it up on CD as one of my BMG music club picks shortly after immersing myself in “Laid” and quickly found my favourites on it, of which this tune is but one.

“Ring ring the bells
Wake the town
Everyone is sleeping
Shout at the crowd
Wake them up
This anger’s deeper than sleep”

“Ring the bells” appears as track two on “Seven” and it sounds like it should’ve been the lead off single, picking up with the uplifting joyous energy where “Sit down” left off. However, they waited and released two other singles prior to unleashing this one. It is frantic acoustic guitar strumming, accompanied by an explosion of sound that will pick you right up out of your seat and get you dancing in a way that you can’t possibly sustain for its five minutes in length. I don’t even know how the band does it. But somehow we find the energy deep within ourselves and lose ourselves to the pure joy that the sounds evoke. Meanwhile, Booth is singing on about losing faith in religion and the freedom that brings and wanting to share it with us all.

The fact that such a tune that I obviously love so much is placed low at number twenty-two should serve notice that the rest of this list is going to be great. Prepare yourselves. It’s all coming in the new year.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1992 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2011: #2 Young Galaxy “We have everything”

<< #3    |    #1 >>

Happy Friday all! Yes. A wonderful Friday indeed because it is also my last day of work this year. I can hardly believe we’ve reached the end of another year and really, another decade. It feels like not that long ago that we were just ringing in the beginning of this year.

So anyway, you may have noticed that I’ve been counting down my favourite albums of the year on each Tuesday for the past few weeks and am poised to unveil my number one on New Year’s eve morning. Well, that’s not the only list I’m hoping to wrap up before the end of the year. I’ve also been quietly trying to get to the end of this Best tunes of 2011 list, quietly because I wasn’t sure I would have the steam to finish up two lists in one month and still have time to go Christmas shopping. It’s looking good right now but we’ll have to see what the next week will bring.

Incidentally, the number two song on this list appears on the album that came in at number one for the inaugural end of the year series on my old blog, Music Insanity. I said back then that Young Galaxy’s third album, “Shapeshifting”, was one that “didn’t resonate with me immediately but with repeat listens, my appreciation grew”. This is a trend that pretty much rang true for the rest of the Canadian indie pop band’s albums, save for their first. No. Their self-titled debut grabbed me right away because it fell right smack into my wheelhouse but after that, they challenged themselves and their fans right with them with each successive release, as their sound and personas changed from psych rock, dream poppers to synth-driven, art pop machines. Indeed, when I wrote about “Peripheral visionaries”, which appeared at number sixteen on this very list, I already talked about how the electronic sound from “Shapeshifting” grew out of a cross-ocean collaboration with Swedish producer, Dan Lissvik, so I won’t tread already familiar ground here.

“We have everything” is very likely the most uplifting and danceable track on the album. Sounding a little bit Blondie, a little bit New Order, and a little bit space rock, it has a toe hopping beat, an addictive synth melody, and Catherine McCandless singing up a storm over top it all. It shimmers and chugs along, ice fog whisping across the monochromatic, old school computer screen, and plenty of lasers flitting, obscuring reality and leaving you screaming for more.

Just watch the video (and while you’re at it, go back and watch the one for “Peripheral visionaries” because they are related thematically) and turn it up. Loud. And just dance. It’s Friday, for goodness sake…

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

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Best tunes of 2011: #3 Sloan “Unkind”

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Last summer after seeing Canadian alt-rock icons, Sloan, in concert for the first time ever, I shared some pics and a few words, for which if you missed the post, you can find here. I had mused, then, about how the group played pretty much every song, save one, that I would’ve wanted to hear. This is a quite a feat when you consider that I’d been listening to them for almost twenty-five years, a period during which they had released eleven full-length albums. In the comments section afterwards, I had a bit of jive with Geoff from 1001albumsin10years, comparing notes on our favourite songs written by each band member, and I admitted that the one song they didn’t play was perhaps my favourite of theirs of all time. And yeah, that song was “Unkind”.

In 2011, Sloan were celebrating twenty years together as a band so when they released their tenth album that year, they called it “The double cross” as a play on the Roman numeral representation for the number twenty. It was their shortest album to date at just under 35 minutes but it was typical in that each band member contributed their own songs to the finished product and that the album rocked in totality.

“Unkind”, a Patrick Pentland penned tune, was the only single to be released from the album but it was enough to get me to pick it up. It is the second longest track on an album of short quick hits but I personally wouldn’t mind it being even longer. It’s got this raunchy but ripping, guitar riff that was built for ‘raising the goblet of rock’. The drums are all over the place and yet definitely organized enough for you to nod you head and tap all your hands and feet, as if you’re frantically playing the air drums. The patented Sloan harmonies are here too, of course, all members jumping in to perfect the chorus.

This song brings me so much joy. It is an almost flawless rock song. And so close to hitting the number one spot in this list. Stay tuned to see what beat it.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.