Ever since pioneering shoegaze rock band, Ride, called it quits rather spectacularly back in 1995, I’d been firmly planted in camp Mark Gardener in terms of following the post-breakup careers of the two warring principal songwriters and driving forces behind the band. I’d always preferred his voice and with the exception of “Vapour trail“, enjoyed far more the songs he led with Ride. I always thought he’d do greater things. Who knew the opposite would turn out to be true?
Sure, Gardener was the first of the two to record and release a solo album by a long shot. However, Bell seemed to get back on the horse quicker, forming Hurricane #1 in 1996, a band of whom I’ve still only heard a few tracks but who released a couple of reasonably successful albums before breaking up a few years later*. Shortly after that, he was recruited by the Gallagher brothers to replace founding Oasis member Guigsy, a job for which he had to quickly learn the bass. He stuck with them until their rude implosion a decade later** and stayed on with Liam for a couple of albums under the Beady Eye moniker. Fans (and readers of this blog) will know that Ride successfully reunited just over ten years ago and not only toured but have released three amazing new albums that build beautifully on their legacy. There’s also been a host of other collaborations and projects that I know little about or only heard tell of so I won’t list them, but know Mr Bell has been quite active indeed.
And in the midst of all this productivity, Andy Bell has been writing, recording and tinkering with songs, a step away from all of these projects, refining and honing sounds, lyrics and melodies. Apparently, “The view from halfway down” became something more than just a ragtag collection of song snippets shortly after David Bowie’s death, this event lighting a fire under Bell’s comfy chair. As a debut solo album, it works perfectly, recognizable enough as Andy Bell but different enough to set it apart from his other projects. And, yeah, some excellent tracks here.
“If you’re searching for meaning
Or a secret worth revealing
And you’re missing the feeling
Of connection, a reflection back from above
You’re ready to ride the first wave of love”
“Love comes in waves” is the opening number and the lead single from the album, a clarion call, a demand for attention. It’s frenetic jangling guitars repeating and not giving up, pounding it in to you, dancing up and down your spine. Meanwhile, the drums just chug along, breathless and immovable, like the unbreakable ocean that he’s comparing with love. A thing of beauty that creates a space that I would definitely want to revisit again and again, sometimes dancing, sometime just being.
*Hurricane #1 was re-formed by cofounder Alex Lowe without Bell and really, the rest of the original lineup in 2014.
**Of course, he was asked to join them on their wildly successful reunion tour this past summer/fall as well.
For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.
Fifteen years ago or so, I was going out to the cinemas semi-regularly with a group of guys from work. All four of us were happily married but the films we often went to were ones that our wives would likely not have been interested in seeing so they gladly allowed us these nights out with the guys. The movies were all big budget action pieces that exploded off the screen, many were part of this MCU group of films that were just starting to get off the ground. To be honest, I wasn’t super familiar with all of the comic books that these films were based off of, but for me the actual content of the films were secondary, I enjoyed the nights out, the laughs, the goofiness, the popcorn and junk food, and the joy of being in the cinema.
One such night, we went out to see the film “Sucker punch”. I’m not sure which of the other three suggested it, perhaps all of them, but I had no idea what I was getting into, having no idea that it was based off of a graphic novel, nor had I read anything about or seen any teaser trailers. Without the weight of any expectations, I had a blast watching the film and was surprised afterwards to find I was the only one of us that enjoyed it* and in truth, might’ve been the only one in the world that didn’t hate it based on all the critical panning it received.
As poorly reviewed as the film was, it did receive some kudos for its visual effects and of course, its soundtrack was also universally loved, which is why we are here today. The nine tracks are a mix of covers and mash ups and remixes (oh my). The songs were used at key points in the film to add another layer to the fantasies of the film’s characters, blasts of technicolor musical numbers akin to the music video for Björk’s “Oh so quiet”. Indeed, many of the songs included vocal performances by the film’s stars. It’s probably one of my favourite ever soundtracks for how creates a specific feeling and atmosphere, reinventing the songs used specifically for this purpose.
The seventh of the nine is our song for today’s list and it features the film’s star Emily Browning dueting with Israeli-Romanian singer/songwriter Yoav on the Pixies classic, “Where is my mind?”
I first came across Yoav with his own cover of the track and liked the sound of it so much I checked out the rest of his debut album, “Charmed and strange”, which is similarly charming with his Cat Stevens vocals and use of acoustic guitar in inventive ways to create a sort of dance pop sound. I don’t know how he became involved with the “Sucker punch” soundtrack but it sounds as if his original cover became the springboard from which he and Emily Browning leapt, trading vocals over a miasma of industrial beats, feedback, and sonic screams. It builds from a place of quiet, an almost forgotten corner of the mind, each singer adding distinct voices from distinct experiences, and then the guitars kick in and the beat picks up, everything continuing to build until the machine guns fire, the full orchestra finale, and fireworks galore.
The Pixies original was featured on their debut album, 1988’s “Surfer rosa”, penned by frontman Frank Black (or Black Francis), a typically Pixie weirdo number that saw a resurgence went it was used at the end of the 1999 film, “Fight club”. It has become an anthem for the disaffected ever since and is a favourite at their live shows, which they perform in an unconventional way, kind of like a mix of “do I have to?” and “since I have to, I’m going to rock the hell out of it”.
The Pixies original exemplifies the eccentric punk edge of their early days and foreshadows where music will head in the 90s, slightly off-kilter guitar rock that was antithetical to the glam metal of the 80s. The cover is one and a half times longer and the mashup explosions exemplify what was popular at the beginning of the 2000s. Two very different sounds and each with very different moods and meanings, despite there being no change in the lyrics.
Both are fantastic and though the cover ‘gives’ just a little bit more** than the original and does everything a good cover should, I can’t in good conscience pick it over the Pixies’ original. Original being the operative word.
Cover:
Original:
*Interesting then, that this was the last film we would go out to see as a group, and often when we would see each other at work over the years, the film would be mentioned as a sort of inside joke.
**I always feel lyrics Pixies tracks could easily be longer but they always end just before they overstay their welcome.
For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.
If you’ve been around this blog before, you’d know that I’ve written about the legendary synth pop band originally from Basildon, England many times over. So instead of treading and retreading over familiar ground, I’ll tell you a story*. (Mind you if you are looking for more words about the band and this song, have a gander at the post on my top five favourites of their songs from the 80s.)
Nearly forty years ago, just as I was starting high school, I got my first job, if you can call it that. I took over delivering flyers to the houses in my neighbourhood from one of my friends for a company called Davcar Distributing. If you’re of an age that you don’t recognize the term, ‘flyers’ were printed advertisements that were like mini catalogues, printed on newsprint**, ranging any where from one to twelve pages, providing the weekly sales for grocery stories like A&P and Dominion and other commercial enterprises like Sears and Canadian Tire. It was piece work, getting pennies per flyer delivered. There were two or three hundred houses on my route and there were typically five to seven flyers to be delivered each week. The route took me a few hours to do on a Friday night and I would get $10 or so for my efforts.
Every few weeks, Carol***, one of the proprietors of the company, would ask if I would take on one of the nearby routes when the regular delivery kid wasn’t able to, and it would mean a bit more money that week, but also cut into more of my prized weekend time. At some point, I was asked if I would be interested in taking over all the down routes**** in my small town and after some cajoling and promises of help from my mother, I agreed. It meant that a walk on Friday night turned into a whole weekend endeavour. I would be responsible for 10-12 routes on any given week, sometimes more, and I figure that at some point over the two years that I delivered these flyers that I probably walked up to the door of every house in Bowmanville.
We quickly had it down to an art though. Friday nights after dinner, we would put on a movie or two and sort out the flyers, unbundling stacks, and fitting each flyer within in each other so that they were ready for delivery and stow them in black plastic Knob Hill Farms baskets*****. My mother had a road map of the town, on which she highlighted each route to which we delivered in a different colour marker and we knew exactly how many houses were on each route and so, how many flyers needed to be delivered. She would drop me off at the beginning of each route, loaded down with two paper carrier bags loaded with pre-sorted flyers, one on each shoulder, and pick me up at the other end, where she waited in our little silver chevette reading a Harlequin romance novel. Then, while she drove off to the start of the next route, I would refill my bags with the exact amount of flyers needed.
This is the job where I gained my love/hate relationship with walking and my very real fear of dogs. Don’t laugh. I was once chased by a massive Dobermann pinscher for 200 metres or so, on a Sunday night at dusk, after a whole weekend of deliveries, from the front porch of a heritage house over an overgrown lawn and over a five foot wide drainage ditch and into the front passenger side door of my mother’s car, which she luckily had the foresight to open for me as she saw the chase ensuing. It was like the Chopper scene in Stand by me, in slo-mo and everything, but the danger was very real. My mother had to get the car washed the next day to erase the dog slobber froth from the passenger window.
And I could tell many other stories from those days – from the odd people I ran into on the streets and the conversations, to the different lifestyles of Bowmanville’s residents, their possessions and collections, and the relationships to their pets****** – but this post would end up like War and Peace in length. Instead, I’ll get back to the point. What does this job have to do “People are people” by Depeche Mode?
Well, as you can imagine, all that walking alone would afford lots of time to think and have conversations with oneself and before I was able to save up for a Walkman, sing songs to oneself as well. One of these songs was Depeche Mode’s “People are people”. I will never be able to tell you now where I first heard the songs, whether on the radio or at a school dance, but those chorus lines stuck with me. “People are people, so why should it be / You and I should get along so awfully?” These were the only lines I knew and sang them over and over again. They resounded for me. They were words that had meaning. And applying them to my own experiences thus far in life, I gave them my own meaning.
When I later discovered the author of these words, I became a fan of Depeche Mode. “Some great reward” would be the first album I would own by the band, mostly because of “People are people”, buying it on cassette, with money earned from a different job. And I’ve never looked back… except of course, to remember singing those chorus lines over and over while walking sidewalks burdened by loads of flyers.
Original Eighties best 100 position: n/a
Favourite lyric: “Now you’re punching, and you’re kicking, and you’re shouting at me / I’m relying on your common decency / So far, it hasn’t surfaced, but I’m sure it exists / It just takes a while to travel from your head to your fist” These lines always made me laugh.
Where are they now?: Despite losing band mates, near deaths, deaths, and dealing with a host of other trials and tribulations over the years, Depeche Mode are still going strong, now just a duo, after 45 years. They released their 15th studio album, “Memento mori”, back in 2023.
*One of which I’ve hinted at pieces at least twice in two previous Depeche Mode related posts.
**Some companies still print them and deliver them directly to mailboxes through Canada Post but many just make them available online.
***I believe that was her name.
****Down routes were all the routes that didn’t have a regular carrier.
*****Those who know, know.
******I’ll never forget the pet raccoon that would pull the flyers from me as I was feeding them into the mail slot in the front door.
For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.
My (life in) music lists 