Tag: 2000s

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Best tunes of 2000: #7 Teenage Fanclub “I need direction”

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Creeping ever closer to the number one song on my Best tunes of 2000 list, we have, at number seven, Teenage Fanclub”s “I need direction”.

Teenage Fanclub is a criminally overlooked, alternative rock band that formed in Scotland in 1989. They were for many years a guitar heavy quartet, made up of Norman Blake, Gerard Love, Raymond McGinley, and a revolving door of drummers (finally settling on Francis MacDonald), but in recent years, have added a fifth member, Dave McGowan, on keys. Over the course of ten albums, their sound has evolved from its basis in loud, anarchic, and distorted guitars to the jangly beauty it is today, deeply rooted in their love for Big Star and the sweet sounds of harmonizing vocals. Songwriting duties are shared evenly between the band’s three principal guitarists and each take lead vocals on the songs they wrote, with all of the members adding their backing vocals to the mix.

I got into Teenage Fanclub originally in 1991 with that year’s excellent long player, “Bandwagonesque”, and have been following them closely ever since. In fact, “Howdy!”, the 2000 album on which “I need direction” appears, is their first album since “Bandwagonesque” that I didn’t purchase immediately on compact disc. Not because I stopped loving the group, mind you. It just so happened that around this time there was a little thing called Napster and the explosion and proliferation of file sharing. I admit to being pulled in. Mostly every crazed music fan salivated at the thought of limitless “free” music. Online file sharing and the MP3 changed everything for music, the music industry, and music fans (perhaps more on that another time). In 2000, however, my internet came courtesy of a dialup connection so though it was “free”, the downloads were slow. One had to be more choosy than we were in later years when high speeds became the norm. I had a copy of the single, “I need direction”, and grew to love it long before I ever purchased and listened to the rest of “Howdy!”.

And maybe it’s for this reason that I still see this song as the standout track on the album. The Gerard Love penned and helmed number is boppy with jangly guitars and sweet, almost to the point of cheese, “ba ba ba ba” harmonies that flit in and about the chorus. If you’re not with me so far, have a taste of that zippy organ Doors-esque bridge around the 2:43 mark that leads to some lovely dark guitar lickage. Sold, no?

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2000 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2000: #8 The Clientele “Rain”

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The Clientele will always remind me of my friend Jez, who I met while working in a call centre during the first five years after moving to Ottawa. He was a few years younger than I but shared very similar tastes in music and also a similar insatiable appetite for discovering new music. I can’t remember which of us caught wind of The Clientele first but it likely wasn’t long before we were both raving about them to anyone who would listen. And when The Clientele unbelievably made a stop at a tiny club here in Ottawa in 2007 (with Beach House opening!), we didn’t hesitate in picking up tickets. Jez and I don’t get out for drinks nearly as often these days as we used to but when we do, music is always one of the main topics of discussion.

And speaking of music discussion, I believe The Clientele was today’s topic? Right.

So this here is a London-based indie pop outfit that formed in 1997 and has had an organic rotation of personnel that has generally centred around school mates Alasdair MacLean (guitar and vocals) and James Hornsey (bass). Their first long player, 2000’s “Suburban light” (on which “Rain” appears), was in fact a compilation of singles and B-sides recorded in the group’s early years. Jez and I picked up on these guys three or four years later after they released their first proper studio album, “The violet hour”, and fell deeply in love with their dreamy, 60s psychedelic and jangly pop. The group released three more albums before going on hiatus in 2011, a hiatus that has seemingly come to an end with news of a sixth album due out in September. (Cheers all around.)

“Rain” is one of only three tracks of thirteen on “Suburban light” that hadn’t previously seen the light of day on some release or other. It’s definitely a mood piece, sounding very much like a showery dusk in the middle of fall (or pretty much every day this summer in Ottawa). The jangly guitars pittering and pattering against the windows and MacLean’s vocals, breathily fed through a guitar amp, sing about longing, of love and a summer lost.

“And I want you so bad in my heart. And I touch your shadowed fingers in the dark. And the stars have fallen on this night like rain.”

It’s all grey and misty and lovely, like laughing with tears in your eyes. And I just want to listen to it all day long.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2000 list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2000: #9 Björk “I’ve seen it all”

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The year 2000 was my last full year living in Toronto before moving to Ottawa the following year. At the end of the summer of 2000, I moved to an apartment in Roncesvalles village and fell in with the neighbourhood. It wasn’t quite as hip and happening as it is now but it had some cool shops and restaurants and also a repertory theatre called The Revue. I spent a lot of time in that theatre, being that it was only a block from my building and admission being only slightly more than renting a DVD. I don’t remember all of the films I watched there but I definitely remember seeing “Dancer in the dark”.

The film is one not easily forgotten. Indeed, it is a real feel bad movie.

Directed by Lars Von Trier, it features Björk as Selma, a nearly blind, factory-working, single mother who escapes her existence to a daydream world of Hollywood musical numbers. I’ve heard (but cannot confirm this) that Von Trier came up with the film’s concept and hand-selected Björk for the starring role after seeing her music video for “Oh so quiet”. She wrote all the music for the film and co-wrote the lyrics with Von Trier and Sjón. Björk then released the songs on a nine-song album called “Selmasongs”. The highlight number in both the film and the soundtrack is the breathtaking “I’ve seen it all”, a song for which she received an Oscar nomination for best original song. This, of course, led to an outstanding performance at the ceremony, where she wore the “swan” dress, which sadly, is more remembered than said performance.

On the version of “I’ve seen it all” on “Selmasongs”, she duets beautifully with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (singing the parts sung by Peter Stormare in the film) over a jarring rhythm line that morphs from the chugging of a train at the intro. Strings abound and you can almost see the technicolor images of Thom Yorke as Jeff, a man in love with Selma, as he tries to convince her to use her life savings to correct her vision. Meanwhile, Selma has long-since decided to selflessly use it to prevent her son from suffering her fate from the same degenerative disease. He pleads with her, listing the things she’s never experienced, “You’ve never been to Niagara Falls?” But Björk is unshaken. “I have seen water, its water, that’s all.”

Heart-breaking, much like her performance in the film.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2000 list, click here.