Tag: British rock

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1992: #6 Spiritualized “Run”

<< #7    |    #5 >>

Did you ever discover a band in their very early days with one particular song, a song that you loved so much but then never really managed to find out anything out about them until much later? And by much later, I really mean just a handful of years later when this same band has released an album so mind-blowing that they are instantly a favourite band. And did you then think to yourself “I’m sure I know this band” and go back in your mixed tapes and rediscover that ‘one’ song all over again?

If your answer is ‘no’, you might be too young to remember a time before the internet and Google and Wikipedia, when the discovery of music came by chance, close friends, and hours of listening to alternative and college radio, while poring over music mags and fanzines.

If your answer is ‘yes’, I’ll happily say: “Me too”. Perhaps a few times over.

Two examples of this phenomenon that I always have readily available is (The) Verve and their early single “Slide away” and of course, Spiritualized with “Run”. It wasn’t until 1997 that I really ‘discovered’ both of these bands. Spiritualized’s “Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in space” was my favourite album that year (“Urban hymns” was very, very close second) and it only took a bit of pre-internet research for me to discover that it was their third record. The hunt for the two previous ones at the CD shops started immediately.

Spiritualized was formed from the ashes of Spaceman 3 when Jason “Spaceman” Pierce acrimoniously split with the other creative force of that band, Pete “Sonic Boom” Kember. The first iteration of Spiritualized was basically Spaceman 3 without Kember but with a few replacements, most notably, Pierce’s then girlfriend, Kate Radley, a distinct band began to rise out of the ether. The sound of their first releases also didn’t stray too far from the tried and true Spaceman 3 sound. Pierce would really hit his stride with that aforementioned 1997 album but their first two albums are very excellent as well.

“Run” was originally released as a single in 1991 but was included on their debut album, “Lazer guided melodies”, the following year and was when I first heard it. The album’s twelve songs are presented as four colour-coded suites and “Run” leads off the ‘Green’ suite, which appeared on the second side of the first disc. Part of the songwriting credits are attributed to J.J. Cale and there’s more than just a subtle wink and hesitant nod to The Velvet Underground here. You know the track I mean. Listening to it, “Run” has got a bass line that rumbles and thumps down, down, down into the depths of your heart. The drums just don’t quit, a droning dream, a brilliant epiphany, loops of ecstasy and rip-roaring guitars. It sounds like a high from which no one should tumble. Yeah. This is how addictions get started. Check it out.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2012: #21 The Maccabees “Ayla”

<< #22    |    #20 >>

As you might have guessed by now, I’m of that rare breed of music maniac that can and does listen to music while doing pretty much any other activity, whether it be reading, cooking, doing chores around the house, or whatever. It used to be that I couldn’t even fall asleep without music playing, though my wife broke me of that habit. And my office day job (back when I did actually go in to an office) was one at which I was often able to put on my headphones and listen to music, as long as it didn’t bother those in the next cubicle. Back then and even now, when I am really busy and I need to hunker down and concentrate, I’ll plug my earphones into my iPod and throw on some tunes to drown out other distractions. I’m certain it improves my productivity.

It was during one of these work/rocking out sessions that I fell hard for The Maccabees. I had written about their third and as we now know, penultimate album, “Given to the wild”, on my old blog as part of this series I did that highlighted my three favourite albums released each month. They were a new-to-me band and got me excited at the time but then, as often happened in those days with all the new music I consumed, I moved on to the next dozen things and promptly forgot about them. Still, the album remained on my iPod for months and on that day at work, this very song, “Ayla”, came on and I lost my place in the briefing note I was working on.

The Maccabees were a five-piece from London, England that existed for a grand total of thirteen years and four albums. They toured with the likes of Bloc Party and Florence and the Machine, other acts from around the same time and place that also mined the post-punk sounds of the seventies and eighties to create fresh tunes to great effect. “Given to the wild” did very well for the group. It was panned by Pitchfork but was praised by the NME and garnered them a Mercury Prize nomination.

Listening to “Ayla”, you might make comparisons to those recent bands I mentioned above but you can really trace The Maccabees back to iconic acts like Talking Heads or David Bowie’s Berlin-era. It is a-thrum with wandering piano arpeggios and cranky guitar riffs filtered through refracted light. Like many of the songs on “Given to the wild”, it is so big sounding that it begs to be performed at Royal Albert Hall with a full orchestra and choir, à la Spiritualized. The video below follows a man on a bicycle racing towards some unknown goal while the sky does some funky things. Not the most brilliant piece of storytelling but the music is quite delicious.

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

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2002: #10 David Bowie “Everyone says ‘hi'”

<< #11    |    #9 >>

Wow. It took almost three and half years for this blog to see its first proper post to feature David Bowie. Fittingly, it was his 2002 album, “Heathen”, that really set me on the course to fandom. Of course, I’d heard him before, knew many of the hits, heard a few of his compilations, but I feel sure that this was the first of his albums to which I listened in full and took an immediate liking.

Seen by many at the time as a comeback of sorts, David Bowie’s 22nd album was his highest charting album since the early 80s and was generally as well-received by the critics as it was the buying public. It saw him easing back from the electronic sound he focused on in the 90s, consecutively dabbling in soul/jazz, industrial, and electronica/rave sounds, and instead, playing with a more fulsome and organic palette. The cover art of “Heathen” felt like a play or self-parody, an older Bowie looking clean cut and almost too normal, except for those eyes, those eyes felt alien. Yeah, alien.

Right neat the end of album, at track ten, sits this tune, “Everyone says ‘hi’”, the album’s second single. You might think by its title that it’s a happy and light number and listening to it superficially might find you in the same place. But this big sounding tune that mixes solid acoustic strumming and plenty of chameleonic synths, is really a song about loss and missing someone so terribly that you can’t accept it and instead, choose to imagine them having gone temporarily, vacation-like.

“Said you took a big trip
They said you moved away
Happened oh, so quietly
They say”

This song is magic and the more you listen to the words, the deeper they cut. And suddenly, the cheerful tune becomes haunting, the saxophone rings in nostalgia, recalling his youth, the strings gather you all in. “Everyone says ‘hi’.” Everyone misses you, Bowie is saying, the pain is so great that everyone feels it, like pathetic fallacy. Just amazing.

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