Now Listening: Bleach

This is my attempt to reconcile my newfound powers of streaming, my desire to write about the music I listen to, and my need to listen to something about a squajillion times before I feel like I can put down my opinions on it. Maybe this format will take off, maybe it won't, but this will be where I write about something, more or less in the moments that I'm listening to it: transient thoughts, but not concrete or final enough to merit a "review."

I've been listening to Nirvana's Bleach all evening. I've always been a huge Nirvana fan, of course, and yet I'm still hesitant to move in beyond the edges of their music. First there's the hits and monumental cuts. Then there's the cuts I really like: "Drain You," "School," "On a Plain," "Been a Son," "Love Buzz," "Breed," "Dumb," "Serve the Servants" to a lesser extent. "Sliver," if it's not considered in the first category. That's more or less by design: the deeper you go, the more abrasive and deliberately unpleasant the music gets: harder, more raw, less pleasurable for its own sake. For the faithful only. There are bits like this on Nevermind, too, and In Utero is practically made of it. Some would probably say that's the BEST thing about Nirvana, and they're allowed to.

I like a lot of songs on Bleach, but it is justly dismissed compared to the other two real Nirvana albums: hell, it could even be the case that Incesticide has more juice on it. I think the distinction Bleach has is that it's the first one, the first piece of Nirvana on record, and it absolutely does not represent what's to come for that band. They sound very undistinguished: raw, and competent, and like they've got something but haven't quite figured out how to show it. Showing it was always the big issue with Nirvana: how, how much, to what end. Easier to make a big noise and scare off people. Coming at the beginning of the discography, even with the benefit of hindsight, you're still squinting a bit to see Nirvana in that mess: it's there, in "About a Girl," and even "Floyd the Barber" and "Mr. Moustache" and all over. But mostly it sounds loud and hard and fast-slow. It's too human to be metal, too sludgy and un-pointed to be punk, so without the context of the grudge revolution, I can see how it was dismissed even by a lot of the small audience it did have in 1989: there must've been more eyebrow-raising acts on the Subpop label at the time. It's a not-great album by a great band that isn't "there" yet.

Serious Contenders: INXS, "Need You Tonight"

What a bizarre come-on: "You're one of my kind." Sometimes, I'll read lyrics and just think, "How do they get away with this?" And it's all in the delivery. Michael Hutchence, whether you dug INXS or not, had this ability to completely transform what is, on the page, a whole bunch of nonsense and nonsequitors, into a come-hither beckoning. It's a sexy, unashamed down-and-dirty pickup/hookup song, completely unashamed of its nature and the dubious methods it uses to express itself. And it works, as good music does, when you have the right mix of elements, that minor, but not detached, instrumentation striking the right slinking tone behind Hutchence's vocals.

Mixed Results: "80s & Beyond" (circa 2003)

A few years ago, a friend of mine, who has always shared my passion for a breadth of musical topics, asked me when I first became aware that there was music out there "that was good." Music that we maybe weren't just hearing because it was on the radio.

I couldn't pin it down... old music always had a ton of currency in my house. My parents were big into the major Oldies station, so I knew a ton of ancient songs that my classmates in grade 5 wouldn't have. By the early 2000s, my dad had nudged the radio dial in his Buick Century over to FM and a station that specialized in "The hits of the 80s, 90s and today." So we got a lot of Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode and Bon Jovi and U2 in high rotation, and I could count on hearing The Police or the Proclaimers or Jesus Jones on almost any car ride, sandwiched between recent hits by Sugar Ray, Goo Goo Dolls, Avril Lavigne or Mary J. Blige (it still blows my mind though that my dad once listened to a station that regularly played "Family Affair.")



Though I no longer consider it the apex of musical innovation, the station painted me a picture of the 80s as a fertile time for esoteric one-hit wonders. The early MTV era was like the wild west when any odd act could somehow emerge with a quirky video or strange hook and briefly conquer the world. This may explain my lifelong devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. It's clear that's the running theme of this Mix CD, potentially the first one I ever made (around this time but possibly later, I made a CD for a girl, a classic rite of passage for music nerds, but its contents have been lost to time.) The only really surprising thing is that I put on "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close To Me" instead of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," which I considered my personal anthem. Maybe even then I was dismayed by the low production quality.



My career as a musical scavenger begins here, finding stray tunes to call my own: hence, Dokken's theme to the third Nightmare on Elm Street film, Huey Lewis from Back to the Future, and The Buggles, well known to me as the answer to the trivia question "Who had the first video played on MTV?" I genuinely loved that song and thought it was profound. There's also the inferior English-language version of Nena's "99 Luftballoons" and two Combat Rock-era Clash hits, a time period I would soon all but disown. I liked thinking of these artists appearing suddenly on the international stage before I was ever born, then disappearing and leaving behind all these low-quality videos to fill VH1 specials. I was very, very aware that there was music outside my everyday context.



I wrote the phrase "80s and Beyond" on the CD because it included a few 70s tracks (Kinks, AC/DC) and a few 90s ones - Beck's "Loser," and two songs that captivated me in my actual youth, Green Day's "Longview" (which began to appeal to me a lot more once I realized I was living it) and Offspring's "Bad Habit," which maybe wasn't the best track on Smash, but certainly had the most cussing.



None of these are bad songs and some of them (Beck, Dexys, and yeah the Clash) are genuinely great. It's clear from looking at this set that I'm very interested in looking outside my own everyday context for music, but still don't have any discernible taste... a lot of them are songs I found one way or the other and let stick with me.

I just finished reading Rob Sheffield's "Love is a Mixtape," and while I would be deluded to say my life is anything like his (even my devotion to the art of mixing is lacking) it's gotten me thinking about different stages of my life, and what songs I put together, and why. You might see a few more songs like this in the future... you know, when I'm behind on reviews and need something to fill space.

The Other One: B-52s, "Roam"

"Rock Lobster" remains this band's signature song, and in my mind "Love Shack" looms just as large in their discography, but this song is probably my favourite. As much as I like Fred Schneider's campy vocals on the other hits, I think this song benefits from lacking them. It feels very direct and in-the-middle and kitschy without being "about" it. It's just a fun goddamn pop song.

Sonic Youth: Hits Are For Squares

I should never claim to be an expert. There are too many things I know I don't know. But what keeps this blog going is my curiosity. I'm not here to preach at you, I'm here to learn. Up until this year, my experience with Sonic Youth was that I knew the song "Kool Thing" from Guitar Hero, and their cover of "Superstar" from Juno. I knew that by and large, their sound was experimental and generally seemed like something you really needed to be prepared to hear. You can't listen to Sonic Youth like you would to a normal radio-friendly pop group. They will twist you around, chew you up and spit you out in all their wild, mercurial, feedback-laden experimental glory.

So that's the sense in which a compilation album - not really a "Greatest Hits" by traditional standards - comes in handy, because I honest to God would never know where to begin with Sonic Youth. The format of this CD is brilliant in that regard, because instead of picking chart singles, an irrelevant measure of success for this band, they contacted famous fans of their music and got them to pick a song for inclusion. More bands should imitate this cherry picking form of a package.

It doesn't quite reveal anything I didn't already think about Sonic Youth: I was prepared for the squealing, halting crunch of "100%" and the bracing, melted-down grunge of "Sugar Kane." And while I didn't necessarily think of this band for the whispery, soft-focus "Shadow of a Doubt," it makes a nice tension-breaker and shows how well they play moods, not just loudly. At 16 tracks, an hour and 16 minutes thanks to some of the lengthier jams on here, the compilation hangs together in a surprisingly gripping, cohesive experience. As many thrashy, off-kilter experiments as they whip up, it's always ear-catching, never tedious or laborious. It's one thing to be an adventurous, experimental group, it's another to be one that really sounds good for 75 minutes of tracks culled from a 25-year career. If you're looking to become a fan of this band, or convert someone you know, this set will do the trick. It doesn't feel like a club I have been shut out of, it feels like a vital part of my everyday listening now.

The highlight of the album from me is the sublime "Stones," which has a great two-minute build, proceeds as an only-slightly-off-center pop song for a little bit, before exploding into one of the simplest, yet most effective final three minutes on the album. Also great is the utterly mesmerizing near-instrumental "Rain on Tin." These songs highlight exactly what this band does so well, taking rock and breaking it out of its shell.

Buy This Album Now: iTunes Canada // iTunes USA // Amazon.ca // Amazon.com

Live Moment: Dexy's Midnight Runners, "Come on Eileen"

When I was about 13 I got a copy of Dexy's Midnight Runners' Too-Rye-Ay album, because that was the way I operated back then. One of the bonus tracks was a live recording - I believe this exact one - of "Come On Eileen," and it always impressed me how they were able to use the dynamics of the song to really work the audience - sure they were just stretching it out a lot, but that audience is with it, man, and it was one of the first indications I got of the power of music to move and join people.

The Other One: Dexys Midnight Runners, "Geno"

Before they were the "Come On Eileen" band, Dexy's Midnight Runners were, at least in the UK, dangerously close to being the "Geno" band, because their first hit there was with this catchy-ass tune about soul singer Geno Washington. I actually read where a lot of contemporary reviews hated the band, and I guess they got the last laugh in the end, but fair's fair because this song has something to it, and in hindsight, is just as rocking as the later hit (which is objectively one of the best songs ever written, says I.) Like the later hit, it depends on certain elements of character which might not have jived with the times, but mark it as distinct from its influences, as does Kevin Rowland's always completely impossible vocals. What survives is the groove and spirit of it, which I dig.

Serious Contenders: Twisted Sister, "We're Not Gonna Take It"

There's no objective test for quality in music. Twisted Sister may not be the most artful group out there, but they for sure accomplish what they set out to, rockin hard and making a case for loud music against one-dimensional, oppressive authority. "We're Not Gonna Take It" may be one of the most highly polished bits of pop metal, but there's a sneer in Dee Snider's voice that makes you wanna join his team. In the end, that's what it's about, that joining of community of celebration, us-against-the-world, of 80's hard rock. Heavy music becomes a club you can join if you're into it, and it's easy to want to because the beat is irresistible and the riffs are slick. They call it an anthem for a reason.

Serious Contenders: Pixies, "Here Comes Your Man" / "Gouge Away"

As a music geek, I somewhat regret not getting the Pixies sooner. My first pass at deepening my music knowledge beyond "What's on the radio right now" was in 2000-2001, when I would click around Allmusic to find out what bands influenced bands I liked. Somehow, Pixies kept coming up, and the song that was put before me was "Where Is My Mind." That's a great song, but for my little 14-year-old brain, it was just a bit much. A bit too off-kilter.

I went back to them about three years ago after a snippet of "Gouge Away" was used in an episode of LOST. When I heard it I needed to go back and pull them out of the file. The way Black Francis goes from menacing muttering to psychopathic screaming really worked for me and showed exactly why they're considered an influence on Nirvana. It's simple, you just need to do it well. This, I think, is the song you would ideally start with if you want to show somebody "This is what the Pixies are." Then you're open to all this other wonderful stuff, including "Where Is My Mind."

Probably my favourite song by them is "Here Comes Your Man." It's incongruously sweet and poppy, almost a sarcastic take on a radio single, because although there are chiming, peppy guitars, there's a dreary undertone that you can't quite put your finger on why or how... until you do a bit of research and find out the song is about homeless people dying in an earthquake. It's the spiritual ancestor of "Pumped Up Kicks" in that way, and it's a bit sad that people, including the bandmembers themselves, think of the song as an unrepresentative bit of mainstream kitsch. I think it suits them well.

Serious Contenders: The Smiths, "How Soon Is Now?"

That guitar, that doppler-like shhhhrang hits your heart like a hammer. And like so much 80's music, especially coming out of Britain, it is deadly serious and dryly humorous. It leaves enough gaps to bring you in. When I was 13 or 14, this song used to feel like it came from another world.

We used to have the radio on to a station that played the "Hits of the 80's, 90's and Today" in my dad's car and often around the house. I used to dread hearing this song. I remember being a very emotional kid, and when you're that age, things get all knotted up inside of you. Anything that stirs something up inside you has to be wrong somehow. Sadness was supposed to sound like a monster ballad, like Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" or Aerosmith's "What It Takes." It was on display but it wasn't necessarily shared. This song was just upsetting. It seethed with a dire darkness I just couldn't cope with. I needed to shut it out. But there I'd be, in the car, and hearing "I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar ... I am human and I need to be loved just like everybody else does" made me grit my teeth. And music like this, maybe not even this song specifically, but further exposure to music like this, eventually helped me put the world in better order.

I'd like to say listening to music like this made me deep or something. The truth is more like I was confronted with something I didn't understand and I didn't like how it felt, which is fitting since growing up is pretty much nonstop that. Eventually you change piece by piece, guided by little factors: songs you hear, people you meet, places you go. I wound up as someone prepared to deal with whatever a song like this stirs up. And it's a remarkable piece of music that retains that magic.

Serious Contenders: Alice Cooper, "Poison"

Considering it was the late-80's, and this is Alice Cooper, it's remarkable how much less silly it is than its contemporaries. Don't get me wrong, it's still a bit much, but considering it next to Poison or Winger it seems rather subdued and subtle in both its instrumentation and lyrical matter. It's not surprising that this song, with its definitive 80's lead guitar and quintessential vocal hook, was a big hit in 1989. What's a bit more surprising is that it holds up 20-some years later better than most of its contemporaries (aside from Aerosmith's Pump.)

It was the perfect Alice Cooper song, as much as "I'm Eighteen" or "School's Out," love as a game of life and death. Alice, with his knack for theatricality, does a great job wringing out the melodramatic overtones without sacrificing whatever meaning there is in the song. Alice comes off like a vulnerable psycho on the brink of disaster.

It's silly, as hard rock frequently is, but it's not afraid of itself. I dig Alice Cooper because at his best, he is simultaneously highly theatrical and over the top, but very controlled and conscious of his image. That's what makes many of his best songs stand up alongside rock's best: very much of their time, but also standing out from the pack.

Serious Contenders: Iron Maiden, "Number of the Beast"

I'm not much of a metalhead. I tend to focus my musical tastes on the middle part of the spectrum, because anything much heavier than what I listen to tends to be hard (for me) to critique. Doesn't make it bad, in fact good genre music is one of the best pleasures of today's market. The genres outside the "rock-pop" spectrum (Metal, punk, hip-hop and, yeah, country) all have their audiences with particular criteria for what's good.

I was watching Doctor Who the other night, an episode called "The Satan Pit," which featured the Doctor encountering a giant horned beast whose appearance I would describe as "metal as fuck." It got me thinking about this song, which nowadays sounds just like a regular fast hard rock song, given it's pretty early in the metal years. It does feature not only excellent guitars (it was one of my favourite songs to play in Guitar Hero) but also wicked metal screaming from Bruce "Not Christopher Walken" Dickinson. Still, metal as fuck.

Serious Contenders: Soft Cell, "Tainted Love"

"Tainted Love," as recorded by Soft Cell (a cover of Gloria Jones' 1964 original) is one of those great examples of a song you forget is great until you're listening to it. It's very 80's, but in the best way: the chilly, pulsing synth background underscoring how "tainted" the love is, while the "new romantic"-style vocals go from detached to soulful, with a ghostly rendition of the original's Motown type (actually, Champion,) backing chorus.

Serious Contenders: Dexys Midnight Runners, "Come On Eileen"

Kevin Rowland was a man with a vision. A very specific, almost incomprehensible vision. And that vision involved horns, country fiddles, banjos and hurdy-gurdys, denim overalls, armpit hair, and hats with poofy balls on top. It all resulted in something where, you're really not sure how anyone would come up with the idea, let alone why they'd think it would work, but the truth is "Come On Eileen" is a completely irresistible song. While even some of the best 80's songs sound dated due to the inevitable aging of their then-new techniques and equipment, Rowland bet the house on the timeless qualities of bluegrass, Celtic folk, and soul, all wrapped around an ultimate pop song with its barely-understandable lyrics and impossible-to-ignore singalong chorus. On paper the band's premise sounds dumb (this was after all during a time when it was impossible to be cool without having a keytarist in your band) but in execution it sounds incredibly obvious.

Of course, lightning of that kind rarely strikes twice. "Come On Eileen" being such a potent song due to its uniqueness meant that it was also something of a novelty (not a rare commodity in the early 80s) meaning the public attention span had room for exactly one song by them. They had other songs, but none of them had that star quality that this one did.

Serious Contenders: Queen, "Another One Bites the Dust"

The under-appreciated overachiever of Queen's catalogue. It isn't bombastic like "Bohemian Rhapsody," the hard rockitude of "We Will Rock You" or operatic beauty of "We Are The Champions." It doesn't even have David Bowie singing on it! But propelled with little more than an irresistible bass and Freddie Mercury's razor-tinged delivery, it works awesomely. When listening to this song you can't help but feel the groove. John Deacon and Roger Taylor, I salute you.

Freddy, for his part, owns the shit out of this song. It's a testament to his ability as a vocalist: This is the Queen song you figure you could probably do at Karaoke, but you'll still just embarrass yourself. It takes a lot of confidence, an inherent ineffable ballsiness to really nail those verses.

It's too often derided as "the disco song," which is a lame detraction since mixing hard rock with disco pretty much always yields positive results (see above, KISS' "I Was Made For Loving You" and Rolling Stones' "Miss You.") Something about rocking out to a solid beat just makes sense.

Serious Contenders: Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

A spellbinding, simple statement of insight and honesty. The gift of one of the greatest poet-lyricists of his time or any. Dark and true, with that stark, pulsing backing track and Cohen's characteristic husky song-speech.

It's rather upsetting how cutting the lyrics to this song are. That the world carries this dark underside we all have to confront. "Everybody knows the dice are loaded / Everbody rolls with their fingers crossed / Everybody knows the war is over / Everybody knows the good guys lost." Cryptic, but deep down, you know. You know.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cohen.

Serious Contenders: Pete Townshend, "Let My Love Open The Door"

Cliche romantic sentiment aside, I think it's significant that Pete "My Generation" Townshend wrote and recorded this chirpy peppy ode to a spiritual kind of love. It's sung, not from the perspective of a lover, but from a kind, loving God, and regardless of your actual religious beliefs, I think that's a nice expression. "I have the only key to your heart / I can keep you from falling apart." It's very sincere, very earnest, and I like the idea of putting material pursuits aside and getting back to that all-encompassing feeling of spiritual love.

I dig it.

Serious Contenders: Richard Thompson, "Shoot Out The Lights"

While we're talking about RT, here's one of my comfort videos. I do love the original recording (which I can't find as easily on YouTube as I can a dozen live ones,) but I dig this dark, intense reading with Elvis Costello from his appearance on Elvis' "Spectacle" show. The riffs don't rumble as pointedly as the record, but the solos are absolutely untouchable, intense stuff.

Anyway, this dark fantasy of loneliness and personal violence will always be one of my very favourite songs, and based on any criteria, a serious contender.

Serious Contenders: Adventureland Triple-Feature, Velvet Underground/Crowded House/Replacements

I have a lot to say about the movie Adventureland, since I'm a sucker for "manic pixie dream girl" movies, particularly those that uncover the flaws in that archetype. What really interests me is the music: all the best MPDG films have awesome soundtracks since the people that make them (and therefore usually the characters) are music aficionados who let their love of tunes guide their feelings and actions. This one begins with this classic Velvet Underground cut, which mellowly slips you into the film's disenfranchised white middle class aesthetic:



Jesse Eisenberg's main character is a bit of a music snob who frequently extols the greatness of Lou Reed, whose music runs throughout the film, but that doesn't stop them from using some great tunes contemporary to the film's late-80's setting. Later during one of the warmest moments of the film, the main characters watch the July 4th fireworks and this gem wells up, crystallizing this moment of yearning, of being with someone and yet somehow separated:



It's funny how context can rescue a song for you, because I never thought much of Crowded House before then, but the thought of those characters in that moment with that song underscoring the moment really does it for me. Of course, the film ends with a song that is truly excellent no matter the context:



"Unsatisfied" features one of those great, dreamy acoustic intros that melts into a powerful electric verse and rough vocal, driving the film toward its climactic scene. All these songs are serious contenders in their own way, and their usage in that one film is spot on.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. If you've seen it but wrote it off, well, it's not for everyone. But for me, it does a great job exemplifying what music can mean to a person, to our relationships, to our everyday lives.

Serious Contenders: A-Ha, "Take On Me"

Presaging the rise of Phoenix and Foster the People, here is your synth pop in its vintage form. This song represents the 80's in every positive sense of the word, with its strange, vaguely romanticist lyrics, high-pitched "hooo" and of course that unstoppable synth riff that you will now be humming to yourself for weeks. This song is notable not only for its slick video, but for being plain old awesome.