I am listening on the Oxford Tube, resolved to try again (again) at discovering things and settling myself in the lineage of music. Yesterday, it occurred to me for the first time that I did teach myself the guitar when I was a teenager, persistently, dedicatedly, and that that is proof of something. I just want to access the world of human cultural feeling, something I’ve felt somehow on the periphery of my whole life. I’m doing this by actively listening now, the way others have done. We just listen to what the world has to say - we just have to stay open.
I’m enjoying this record, it’s evocative of the cosiness of late 60s media. I think of jiving in a diner and reading poetry to my date. I’m not sure whether I’m a woman in this scenario, not sure I can be. The world of the record was a different one, it seemed. I mean of course it was. All the songs were written by session people and producers, troops assembled, hitmakers. Natural Woman is undoubtably the best, written by Carole King and also credited to her producer husband. The arrangements are fairly classic but there are standout moments, particularly on drums. I’d like to listen to this on vinyl.
Spooner Oldham is credited in the personnel, as is Cl***on. I want to think about the power of a loud voice and I want to watch footage of her singing. I love the guitar tone on Chain, there’s an extra hit of it in the bonus unedited version. Drum groove is also great and all of this can’t really be described. I think about trains and stuff as well, and how it would’ve felt to listen to this in England. Good old England, cesspit of sarcasm. I’m looking forward to more of everything and I even want to dance.
I dreaded this because I’ve been having a Heavy Emotional Time the days leading up to this one. “Turn to Stone” was a great song, has the 10cc thing of sounding quite stupid but with some great melodies under the stupidity. A lot of the rest was just stupid, but in kind of an awesome way. I learned from wikipedia that there is an ELO historian called Barry Delve. A lot of it was shite Beach Boys or shite George Harrison, a lot of the surface zaniness without any depth. I did enjoy a lot of the dumb noises though, reminded me at times of that incredible bizarre Corey Feldman album. The strings are awful as is the vocal delay everywhere. Lynne seems like a megalomaniac but him writing this whole thing in two weeks is sort of inspiring in a “who cares about anything” kind of way. I was really dreading the advent of Mr Blue Sky but for some reason spotify skipped it - I wasn’t so bothered about fidelity to the project.
I forgot about 'Battle of Evermore', forgot about it all really. I want to play guitar.
I am here and I am listening, it's all thundering. I imagine how it would have all been for Lucy and Dan, this kind of darkness, a cosiness to it. Same with the Cure, each to each eternally young and walking home. Makes me feel small and scared in some ways, through having grown through. I find the thunder interesting. I wonder about it all.
I know this is nowhere, you know it. Or - hang on, what do you mean? Really? I thought it was - am I the only one? I can't be the only one.
Is that an OK thing?
I don't know if I get fevers the way you do. I don't think I'd be able to doze productively and come up with these. And in the face of that, none of it feels real and I don't know what to do next.
Surpassing the paper illusion and the confusion and all that is not a question of slog, of reinventing the wheel. It's riding a bike, it's taking a single breath and then another. It's loving the simple, it's returning and relinquishing and leaving doubt at the door.
A truly confusing listen! The first handful of songs made me think it would all be the kind of sanitised corpo-radio let's-sell-the-next-Nirvana get-it-kids?-we-know-you-will-like-this kind of thing. And in many ways, it is that - ten years on from the grunge 'revolution' or whatever, it became so commercial as to now be completely safe. And we're also getting the post-Oasis imitation, sort of via the Beatles but without any of the interesting production sound. I actually think many of these songs would have been way better with a different production approach and I'm shocked to learn that the producer worked on Either/OR and XO, which I think are recorded in ways that suit the material very well. Something grittier is needed here, I feel like the same songs as shitty demos on a four-track would just serve the songs way better. This mix is far too clean and sterile and sounds like some royalty-free playout at the Dr Martens wholesale outlet. It sounds like what people who still think Camden is cool listen to. And I HATE that stupid megaphone EQ thing they kept doing to vocals in this era - it just sounds corny and draws attention to how clean the rest of the production is, needlessly! That all being said - two things made me see this as not a waste of time. The first is the song 'Homesick', which is a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song - a genuine gem, a sincere detour with sweet, prophetic lyrics about phone use and isolation with the simplest of melodies that just feels sent from onhigh. What a shame that it was followed by 'Get Free', which was their lead single but I thought one of the weakest of the weak songs and a rip-off of the 'Damaged Goods' final vocal. Some of it reminds me of that YAK song, but I think YAK did something darker and almost Nick Cavey with the production that made it slightly better (but still not good, looking back). I then watched the performance they did on Jools Holland and it contextualised a lot - three thin band members, the sound is also very thin - the lead guitar tone is inexplicably thin in particular in a way that sounds kind of funny against the awkward almost ska bassline - so yea, 'skinny' sums is all up. And he's a sort of proto-Cameron Winter / black midi doing all these incomprehensible yelps and flinging himself around but in a totally non-threatening way. His freak-out at the end of 'Outtahere'(?) in the live version was sort of cute and endearing in how ridiculous it was, flailing into the drum kit and knocking it all off its podium. I was more endeared to the bassist, who was just solidly doing his thing and occasionally singing along a bit, with a nice voice. Anyway - that was all funny and JH called it 'an exquisite display of rock and roll!' which is a real insight into the early 2000s. It seems labels had piles of cash to splash around and were pushing packageable versions of previously subversive genres - in a way, I feel a bit bad for the Vines because they clearly love the Beatles and they clearly love Nirvana and they have some good songs, but it just sounds so bland and dated in its packaging. Haha I forgot about 'Factory' -- a truly incomprehensible song, a totally non-commital 'Ob-La-Di' meets 'Heroes and Villains' which somehow called to mind Corey Feldman's cover of 'Working Class Hero' (no idea why). I had to save that one just for the audacity! 'Mary Jane' is a beautiful Meddle-era Pink Floyd song and '1969' is a pretty good Nirvana song, but other than that this stank. I went through an arc with this one - the bits I hated I really hated, but then I started feeling bad for them. 'Homesick' redeemed the experience! The 2000s were an odd time.
