Thursday, May 30, 2002 -- 04:28 p.m.

A Quarter-Century of Pop Music stumbles towards the 1980s, headphones blazin'.

QCPM: 1979 - What You Hear Is Not A Test
This may be my last weekly-posted QCPM entry for a while as I prepare to start my new job and get used to a schedule that will take up 40 hours of my free time per week (not including commute). And considering I haven't been all that write-happy as of late for some unknown reason (hence the shorter write-ups), you might want to keep your jets cooled for the 1980 edition. But hey, there's plenty here for ya to read right now, so let's get going, dammit.

Gang of Four, "At Home He's A Tourist": The opening guitar in this song sounds like some sort of well-tuned machine suddenly collapsing in a shower of sparks as a dislodged rivet makes its way into the gears. It is one of the coolest pieces of guitar work I've heard in my comparatively young music nerd experience, the sort of thing that Thurston Moore should be thankful for. After that opening it sort of bubbles under, resurfacing for the chorus in a brief attempt at sounding orderly and fixed before collapsing in a heap again. This is one of the great songs of the post-punk/funk-fusion era, disco rendered malevolent with a nerve-rattling gallop of a bassline that complements the modern-life-is-batshit nailbiting of the lyrics. Jon King sounds like a robot and talk-chant-sings about the domestic tourism of clubbing and sexual pursuits, which in their own way are robotic and dead-end. But at least you've got a rubber in your pocket just in case, nudge nudge wink double pistol point.
Fatback Band, "King Tim III (Personality Jock)": At the risk of stirring up controversy and all that crap, let me posit: first rap single ever. Yeah, yeah, I know, Kool Herc and Grand Wizard Theodore and Afrika Bambaataa were the real pioneers and the Fatback Band was a disco act that lucked out and got the first (or first-known) rap on record. And I know that this is only sort of a rap single, since there's a more disco-y sung chorus about a minute into the song. And I know this uses live instrumentation instead of the traditional rhyming over a record. But I like this more than "Rapper's Delight" so this is the first rap single ever, so there. The fact that there's a really tight, funky live backing band (OMG precursor to the Roots!!!) makes this a bit more entertaining than it deserves to be- I mean, damn, listen to that bass!- and makes up for Tim's prototypical (and sorta dated) rhyme style, which mostly consists of a throaty smooth-guy voice urging listeners to fling their arms skyward and oscillate them in a manner signifying apathy and ring ding dang a ding a ding etc. You know, things like that. There's a pretty funny bit near the end: "just grab your partner/s'round an' round/just grab 'er by the butt and boogie down/just open up her jacket/and open her bra/and dance just like at the Mardi Gras". Well then!
Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight": Yeah you know this one. Thankfully I've opted for the 7-minute extended single mix instead of the 15-minute Marathon Of Old-School Ridiculousness. There's a lot of things that damage this song, among them the allegations of biting Grandmaster Caz (Big Bank Hank calls himself "Casanova Fly", which would sorta be like Memphis Bleek calling himself "Hova"), the occasionally corny rhymes and the evil sulfuric stench of the Rappin' Granny. But this is one of those "historical influence" songs since it was the first rap single to reach mainstream Top 40, and to an extent sort of ushered in the 1980s. This song is good enough mostly because Chic's "Good Times" is enjoyable, and the bits about crappy food are good for a laugh. "The macaroni's soggy/the peas are mushed/and the chicken tastes like wood." Not quite N.W.A. but so what?
Donna Summer, "Hot Stuff": I know "I Feel Love" is regarded more highly in crit circles due to the Kraftwerky proto-electro sound and all, but this song is probably just as important since it bridges the "forbidden gap" between disco and rock- and unlike the efforts of the Stones (good) or Rod Stewart (ICK), it's from the "other side" of the equation. I read somewhere that AC/DC sounded a lot like disco if you really paid attention to their rhythm section, and this sounds like that band's actual attempts to compose a disco song. The percussion is straight-ahead THUMP-ba-kssh THUMP-ba-kssh with the appropriate rock-style change-ups betwixt various bridges and choruses, and there of course is that guitar, breathing ominously in the background until it surfaces in a solo that ranks up there with the most indulgent, sleaze-oid guilty-pleasure moments of '70s rock. (I mean, a disco song you can play air guitar to- go figure.) And Donna Summer's singing is even more lustful than your typical Bon Scott ode to balling, this woman so damn frustrated over her need to get some that when she sings about how she "almost rang the phone off the wall" you can imagine her just tearing it out of the socket and flinging it in disgust towards the general direction of the nearest wastebasket. If the rockist crowd still thought disco was trash after being exposed to this song, well, it's their stubborn, stupid loss.
Van Halen, "Dance the Night Away": Say what you will about Eddie Van Halen's "wicked fretwork, dude" or Diamond Dave's crazy rawknroll squeak-screams- VH was at their best when they let the sneaky influence of classic pop seep into their arena-metal bombast. Musically (though not lyrically) this is nearly as good as "Surrender"- a concise, three-minute song with great harmonies in the chorus and a virtuoso guitarist that knows when to reel himself in and just settle for these purring, workmanlike riffs instead of long wanky nonsense. Listen to where a huge diddle-wah-weaaaaarh-noodlenoodle solo would usually be in a Van Halen song: a bit after Roth sings "whoooooooooa-oaah-oah-yeah", there is just a bit of percussion and some heavily-filtered but simple little chords that serve as a nice sort of respite from the big wall of Pure Rock Sound, Man that drives the rest of the tune. Lyrics aren't all that remarkable, which is typical about songs concerning dancing, but Dave does his best to liven things up with his trademark vocal embellishments (read: the aforementioned squeak-scream). It's mildly annoying if you listen for it, but there's so much going on in this song that it doesn't really stand out as a sticking point. For a song with such a huge rumbling undercurrent to it, it's surprisingly pop-friendly, and I am not shitting you when I swear that I actually heard this played in my local semi-upscale grocery store once.
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, "Refugee": Not to be confused with Richard Hell and the Heartbreakers, har har har. Though actually, maybe Petty's proclivity towards creating retro-pop a'la the post-Brit-invasion bands of the '60s ("American Girl" as the Byrds Mk II, f'rinstance) kind of went hand-in-hand with punk rock's destroy-AOR-bloatrock ethos, albeit unwittingly. Here Petty seems to simultaneously try and invoke the spirits of both Roger McGuinn and Tom's fellow '70s rock traditionalist Bruce Springsteen and comes up with something that teeters on the line between summery California '66 pop sunniness and anthemic we-gotta-get-outta-this-place desperation. The organ is of course the big foot kicking down your door so to speak, the thing that drives it all and makes this song what it is, a struggle against some sort of bonds; a cry for a respite from fear. I didn't really pay much attention to classic rock radio post 9/11- the morning DJs on my local station are a bunch of fascist thugs so I ignore the whole frequency on principle- but I wouldn't be surprised if this became one of many "rise up America" anthems, what with the impassioned "Everybody's gotta fight to be free" line. Classic rock radio ruins everything.
Electric Light Orchestra, "Don't Bring Me Down": Man oh man did I use to hate this song. I used to give friends a little test by asking them "What do you think of that song 'Don't Bring Me Down'?" and if they referred to the ELO song instead of the Animals song I would castigate them or something. I think the A-1 reason I really disliked this song is that chorus: "Don't bring me doooooooooooooooowwwwwwn... Brrrrrrrooooce!" The hell? Who is Bruce? Why is he so pivotal in matters of down-bringage? Why oh why are they ruining a perfectly decent song with an obnoxious Bee Gees imitation? But I have since learned to look past that weird-ass screeching and appreciate this song as, yes, Great Pop Music. I don't quite get the ELO-Beatles connection lots of critics seem to make; this song, with all its synth nuttiness and deceptively simple riffs, sounds more at home on the Cars' debut than anything Beatles-related (OK, except maybe for Wings). And as much as that chorus irritates me, I can't help but laugh when they bust out the "nonononononononono" shortly after the "one of these days you're gonna break your glass" line. I think they knew they were being sorta goofy and just let it get the best of them. Hooray!
Madness, "One Step Beyond": From goofy pop to goofy ska! Oh no! It's a whirling dervish gone completely bonkers, and it's spinning out of control straight for outer space! (Yes, that is a dumb line, but it is funny if you imagine it being read in a Tom Servo voice.) This is basically cartoon pop ska, not exactly as "legit" as the fine folks in the Skatalites, but it's short and enjoyable and has that great saxamophone. I'm not sure which member of the band is the one yelling all the goofy shit but he makes this song really fun. Yes, I know this synopsis is even less substantial than the one I wrote last week for Foxy's "Get Off" but this is not exactly the kind of song you give a serious analysis to.
The Slits, "Shoplifting": This is a song about stealing food from grocery stores ("we pay fuck all!") and it's weird-sounding. Great vocal moment here as Ari Up (who spends a bit of time sounding like rasta Bjork) incorporates this weird stuttering giggle: "TV-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e". It's sloppy reggae-punk and it's fun and there's this really great scream somewhere in there and this really doesn't lend itself to serious discourse either so on to the next one.
The Damned, "Ballroom Blitz": A cover of (The?) Sweet's early '70s glam-sleaze-rokk classic with LEMMY FOOKIN' KILMISTER on bass. Yes, I know the Damned had a bunch of great original songs but when you know of the existence of this song you have to include it, just... really now. How can you not? The bass jackhammers into your forebrain (because, as previously mentioned, LEMMY LEMMY LEMMY) but there's lots of other highlights too. Dave Vanian doesn't quite get as crazy ill on the vocals as whatsisface from Sweet but with the tempo ratcheded up a bit it sounds a bit more frantic and manic and spastic and fantastic. My hope is that sometime in the near future someone does a cover of the Beastie Boys' "Hey Ladies" and uses the "she thinks she's the passionate one" line from this song, thus creating a sort of meta-cover thing.
UK Subs, "I Live In A Car": Imagine if the Replacements started a few years earlier and were British and angrier and maybe not quite as goofy. This would be what the third or maybe fourth track of "Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash" would sound like. This owes mostly to the totally reckless guitar solos which sound like Bob Stinson gone limey for sure, yeah. I could also touch on the lyrics' significance re: the trials and tribulations of working-class disenfranchised British youth forced to live out of their Rovers or their Vauxhalls or whatever broke British punk kids drove in during the 1970s, but sadly my knowledge does not extend that far.
Germs, "Lexicon Devil": Boy oh boy this song is a mess. I'm not even sure if it's a good mess or a bad mess, but at least it's short and it rocks. This is sorta what Black Flag was trying to be for a while before Hank started slowing things down a bit in the mid '80s. A lot of stuff from California during the late '70s/early '80s sort of blurs into itself sometimes when I try to listen to it, but this song's faults actually prove to be strengths in a way and that helps it stand out against the likes of the Weirdos et al. For one thing, Darby Crash is completely incoherent- I can understand him when he says "lexicon devil" only because it's the song's title, and I can also sort of hear him say "gimme gimme this gimme gimme that", but that's about it. It's both exciting to listen to this unhinged weirdo going bonkers and disappointing to find out that the song's lyrics would be better served by someone who could enunciate- otherwise most people might miss lines like "I'll give you silver guns to drip old blood" and "I'm searchin' for somethin even if I'm killed" (which he was). It's sort of like a cross between "Sonic Reducer" and "Anarchy in the UK" when you bring the lyrics' attitude into play, even if this band isn't quite as canonized (though Pat Smear's Nirvana/Foo Fighters membership probably helped get 'em a bit more recognition).
The Dickies, "Nights In White Satin": One of the great punk traditions: the Irreverent Cover. The Dickies were great at these, and may be most well-known for them- i.e. their takes on The Banana Splits Theme, "Sounds of Silence", "Gigantor", "Paranoid", "Eve Of Destruction", "Communication Breakdown" and so on and so forth. This one, though- this is off the damn charts. Imagine the yarbles it would take to distill a ponderous mopey Moody Blues song into less than three minutes. This, of course, requires that the pace be sped up appropriately, and as a result it sounds more like a teen-angst pop anthem than a dull self-indulgent bit of art-rock twaddle. It helps that Leonard Graves Phillips has this snotty hiccupy voice which is pretty much the exact opposite of Justin Hayward's (or was it John Lodge's? Oh I don't care). "Ah, but what about that flute solo," you ask (and I really hate it when people start retorts with "Ah, but..."). Well, it's replicated exactly by a semi-ironic and completely blistering guitar solo halfway between punk and metal. This is how you take the piss out of a song, folks.
Wire, "The 15th": I'm thinking back to this now-infamous Guardian article that pretty much belittles punk rock, claiming the usual bullshit thrown at it back when it first came around ("Vey cahn't play ver insterments an' it's all noisy an' hateful! Fook vis, I'm gonna get sterned an' lissen tah Li'le Feat!") and adding the myopic hindsight that nobody paid enough attention to punk to keep it going past the '80s (this man must think Black Flag is what he keeps under his sink to kill roaches har har har). So explain Wire, who came out of the punk scene with a minimalist, art-school sensibility and somehow made a vital connection to the '90s via a certain band from the mid '90s fronted by Damon Albarn's (ex) wife. "The 15th" is living proof that yes, you can make a catchy, pop-esque rock song with the simplest riffs in the world aided and abetted with a couple chord changes and a bit of synthemasizer. The last of this song's three minutes is used to build a sharp-edged, hypnotic rhythm that (like much of post-punk) owes a bit to Neu!'s steady-groove modus operandi. Countering all this minimalism, though, is Colin Newman's voice: wedged somewhere between robotic deadpan and undulating melodies, it's almost a shame that they're only present in the first two minutes. This is why I like Elastica: they steal from the best.
Can, "Sunday Jam": Everybody prefers Can's early '70s stuff and I can understand why, but I gotta have some representation of 'em and this is as good a song as any as far as late-in-the-game Krautrock goes. This song's an instrumental and it doesn't quite go anywhere, but as an exercise in Futuroid Hypno-Rhythm and keyboard noise and acid-rock throwback guitar soloing it's startlingly good. It feels like a song devoted to the concept of simultaneously loafing around and pursuing forward momentum. It also sounds kind of hippie, which is a really dangerous thing to be in 1979, but considering it's a song about eight years behind it's time, it's bloody gorgeous.
Gary Numan, "Films": A lot of people in the States knows Mister Tubeway for "Cars" and considers him sort of a K-Tel one-hit New Wave Superstar Hit Explosion fodder type of guy. The Pleasure Principle is a lot deeper than that, though- you've got songs like the purring dirge "M.E." (as sampled perfectly in Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At") and the clap-along disco-murk "Metal", to scratch the surface. And then there's "Films". DAMN. First off you've got Gary being a smartarse weirdo acting as Stanley Kubrick ranting about cinematic perfection- "And I don't like the scenery/And I don't like the set, so/Pull it all down/Pull it all down/But I like the actors/And I like the show". The "film as a metaphor for something else" routine was old when Bowie tinkered with it, but he made it great and so does Numan- though the music probably has a bit to do with it in this case. A synthesized sound that almost resembles Gregorian Monk chanting is rudely interrupted by some of the funkiest drumming of post-punk, the sort of thing that gets a Gary Numan song slipped into hip-hop mixes like Q-Bert's Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik, and as if that weren't enough, in comes this bassline, a growling sort of bottom-heavy behemoth, robotic and predatory, rearing back just in time to get hit full-on with a synth that sounds like a Bernard Herrmann string section melted in a microwave. Another classic case of a song that sounds both dated and fresh, one of those odd past-future things you run across sometimes when digging through the post-punk/New Wave remnants. I apologize to the rest of the world on the behalf of America not making this song a hit, too.
Pink Floyd, "Hey You": Wish You Were Here was Pink Floyd's last great album, the rest of their output limited mostly to uneven albums with scattered highlights here and there. By the end of the decade Roger Waters was going kind of not quite right and was getting mad stressed and spitting on audience members as if he was Johnny "I Hate Pink Floyd" Rotten, as if the whole rock star act was wearing really thin on his one remaining nerve. So what does a long-standing arena rock band do when your lead singer is halfway to J.D. Salinger land? Yes, that's right, create a double-LP rock opera about it! The Wall is one of those things that sounds really impressive when you're a teenage rock nerd but seven years later smacks of ridiculousness. The fact that it's crammed with several different varieties of Freudian goofiness and crypto-Nazi theatrics and ten-times-overdubbed guitar solos might have something to do with it. But as art-wanky and silly-ass as Teh Floyd could be at times, come on- they knew how to write songs. This is probably the best track on The Wall, with the best take on the "Another Brick In The Wall" riff (the "we don't need no education" one that's repeated about eight hundred times on the record) and one of those cases where Waters' weary voice actually sounds perfect for the situation. There is that crap part where they digress into that "but it was only fantasy..." stuff, where we have to endure the line "and the worms ate into his brain", but such is the peril of latter-day Rog, I s'pose. I think it's also worth noting that when they bring in the bass and drums the song immediately starts to sound like a demented bastardization of tango.
Rickie Lee Jones, "Coolsville": I am assuming that Jones was what many people in the '70s listened to when they got tired of Joni Mitchell- then again, Joni Mitchell never palled around with Tom Waits, so there you go. Jones' debut was full of Beat-influenced jazz-style tunes that ranged from the bouncy, pop-friendly "Chuck E.'s In Love" (a fairly sizeable hit) to haunting, piano-driven wistful songs along the lines of "On Saturday Afternoons in 1963". "Coolsville" is sort of along the lines of the latter, though there's something more sinister underneath- Jones' piano playing sounds isolated and haunting, almost like a funeral march, or a Spector-produced 45 on 33 1/3; there's faint echoes of what could be harmonica floating around in the firmament; Rickie laments about how it used to be "I and Braggar, and Junior Lee" but people parted ways and "So now it's J & B and me, and that sounds close/but it ain't the same". There's a sticking point that sort of bugs me where Jones affects a really odd voice and mumbles "Well I hear you wanna go back to Coolsville", which sends a little wave of unneeded weirdness through the Springsteen-produced-by-Eno feel of the music, but it's at the end and it doesn't derail the song or anything. The hits tapered off over the years as Jones started to get more experimental, but she still has a deserved cult following, and I can only imagine how many people she hooked in the first place with songs like this.
The Clash, "The Card Cheat": I am a huge unrepentant and shameless Clash fanboy. Everything changed for me, I will tell anyone who cares to listen, when I heard London Calling for the first time in high school. Being enamored with loud-and-hectic around that time I loved the title track and "Brand New Cadillac" and "Death or Glory" and "Clampdown" and all the boisterous feck-yoo punk guitar anthems. And, like a dimwit, I usually skipped over songs like "Wrong 'Em Boyo" and "The Right Profile" because they didn't, like, rock or some shit. But eventually I grew to learn that these guys were doing disco-pop and two-tone ska and '50s rockabilly and each genre sounded like it was the one they were born to play- and it's gotten to the point now where I find nearly every single song on this album absolutely great and the album as a whole one of the best ever released. Which brings us to "The Card Cheat", one of the songs I originally didn't pay much attention to. While I'm on my comparing-things-to-Springsteen kick (what the hell am I, Dave Marsh?), I might as well posit the theory that this is the Clash fed through a Born To Run filter, with the sweeping horns and the '50s-style piano and the way Mick Jones sings "There's a solitary man cryin' 'hold me'..." It's also a surprisingly heartfelt and yearning song- at least surprisingly from a band that two years previous was all about pissed-off adolescence (which has its merits, mind you). Maybe the saddest part of this song is at the end, where the piano playing- which all this time has been pounding away all epic-like- sort of disintegrates into a few scattered lonely notes as the song fades out, like the last trickle of blood spilling out of the song's dead gambler. "If he only had time to tell of all of the things he'd planned..."
Neil Young, "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)": I am not going to sit here and talk about who invented grunge or Kurt Cobain's suicide note or Elvis or the "story of Johnny Rotten" or any of that. Instead, I want you to dig out Rust Never Sleeps or download this song from Audiogalaxy while you still can or anything to get your hands on this song just to listen to the guitar. I am not going to attempt to sum up the guitar in words. I am just going to sit here and listen to it, and I hope you are listening to it as well, because it is one of the most moving things ever caught on record.

Finally the '70s are over and we can put away our bellbottoms and get out our skinny ties, ha ha cough yeah. 1980 should be coming whenever- maybe not eight days from now, but soon enough, depending on how I adjust to the new work thing. Metal fiends will appreciate Ozzy and AC/DC and Motorhead; old-school rap fans will like Kurtis Blow and the Treacherous Three; EVERYONE will like James Brown. Also features a Jonathan Richman song recorded in the early '70s which technically counts as a 1980 release. And U2 will be on this volume so you won't have to worry about me subjecting you to "Discotheque". See ya then.

-Nate