Archives for August 2018

Certain Songs #1309: New Order – “Dreams Never End”

August 31, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Movement
Year: 1981

It took a little over a year from when I purchased Joy Division’s Still in late 1981 to get fully caught up on all the music that Joy Divsion / New Order had released.

And since I had started with Still, I didn’t buy any of this music in any kind of order, meaning for awhile, it was all jumbled up in my head, especially since the last thing I bought in that period was the most radical — the singles that were collected as the 1981-1982 EP (more on that tomorrow) — it took me a while to process New Order as their own thing.

Certain Songs #1308: New Order – “Ceremony”

August 30, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1981

While “Ceremony” might or might not be my all-time favorite song, it’s definitely my all-time favorite recording.

But because nothing is ever easy, I need to instantly point out that praise applies to this specific version of “Ceremony” — often referred to as “Ceremony (Version 1)” — which came out in March of 1981 as a 12-inch single with a green cover, and not the version that ended up on Substance, which is therefore the one that most people know.

The version on Substance was recorded in November 1980 after Gillian Gilbert joined the band, but the original recording was just Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris, working out their grief just months after their entire world was forever changed by the suicide of Ian Curtis.

There is a timeline, of course, where Ian Curtis never killed himself, and “Ceremony” was just the next Joy Division single. Weirdly enough, I still think they get into dance music, as once Sumner & Morris (and even Peter Hook) discovered technology, there was no turning back, and besides, on songs like “She’s Lost Control” & “Isolation” they were already angling in that direction.

Certain Songs #1307: Nerf Herder – “Buffy The Vampire Slayer Theme”

August 29, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Buffy The Vampire Slayer: The Album
Year: 1997

So my first thought when I read that they were going to reboot Buffy The Vampire Slayer was “what are they going to use for the theme song?” Because while Nerf Herder’s original theme song is definitely part of that show’s iconic aesthetic, it’s also incredibly 1997, and there is just no way that you could make a realistic show about high students in 2018 and use a surf-punk instrumental as your theme song.

Right? Part of the many many things that made Buffy The Vampire Slayer such a great series was the verisimilitude of normal turn-of-the-century high school students juxtaposed with the fantastical (and metaphorical) monsters they battled.

Certain Songs #1306: N.E.R.D. – “Lapdance”

August 28, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: In Search of…
Year: 2001

I’m pretty sure I first encountered this funk-rock-rap hybrid on one of the random video shows that I would still tune into during the early part of the century. I think it may have been VH1 who had a weekly show where they would play a bunch of new videos, but I can’t really remember.

All I know is that at some point I saw the censored version of the video for “Lapdance,” and while I was vaguely aware of The Neptunes, and I knew that they had made a record as N.E.R.D, it still hadn’t crossed my radar.

Certain Songs #1305: The Neon Boys – “That’s All I Know (Right Now)”

August 27, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Single, 1980

This has always been one of the weirdest singles I ever purchased: a 1980 indie release of two songs from Richard Hell & The Voidoids on one side, and two songs from The Neon Boys on the other side.

The Neon Boys, of course, were the pre-Richard Lloyd incarnation of the band that eventually became Television. And as to why this single — recorded in 1972 and probably shelved because who the hell was going to release it? — was put out in 1980 has been lost to the mists of history, but at least the insanely great Neon Boys songs haven’t been.

Certain Songs #1304: Neneh Cherry feat. Michael Stipe – “Trout”

August 26, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Homebrew
Year: 1992

If people remember Neneh Cherry at all, they probably think of her as the one-hit wonder whose 1988 single, “Buffalo Stance” was a worldwide hit single. Though, weirdly enough, she also had a top ten single with song called “Kisses on the Wind”

However, it was the follow-up album, Homebrew, that caught my ears, featuring a song, “Trout,” that is one of the most early 1990s things ever.

Certain Songs #1303: Neko Case – “Man”

August 25, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You
Year: 2013

Over the years Neko Case has sung from the perspective of all sorts of exotic creatures: tornadoes, tigers, tides, but on 2013’s stellar The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, she personifies the most exotic creature of all: a man.

In what’s probably her most rocking song ever, Neko takes a look at gender stereotypes and with guitars blazing, is her typical unsparing self.

Certain Songs #1302: Neko Case – “Middle Cyclone”

August 24, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Middle Cyclone
Year: 2009

In 2009, Neko Case followed the leveling-up of Fox Confessor Brings The Flood with another fine album, Middle Cyclone, that among other things featured one of the best album covers of the 21st century, long after album covers were a thing.

Still, the image of Neko brandishing (because that’s literally the only verb) a sword while tiger crouching on the hood of a 1967 Mercury Cougar — which she named “Angie Dickinson” — was instantly iconic, to the point where she ended raffling off the car for charity.

Certain Songs #1301: Neko Case – “Margaret Vs. Pauline”

August 23, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Year: 2006

As it turns out, Neko Case’s live album, The Tigers Have Spoken was the end of the first phase of her career. When she came back in 2006 with Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, her music had changed: the new songs were simultaneously more expansive and more personal.

Expansive that her music went beyond the boundaries of alt-country, and personal in that she started going even deeper on the subjects in which she was interested.

Certain Songs #1300: Neko Case – “The Tigers Have Spoken (Live)”

August 22, 2018 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Tigers Have Spoken
Year: 2004

Celebrating the latest big round number with my very favorite Neko Case song, and a song that’s on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Alt-Country division.

With Dallas & Travis Good — guitarists of co-writers/backing band The Sadies — jingling and jangling their guitars around chord changes that came from the beginning of the universe and will outlast the the final star, “The Tigers Have Spoken” is simultaneously anthemic and bittersweet.