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Archives for March 2022

Certain Songs #2331: The Soft Boys – “Queen of Eyes”

March 31, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

And so Underwater Moonlight went through a slew of great songs, including three that I very much almost wrote about: the footstomping “Positive Vibrations” with its insane guitar hook, sitar solo and amazing coda; “Insanely Jealous” which featured not one, but two rave-ups without getting faster, and the instrumental with the inside-out guitars, “You’ll Have to Go Sideways.”

All of which are great, but just set up the final two songs, the first of which is the insanely gorgeous “Queen of Eyes,” the first of Robyn Hitchcock’s power-pop songs for the ages. “Queen of Eyes” opens with Hitchcock’s and Kimberly Rew’s guitars in an quantum entanglement sent straight from psychedelic heaven, and a song that is on the short list of Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded, Psychedelic Power Pop Division.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2331: The Soft Boys – “Queen of Eyes”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Queen of Eyes, Soft Boys, Underwater Moonlight

Certain Songs #2330: The Soft Boys – “Kingdom of Love”

March 30, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

All things considered, “Kingdom of Love” is far more representative of the charms of Underwater Moonlight — and Robyn Hitchcock’s music in general — than “I Wanna Destroy You.” A mid-tempo choogle with surreal lyrics and some utterly great guitar playing, “Kingdom of Love” also keeps the quality level way high.

It starts with Robyn’s guitar playing choppy rhythm in one speaker with Kimberley Rew supporting in the other while Matthew Seligman plays some aggressively hooky bass, over which Hitchcock quietly sings.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2330: The Soft Boys – “Kingdom of Love”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Kingdom of Love, Soft Boys, Underwater Moonlight

Certain Songs #2329: The Soft Boys – “I Wanna Destroy You”

March 29, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Underwater Moonlight
Year: 1980

. . .

I wish I could remember exactly how I came to buy Underwater Moonlight. Or for that matter, when it was. I always like to think that it was sometime in the early 80s, but it might not have been until early 1984, and it might have been spurred by the entry in the Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, which called Underwater Moonlight “one of the new wave’s finest half-dozen albums”

In any event, I bought an import version of it at Tower Records and put on track one side one and was instantly blown away, as “I Wanna Destroy You” is one of the greatest album openers ever.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2329: The Soft Boys – “I Wanna Destroy You”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: I Wanna Destroy You, Soft Boys, Underwater Moonlight

Certain Songs #2328: Social Distortion – “I Was Wrong”

March 28, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: White Light White Heat White Trash
Year: 1996

. . .

After releasing three albums between 1988 and 1992, Social Distortion took four years to come out with 1996’s hideously covered White Light White Heat White Trash, their final album to feature Dennis Darnell on rhythm guitar, and an album where they toned down the cow and focused on the punk.

And, of course, 1996 was a good year for this, as punk rock — California punk rock — was having a bit of a day in the sun in the wake of the massive success of Green Day. If you turned on any kind of rock-leaning radio station in the mid-90s you’d hear songs by the Offspring, Bad Religion, Rancid and others. And so, Mike Ness consciously decided to go back to his early O.C. life days.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2328: Social Distortion – “I Was Wrong”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: I Was Wrong, Social Distortion, White Light White Heat White Trash

Certain Songs #2327: Social Distortion – “Bad Luck”

March 27, 2022 by Jim Connelly

. . .

Album: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell
Year: 1992

. . .

The second album that Social Distortion made for Epic records, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, came out in 1992, two years after Social Distortion, a pace that doesn’t seem so bad now, but was still considered somewhat slow. However, it had the misfortune to come out just at the time where we were all going through our collective Nirvana freakout, and to me at least, what seemed fresh about Social Distortion in 1990 seemed a bit stale in 1992.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2327: Social Distortion – “Bad Luck”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Social Distortion, Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

Certain Songs #2326: Social Distortion – “Ball and Chain”

March 26, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Social Distortion
Year: 1990

. . .

While most of the songs on Social Distortion respected or at least nodded to their hardcore roots by zipping along at punk-ish tempo, one of the major exceptions was the loping “Ball and Chain, which found a bluesy midtempo shuffle and basically stuck with it.

This was probably so you would pay more attention to the hard luck lyrics that kinda made it a companion piece to “Story of Life.” Here are some more stories.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2326: Social Distortion – “Ball and Chain”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Ball and Chain, Social Distortion

Certain Songs #2325: Social Distortion – “Story of My Life”

March 25, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Social Distortion
Year: 1990

. . .

And so, in 1989, on the strength of Prison Bound, Social Distortion signed to Epic Records, who released 1990’s self-titled Social Distortion. Kids, don’t do this. You can name your first album after your band or yourself, but after that, no. Don’t do it. You’re not fooling anybody, OK? Sure, Peter Gabriel kinda sorta got away with it, but by the fourth album,

I mean, even the freaking Beatles tried to do it, and now everybody just refers to The Beatles as “The White Album.” I mean, honestly, a much better title for the album would have been Story of My Life, which is clever enough to leverage that phrase in two different ways and plainspoken enough for me to not even realize that fact until 30 years after I first heard it.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2325: Social Distortion – “Story of My Life”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Social Distortion, Story of My Life

Certain Songs #2324: Social Distortion – “On My Nerves”

March 24, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Prison Bound
Year: 1988

. . .

One of the things to know about Social Distortion: even though they recorded for nearly 30 years, they only produced seven albums during that period, with the three albums produced between 1988-1992 standing as their peak in terms of production.

This started early in their career, as they took an unheard-of five years between their debut Mommy’s Little Monster and the follow-up, Prison Bound. In terms of comparison, Hüsker Dü released six albums — two of them double albums — and an EP during that period, and then broke up, to boot.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2324: Social Distortion – “On My Nerves”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: On My Nerves, Prison Bound, Social Distortion

Certain Songs #2323: Soccer Mommy – “Lucy”

March 23, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Color Theory
Year: 2020

. . .

On Feburary 28, 2020, Soccer Mommy released the follow-up to 2018’s Clean, which was called Color Theory. This was literally the last possible time to release an album for at least the next two years (and, sigh, counting) and not have it affected in some way by the pandemic.

And in a weird way, that wasn’t even true, at least for me: working from home for these last two years (and, yay! counting) has meant that I didn’t have to listen to music through headphones, as I’d had to do for several years prior. (Except for that glorious glorious period at WME when I had my own office overlooking Sunset Blvd in Beverly Hills, which now seems like a weird dream.)

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2323: Soccer Mommy – “Lucy”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Clean, Lucy, Soccer Mommy

Certain Songs #2322: Soccer Mommy – “Cool”

March 22, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Clean
Year: 2018

. . .

Near the end of the last decade, there was a microtrend of young female artists who got noticed by writing “songs” based around “guitars.” Some of them, like Courtney Barnett, made music under their own names, others like Sophie Allison, recorded under band names, in her case, “Soccer Mommy,” a phrase that is older than she is. But, intentionally or not, ties her back to the 90s, when that was a new term.

That said, the second single from her 2018 breakthrough, Clean, deals with a subject as old as time, open admiration of the cool girl over there. Yeah, that one.

[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2322: Soccer Mommy – “Cool”

Filed Under: Certain Songs Tagged With: Clean, Cool, Soccer Mommy

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2549: Sugar – “Try Again”
  • Certain Songs #2548: Sugar – “Needle Hits E”
  • Certain Songs #2547: Sugar – “Man on the Moon”
  • Certain Songs #2546: Sugar – “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
  • Certain Songs #2545: Sugar – “Helpless”

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