Archives for December 2022

Certain Songs #2519: Iggy & The Stooges – “Search and Destroy”

December 29, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Raw Power
Year: 1973

. . .

A lot happened between 1970’s Fun House and 1973’s Raw Power.

For one thing, The Stooges broke up, because their two Elektra albums had tanked and folks were battling substance abuse, most significantly Iggy, who had discovered heroin. As you do.

Luckily, with the help of an obscure British rocker called David Bowie, Iggy kicked smack, and signed a contract with Columbia Records. As you do. So with guitarist James Williamson, who’d joined the Stooges as a second guitarist as everything was falling apart — kinda like Pat Smear in Nirvana — Iggy went to London in order to record what was originally going to be his solo debut.

Certain Songs #2518: The Stooges – “T.V. Eye”

December 28, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Fun House
Year: 1970

. . .

So if on their first album, The Stooges tapped their more avant-garde influences by getting John Cale to produce it, on the follow-up, they went to their garage-rock influences, getting Don Gallucci to produce the follow-up, 1970’s careening Fun House.

Certain Songs #2517: The Stooges – “I Wanna Be Your Dog”

December 27, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Stooges
Year: 1969

. . .

Roaring out of Ann Arbor in the late 1960s, The Stooges — Ron Asheton on guitar, Scott Asheton on drums, Dave Alexander on bass, and, of course, Iggy Pop on vocals — fused the arty self-conscious primitiveness of The Velvet Underground and the amateurish unconscious primitivism of a thousand garage bands, and ended up creating one of the major templates for what was later known as “punk rock.”

Certain Songs #2516: The Stone Roses – “Ten Storey Love Song”

December 23, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Second Coming
Year: 1994

. . .

In hindsight, it’s possible that The Stone Roses were fucked no matter what they did for their second album. Not everybody recovers from a stunning debut album: for every Led Zeppelin and R.E.M., whose stunning first albums were just the beginning, there are a thousand Violents Femmes and Bostons and Englishes Beat, who never even came close to their debuts.

Certain Songs #2515: The Stone Roses – “I Am The Resurrection”

December 22, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Stone Roses
Year: 1989

. . .

I got lucky at least twice during the CD era. In late 1991, I got a copy of Nirvana’s Nevermind that ended with “Something in The Way,” and not “Endless, Nameless.” This was good, because I often played Nevermind on repeat, and “Endless Nameless” would have fucked that right up. Equally good was the fact that I bought the first U.S. pressing of The Stone Roses, which didn’t have the tedious “Fools Gold” appended to it. (I know, all y’all love “Fools Gold,” but not this kid.)

Certain Songs #2514: The Stone Roses – “Waterfall”

December 21, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Stone Roses
Year: 1989

. . .

If “She Bangs The Drums” is The One, then “Waterfall” is The Other One, that other amazing song on an all-time great album that sometimes I like more than the song I always claim is my favorite. But like “My Little Underground” on Psychocandy or “Unsatisfied” on Let It Be or “Tumbling Dice” from Exile on Main St., I love “Waterfall” just slightly less than “Something’s Wrong” or “Answering Machine” or “Rocks Off.”

But still better than just about any other song ever.

Certain Songs #2513: The Stone Roses – “She Bangs The Drums”

December 20, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Stone Roses
Year: 1989

. . .

One of my long-held theories is that a great album needs a great second song. Like, even — or actually, especially — if the opener is an all-time banger, then following it up with a song that also slays is the first indication that particular album will be in your head for the rest of your life.

And so as Murmur had “Pilgrimage,” Whos next had “Bargain,” Boys and Girls in America had “Chips Ahoy,” The Stone Roses has “She Bangs The Drums,” which is as pitch-perfect of a psychedelic power pop song that’s ever been recorded and yet also could have been better.

Certain Songs #2512: The Stone Roses – “I Wanna Be Adored”

December 19, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: The Stone Roses
Year: 1989

. . .

It probably doesn’t seem like it could be possible, but I think I was just a little bit burnt out on listening to music at the end of 1989. Maybe because Sedan Delivery I was in full swing, and nothing could ever be as fun as making music. And so, because of that, it took me a little while to actually warm to The Stone Roses, because I wasn’t giving it the attention that it eventually deserved.

Certain Songs #2511: Stevie Wonder – “As”

December 18, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Songs in the Key of Life
Year: 1976

. . .

“As” is one of those songs that takes a while to get going, but by the time it ends, it’s reached such a peak that I think it’s my second-favorite Stevie Wonder song — after “Living For The City” — and is absolutely my favorite Stevie Wonder love song. Of which, you might have noticed, there are a shit-ton of.

Certain Songs #2510: Stevie Wonder – “Sir Duke”

December 17, 2022 by Jim Connelly

Album: Songs in the Key of Life
Year: 1976

. . .

While Songs in the Key of Life is always lumped in with the three (or four) albums that preceded it, it’s actually somewhat different, at least in its execution. While the 1972-1974 albums recorded featured the TONTO synth — and the guys who invented it, Robert Margouleff & Malcolm Cecil as the co-producers — as well as Wonder being responsible for the lion’s share of the instruments and vocals, Songs in the Key of Life was a more inclusive affair.