Chasing the long tail of new media
Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981
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While you really can’t count Bob Dylan as a musical influence on The Psychedelic Furs, there is no doubt that he was a lyrical influence on Richard Butler, and Mr. Butler acknowledges that on the rip-roaring “Mr. Jones,” a post-punk sequel to Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man,” which traded in the slow-burning thin wild mercury sound of Dylan’s track for speedy post-punk.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1663: The Psychedelic Furs – “Mr. Jones”
Album: Talk Talk Talk
Year: 1981
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Welcome to one of my all-time favorite albums, a record that has continually been in my life since 1981, and has never not given me a shit-ton of pleasure every single time I’ve heard it.
And I’ve heard it a lot.
With Steve Lillywhite at the helm, Talk Talk Talk perfectly blended all of the disparate elements of the P-Furs into a grand, glorious whole, song after song tumbling across my turntable, each and every one giving up some new and unexpected musical and melodic pleasure, on top of which Richard Butler spewed a whole novel’s worth of great words, sketching out characters and situations and stories — some of which might even involve himself — in the space of a few verses.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1662: The Psychedelic Furs – “Pretty In Pink”
Album: The Psychedelic Furs
Year: 1980
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For all of the discrepancies between the U.K. and U.S. versions of The Psychedelic Furs, one thing was consistent: the album started with the slow build of “India” and ended with the gorgeous dissonant rant of “Flowers.”
Given how many times the word “flowers” had already shown up in Richard Butler’s lyrics, it really wasn’t surprising that he penned a whole song by that name — though, by that logic, I guess he should have also penned one called “Stupid.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1661: The Psychedelic Furs – “Flowers”
Album: The Psychedelic Furs
Year: 1980
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Not to be confused with the Rolling Stones song of the same name (you know, their post-incarceration single that featured John Lennon & Paul McCartney), the utterly masterful “We Love You” has at least one thing in common with its namesake: you’re never sure how seriously to take the sentiment.
It’s possible that Mick Jagger — who’d narrowly avoided a long prison sentence, after all — was feeling vulnerable enough to believe that he truly loved his audience, but then again, he also needed Lennon & McCartney (and that piano riff from Nicky Hopkins) to actually get it across. That said: “We Love You” remains one of the peaks of The Stones psychedelic period, which we’ll hopefully get to next year.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1660: The Psychedelic Furs – “We Love You”
Album: The Psychedelic Furs (U.S.)
Year: 1980
There were basically two different types of songs on The Psychedelic Furs: noisy drones and atmospheric swirls. And while I preferred the noisy drones — of course! — I could see where a whole album’s worth might begin to get a bit repetitive, so it was good that they had both types.
Especially the U.S. version of the album, of which Columbia not only altered the running order, they also substituted two songs — “Soap Commercial” and “Susan’s Strange” for a song called “Blacks / Radio.” None of which I knew for a couple of decades, which actually meant that when I finally heard “Blacks/Radio,” it was like hearing a cool early P-Furs song I’d never heard before.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1659: The Psychedelic Furs – “Susan’s Strange”
Album: The Psychedelic Furs
Year: 1980
What if, the Sex Pistols, but with a saxophone? And an unrelenting drummer who does builds instead of rolls? That was the unlikely recipe for The Psychedelic Furs, whose debut album utterly slayed me when I finally got around to getting it in early 1981, and whose second album . . . well, we’ll get to that soon enough.
Naturally, the U.S. and U.K. versions of the album differ, and naturally, in all cases I’m going with the U.S. version, because it’s the one that I lived with, and I definitely lived with this record, even if I did drop the needle a couple of minutes into the album in order to ignore the slow, near-ambient buildup to the opening track, “India,” which — once it gets going — well and truly establishes their sound.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1658: The Psychedelic Furs – “India”
Album: Chaos & Disorder
Year: 1996
Chaos & Disorder aka Prince’s Contractual Obligation Record was his final album for Warner Bros records, and as such, was incredibly underpromoted, and as such, went absolutely nowhere on any charts.
Which seems weird now, considering that 1995’s The Gold Experience had broken the top ten as an album and contained the last of his top ten singles, the overly adorned “The Most Beautiful Girl in The World” made it all the way to #3, the last time that happened in his lifetime.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1657: Prince – “I Like It There”
Album: Batman
Year: 1989
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People seem to have forgotten — or perhaps, it’s been scrubbed from history — what happened after the 1989 Batman film was released, even though it caught everybody by surprise. While the media was all worried about violence that might break out after showings of Do The Right Thing, they completely missed the true threat: virginal white males who got all het up by Jack Nicholson’s performance.
This was a cohort who were already pissed off about the casting of “Mr. Mom as Batman” — as if an actor as great as Michael Keaton somehow couldn’t pull it off — but instead of channeling their anger at him, they decided that behaving like the Clown Prince of Crime would be a better tack.
Album: Sign ‘O’ The Times
Year: 1987
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It is, of course, a sucker’s game to choose Prince’s best album: some folks like the new wave feel and the fucksongs of Dirty Mind, others the dance dance revolution of 1999 or the rock ‘n’ roll of Purple Rain. And hell, I prefer the psychedelic baroque soul of Parade and the gloss of The Gold Experience.
But then again, there’s Sign ‘O’ The Times, his 1987 double album, which may or may not be the best Prince album, but is absolutely the most Prince album, covering everything he did well: hard funk, swirling pop, glossy ballads, and even added gospel indie rock to his canon in the form of “The Cross.”
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1655: Prince – “Sign ‘O’ The Times”
Album: Parade
Year: 1986
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Along with “Let’s Go Crazy” and “The Cross,” “Mountains” is probably my favorite Prince song, such a stellar jam that I’m pissed at myself that I didn’t realize how much I loved it until 2016, but better late than never.
Seamlessly blending funky soul and psychedelic pop, “Mountains” is as big-sounding as its subject, riding on top of a massive four-on-the-floor kickdrum that never lets up for even seconds, even as the song changes all around it.
That kickdrum is surrounded by glistening synths and ringing percussion, giving “Mountains” the feel of a magic carpet flying high in the sky gazing down at the world.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #1654: Prince & The Revolution – “Mountains”