Medialoper

Certain Songs #2655: Teenage Fanclub – “Tears Are Cool”

July 20, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Thirteen
Year: 1993

. . .

The three major-label breakthrough follow-up albums that I was most looking forward to in 1993 were Nirvana’s In Utero, Matthew Sweet’s Altered Beast and Teenage Fanclub’s Thirteen, but the only one of which I well and truly ended up loving was In Utero. Another thing these albums all had in common was the production strategies were completely different from the previous records: Albini’s famous bare-bones style did Nirvana just fine, but I had definite issues with Richard Dashut’s jumbling everything together on Altered Beast after Fred Maher’s clean separation on Girlfriend, and don’t even get me started on Andy MacPherson’s production of Thirteen.

Certain Songs #2654: Teenage Fanclub – “Alcoholiday”

July 19, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bandwagonesque
Year: 1991

. . .

Alright, before we can dig into my once and future favorite Teenage Fanclub song, we have to address the big pink (and yellow) elephant in the room: the staggeringly awful album cover for Bandwagonesque. If Nirvana went and tossed a naked toddler into a swimming pool chasing a dollar bill on a fishhook because they wanted to make a comment on how capitalism so thoroughly corrupts us from such an early age that it was inevitable they would sign to a major label, that was one thing, but Teenage Fanclub plunking a garish yellow cartoon moneybag over a scorching pink background was something else entirely.

Certain Songs #2653: Teenage Fanclub – “Star Sign”

July 18, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bandwagonesque
Year: 1991

. . .

So, if “The Concept” leaned on the Crazy Horse side of the triangulation that made Bandwagonesque so great, and “December” leaned on the Big Star side, then “Star Sign” definitely leaned on the Sonic Youth side, fading up from the ether riding a shimmering, glimmering wave of spaced out feedback that was like the background noise of a moonless starry night where everywhere in the sky you looked was prettier than everywhere else.

Certain Songs #2652: Teenage Fanclub – “December”

July 17, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bandwagonesque
Year: 1991

. . .

Only in 1991 would a band stick the one-minute skronkfest in between the closing of the epic opener “The Concept” and the next proper song on the album, Gerald Love’s beyond lovely “December.”

And only in 1991 would it make sense: after all, you gotta remind the punters that the noise is still in the equation, and will be rearing its head throughout. In this case, though it was the perfect palate cleanser, because it makes the opening of “December” — the guitars of Norman Blake & Raymon McGinley chiming back and forth while Gerald Love’s bass climbs up the ladder and slides back to the ground — even more lovely than it already was.

Certain Songs #2651: Teenage Fanclub – “The Concept”

July 14, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Bandwagonesque
Year: 1991

. . .

The opening track of Spin’s album of the year for 1991 — a choice that was so ludicrous and so right at the same time — was an instant classic tongue-in-cheek bit of metaness (metatude?) that had the second most instantly iconic opening moment of any record released at that insanely great moment for rock and roll.

There’s a guitar squealing, not quite in or out of tune, and then you hear Norman Blake intone one of the most immortal couplets ever to start any record.

Certain Songs #2650: Teenage Fanclub – “Everybody’s Fool”

July 13, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: A Catholic Education
Year: 1990

. . .

On the U.K. version of A Catholic Education, “Everybody’s Fool” was the final track of the record, but on the U.S. version, Matador stuck it in the second slot, after “Everything Flows,” which definitely confused me a bit, as the rest of the album wasn’t nearly as good as the opening tracks.

Certain Songs #2649: Teenage Fanclub – “Everything Flows”

July 12, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: A Catholic Education
Year: 1990

. . .

In some point in 1992, after that band had their major-label-debut break through the clatter of 1991 — which is still my favorite year for music ever — and sell way better than the indie debut, not to mention topping critics polls, tons of folks went back to that indie debut to see if the magic was their on the debut.

Which, of course, it was and it wasn’t.

Certain Songs #2648: Ted Nugent – “Stranglehold”

July 11, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ted Nugent
Year: 1975

. . .

So let’s us get the obvious out in the open first. While I’m pretty sure I didn’t know it in the 70s, 80’s or maybe even the 1990s — time has proven Ted Nugent to be one of the worst human beings to ever walk the planet, a sack of enough shit that I was tempted to not even write about him at all. But, of course, Ted Nugent is neither the first nor last garbage person I’ve written about, and the blog is called “Certain Songs,” not “Certain Artists,” so let us discuss for a few minutes the greatest song the man ever wrote, the opening track to his eponymous debut album, “Stranglehold.”

Certain Songs #2647: T-Bone Burnett – “The Sixties”

July 10, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Proof Through The Night
Year: 1983

. . .

A lot of people don’t know or remember this, but before he became a Grammy-winning producer — and a leading candidate (along with Rick Rubin) — for Taylor Swift’s next “authenticity” move, T-Bone Burnett was a well regarded musician, who played on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, as well as released solo records starting in 1980 that were well-regarded until they weren’t.

For me, the only one that ever broke through was 1983’s Proof Through The Night, which featured the closet thing T-Bone ever had to a hit, “The Murder Weapon,” and when I say “closet thing T-Bone ever had to a hit, I mean “I think I remember seeing the video on MTV a couple times.”

Certain Songs #2646: Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) – “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)”

June 30, 2023 by Jim Connelly

Album: Red (Taylor’s Version)
Year: 2021

. . .

Not having an advanced degree — or even an undergraduate degree (though I’ve taken a couple of online classes from the University of Sheffield) — in Swiftology, I’m not going to be much use in deciphering this song for y’all, and I’m sure as shit not going to go through all of the lyrics, which even I know are about her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal.