SGR's Gold Mine: Music I'm Listening To

[Guybrush]

Just lurking and checking out the songs that get mentioned. I didn't really know either Sands of Time or Silver Shadow, but enjoy them both

[SGR]

Bicep - Apricots

Perhaps my favorite song from 2020, or at least my favorite single, was Bicep's beautiful and hypnotic trance, "Apricots". It's an ambient techno piece that just feels like a musical ritual. Incantations, powerful though they may be, are nothing without the powerful and ascending synth chords and drum breaks.

The vocal sample just repeats and repeats, no one knows what she's really saying (unless you happen to speak the language), but it doesn't matter what she's saying: it's about the feeling the listener gets while hearing her say it. There's on additional vocal sample that slowly gets introuced with a repetion of "Ay..Maka!" - just to further sell the idea of incantations.

The most incredible thing is how little it really does, and yet how powerful and intense it remains. And the feeling that the listener comes away with is probably different for everyone. Is this a cry for help? A reminiscence of times past? A call to arms? Or just an invocation of the spiritual heart of man? This very loose statement of intent and its variability is something that electronic music is finely suited for, but the genre rarely pulls it off quite as gracefully and effortlessly as it's done here - it has almost all of the ingredients in it that made Future Sound of London's "Papua New Guinea" a complete marvel to listen to.

The song will take you into its world with a warm embrace, if you're willing to let it.

If you're curious what the sampled vocals are from, here they are - obscure recordings to say the least - and the way they were used in the track once again highlights effective sampling/looping as a very unique talent in itself - the primary vocal sample from the track can be heard right at the start of this track:

The second vocal sample of the track can be heard here, about 37 seconds in:

And one last thing - I have to give credit to house DJ Sonny Fodera for putting me onto this track, as he opened one of his sets with it - a set that was performed during the Covid pandemic at the famous Printworks club in London (seeing the video with no crowds of people there is a bit jarring to say the least) - and what an opening track it is:

[SGR]

A Flock of Seagulls - Space Age Love Song

I grew up in America, yeah? And I grew up with a dad who grew up in the '80s. The last truly culturally relevant band he was interested in listening to was Nirvana. But he had heard plenty of new wave music and metal music in his time on Earth before I was born. I remember riding around as a three year old in his F-150, as he put in Eurythmics tapes and Depeche Mode tapes. As I grew older, he showed me more - especially once he got his hands on a Sirius satellite radio and got access to their 1st Wave channel. One of the songs he really liked was A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran". I never really got the big deal with that track. Sure, it was okay - it was kinda catchy and unique, but it really didn't move me. This song was their only big hit in the US. I think he discovered it through MTV.

But anyways, I knew the band - and as a result I eventually discovered one of their singles that wasn't so big in America - "Space Age Love Song". What can be said about this song that hasn't been said before? This song transports me to a place like few others do - there's fewer songs more effective at making you feel like a lovelorn teenager staring out the bus window as this one. Dreamy arpeggios, a beautiful build-up, and absolutely perfect vocal delivery. This would easily make my top ten '80s songs list - there's beauty in simplicity:

I saw your eyes
And you made me smile
For a little while
I was falling in love

I saw your eyes
And you touched my mind
Although it took a while
I was falling in love

They also did a great rendition of it with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra:

And who could forget the "unofficial" video with the one and only Jennifer Connelly?:

So thanks to my Dad for introducing me to older music, specifically new wave and this band. I may have never stumbled upon this absolute masterpiece of a track otherwise. It's an absolute beauty.

[Guybrush]

About A Flock of Seagulls, I remember watching a VH1 program about them where it seemed they'd ended kinda badly (?) and the program was about trying to get them together again amicably or something.

I think their guitarist was like 14 years or something when he joined the band.

[SGR]

About A Flock of Seagulls, I remember watching a VH1 program about them where it seemed they'd ended kinda badly (?) and the program was about trying to get them together again amicably or something.

I think their guitarist was like 14 years or something when he joined the band.

Interesting - I didn't know that about their guitarist. And I'd never seen that VH1 program, if you ever stumble upon it, I'd like to see it. I think they were only ever broken up for two years. They're still together and active today I think.

[SGR]

ABBA - The Visitors

Not their best track. Not their catchiest song. Not even their most brave musical statement. And yet, this is the ABBA song that always keeps me coming back; It's because of the ever-present tension, the energy, the build-up, Frida's incredible vocals, and the story it tells.

This is the opening track from what would, for a long time, be the last ABBA album. The title track of the album, "The Visitors". But these aren't friendly houseguests. On ABBA's last album, they became a little more nuanced, a little more reflective, and a bit more dark. This track tells the tale of a secret meeting of freedom fighters in an Eastern-European communist state during the Cold War. And on this fateful day, the government jackboots have finally found them and plan to snuff them out. If you were to read the lyrics without knowing, you'd hardly pin this as an ABBA song:

These walls have witnessed all the anguish of humiliation
And seen the hope of freedom glow in shining faces
And now they've come to take me, come to break me
And yet it isn't unexpected
I have been waiting for these visitors, help me

Now I hear them moving
Muffled noises coming through the door, I feel I'm
Crackin' up

Yeah...a pretty far shot from "Dancing Queen", that's for sure. But man, an excellent song nonetheless. Honestly, it might be my favorite ABBA album.

[Guybrush]

Interesting - I didn't know that about their guitarist. And I'd never seen that VH1 program, if you ever stumble upon it, I'd like to see it. I think they were only ever broken up for two years. They're still together and active today I think.

Did a quick search and seems it was aired in 2004. It looks like it's this one:

If they've largely been active all this time, maybe it was about them reuniting with their old guitarist? I can't quite remember, it's been so long!

[SGR]

Massive Attack - The Spoils

This is the group that pioneered trip-hop - the mixture of downtempo electronic music, hip hop and breakbeats. This is also the group that crafted my favorite track of all time, if I were forced at gunpoint to choose - that being Unfinished Sympathy:

But that's not the track I want to discuss now. I want to discuss The Spoils. This 2016 track is, to date, the latest single the great Massive Attack has released. And even if they decided to hang it all up tomorrow, this would be a perfectly suitable track to go out on.

Featuring Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval on vocals, this track swells with emotion. As the slow and deliberate synths and machine-drums fill out the background, Hope takes the lead to guide us on a desperate emotional journey of someone who's deluded themselves into believing that the person they're in love with now is the same person they fell in love with initially - they're in love with an illusion of the past, clinging on to things that once were, but appear will never be again:

I got that feeling, that bad feeling that you don't know
I don't even know her but I hope that she comforts you tonight

Nobody here that keeps you in the shade, who ever owned you
Some sentimental tears or someone else's girl that drifts away

But I somehow slowly love you
And wanna keep you the same
Well, I somehow slowly know you
And wanna keep you away

As we watch the figure in the video slowly get more and more contorted and disfigured, it reminds us of the fragility of our relationships, and further, the precariousness of our own mortality.

The track not only reminds me of relationships frayed and destroyed in my past, but also of the inevitability that someone else close to me will eventually be thinking of me when they hear this song, after I've died.

Morbid, beautiful, and a testament to how great Massive Attack (and Hope Sandoval) truly is.

[Shhon]

Unfinished Sympathy is really good!
---

I was really in love with this song by them back on myspace days.

[SGR]

Unfinished Sympathy is really good!
---

I was really in love with this song by them back on myspace days.

"Teardrop" (and all of Mezzanine) are downright excellent - the only thing that draws my ire and rage is when someone calls it the "House song". 

[Lexi Darling]

"Teardrop" (and all of Mezzanine) are downright excellent - the only thing that draws my ire and rage is when someone calls it the "House song". 

Well yeah, it's a trip-hop song, not a house song. 

[SGR]

Pulp - Sylvia (1998)

Some say that Oasis's 1997 album Be Here Now was the end of Britpop. I'd have to disagree and offer Pulp's 1998 album This Is Hardcore as the true signal of the end to Britpop.

Unlike the former, this album is thoughtful, filled with longing, regret, introspection, lust, and hope. While Be Here Now felt like the big explosive party that Britpop finally deserved - a recognition and affirmation of its continued success, one last big hoorah to send its relevance off on, This Is Hardcore felt more like the drunken afterparty, and the inevitable hangover the morning after when you get pulled back into painful reality.

One of the tracks that I find most representative of the album as a whole is the wonderful "Sylvia". The meaning of the song is rather simple - our protagonist meets a girl who reminds him deeply of a childhood crush. A girl he lusted for deeply, and yet, in his adulthood, he realized the girl was very emotionally (and possibly more) damaged, despite her exterior. He sees the men this new woman hangs around with, and he pleads with her to recognize that these guys only want her as an accessory - but in doing this, he realizes his own lack of maturity when he was a child led him in some ways to want his childhood crush for similar reasons, it's only now he's recognizing the shallowness with which his emotions were attached to "Sylvia". He has no idea where "Sylvia" is now but this woman reminds him of his regrets - he wishes he could go back in time and comfort her, and bond with her on a deeper emotional level - and maybe he could've at least had a positive effect on her during a time of abuse and neglect. With both the woman he sees now and "Sylvia" in his mind, he pleads that they keep believing and moving forward, and impresses upon the need for hope - that we all know things will get better.

The absolutely soaring chorus almost single-handedly sells this song to me. I wish I could've seen them perform the track back in '98 and sing along (probably drunkenly):

Who's this man you're talking to?
Can't you see what he wants to do?
He thinks if he stands near enough then he will look as good as you
Oh, he don't care about your problems
He just wants to show his friends
I guess I'm just the same as him
Oh, I just didn't know it then
I never understood you really
And I know it's too late now
You didn't ask to be that way
Oh, I'm sorry, Sylvia
So keep believing
And do what you do
I can't help you but I know things are gonna get better
And please stop asking what it's got to do with you
Oh, keep believing 'cause you know that you deserve better

The meditative guitar and bass plucks, drumless, allowing Jarvis to begin to tell the story - the drums slowly set in to provide the suspense and anticipation - Jarvis begins to pick up his pitch - and then:

"YEAH I REMEMBEEEEEEER SYLVIAAAAA!!!"

And that beautiful, soaring, hopeful chorus explodes. Wow.

It's so simple, and yet so gripping, captivating, and memorable.

Pulp was always the most smart and flamboyant Britpop band. The fact that this record sold so incredibly poorly compared to their previous record, Different Class (which went 4xPlatinum), is a goddamn shame, because I think the record is better than that one was.

The album had first-week sales of just over 50,000, 62% fewer than Different Class first-week sales of 133,000. The album was certified gold by the BPI April 1998 for sales of 100,000. As of 2008, sales in the United States have exceeded 86,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

My message to Pulp's This Is Hardcore:

"Oh, keep believing 'cause you know that you deserve better - oh it's truuuuuue, yeah!"

And I'd be remiss to not include this excellent live performance of the track from '98, remastered in 4K.

If you haven't heard this record, what are you waiting for? I'd highly, highly recommend it, especially if you're into Oasis or Blur at all.

[SGR]

Well yeah, it's a trip-hop song, not a house song. 

 

I knew I should have italicized "House", and I'm guessing you know what I'm referring to, but just for those who don't: