*A truncated version of this will appear in the Safety Propaganda Substack curated by Adam Lehrer…Hello music lovers! This past year, I did a “deep dive” (hate that fucking phrase) into the B-sides and lesser tracks of some of my favorite and, in some cases, barely remembered artists. I’ve always had a penchant for music that sounds more like noise than song: a guitar imitating the crush of static; a flute that’s more wind than wind. It’s nice when you can’t tell what’s being sung, but it sounds pretty enough. Anyway, here are five songs I’ve really loved this year, songs I think I’ll keep listening to forever, or until I get bored.
Drop Nineteens — “My Aquarium” (1992) https://youtube.com/watch?v=YM0ThAxl9FQ…
On their first released album, Delaware, Greg Ackell and Paula Kelley take turns doing the soft, saccharine, call and response thing, but on the Your Aquarium EP, they really let out the lead and shred. The Drop Nineteens are one of my favorite bands. Their sound is mired in nostalgia and agst; sometimes weirdly sexual lines flicker into the otherwise fairly ordinary lyrics: “I’m fine on a plane / if they kick all the sluts off.” This song is awesome. The video is extremely early 90s, too. I heard that Greg Ackell runs a flower business in Grand Central Station. Always wanted to bump into him and ask him some questions or interview him for my blog. We’ll see.
Pavement — “Strings of Nashville” (1994) https://youtube.com/watch?v=yg0dMKk6JSM…
This is a Pavement song from a Crooked Rain Crooked Rain b-sides album. The first lyric, a repeated “Don’t be a toy / on the back of a magazine” is one of the most depressing and uplifting injunctions to come from Malkmus’ mouth. His lyrics, which often dance between the abstruse and allegorical, sometimes don’t make sense, or might not seem to make sense, but, like many movies, it’s the individual moments that make a Pavement song great. “Strings of Nashville,” with it’s somber, sweepy drear, is one of these songs. It’ll make you feel instantly nostalgic. For what? That is for you to decide. I used to listen to this song after working a restaurant job. I’d smoke a cigarette sitting against a wall outside my apartment, staring into the streetlights until fully awash in tired bliss. There was a girl who wouldn’t text me back unless I fell off the earth’s face for days. What I’d give to be 27 and feel that strange again.
The Dandy Warhols — “Dub Song” (1997) https://youtube.com/watch?v=IS6UHlI52gc&list=PLFV8a2R1bR79SqmfHqLI8Ko0bGCjRQa6o&index=14…
The Dandy Warhols have been my on-again, off-again favorite band since when I was 17. I liked that they’re maligned by popular music journals for ruining records by giving in to self-indulgence. How could that be a bad thing? What is art but a way to cater to your worst impulses in a way you can write off? “Dub Song” comes from The Black Album, which I don’t believe was ever released. One of my favorite things about this song is that it sounds like three songs at once, but I can’t distinguish either from the next. This album reminds me of my freshman year of college. I’d always been a sad person. I’ve, for the longest time, enjoyed winter and dim lighting. I have found it easiest to be creative when I’m upset. Many Dandys songs aren’t dandy at all, and this is one of them.
Blur — “Blue Jeans” (1993) https://youtube.com/watch?v=UDWEsOqL5ng…
This is a song that always reminds me of my brother. We both instantly liked it right away. Not sure where we heard it, but that’s just how it happened. Any song from the 90s with melodica is a hit for me (think Neutral Milk Hotel’s “Naomi”). I remember reading an interview with Damon Albarn, where he said something along the lines of, “this song was about me being 23, in love, and blowing through life without a care.” When I was 23, I had a dream where the years were inverted and I was 32. I woke up in a panic. Now that I’m not too far away from 32, I understand that sense of panic and wish I could hear all my favorite songs for the first time again. I wish I could do everything for the first time again. As Albarn croons in the refrain, “I don’t really wanna change a thing / I wanna stay this way / forever.”
Stereolab — “Jenny Ondioline” (1993) https://youtube.com/watch?v=c_zYpoHQzbA…
Out of all the songs on here, this one comes closest to being an anthem (mostly because certain cuts of it are eighteen minutes long). The first five or six are the best, in my opinion. Laetitia Sadier’s lyrics here are great, melting in with the avant-pop drone and hum which marks the song’s and band’s overall totality: “I don’t care if the fascists have to win / I don’t care that democracy’s being fucked / I don’t care that socialism’s collapsing / I don’t care…” As much as many artists are inspired or compelled by revolution, be it political or cultural, many just want to enjoy their lives as much as possible independent of the outside world. While Sadier has said that this song is a call not to give up, to not let “the fascists win,” there’s an almost palpable shrug to the droney melancholia, as if the singer is saying, “the most I can do is make art that sounds pretty and gets misinterpreted by the masses,” which I think so many leftist artists are doomed to create. Because even if the song were to inspire consciousness, what could be done with that?
