Deceptive Bends

More songs that Made Me Rotten.  Part Three, I guess.

- [ ] 11 Babe, Styx

This is an odd one out.  This is a song that I LOATHE; but that intense hatred is no less formative than the love I have for the other songs in this list.

FWIW, Styx is the first real rock concert I ever went to.  A couple of years later, they released the follow up album, Cornerstone, which contains this hairball.

The treacly electronic piano, the smarmy lyrics and unctuous delivery; it's the epitome of Dennis DeYoung's vision of a rock band crossover MOR 'hit'.  His leather-lunged proto-Kenny G delivery is awful.   I don't blame the rest of the band for kicking him out.

Of course it was a hit, and was omnipresent.  You couldn't listen to the radio without hearing this tripe.  It still forms a blueprint for soft-rock hits, and that keyboard sound still makes me cringe.  It formed the basis of a hatred that endures to this day, and is probably a significant reason I have little tolerance for mellow music.

At least Styx has stopped playing the song.

- [ ] 12 Save it For Later, English Beat

There was a time MTV played music videos.  It's True!  

And this video was one of the first ones I ever saw.  You see, MTV took the music industry unawares, which is little surprising.  Clueless twits.  But like the 24 hour news channel, programming 24 hours of music presented a need for videos.  Lots of them.  And American music weasels were preoccupied with pushing playlists onto radio.  However, the British music labels had been making cheap promotional videos for all the new wave bands to play on the variety shows and in the nightclubs, so MTV used them, providing a huge boost to the newer sounds.

Among all the sideways haircuts and cheesy synths, The English Beat was part of the Two-Tone ska revival, melding reggae with pop songcraft and enjoying popularity in England.  Much less so here, but among a certain group of people, the ska bands were massively popular, and I was one of those people.  A few months back, I wrote this post about the English Beat playing in town, and talked a bit about those days.

The Beat, and ska music, helped to articulate some of those youthful feelings of optimism and equality, and still provides part of the soundtrack of my days.

- [ ] 13 Good Morning Judge, 10cc

This may seem an anomaly among the other songs; I was turned on to this British band by a friend I worked with in high school.  I was attracted by the sardonic humor, the sophisticated popcraft, and the kitchen-sink approach to musicianship.

This, along with their singles, is one of their songs that tends toward straightforwardness. 

In this song, and others by this band, it started to become apparent how music could be less serious affair, setting the stage for other punk bands and, of course, Free Hot Lunch.

- [ ] 14 Cartoon, Soul Asylum

In the eighties, Minneapolis became a hotbed of music.  Prince, of course, but there was also a thriving punk scene centered in the industrial district.  Playing mostly for themselves and a small circle of friends, alternative rock developed out of these hardcore bands, groups like the Replacements, Husker Du, and Soul Asylum.

This song is from their first major label release, Hang Time. While the label support allowed them a major producer, it seemed the label otherwise kept their hands off. Maybe they were hoping the band would flop; you might think that, if you knew that the major label was A&M, Herb Alpert's label, and that the band's previous EP cover was a parody of a cover of a Herb Alpert album.

Did it almost make you feel
that something's got to happen soon,
when you wake up feeling lost in your own room.
If you're crying in your beer you're gonna drown,
if you think we'll rise above,
you'd better look around,
you'll see.
It's a mountain made of sand crumbling under me.

Soul Asylum is the only one of these bands still together. Heroin and success broke the other bands up, and their bright flares of youthful energy gave way to experience and competence.

In fact, SA didn't cope so well with success, either.  Dave Pirner had a tabloid relationship with Winona Ryder, their subsequent albums did not fare well with the critics or the fans.  They went on an indefinite hiatus, Pirner living in New York while Dan Murphy stayed in Minneapolis.

Maybe I'm chasing shadows on the wall,

they loom so large,
but make me feel so small so hard,
when you're chasing your own tail spinning your own wheels.
And a time to leave,
and a time to stay,
I guess the things I look away.
Did it almost make you feel that somethings gotta happen soon.
You're in the movies now and I'm in your cartoon.

Murphy and Pirner sing together like drunken angels recovering from a weekend bender.  This song is a propulsive blast, featuring them singing together almost all the way through.  I can almost never resist the urge to turn this one up and sing along.  It also features one of my favorite lyrics ever:

There's a ringing in my ears that's heaven sent.
There's a beast out on the ruins,
some broken down lover's lament.
It goes on and on but it won't go away.

I've seen the band several times, both before and after the big hit, and they never fail to deliver.  They almost never fail to play this song also.

- [ ] 15 London Calling, The Clash

Funny and coincidental that AG posted this one last week.

I bought this album.... well, I don't even remember exactly how I ended up buying it.  They certainly weren't being played on the radio.  I'd guess that I read about the Clash in Rolling Stone or something.... and the Clash insisted on selling this double album at a regular album price.  It seemed like a worthwhile gamble.

Boy, was it.  From the moment the fire alarm urgency  of London Calling came out of my speakers through four sides of short, urgent songs and ending with Train in Vain, a nearly pop gem that should have been a massive hit;  I was entranced.  I had never heard anything that sounded like this.

Damn, I miss Joe.