February 2010

At some point in the mid to late 1990's, a select few musicians rediscovered the gentle campfire folk the likes of which Simon and Garfunkel perfected decades earlier. It wouldn't be until the earliest days of the new century that anyone would call this resurgence relevant, though. After the sunny, increasingly electronic sounds of the 90's wore thin, audiences became receptive to clever souls with acoustic guitars, many of whom recorded in their living rooms a la Nick Drake. All of a sudden The Shins, Iron & Wine and Wilco were appreciably big. Perhaps the most important and one of the earliest examples of this movement is Belle and Sebastian, a bunch of Scottish kids who practically invented twee.

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Earlier this week I made my case for why the English anarcho-pop group Chumbawamba ought to be considered more than just a one hit wonder from the 90's. Today it's all about the pudding of that proof, a small introductory playlist for anyone interested in Chumbawamba's sound outside of their Top 10 gracing "Tubthumping". The ironic part is that most of the band's material doesn't sound a whole lot like their hit. Really, it's just a tone-setting intro track. Most of Chumbawamba's music is considerably more lyric-heavy (not to mention smarter). Though they've been putting out albums since the mid 1980's and released their most recent LP in 2008 with a new one on the way later this year, so far the strongest period for Chumbawamba was between 1992 and 1997 with a block of four albums.

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Alright, I give. That lovey-dovey holiday is just a stone's throw from this dreary Thursday afternoon, so I'll play that old love song game. I don't know why I'm so averse to the idea of songs about love. Maybe it's because there are far too many songs that imagine they're about love when really they're just about sex, a crush or the cynical pursuit of easy record sales. It may also have to do with the fact that my childhood took place during what is certainly the worst time in history for music, the late 80's and early 90's. All those terrible slow dance songs a la Michael Bolton, only to be somehow overshadowed a decade later by the rage-inducing tones of Celine Dion. I shudder just to think of it. I'll grin and bear those memories for today's feature, a few love songs that actually qualify as good music.

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Valentine's Day is just around the corner, which means that sappy love songs will soon have dominion over our ears unless we actively protect ourselves from them. I'd rather not define myself as one of those bitter sods who hate love and puppies and ice cream, but I'm also grown up enough to know that life just isn't that simple. Ice cream is full of fattening compounds, puppies are as destructive as they are adorable and love isn't a gentle panacea for all the ills of the world, it's a difficult, complicated experience that compels people to do stupid, stupid things. Later this week I'll let all the heart-shaped candies and diamond commercials break through my rough exterior, but today it's all about those amazing anti-love songs, the ones that use all the kinetic emotional power of a breakup to fuel truly good music.

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I recently got a chance to sit down and watch Iain Softley's 1995 movie Hackers. It's been well over a decade since I last saw Hackers all the way through, so this was the first time a lot of the little details of the film struck me. What's really remarkable about this movie is that, despite growing more hilariously off-target with its prognostications about computers and the Internet with each passing year, it comes tantalizingly close to an accurate understanding of what would eventually become rave culture several years after its release. Peppered throughout Hackers are a series of directorial choices that indicate the hand of someone who has just recently lost touch with youth and fashion. That, in itself, is fascinating.

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