David James Abbruzzese, drums.
Hear the joy in the accompanying instruments and vocals, getting to feed off a drum beat like that. Drum creativity is song creativity.
This is one of the very best Pearl Jam songs.
250. "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter" by Nirvana
So last night, I read a Rolling Stone blippet about this song, and they went all referential with it and spoke very little about the actual song in its itself-ness. Standard music "review." So, fine, I basically learned about Cobain's apparent influences for this song, which were noise-rock pioneers Big Black (the former band of Nirvana's producer on this song, Steve Albini) and "hefty" heavy band Killdozer (the former band of Nirvana's previous producer for the Nevermind album, Butch Vig).
This morning, I listened to some select tracks from both those bands, and I re-discovered a big problem that Nirvana tended to face over and over. Big Black indeed were very noisy, with a kind of thin, buzzy guitar sound that reminds me of Nirvana's "Territorial Pissings," which Cobain achieved by plugging his guitar directly into the mixing table. And Killdozer definitely were "hefty" for an '80s band recording in the days where drums still had to have the annoying echo of the times, before people figured out that recording drums essentially "dry" and relying on pure room ambience created an immediacy that contributed to an absolutely heavy sound.
Both of these influences were fine experimenters.
But back to Nirvana's problem. Here's where it started: Kurt Cobain could sing.
And he could sing exceptionally. His voice had an angelic timbre and innate charisma.
The vocals of both Big Black and Killdozer are acrid, hammy, brutish, self-hating, and irredeemably untalented. Both bands masked this failing in nihilistic attitudes that seemed to claim they were singing like mediocre dudes from the sticks out of some choice of social commentary. They were not. They were singing that way because they had no vocal talent.
Beyond this, they don't seem like they were really interested in musicality either.
Kurt Cobain was not a master guitarist. But he was a master songwriter. Give him four chords, and he would put them in the maximum configuration for melody and dramatic effect, every time. He had too much Lennon/McCartney in him to create the insular monotony that Big Black and Killdozer passed off as "statements."
That was Nirvana's big problem. They wanted to have the corrosive affect (not effect) of bands like Big Black and Killdozer, but they were unfortunately (fortunately) cut from a far starrier cloth.
Kurt Cobain had an absolutely horrid childhood on the fringes of a small, rural town, with a collapsed family he could not depend on. He had a resulting bitterness ingrained in him, like his musical antecedents. But he grew up into an absolutely beautiful-looking man with big, ice-blue eyes that had major music label executives falling over themselves to sign him based on that aspect alone.
He also happened to have an Ear and Mind for writing exceptionally musically creative songs, not just flat, directionless, macho fuzz. And he had a Voice to make his compositions transcendental. And in his band, he also had a Drummer (Dave Grohl) who was as perfect in his craft as Kurt was in his vocal delivery. The members of Nirvana were far too talented to "achieve" anything as desultory as the less-fortunate experimenters kicking musical rocks before them.
So here we have "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter," the single most abrasive, tumultuous, noise-oriented song the band ever wrote. It absolutely harkens back to Big Black and Killdozer in its affect. And that is part of what I truly love about it.
But listen to the song's massive guitar refrain, just two chords with transitional chording bridging them on each side - but two excellently opposing chords. That tunefulness that underlies the pounding drums and gnarled, fuzzed-out guitar - it charges the proceedings with such belief, such dramatic pathos.
When the verse comes - with the same galloping drums, the bass holding the same progression as the chorus refrain - Cobain's half-spoken lyrics are also half-SUNG. He isn't just some average dude muttering into a microphone in front of him trying to make some "anti-music" "statement" - he takes those single-note melodies and electrifies them with competent tonality. He finishes each line with a sweet little cadence down, because this is goddamned music here, not some farce. Kurt Cobain was a musical being, luminous, maybe to the point of being a little disgusted at himself for it. He so wanted to be as crude as Big Black and Killdozer, but couldn't summon the killer instinct to not care.
The choruses almost seem to confirm this, as he sings "What is wrong with me?" (Another indelible melody -- melody.)
The middle bridge of this song is maybe my peak love of this band. It combines a run of four basically incongruous chords turned into a grudgingly effective combo, a highly passionate vocal, and this, the most impressive savage drumming display Dave Grohl put on for Nirvana. Those calamitous drum fills in the bridge are hall of fame credentials.
And the lyrics in that bridge... they are as simple and direct a credo as you could need:
"Hate your enemies
Save your friends
Find your place
Speak the truth"
That concrete philosophy - that belief - is buried beneath seven tons of abstract guitar noise, entirely abstract lyrics elsewhere, and drum battery, in the center of this obscure track...
So, thanks, Rolling Stone. I'm glad I learned about some of Cobain's influences for this song, if only to realize how he ultimately failed them because of the light in his soul.
249. "Quiet" by Smashing Pumpkins
One-finger guitar riffs, turned into tones of assault by the multi-tracking of the same part dozens of times over. The choruses leap into a high register that pops from the sludge of the verse in a way that is so satisfying.
At its best, distortion on a guitar is like pointillism, overdriving the scene with a palpable unreality.
The smoothness of Billy Corgan's voice in the midst of the guitar rush was essential to the band's success. It was a well-maintained tension. The concluding line of the chorus, multi-tracked in octaves, is the key moment.
Points for the aggressive switch to a three-beat in the guitar solo, breaking each repetition with a measure of four. That's how you bring the thing back around.
248. "Purple Haze" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
The guitar in the verse is a cloud of fuzz and crunch - and that wild quality is the great contribution to rock music by Jimi Hendrix. Before Hendrix, the guitar was a six-stringed instrument that was plucked or strummed to create tones in harmony. With the coming of Hendrix, the guitar became a storm of abstraction.
247. "Promises, Promises" by Naked Eyes
Pure '80s synthpop excellence. Something about the combination of synth organs and minor keys was uncovered back then, and this song is a masterpiece of exploiting the effect.
While Naked Eyes' first hit "Always Something There to Remind Me" was a cover (though highly embellished), "Promises, Promises" was their original, proving their talent. The song's classic pop form - verse, pre-chorus, chorus, instrumental - demonstrates how much '80s music went back to the purity of '50s and early '60s songwriting, eschewing the formal sprawl of the late '60s and '70s. It made for a cleaner, more digestible product, built for maximum catchiness and addiction. I am just fine with that strategy.
This song spun and spun on my record player when I was a kid.