The Strokes began writing interesting new music at about the time they had completely lost their national audience, on account of two failed follow ups to their amazing first album. Those two albums detoured into tinny semi-heavy rock with all kinds of inefficiency in arrangement. They seemed to be searching for a sound that would maybe establish them as a hard rock group, even as much of the the population was growing tired of the heavy music sound. Years after failure and drugs and infighting scattered their hall of fame potential, the Strokes regrouped and made the mind of music they probably should've tried to make all along, embracing their gifts for writing crisscrossing guitar pointillism and complimenting them with Julian Casablancas's unique voice and a more beautiful production sheen. Pity. At least it's a lesson that no one is entitled to anything.
291. "Take Me In Your Army" by Julian Casablancas+The Voidz
There is not one aspect of this song that follows the logic you expect. Yet, the melodies are pure. There are excellent touches everywhere, like the fluid tom drum runs in the ending passage.
You may not finish this song. I've listened to it on repeat for days. There is much song there for the hearers.
290. "Sweet Leaf" by Black Sabbath
Every riff of "Sweet Leaf" is metallic ideal. I am not aware of another band that achieved guitar riffs of such definitive perfection, only Black Sabbath. Every riff they wrote was unmistakably unique. The riffs for "Sweet Leaf" are the "Sweat Leaf" riffs. There is no confusion. This is much harder to pull off than you'd think, especially where the imperative to obey the principles of heaviness limit your options for what you can play.
Ozzy Osbourne barely had to work in this band. So many of the classic Black Sabbath tunes have a verse vocal, then Ozzy just gets out of the way for the band to rock through instrumental "choruses" and guitar solos.
The guitar solo for "Sweet Leaf" illustrates another unique aspect of Black Sabbath's music, which is that all instruments tended to solo at the same time, almost like a soot-black, demonic Dixieland. Even better, these "solos" aren't really solos as much as meticulously composed melodies that continue on and on, sometimes for as long as the rest of the song combined. I can't think of another heavy outfit who did it or does it the same way.
I used to perform this song regularly with my old group. It's one of the pleasures of my life to have discovered it, inhabited its soul, and have it inhabit mine.
289. "Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream
The famous riff in this song was written by Cream bassist Jack Bruce after seeing Jimi Hendrix for the first time and having his face melted to his brain.
And before all the accolades could pour in for this classic blues-rock song, the name it would make for Cream, the reputation it would help form for Eric Clapton, the musical imaginations it would stir around the entire planet, it was first just this single riff, and nothing more. The band couldn't think of how to complete it.
It sat there like a dragon egg that couldn't hatch.
How many one-riffers have I had that never could manage to obtain melodies much less lyrics, additional parts much less any semblance of direction. Bit by bit, though, the song we know as "Sunshine of Your Love" had its hard birth.
The melody only started emerging after an all-night session devoted to finding a singing part, something I've endured many, many times. And as usual, the lyrics in these instances start referring to the bastard of a time you're having finding lyrics. This is the basis of the song's famous opening lines, "It's getting near dawn, and the lights close their tired eyes." Saved by the act of singing what's around you in desperate exhaustion.
But the real savior of this song was Mr. Clapton, who set upon writing a second part for this song and actually arrived at something nearly as great as the verse riff. The chorus is great because the vocal is actually the star of the chorus, climbing in handsome phrases, instead of just riding the back of the riff like in the verse. So with a second and worthy part written, the song was just about there.
But they probably felt they should have one more change in this song, to give it that feeling of middle development. What to do....
Eric Clapton, perhaps you should just solo.
Having a guitarist like Clapton in your band was to have automatic middle development in all of your songs, because you could just let the guy solo for days. All you needed was a viable verse and chorus, and he'd handle the rest.
It's the equivalent of a playmaker quarterback or runner on a football team - you don't have to actually design plays for them. They will simply improv their way to success multiple times per game.
And so, old Slow Hands just sets down one of the coolest guitar tracks of the rock era in the middle of the song and boom, beloved classic.
And that is how you take a one-riff idea from a one-night fling, work on it, play to your strengths, and make it endure.
288. "Summer Here Kids" by Grandaddy
I went to college in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and had a fabulous experience. One of the unexpected benefits of that town was a thriving music scene, both in the live venues and in a few local media entities. The college radio station KVSC played so much great indie music that I've barely heard anywhere else since. And on cable TV was this strange channel called the Burly Bear Network, where I first encountered music videos from indie groups that were consumable exactly zero other places, as the internet was still essentially inept at hosting much video content.
So now's about as good a time as any to talk about the worst case of influenza I ever came down with in my life.
It was my first year living completely on my own, in an efficiency apartment a few miles from campus. I was truly alone that year, as the majority of my college friends were studying abroad.
Perfect time to be nearly catatonic with illness. I actually woke up already peak sick and called my mom back home and just moaned to her. She said I should go to the hospital. I simply could not drive a car. It was all my energy to flip on my television. So that's where the next three or so days dissolved into a blur of fever and pain.
For a lot of the time, that Burly Bear Network was on, playing day and night as I faded in and out of consciousness in my invisible little room.
At some point, I found my face actually curling into the resemblance of a smile, reacting to the appearance of this wild music video shot apparently with a home video camera, of some guys in a forest, for a song that was a novel pleasure of noise and melody.
It was "Summer Here Kids" by Grandaddy. I love this song, the spastic chorus singing, the churning beat, the lo-fi guitar gain, the chord progressions, the lovely ending.
The entire album, Under the Western Freeway, proved to be just as inspired and disheveled, and though Grandaddy never quite reached a similar peak of creative vindication afterward, I will never forget their name nor stop thanking them for producing such a garbled puzzle of radiance. I suppose I could claim that "Summer Here Kids" cured me. It did make the dismal time very productive.