First, some news: I recently broke up with Sarah, my girlfriend of five years. There was no massive, explosive argument, no unforgivable betrayal from which the relationship couldn't possibly recover; we just agreed that things had run their course and that, while it had been a wonderful experience for both of us, it was time to call it a day.
Obviously, the last week or so has been somewhat stressful (breaking it to my parents was the hardest part), but I was also a little bit excited - believe it or not, this is the first and only break-up I've ever been through, and once things were set in stone (that is, once I'd changed my Facebook status from 'In a Relationship' to 'Single), I was perversely thrilled to finally have an excuse to listen to all of the horribly depressing break-up albums I've accrued over the last decade or so.
"Wait, is that R.E.M.'s Out of Time? Is this idiot trying to tell us that the album with Shiny Happy People on it is 'horribly depressing'?"
Busted's audience mostly consisted of pre-teens, right? I rediscovered them a little while ago and I was struck by the number of...mature themes that Charlie, Matt and James were willing to tackle back in the day. Here are some choice excerpts from the Busted songbook:
"I climb a tree outside her home to make sure she is all alone. I see her in her underwear, I can't help but stop and stare."
- What I Go to School For
"You're just a whore who sleeps around the town...you stupid, lying bitch! Who's David? Some guy who lives next door?"
"He took me to the future in the flux thing, and I saw everything: boy bands, and another one, and another one, and another one. Triple-breasted women swimming 'round town, totally naked!"
- Year 3000
"Then you whispered in my ear the words that I longed to hear: 'I want you to thrill me here.'"
It's Valentine's Day, and in the spirit of love and romance and deep, meaningful connections, I've decided that today's blog post will be a list of albums that I'd never have heard if it hadn't been for Sarah, my girlfriend of nearly four years. Well, I might have heard them eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer and they wouldn't have been nearly as meaningful anyway.
Harvest by Neil Young
Some people use OkCupid or Match.com to find their twoo wuv. I used last.fm. Sad and nerdy though it sounds, Sarah's outstanding taste in music was a big part of why I found her so attractive in the first place - her 'Top Artists' bit was packed with great bands that none of my friends liked, including British Sea Power, The Decemberists, Interpol, Brakes...I could go on. Her #1 artist, however, was a man whose music I'd never really listened to: Neil Young.
I'd heard of Neil Young, naturally, but I'd never really bothered to investigate his albums. Then Sarah came along and, eager to interact with this pretty girl and her A+ music knowledge, I asked her which of his CDs I ought to start with. She recommended Harvest, I purchased it for £5 from Rise Music in Bristol, and - sure enough - it turned out to be a good recommendation. I especially liked A Man Needs a Maid, with its big orchestral flourishes, and Words (Between the Lines of Age), with its funny time signature that eventually resolves into a hard-rocking chorus.
Want Two by Rufus Wainwright
One of my favourite things about music is that two people can have completely different experiences of the same artist. For example, Sarah and I both liked Rufus Wainwright, but where I knew him for Poses - Cigarettes & Chocolate Milk, The Consort, and so on - she knew him for Want Two. To Sarah, Rufus Wainwright meant songs like The Art Teacher, Little Sister, and several other songs I'd never heard until we met.
We both still insist that 'our' album is the better one, but even if I do still prefer Poses, I will concede that Want Two is a great, great album. Especially The One You Love, a jagged little stomper that sounds great on the CD and even better when you see it live (as we did in Portugal a couple of years ago).
Comfort Eagle by Cake
This was only last year. We were in Barnado's, I was flicking through the CDs, and I came across a Cake album called Comfort Eagle. The only Cake songs I knew at that point were Italian Leather Sofa and their cover of I Will Survive; since Comfort Eagle contained neither, I was happy to leave it on the rack. But Sarah, who already owned their fifth album Pressure Chief, assured me that this was one purchase worth making.
She was right, as she often is.
Comfort Eagle is a cracking album, packed with catchy tunes and fun characters (the opera singer, the Austrian nobleman, the couple in World of Two). It's a great driving album, as I've mentioned previously, but more importantly, it's a fantastically enjoyable album - an album of trumpets and funky guitars and brilliance.
A Present for Everyone by Busted
I know I mentioned Busted several times in the One Direction blog, but they bear mentioning once more today. I'd obviously heard quite few of these songs back in the day, but some years later, it was Sarah once again who advised me to get the album. Writing about her now, she seems like my personal music advisor as much as my girlfriend.
A Present for Everyone is one of Sarah's favourites from when she was younger, alongside Pink's Missundaztood and the eponymous All Saints album. She insists that it is superior to Busted's self-titled debut, and I think she's probably right - that album does boast such classics as Without You and Psycho Girl, not to mention its clutch of stellar singles, but Present... still edges it out. The likes of She Wants to Be Me, 3AM, Crashed the Wedding and so forth make me wish I still went to school, so that I could listen to those songs on the way home.
Datarock Datarock by Datarock
Y'know that pre-relationship period? When you haven't kissed or been on a date or anything like that yet, but when you're already talking to each other as much as most proper couples? That was a fruitful period for me, music-wise. Sarah and I used to chat on MSN, swapping song recommendations and, by and large, enjoying everything we heard (well, I enjoyed everything - only Sarah knows if she truly liked the stuff I sent her way). One of the many, many songs I discovered during those conversations was Computer Camp Love by Datarock.
The synth-heavy music and the deadpan, Grease-referencing vocals made this one of the most memorable tracks from those MSN days, and we recently came across this album in Rise (again) for only a few pounds. I bought it, of course, and I'm happy to report that the rest of the album is just as good. Fa Fa Fa is my favourite - it's an elongated dance workout that actually manages to hold a candle to LCD Soundsystem, who of course are everyone's #1 dance band.
Sarah likes LCD Soundsystem, too, as if we needed any further proof that she knows her stuff. Here's another great song she introduced me to - Here Comes a Special Boy by Freezepop, which itself introduced me to an outstanding webcomic called Achewood.
It kind of goes without saying that One Direction have their detractors. Vast battalions of teenage fans and the best-selling album of 2013 have failed to change the minds of 'real' music fans who see the group as an icon of the manufactured, Cowellian crap that clogs up the pop charts and steals the limelight away from all the 'proper' bands who actually deserve to be successful. Proper bands like...I don't know, The National?
Okay, I'm being condescending when perhaps I shouldn't. I strongly dislike The X Factor, and 1D are a product of that big, grim machine - surely I can't profess to like them while claiming to despise their creator?
Well, that's just it. I've never really listened to One Direction, and so I don't know whether or not I like them? Obviously I know What Makes You Beautiful, but that song is a couple of years old now, and it may not be representative of the current, world-conquering 1D that we now live with.
Now, I have very little time for arguments of authenticity. Sure, there are bands on my CD rack who worked their way up from nothing, playing broken guitars in empty rooms until their blood, sweat, and songwriting talent finally paid off and they got to record an album of original, heartfelt material that really says something about the world. But I also have albums by Destiny's Child and Busted; I've even got Phineas and Ferb-ulous: The Ultimate Album, featuring such hits as Gitchee Gitchee Goo and S.I.M.P. (Squirrels In My Pants).
My point is that, if a song is good, is doesn't matter who made it or how many songwriters/marketers were involved in its creation. I don't have any credibility left anyway; thanks to The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction, I can already name those five guys, so I may as well see if their music is any good.
Without any further ado, then, I'm going to listen to Midnight Memories by One Direction, and share my thoughts on each and every track. All fourteen of them. Here goes...
Best Song Ever I think I heard this in Tesco's the other week. It opens with a nice burbling synth line, and the chorus is plenty catchy, so I'm cool with it. There's even a fun 'oh oh oh/yeah yeah yeah' bit that we can all sing along with. Wait, did they just namecheck Georgia Ruth? *checks the lyrics* Okay, false alarm. It was Georgia Rose.
Story of My Life Not a cover of the Social Distortion song, as part of me was hoping. This actually sounds a bit like Mumford & Sons, which is not what I expected. See, he even mentioned his heart! This one is a bit bland, to be honest. It's lacking the killer, sticks-in-yer-head chorus of Best Song Ever, and the attempts to sound earnest just come as, well, boring. The quiet bit near the end works quite well, though, I'll admit.
Diana Better, more upbeat. It's actually got a little bit of the Busted spunk to it, which is definitely a good thing. Reminds me of Falling For You, a little bit. Yes, I can get behind this one, as long as they promise it's not a tribute to Princess Diana. I'm reasonably certain it isn't, but you can't be too careful.
Midnight Memories It's clear from the off that this is one of those 'here's what it's like to be a rock star' songs. That's never a good sign, really, because those songs either come off as boastful (if they're talking about the good stuff) or ungrateful (when they try to convince us that the high life is really hard). This one seems to be more of the first stripe, as the 1D boys get "straight off the plane to a new hotel" before heading to "a big house party with a crowded kitchen". No, it's not very good, although the chorus does sound a bit like Beverly Hills by Weezer, so...yeah.
You & I Okay, I'm noticing a recurring theme here: all of these songs make me want to listen to Busted. This one has me pining for Without You, which served a similar purpose (acoustic power ballad) on their eponymous first album. Still, where that song was about feeling lonely and heartbroken, this song is far more hopeful - a 'we're going to be together forever' kind of thing. I quite like it, actually; it's not up to the standard of Busted's best weepies, but it's solid enough, and it's got a good false ending about two-thirds of the way in.
Don't Forget Where You Belong I quite like the melody of the verses here, but it does put me uneasily in mind of Nickelback. I can definitely imagine Mr Avril Lavigne singing this song, and that makes it somewhat harder to enjoy. No such problems with the chorus though, which could quite easily have been cribbed from a B*Witched single. I keep expecting a tin whistle solo, but instead we get a drum lift - you know, the part where the instruments drop out and it's just the singing and the drumming, so that everyone can clap along and feel really awesome about life when the music comes back in again. Formulaic? Maybe, but it's fun.
Strong I'm actually surprised by the variety of these songs. This has a faintly Spanish vibe, which is very cool (been breaking out your big sister's old Ricky Martin albums, have you boys?) I was expecting two or three brilliant pop singles (like Best Song Ever), followed by a dozen or so tracks of bland acoustic guitar-based filler, but it's all been surprisingly colourful so far.
Happily See, and this one's got a Hank Marvin guitar line thing going on! This album doesn't 'alf keep you on your toes. I don't like the "we're on fire now" bit, though - it seems like it's solely there to give the fans yet another big singalong bit at the climax of the song. You can stop doing that, 1D. They'll be singing along anyway.
Right Now This sounds like someone else is singing. Have they deployed a guest vocalist here? *performs Google search* Doesn't look like it, although I did discover that Don't Forget Where You Belong was co-written by Dougie from McFly. There's also a song later on called Something Great, which credits Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody as a writer. Bet that'll be one of the boring ones. As for Right Now, well, it wasn't much to write home about. It sounded like it was waiting for a big, clubby chorus that just never arrived.
Little Black Dress Ooh, we're a rock band now are we 1D? They actually make a fairly convincing go of it, although the far more boy-bandy chorus does rather give the game away. Not bad, though; a bit throwaway, but then none of these songs have been especially deep.
Through the Dark Okay, now they really sound like Mumford & Sons. Are they trying to cash in on the whole nu-folk thing? I wouldn't have thought that 1D would need to cash in on anything. The embarrassing thing (for Marcus Mumford, at least) is that it's as good a Mumford & Sons song as Mumford & Sons themselves have ever performed. Okay, that's maybe not true - I do quite like that Winter Winds song. Jeez, all the big confessions are coming out today, aren't they?
Something Great Here's the Gary Lightbody track, then, and while the verse is exactly the sort of filler I mentioned earlier, the chorus actually works pretty well. Its got a nice kind of swoop to it, and together with the cool instrumental break, it probably deserves to be part of a better song. Oh, and what the hell is that "you're all I want" bit at the very end? Got lost on the way to your own song, did you?
Little White Lies Wait, is this supposed to be a response to Little Black Dress? The yin to that song's yang? Because, if so, that's actually quite a clever move. Aside from the titles, there's not much to suggest that the two songs are connected, but hey, bloggers will have their unfounded theories. This one's pretty good - very processed, but that's not really a big problem with this sort of thing. It's kind of the point. I can't help but feel that it would be better if the beat underneath went twice as fast, though. It feels like it should be bouncier than it is.
So that was a One Direction album, and I just listened to it. On the whole, it was pretty good; Midnight Memories has more hits than misses, and it managed to avoid the pitfall into which I was expecting it to tumble, i.e. leaning too heavily on the singles and forgetting to include any decent album tracks. In fact, I can imagine most of these songs being hit singles, and for an anodyne, mass-produced pop record that was spawned by the evil mechanism that's slowly suffocating the music industry under humanity's own lack of imagination...well, that's what I call a success!
