Song in My Head

There are only a few more days left in September, and the song in in my head (for a few days now) is "September Gurls" by the great Alex Chilton and Big Star.

The Big Turnoff

I listen to a lot of Sirius Satellite Radio in my car. Mostly, it's First Wave. And while I often enjoy the random Howard Jones or Dave Edmunds cut, there's one band that I will almost always turn off when they're played (and they're played a lot). That band is The Pretenders.

I'm not sure why The Pretenders are such a big turnoff for me. They were never very offensive, but nor were they very interesting. There's nothing about them that translates to current music. My wife can't stand them. And their best song -- "My City Was Gone" -- was co-opted by Rush Limbaugh, and even though Chrissie Hynde got him to pay for it (the money went to charity), the song is forever tainted by association. In fact, the only thing I like about The Pretenders is that Hynde was married to Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.

Which band or artist is your biggest turnoff?

Song In My Head

U2's "One Tree Hill", their wrenching-yet-uplifiting tribute to roadie and good friend Greg Carroll, who was killed in a motorbike accident in Dublin. Carroll was a native New Zealander -- a Maori -- and his death inspired The Joshua Tree.

I probably haven't thought about this song much since high school, but it was the default entry on Wikipedia the other day (go figure). And reading about the composition and production of this song made me realize 1) how good a song it is and 2) how good a band U2 are. From the opening guitar riff -- inspired by West African highlife -- to the electroacoustic Raad strings that were designed and commissioned for the song by a group of Canadians under the auspices of Daniel Lanois, to the subtle fuzz guitar solo the Edge plays at the end, to Bono's vocals, which he did in one take because he was too emotionally distraught to sing them a second time.

It's simply an exemplary track on an outstanding album. And it still gives me chills 26 years later. I've said it before: U2 are the band that has stayed relevant longer than any other rock history. And here they are at their creative zenith.

Song in My Head

I'm quickly wrapping up the book "Shadowplayers" by James Nice about the rise and fall of Factory Records. It's tremendously dense and very thorough. And the best thing about it is that it has put me in a permanent state of wanting to listen to the great Factory bands from the 80s, and even some of the not so great ones. But I've been thinking a lot about Factory's greatest band -- New Order -- especially because they're touring (again) and several of my friends have seen them in the past few days.

So with that, I report that New Order's "Face-Up" is the Song in My Head. It's the boppy closing track from 1985's Low-Life, complete with a beat reminiscent of "Temptation", a horn section, and some of Bernard Sumner's worst lyrics, save for his reference to the Joy Division song "In a Lonely Place". I mean, "I feel so low, I feel so humble/Sometimes in life we take a tumble" is pretty dreadful, right?


I recently picked up Low-Life on CD -- I found the original Factory Records UK release FACT 100 for four bucks so I snagged it. I had the cassette back in the day -- but not the Factory release -- they were on Quincy Jones's Qwest label in this country.

Song In My Head

"Out of Control" by U2. It came on Sirius this morning and it instantly flashed me back to high school, when I got really into early U2. Here's a 1981 live performance from a concert in Belfast -- where they were the opening act and actually had to introduce themselves. And they sound phenomenal. By the way, has there ever been a band who has stayed relevant for as long a time as U2 has? They were still doing great stuff well into the 2000s -- I noticed that VH1 ranked "Beautiful Day" as one of the top songs of the decade. What a run from the boys from Dublin.

Song In My Head

OK, you can knock me for this one. It's "A Good Heart" by Feargal Sharkey. I probably haven't thought about this song since 1984. So why is it in my head? I'm reading Shadowplayers, James Nice's incredibly dense book about Factory Records. And in a passage about an early Happy Mondays' track called "Delightful", Shaun Ryder is described as having a great voice in his pre-drug years, a voice reminiscent of the Sharkey's. For the uninitiated, Sharkey led the band The Undertones during the 1970s. In the 80s, he was employed briefly by Depeche Mode founding member Vince Clarke, who had formed The Assembly after disbanding Yaz with Alison Moyet. The Assembly had a big hit in the UK with the rather schmaltzy "Never Never", which is vintage Clarke and sounds just like everything else he's ever done from "New Life" era Depeche Mode, to Yaz, to Erasure. Which is to say it's pretty good. (Here's more.)

Anyway, enjoy "A Good Heart" on me!

Roots of a Classic

New Order's "Blue Monday" is the best selling 12 inch of all time. It's a sequencer-fueled, sample-rich classic -- belonging in equal measure to dance clubs and alternative radio. And I'm learning more about the roots of this classic track.

First, check out Donna Summer's "Our Love" (and the great dancing in this video) -- New Order borrowed the beat wholesale.

Next, some arrangement from Italian club hit "Dirty Talk" by Klein & MBO.

Add a sample from Kraftwerk's "Uranium" (listen for that droning sound)

Finally, as James Nice puts it in his very thorough book about Factory Records Shadowplayers, the "grove and bassline" from "(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real" by Sylvester. And who says disco is dead?

Oh yeah, add acid. Which Bernard Sumner says the band was out of their heads on when they wrote "Blue Monday". Either way, the result is undeniable: A track that -- three decades on -- has stood the test of time.