The latest in a long line of faux-androgynous English guitar bands, Suede burst onto the scene with an image that threw Bowie and The Smiths together, with one of the best guitar players of his generation and a lead singer who would surely have been a hit in the PR industry if he had failed in music. Yes, Brett Anderson had all the right headlines, and Suede’s first singles – ‘Metal Mickey’, ‘The Drowners’, ‘Animal Nitrate’ – and their eponymous debut delivered on their promise.

But second-album syndrome can be a bitch, and the ruin of many bands. Think Stone Roses, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, The Strokes…Jesus, even The Clash and The Jam suffered from it.

Suede’s answer was to stick to a tried and true formula: soaring guitar anthems, with lyrics about, essentially, taking drugs to escape the grinding monotony of suburban life.

The tune crackles to life with Bernard Butler’s hard-edge guitar, the standout instrument on the Dog Man Star album. It’s heavily distorted, and not a million miles from Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust stomp-pomp.

Anderson does his usual shtick, dropping references to “all the boys in all the cities”, “catalogue town”, “breeding disease”, and suchlike. The key line here is probably Anderson’s chemical romance:

She and I will soon discover,
We take the pills and find each other

That line pretty much sums up Suede.

Of course, Butler left before this was released, so the video shows his replacement, 17-year-old Richard Oakes, playing the riff. And there were grander plans at work – while Suede had toured their first album, Oasis and Blur had adopted a more laddish, working-class sound that drew more on the Kinks and Jam than Bowie and Smiths, and soon Suede found themselves out of fashion. With grunge on one side and Britpop on the other, Suede were sent to the margins.

But for me, ‘New Generation’ is probably their high watermark, and they are an important group in the history of British music. Here’s the video for ‘New Generation’. Great music, but they were a big influence on my purchase of a way-too-tight black leather jacket and a pair of oxblood Doc Martens when I was 17. Thankfully, no photos survive.

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After The Jam and The Style Council (the former the biggest band in England in their heyday, the latter an oft-misunderstood genre-hopping collective who released records to declining returns in the ’80s), Weller decided to go back to roots.

Roots for Paul Weller means the ’60s. Mining the guitar licks of The Small Faces and Traffic, and marrying it to lyrics about pastoral yearning and changing seasons (influenced strongly by Nick Drake), Weller created a career resurgence that broke the rules for aging ex-rock stars.

1993’s Wild Wood album brought Weller a whole new generation of fans, and as those fans travelled backwards (as was the style in the retro-worshipping mid-90s), they too discovered The Jam. And to a lesser extent The Style Council. Wild Wood‘’s themes of rural escape (mountains, sun, hayfields, etc.) struck a big chord with a generation raised on the ‘greed is good’ philosophy of Thatcherite England, and paved the way for the coming Britpop explosion.

‘Sunflower’, the first single off of the album, starts with a descending guitar arpeggio, which is a common theme of Weller openers. The theme is lost love and the quest to recapture what was once pure but now lost, as Weller remembers days of innocence:

I’d run my fingers through your hair,
Hair like a wheat field I’d run through

Musically, it’s a hundred light years away from the antiseptic karaoke soul that Weller was peddling in the late 80s. For a man so involved with the left wing of British politics, Weller’s music latter half of that decade was awful.

The Style Council started out promisingly, but albums like The Cost of Loving and Confessions of a Pop Group were out of step with what The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, The Smiths and other decent indie groups of the time were doing. Their last album, A Decade of Modernism, was just a collection of directionless acid house tracks with minimal involvement from Weller. The album was so bad that The Style Council were dropped by their label.

So Weller picked up the guitar again and went back to his old records for inspiration – and it shows. Everything is acoustic, organic, real. There is no synthesised drum machine, no twinkling little keyboard rinky-dink, no heavily processed guitar. Just Weller and his mates rocking out.

Whether as a reaction to the self-indulgent whingery of grunge, or as a reaction to the androgynous glam-racket stompings of Suede and their ilk, Weller’s comeback worked brilliantly, and paid off in spades. Always at his best when swimming against the tide or under some external pressure (see All Mod Cons), Weller delivered the goods.

Here’s the video to ‘Sunflower’, Weller’s soft crooning replaced by a gruff pleading voice that seems like the reminiscing of a man from the bottom of a bottle. If you like this song, check out the Wild Wood album, and also the Paul Weller solo album that came before it.

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On his tour of America in 1979, a brash young songwriter by the name of Declan MacManus made some unfortunate comments about James Brown and Ray Charles while out drinking. Costello’s statement that Charles was nothing but a “blind, ignorant nigger” was intended to provoke Stephen Stills’ entourage, whom Costello and bass player Bruce Thomas had encountered in a hotel bar. But when one of Stills’ crew went to the papers, and Costello displayed an abrasive attitude and unwillingness to apologise at a subsequent press conference, his Stateside career was over. Albums continued to be released, but to diminishing returns.

Seven years later, after a couple of duds, Costello returned with the King of America album. The opener, ‘Brilliant Mistake’, is a classic Costello song, albeit in a polished 1980s production. The opening lines seem to recount Costello’s ego and the pride before the fall:

“He thought he was the King of America,
Where they pour Coca-Cola just like vintage wine”

Mixed in with this reflection of past glories is the lovesickness that defines early- and mid-period Costello:

“I wish that I could push a button,
And talk in the past and not the present tense”

As usual, his lyrics are poetic and strong on turn-of-phrase. Musically, the standout instrument is acoustic guitar, which drives the song along in a way that’s very similar to Dylan’s ‘Tangled Up In Blue’. In fact ‘Brilliant Mistake’ shares a lot with Dylan’s classic, with a regretful backward glance betrayed in the need to keep looking forward. Drums, a nice bassline (always important to me) and some accordion that gives the song a C&W feeling to it.

As the song concludes, Elvis gets comfortable with a career on the margins (or ‘the ditch’, as Neil Young put it), and sums up his position:

“I was a fine idea at the time,
Now I’m a brilliant mistake”

Here’s the best video I can find of it on YouTube. Check Last.fm, or just download it.

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This little gem did the rounds on the indie music blogs for a while a few months back. I dunno whether I’ve got the album version or a demo version but either way I hope that the song remains pretty the same on the album as it’s raw and under-produced which is a good thing for this song.

The song is taken from the second solo album of Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley fame , which is also called Acid Tongue released earlier this year and describes a fairly exuberant night out on the twon involving drink, drugs and fraternizing with members of the opposite sex as the following verses describes

‘Because I’ve been down to Dixie
And dropped acid on my tongue
Tripped upon the land
Until enough was enoughI was a little bit lighter
And adventure on my sleeve
I was a little drunk
And looking for company
So I found myself a sweetheart
With the softest of hands
We were unlucky in love
But I’d do it all again’

The song has a real acoustic country feel to it and as mentioned previously, describes a night out but also then talks about redemption and giving up the debauchery and just relaxing a little more. Check out a live version of the song with Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie fame paying Jenny a visit..

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The White Stripes are one of the most consistent bands around today. Each of their albums contain at least three excellent songs, and at least that many slow burners.

Hello Operator’, ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground’, ‘Fell In Love With a Girl’, ‘7 Nation Army’, ‘Hardest Button to Button’, ‘Blue Orchid’…and really, those are only the cream of the singles off of their first five albums. So I had high expectations coming into the Icky Thump album. Turns out they’ve trumped all of them.

Built over a lot of noodling, almost-out-of-control guitar set through a feedbox that would shatter glass, along with a thumping drumbeat courtesy of Meg White, the song comes straight from that late 60s/early 70s era where garage rock met the blues. Jack White is almost AC/DC-like in his pursuit of “the perfect riff”, and the riff to ‘Icky Thump’ is a stonker. Led Zeppelin themselves would have been proud.

The song is a lot more complex than their early singles, though it’s definitely a progression from the ‘Blue Orchid’ single. This time, however, the tempo changes are more noticeable, and are driven more by Jack’s guitar playing. Several times, the song slows down to draw attention to a change in the riff, while the drums underline what’s being said.

What is being said? My understanding is that the song is about the eternal US-Mexico border debate, and how a drunken, ne’er-do-well protagonist (possibly Jack White) can barrel into Mexico on a Tequila-fuelled lost weekend with relative ease, while salt of the earth, hard-working, God-fearing Mexicans can’t get a ticket in the opposite direction.

That said, the lyrics are hard to make out, and seem a bit stream-of-consciousness. But a key line here is:

White Americans, what, nothing better to do?
Why don’t you kick yourself out, you’re an immigrant too?
Who’s using who? What should we do?
Well, you can’t be a pimp and a prostitute too

As with all the best White Stripes songs, the initial focus is on the top-class guitar work and the overall sound, but the song then stands up to lyrical inquiry.

Any time the song feels like it’s about to break down under the weight of such heavy riffage, or the drums feel like they’re kiltering off, bursts of feedback and slashes of a very trebly, distorted synth come to the forefront, almost like a migraine headache. This is directly lifted from early Velvet Underground (see our post on this) and The Who, and has long been a part of The White Stripes sound, but for the first time they’ve really let rip with a single that veers between guitar-hero riffage and freakish atonality.

Here’s the video for Icky Thump, and here’s a blistering performance of the song on Jools Holland. It’s testament to this band that they can make music like this and still have it played on MTV (when they’re not showing vapid Californian reality TV shows) and on mainstream radio.

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Johnny Rotten/John Lydon is a bit of a tool, really. Isn’t he? I mean, look at this interview with Tom Snyder, and this nasty little PR junket. While he might have had a bad experience with the Sex Pistols, he’s since shown a bad habit of firing his band while at a creative peak. That said, he did have Malcolm MacLaren for a mentor. Must have been hard.

But I digress. He’s made some brilliant music, from ‘Anarchy in the UK’ and ‘No Feelings’ with the Sex Pistols, and also with Public Image Limited (known as PiL). In fact, PiL are criminally underrated, when in my opinion they put out some of the best music in the post-punk years, up there with Joy Division, Gang of Four, The Jam and whoever else.

While their first album exorcised the demon of the Pistols, via the excellent ‘Public Image’ single, second album Metal Box is an altogether darker and weirder affair. Whatever drugs these people were on at the time (large quantities of speed, LSD and heroin by all accounts), this album is brilliant. And ‘Careering’ is a definite highlight on this album.

Over a steady drumbeat and Jah Wobble’s how-can-that-go-so-low bassline, Lydon intones a tale of tragedy and ugly ambition, most likely set against the background of the Troubles in Northern Ireland:

A face is raining
Across the border
The pride of history
The same as murder

Keith Levene, one of my favourite guitar players (and a huge influence on The Edge), cuts across the rhythm section with his guitar and synth, veering from echoey guitar chops to drilling, headache-inducing noise. Over a sparse rhythm, Levene adds space like a painter works on a canvas, and creates an unique soundscape here.

Here’s a great performance of the song on The Old Grey Whistle Test: John Lydon, bulge-eyed and vigilant, fronts the only post-punk supergroup.

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I stumbled across this great song a couple of months ago while traversing the world of music blogs when I hit upon this music blog that’s mainly focused on Irish musicians so kudos to the blogger from keeping it local as its a great source if ur interested in what’s going on musically in this wee country.

The song is from a now defunct band called The Mary Janes which was fronted by the late Mic Christopher. Prior to visiting the weblog, I didn’t even know that Mic was even in a band. In fact I knew nothing about the man at all apart from the song ‘Hey Day’ that was made famous by a Guinness tv ad.

The song is taken from their first album Bored with their laughter - they only had one album called Sham which I’m told is excellent but i have yet to get my hands on it.  What got me was his voice which sounds completely different on this song than Hey Day it’s deep, gravelly and very forceful in it’s delivery of what is a very simple song that eulogizes on the importance of friendship and the role they play in people’s lives and how they help you through the bad times as well as the good times.

The song musically reminds me of a little of the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s, don’t ask me where I got that idea from but I just do with a catchy hook that bellows up and down throughout the song which adds to the intensity of Mic’s voice. You can check out the song here

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I guess you could say that Audioslave could be termed a Supergroup on the basis that all members of the band were members of successful grunge and rock bands in previous incarnations. I don’t know about you but I was curious when I first heard of this band was forming, after all we had one of the most powerful voices in rock Chris Cornell (Soundgarden) and one of the most distiintive guitar players still giging in Tom Morello (Rage against the machine) but I wasn’t excited enough to go out and buy their first album and still haven’t.

The song is taken from their second album Out of Exile and is what you expect from this group of talented musicians and contains everything that’s good from Cornell and Morello – a strong, powerful vocal performance and some guitar wizardy from Morella. Lyrically the song is based on a low period in Cornells life and the lyrics reference doing some unusual things, anything really that takes his mind off thing. Check out the first verse

‘I walk the streets of Japan till I get lost
Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything
With a graveyard tan carrying a cross
Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything
I like studying faces in a parking lot
Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything
I like driving backwards in the fog
Cause it doesn’t remind me of anything‘

I usually take from the song an activity, energetic or otherwise, that will ease a bothered mind and relax a person. Everybody needs this every now and then. The remaining verses of the song continue in the same vain except the last where it seems to be directed at a lover that’s sung in a higher pitch than the rest of the song and just before the Morello trademark solo kicks in. I love the phrase ‘graveyard tan‘ because i think it’s a great description of an Irish person with our pasty white skin. Check out a video of the song here.

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I’m drinking a lot of coffee this weather, and was thinking about songs about coffee. ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ by Dylan is an obvious one I guess, but we’ve got a couple of posts about old Bob already. Ahm, apart from that, it’s the easy option of Google to discover other songs about coffee. Then I thought about Blur, and Graham Coxon’s charming little ditty from 1999’s 13 album. In between all of Damon Albarn’s wallowing in lost love, comes a great song about giving up booze and overdosing on something else, something that’s probably not a whole lot healthier.

When I was a lad of seventeen (we’re talking ‘93/’94 here), Blur came from the arse-end of the Stone Roses and rose to be Britain’s Best Band™. With albums like Modern Life Is Rubbish and Parklife, they brought working-class English culture into the 1990s with an ironic wink and a “how’s your sister” type humour, while also poking fun at binge drinking, group holidays, the lottery and commuter towns. Kind of like a funnier version of The Jam.

Then came The Great Escape, and it was poor. Hyped up by the brilliant-but-severely-dated ‘Country House’ single, it was indulgent, smarmy, arrogant, egocentric, overlong, and quite low on quality (’The Universal’ aside). There are only so many songs about wife swapping and meeting Morrissey that anyone can handle. Oasis won the media and sales war, and Blur headed ‘to the ditch’ (as Neil Young might say) with 1997’s Yankee-alternative-influenced Blur album.

‘Coffee & TV’ shows the influence of Graham Coxon. Trebly, ringing Kinks-y guitars are out, as are lyrics cocking a snoot at the Mr. Cleans, service stations and the like. Albarn does backing vocals and batters an old acoustic guitar while Coxon sings about ‘black gold’ and the idiot box, doubling up with searing guitar runs that push excitedly into feedback, like the brain of a man who’s watched too much Lost (terrible show) or Coronation Street.

Coxon’s lyrics speak of a life of grinding boredom, where the days just pass by in a haze of caffeine and the couch potato lifestyle. Ironically, because the song is so upbeat you get the feeling he’s enjoying it, compared to the alternative, which he doesn’t really outline.

The video to this song deserves special mention – a cute little milk carton dancing around to the music, and getting into some strange situations. Leaving the safeness of home, the milk carton (seriously) nearly gets shredded by a lawnmower, is chased by children, finds and loses love in a second, and eventually ends up crashing a Blur rehearsal. A great video and a great song.

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I’ve spoken before about my love of Gomez. In my opinion they are still the best indie band to come out of the UK in the last ten to fifteen years. All the guys in the band are talented artists and all contribute to the lyrics as well as the music in all the albums plus there is at least two singers in the band that compliment each other very well.

This song was the third single from the band’s fifth studio album called How We Operate  and is the first album that they didn’t produce themselves and has a more feel good, popier sound than any of their other albums and see the world  is a good example of this. With it’s catchy hooks, beautiful melody and some nice harmonies if they ever wanted a radio hit then this song would be it.

To me the song is dealing with a friend that’s lost his way a little bit and won’t listen to any of his friends as in the verse below he refer’s to his friend as a ’soldier’ that’s lost his ‘composure’.

‘You seem like a soldier
Who’s lost his composure
You’re wounded and play a waiting game
In no-man’s land no-one’s to blame’

The chorus provides some advice to this friend regardless of whether they want it or not. The advice tells the friend to relax and enjoy life and don’t take things too seriously.

‘See the world
Find an old fashioned girl
And when all’s been said and done
It’s the things that are given, not won
Are the things that you earned’

There is two reason’s why I really like this song even though there is more rockier songs on the album, songs that I would normally prefer and one of the reason’s is the fact that the context of song deals with friendship and those days when you try to reach out to a friend but they don’t want to listen. Its the delievery of this context that’s really the clincher for me. It is so spirited and uplifting. I dare anyone to tell me that this is not a dinky little number.

The second reason is that Ben Ottewell is on vocal duty…say no more. Check out the  video of song.

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