20 years of Arcade Fire’s Funeral

September 14, 2024

20 years ago today, the Montreal band Arcade Fire released their debut album, Funeral. They called it that because the band members had recently had several deaths in the family, and their sadness infused this album with strong emotion, but the name is deceptive: the album feels like the opposite of a funeral. It was a rebirth of classic rock that also fueled countless indie rock bands in the 2000s that were more into violins than guitar solos.

I remember the first time I heard Arcade Fire: I was listening to various artists on last.fm, and an electrifying song came on: “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out),” about kids rushing outside during a power outage, looking for light and life. It sums up the band well: at once minimalistic (with a relentlessly driving beat and repeated riff) yet complex and full of irrepressible feelings. This band is all about feelings, expressed with all the earnest passion they can muster. Arcade Fire doesn’t seem to start with any preconception about what music genre they’re supposed to be playing; feelings come first, and the musical styles emerge from there.

I also remember the second time I heard Arcade Fire: I went over to a friend’s apartment and heard the shimmering opening of the album: “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” There are few times I’ve felt this kind of awe at simply hearing a recording of music. I was stunned at the musical grace (the utter simplicity of that repeated major 7th arpeggio at the beginning, played on piano and distorted guitar at the same time) and amazed to find out that this soothing song was by the same band that did “Power Out.” But once I looked at the lyrics, I realized this song about a snowstorm was on a similar theme: kids venturing out of their homes at a tumultuous time, trying to make human connections on their own, without adult guidance.

As the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn
The song I’ve been trying to sing

Stereogum wrote this on the album’s 10-year anniversary:

Arguably the most influential indie-rock record of its era, Funeral is a how-to guide for grand, artful, cathartic rock music that’s nonetheless proven impossible to replicate — and many, many bands have tried. In the years that followed Funeral, so many of its tics became indie-rock clichés: sing-songy choral exuberance, orchestral instruments, madcap auxiliary percussion, Springsteen love, so many band members you can barely fit them on stage, even dressing up rather than wearing ratty T-shirts. … Win Butler’s reverent sincerity, [his wife] Régine Chassagne’s theater-kid enthusiasm, and the entire ensemble’s unapologetic splendor — it all helped steer indie-rock to somewhere far away from Pavement’s ironic detachment.

Funeral is a concept album about childhood, but the album is for anyone who ever rebelled against lies …

… or ever lost the crown of love …

… or ever realized they had to wake up.

Somethin’ filled up
My heart with nothin’
Someone told me not to cry
Now that I’m older
My heart is colder
And I can see that it’s a lie

Tori Amos — Under the Pink

January 31, 2024

Tori Amos released her second album, Under the Pink, 30 years ago today in 1994.

The first song on the album, “Pretty Good Year,” starts out immaculately pretty but becomes furious...

I feel a special connection to “God” because watching this video was my introduction to Tori Amos. You can hear her being increasingly influenced by the grunge rock of the time:

If anything could be called her signature song, it’s “Cornflake Girl.” She said:

“Cornflake Girl” is about how I came to terms with the naive notion that all women are the good guys and men are always the bad guys. That, obviously, is not always the case. … Whenever they would seemingly instinctively attack men, I’d have to say, “I don’t automatically feel that way, I’m trying to rise above such feelings.” Hatred for men, en masse, is as poisonous a feeling as shame.

The last song on the album, “Yes, Anastasia,” is a beautiful and energizing 9-minute epic. The song ends with the refrain: “We’ll see how brave you are.” She said that line meant: “If you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself.”

10 years of Lorde’s Pure Heroine

September 27, 2023

10 years ago today, in 2013, Lorde put out her debut album, Pure Heroine. This is one of my favorite songs of hers, “400 Lux.”

So many young musical prodigies try to impress us with their talents by emulating adults. One of the great things about how this singer/songwriter from New Zealand broke into the public consciousness at age 16 is that she seemed to feel no need to aspire to mature respectability. She presented herself as a young person hanging out with other young people — but a unique young person who happens to be uncommonly reflective and expressive. Pure Heroine is a pop masterpiece precisely because it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to be a masterpiece.

30 years of Nirvana’s In Utero

September 21, 2023

30 years ago today, in 1993, Nirvana put out their third and last studio album, In Utero.

“Serve the Servants” kicks off the album perfectly with a chaotically discordant chord (like the ’90s equivalent to the opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night”). The first line is a droll take on the band’s success: “Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I’m bored and old.” At the end of each chorus, Kurt Cobain seemingly mocks himself for overdramatizing how he was affected by his parents’ divorce in interviews: “That legendary divorce is such a bore!” The song is unusual in that the singing in the chorus is in a lower register and more relaxed than in the verse; the other way around is far more common.

“Heart-Shaped Box,” the first single from the album, is the one song on In Utero that sounds like what listeners to the poppier Nevermind would have expected from a follow-up. Krist Novoselic explained that songs like this and “All Apologies” were “gateways” to the rest of the album, which would cause more people to discover the album’s “aggressive wild sound — a true alternative record.”

“Dumb” serves the same role on In Utero as “Polly” does on Nevermind. Both are track 6 of a 12-song album, and they have a similar chord progression. But “Dumb” is more fully satisfying, with atmospheric cello adding depth to the soft side of the band. The cellist on this song and “All Apologies” was Kera Schaley, the only musician to play on a Nirvana studio album without being in the band.

“Milk It” is an aggressively un-commercial song with shockingly dissonant guitar playing. One line is heart-breaking knowing what happened the next year: “Look on the bright side is suicide.”

“Pennyroyal Tea” was going to be released as the third single from the album in April 1994 (following “All Apologies”), but the single was canceled because of Cobain’s suicide that month. He looked forward to the afterlife in an oddly non-rhyming couplet: “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld/So I can sigh eternally.” Cobain said: “The song is about a person who’s beyond depressed; they’re in their death bed, pretty much.” Asked about the Leonard Cohen line, Cobain said: “That was my therapy, when I was depressed and sick. I’d … listen to Leonard Cohen, which would actually make it worse.” After Cobain died, Cohen was asked about that line in an MTV interview:

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have spoken to the young man,” Cohen said of Cobain, recognizing some of his own past excesses in Cobain’s downfall. “I see a lot of people at the Zen Center, who have gone through drugs and found a way out that is not just Sunday school. There are always alternatives, and I might have been able to lay something on him. Or maybe not.”

“Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” is one of my favorite Nirvana songs, with manically oscillating guitar noise over relentlessly thumping drums. Most of the song isn’t radio-friendly, but it gets most melodic in the bridge, with Cobain offering uncharacteristically straightforward advice: “Hate, hate your enemies/Save, save your friends/Find, find your place/Speak, speak the truth.”

“All Apologies” brings the album to a bittersweet close, culminating in a meditative chant over droning guitars. Cobain had this song around since 1990, before Nevermind. When Dave Grohl heard a demo of it in the early days, he thought: “This guy has such a beautiful sense of melody — I can’t believe he’s screaming all the time.”

25 years of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream

July 27, 2023

30 years ago today, in 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins put out their breakthrough album, Siamese Dream. Here’s a video of me playing a song from the album: “Disarm.”

25 years of the Smashing Pumpkins’ Adore

June 2, 2023

25 years ago today, in 1998, the Smashing Pumpkins put out their 4th studio album, Adore, and it sounded like no album they had put out before. The band cast aside their trademark wall-of-fuzz-guitars sound in favor of a newly light and loving quality, but the album was also tinged with a bittersweet wistfulness. After their previous album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995), the Pumpkins had been through a lot: their touring keyboardist died of a heroin overdose, they fired their irreplaceable drummer Jimmy Chamberlin (who also had a heroin problem — fortunately he was able to rejoin the band for later albums), and singer Billy Corgan was suffering one personal loss on top of another with the death of his mother and the end of his marriage.

Adore was a commercial disappointment for the band at the time, but it’s become a fan favorite. That’s reflected in my own history with the album: when I first heard it I thought the Pumpkins had lost their spark, but today I listened to it from beginning to end and felt like I finally appreciated it. It helps that by now I’ve seen the band play some of the songs in a great concert in New York City in 2018. I remember watching Corgan put aside his guitar in the middle of the show and go up to a higher level to play piano while singing this poignant ballad about his late mother, “For Martha”:

Maybe this is the album that should’ve been called Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Tori Amos — From the Choirgirl Hotel

May 5, 2023

The brilliant singer/songwriter/pianist Tori Amos put out her fourth album, From the Choirgirl Hotel, 25 years ago today, in 1998. The first song, “Spark,” kicks off the album with a great energy (while dealing with a personal tragedy):

“Cruel” brings out Tori Amos’s grunge rock side at the beginning of this concert:

R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People

October 5, 2022

30 years ago today, in 1992, R.E.M. released their 8th album, Automatic for the People.

“Drive”:

“Man on the Moon” is a tribute to the subversive comedian Andy Kaufman. This song is featured in the 1999 biopic about him, also called Man on the Moon, starring Jim Carrey and directed by the great Miloš Forman. You can stream the movie for free on Tubi (with ads).

“Everybody Hurts”:

The day Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots both released classic albums

September 29, 2022

30 years ago today, September 29, 1992, was a great day for grunge rock. Alice in Chains released their second album and what many would call their greatest album, Dirt, and Stone Temple Pilots released their debut album, Core.

I’ve always found AIC’s “Would?” to be one of the most emotionally affecting songs of the grunge era. I love the coda (the part that begins, “Am I wrong?”) … when they shift to the relative major key with a sense of absolute determination.

“Them Bones”:

“Down in a Hole”:

STP’s “Plush”:

“Creep” (not the “Creep” I was blogging about in my last post!)

Brad Mehldau’s Largo

August 13, 2022

The pianist Brad Mehldau put out his Largo album 20 years ago today, in 2002. It deviated from the more traditional piano/bass/drums lineup of his series of five Art of the Trio albums he had put out from 1996 to 2000.

The first song on Largo, “When It Rains,” is a transcendent exploration:

The album includes covers of two songs on the Beatles’ White Album (“Dear Prudence” and “Mother Nature’s Son”) and Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” Here’s the Radiohead song: