And welcome back to 35000 Watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I am the director of a feature documentary called 35000 Watts: The Story of College Radio. A documentary about, believe it or not, college radio available for download right this very moment at 35,000 watts.com. With me today on the podcast, our resident music guru, Keith Porterfield.
Happy to be here. And we have a brand new guest, stepping in with us today, Scott Mobley. Hello. Alright. Guys, today, we are are sitting around the the virtual round table, not an actual round table, to talk about an interesting topic that I think a lot of nerds and geeks like to talk about in terms of music, in terms of film, the 4 album run or the 4 film run if you’re talking about film.
Put some criteria out there like a time frame, maybe some other criteria that, and we’ll talk about ours here in a minute. And you talk about artists or directors or actors that had, like, an amazing run of 4 albums or an amazing run of 4 films. The time frame is 1975 roughly to, 1999. So basically, the end of 20th century, college radio bands that had amazing 4 album runs. And before we get into it, REM was not considered for the episode solely because they’re the obvious answer.
All 3 of us love REM. You could easily make a case for a 7 or 8 album run. We’ll give them their own episode. We absolutely acknowledge that they should be in this episode, but we’re gonna try to choose a few different bands to talk about today. Well, today, probably to nobody’s surprise, I’m gonna be talking about The Cure.
And it’s hard for me, but just because I like them as much as I do, to pick 4 albums out. But I think the easy answer for these guys is the run from the late or mid eighties, I should say, until the early nineties, starting with a head on the door, running through kiss me kiss me kiss me disintegration, and then Wish. That period of the band is kind of the, time at which the what’s often considered to be kind of the classic lineup of the band was active, and that’s obviously Robert Smith on, you know, voicing guitar. Simon Gallup, the bass player, who has been on all but 2 of the Cure’s albums. And then at that time, Pearl Thompson was playing, guitar and keyboards, and Boris Williams, was the drummer at the time.
And they were together for 4 albums. They had a 5th member for each of those albums. It was original member Lawrence Tollhurst was with them on both the Head and Kiss Me. And it was the keyboardist Roger O’Donnell on Disintegration, And then, Perry Bamonte on Wish. And so that was the period at which they had their biggest commercial success.
Obviously, there were huge hits off of, all of those albums. Mainstream hits, you know, Friday Moon Love, Love Song. Those were both gigantic, songs on even commercial radio, and both got played or on college radio as well. Today, the argument I would like to make, and it’s kind of funny that this has come up, as a topic when it has because this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, is that the better 4 album run actually does not include Wish at the end of those 4, but instead includes the top before the head on the door and then runs through disintegrate or Kiss Me and then ends with disintegration. And a lot of that has to do with just how much I love the top.
Wish is not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination. It’s got some really good stuff on it, big singles, with Friday I’m in love and high. It also had some great album tracks, the album’s first song open is a really good one, from the edge of the deep green sea is a staple of the live set that they still play to this day, to wish impossible things is a beautiful song. So it’s a lot of good stuff on that album. It’s not one of my favorite Cure albums though, and I think a lot of that for me has to do with the fact that it followed up Disintegration, and I was such a big fan of Disintegration.
It came out when I was a senior in high school, so I was at peak teen angst at that time, and so Disintegration was exactly what I wanted to hear. It was like the perfect album for me at that time, And I think any follow-up to Disintegration was gonna have trouble with me. I was gonna be disappointed pretty much in anything they did, unless it was, you know, Disintegration 2, even Disintegration 2 here. Because, you know, that album hit me so hard that, when wish came out, the first thing I heard off it was high was the first single I was really psyched about it. I thought, this is gonna be great.
But when I got it, I have to admit I was disappointed with it. And I don’t know if other fans that were big fans of disintegration went through the same thing, but that album has just not ever been one of my favorites. And again, it’s not because it’s bad, but I don’t think it has the same quality that the the other 3 with that kind of core lineup produced. Now, The Top on the other hand, is actually one of my all time favorite Cure albums. And I know that’s a a minority opinion among Cure fans.
To do this, I went online and looked at, several lists of, you know, ranking Cure albums. And the top, I looked at 5 different lists. The highest it ever came in was number 8 out of 13 albums. One of the list had it at 12, and the other 3 had it in between there. So not an album that the critics really appreciate.
I have talked to other Cure fans over the years, not really an album that other Cure fans seem to appreciate. It is in fact though, like I said, one of my favorites of theirs. I think it’s kind of a, psychedelic rock masterpiece actually. It is really a solid album in my opinion, and I think I’m hoping if nothing else from this episode, can maybe get some people to go back and revisit it, and listen to it again, and see if I can change their opinion on it. I do think there are reasons why it’s not, considered one of their best records.
For one thing, it’s weird. A lot of the songs, the the arrangements and instrumentation is just off. There’s a saxophone in there. There’s harmonica in there. There’s a violin in there on some songs, just not a lot of the stuff that you usually are used to hearing from a Cure album.
The lyrics are completely demented. Robert Smith was doing a lot of psychedelic drugs at that time. And you can tell by listening to those lyrics. It’s got such great ones as, slip the cats like cheese and eat the sweet sticky things, from the song, Give Me It. There are a lot of really bizarre lyrics in there that, you know, for a guy that largely has made his career writing love songs, Robert Smith, these lyrics are are definitely different from what a lot of Cure fans might be used to.
The mix on the original album was really muddy, and I think that may have turned some people off. I think that really got cleared up in the remastered version of it. And then, one thing that I do think, maybe even as subconsciously works against it with some Cure fans, is the fact that it’s the one album aside from the very first Cure record that doesn’t have Simon Gallop on bass. And I think, you know, aside from Robert Smith’s voice, Simon Gallop’s bass playing is one of the more kind of defining factors in the Cure. The the really simple melodic bass parts that really helped carry a lot of those songs.
Those bass parts aren’t aren’t in the top. And so, I can understand maybe some Cure fans, like I said, maybe even subconsciously, kind of not gravitating toward it because it doesn’t have that part of the sound that they’re used to hearing. Part of the reason that Gallup is not on this album is, you know, they had a falling out, he and Robert Smith after, after pornography. And then Smith went on to do some singles after that, just basically trying to blow up the image of the band. You know, they had been really a dour doom and gloom, band for 3 straight albums from, 17 seconds to faith to pornography.
Then they put out all the, singles in 1983, like Let’s Go to Bed and The Walk that were really kinda very poppy. He was trying to bust up the image of the Cure as a as a, you know, goth gloom band. And then when he decided to do the next album, you got kind of a good mix of some of the older stuff and the poppier stuff coming together for the first time in their history. It’s essentially a Robert Smith solo album. He plays all the instruments on it, except for the drums.
He had the late Andy Anderson playing drums with him on that album. But it’s it’s wildly eclectic, I mean, there’s, some just ripping rockers like the opening track Shake, Dog, Shake, all the way to like just perfect, folk pop of the caterpillar, and pretty much every stop in between there. There are some staples from the live set, on that album, like, Shake, Dog, Shake, that immediately, comes to mind. They play that almost every show, even to this day. Part of that eclectic mix is, weird runs of songs backed up together.
You’ve got the Wailing Wall, which is the first song that they ever did that kind of had an eastern flare to it, which was a theme that they would return to with later songs. That goes right into one called Give Me It, which is just a demented guitar rock song, very bizarre, song, and one of the the heaviest rockers on that album. And that flows right into one called Dressing Up, which is just about the dreamiest song they’ve ever recorded. I mean, is it The Cure doing a soul song? I don’t know.
Maybe. But whatever it is, it’s fantastic. And so there’s just a wildly eclectic group of songs in there, and I think, you know, underrated for sure. It also pulls off a neat trick. I think most Cure albums fall kinda into 3 categories, except for the very first one again, which is just kind of its own thing.
You got the the gothic doom gloom albums, like pornography, disintegration, blood flowers. You’ve got the ones that are a little more eclectic, but actually do have a sound that kinda goes through the entire album, like Wish that’s got the 3 guitar attack, with Perry Bamonte there along with Thompson and Smith that was replacing O’Donnell who was a a keyboard player after disintegration with a guitar player and Perry Bamonte. And I think the album really sounds like it, you know, it’s got all 3 of those guitars and that’s kind of runs through that album. You’ve got the self titled album, The Cure, that had Ross Robinson producing on it. And so it’s got kind of the heavier almost medley sound to it, as medley as The Cure ever get anyway.
And then 413 dream, which is kind of the the Cure glam rock album. I think those 3 go into the category of albums that are a little more varied than the goth albums, but, still have a sound to them that is kind of specific to that album. And then the 3rd category is just the wildly eclectic albums, like The Head on the Door, Kiss Me, and Wild Mood Swings, where it sounds like it could be a half dozen different bands that just all happen to have Robert Smith singing for them. I think the one thing the top does really well is actually kinda fit into both of those last two categories. It is a wildly eclectic album, different types of songs like we’ve been talking about.
But by the same token, when you listen to one of the songs that came off at the top, you know, you’re listening to something from the top. It that just doesn’t sound like anything else, in the Cures catalog. And a lot of that may have to do with Smith playing all the instruments himself. It kind of maybe gives it a unanimity of sound, that otherwise the kind of eclectic grouping of songs wouldn’t have. But I do think it’s the one that kinda goes into both of those categories, of both having a unanimity of sound and then also being pretty eclectic at the same time.
And it was the first, like I said before, the first album to really do that, to have that kind of wild mix of different types of songs on it. And so, like I said, I would really encourage anyone to go back and listen to it again, maybe even listen to it without thinking of it, in the context of the Cure’s catalog. Just try to listen to it as its own thing. It really is, a wild psychedelic rock ride, that I would highly recommend. So, hopefully, I can give it somebody to go back and listen to that.
I will, again, maybe give it another try because it’s such a good one. So that opens our run up, with the top. And then we move on to the head on the door, and I’m a do the head on the door and kiss me kinda together, because they’re both very similar records. They are very eclectic, different types of songs on them. Kiss me is a double album, so it’s got 18 songs and head has got 10 songs on it.
So you’ve got 28 song run-in there of just really eclectic all over the map kind of stuff. Each of those albums has good singles on them. The head has got, in between days and close to me, kiss me’s got just like heaven, and why can’t I be you. And they’ve got songs that have become other staples of the live set, like, Night Like This Off Head, and If Only Tonight We Could Sleep from Kiss Me. Also, some of my favorite just regular album tracks, deep album cuts, Push on the Head on the Door, The Snake Pit, White Cockatoos, Off Kiss Me.
All of those are are great songs. And like I said, really wildly varied. Some pop songs, some rockers, some dirges, some ballads. Each of those albums, checks a lot of boxes, has a lot of different kinds of songs on there. And then the run ends with Disintegration.
And gosh, what can you say about Disintegration? It’s kind of their masterpiece, the magnum opus, you know. Definitely one of the best albums I’ve ever heard of, like, setting a theme, a tone early, and keeping it all the way through the record. It did have singles on it. Love Song was huge.
Fashion Mason Street was a big one, but it really is kind of a dark gloomy album, defined a lot by the keyboard sound to it. Like I said, they had a full time keyboard player in Roger O’Donnell on that album. So it’s there’s walls of icy synths and, like, twirling guitars going along with it. Just a beautiful album. And, again, holds that feel, that, kind of, emotion of the the kind of the doomy and gloomy, oh, all going wrong, nothing’s going right, or, you know, kind of the teen angst, like I said, feel to it.
I remember when I first heard it, I was like, man, this guy gets me. He knows what’s going on. You know? The lyrics are are very much, you know, if you’re a heartsick teenager or 20 something, you probably really identified with the lyrics, to Disintegration. It is, a fantastic album for that.
So that’s how I would make my case for those 4 albums. I think the top is a better record than Wish, and so I think you start your run there. But largely, I would agree with most of the critics and everybody else that that period of the band’s history really was their strongest. I really think that, the top deserves another listen for Cure fans out there. Give it a chance and see if you don’t agree that it is a better album than maybe it’s ever been given credit for.
And then, yeah, following up with Head on the Door, fantastic album. Kiss Me has got just loads of good songs on it and the disintegration of kind of their masterpiece. I think those 4 albums to me represent the the strongest run-in the Cure’s entire career. I’m not gonna lie, you had me in the first half because when you added Wish initially, I was, like, there’s no way he’s about to do this without because I know you. If I didn’t know you, I could see it.
Because, like, you know, Wish, like you said, is probably the more mainstream and more well known album that people would probably put on a list like this. But I know you, and I know how you feel about the top. So I was like, did I miss, like, a memo that that I that I understood? So I don’t have a ton to add. I’ll I’ll chip in again later.
I think Scott probably has a better perspective on this than I do because I think Scott’s there’s a little bit more about the Cure than I do. But I just wanted to jump in and say, at first, I was really wondering what kind of roller coaster ride I was about to go on with you, with that initial list. I I also thought you were gonna defend Wish for a second at the beginning too, and and Wish is defendable. It’s it’s a fine album. But I like that you’ve chosen the top, and the reason is I think that if you if you look at The Cure during that era, obviously leading up to disintegration, which is, I mean, for all intents and purposes, that’s the apex of their of their work.
You know, it it’s it’s they’ve done good stuff since, but I they haven’t done that since. And if you look at those 4 albums leading or 3 albums leading up to that, you’re you’re hearing it. You know? You’re you talk about the psychedelia on the top, and it is a little extreme on the top. I I agree with you on that.
But that sort of psychedelia, that sort of dreamlike atmospheric thing that they perfected on Disintegration is all over Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me and maybe done better than the top. But you’re seeing the progression of a band. Each album gets a little bit better than the one before it until you hit Disintegration, which is, again, well, as you said and correctly, the masterpiece of this. You know, I think what happened after that, and you look at an album like Wish, is disintegration was insanely popular. It did have singles on it.
But is it Fascination Street that’s, like, 8 minutes long, and they’re playing this on the radio? You know? I think The Cure felt the need to take the sound they had perfected at that point and turn it into singles. And that’s what you get with Wish and and some of the albums after that. So I a 100 percent endorse your selection of the top.
I think it’s a much better album than Wish, and it’s it’s much better than it gets credit for, I I think. Yeah. I agree. And I think that you’re right that the top is where they really start kind of perfecting what’s gonna become the the sound that’s gonna carry them through that run of albums. What’s interesting is that because it’s essentially the Smith solo album, he did all of the writing and arranging and all that.
And by the time you get to the head on the door, he’s got a little bit more of a capable band around him than he’s really had in the past with Williams, Gal back in the fold, and Thompson. And those guys start having a little more input into the songwriting as well. And so, I think you get a little more varied songwriting going forward. But the idea of the kind of we can do a little bit of everything on 1 album originated with the top. And I think that was the direction, you know, after doing the doom and gloom trilogy early in their career of 17 Faith and pornography, and then doing the complete opposite with the singles.
That was where Smith decided, you know, I can meld these things into a single sound and make something that’s kind of different from what we’ve done before. And then, you know, again, they ran with that afterwards as he got the rest of the band together and realized he had a really capable band around him that was also wanting to contribute to the songwriting. You’re right, it does get a little better each album as it goes along, but none of that stuff would have existed without kind of the the wild variety that you got on the top. Totally. That’s that’s I totally agree.
That’s where I’m going with that is that you you don’t get to disintegration without the top. And even though the top might not sound like a perfect album, it’s it’s the sounds that you’re going to hear perfected on kiss me kiss me kiss me and disintegration are right they’re there. They’re just kind of bubbling up under the surface until we’re gonna get to that perfection a few albums later. So that that’s an excellent choice. And it’s a good time to mention that we’re talking about college radio bands.
The Cure obviously was huge in the UK, and the UK, especially at that time, didn’t have necessarily a huge college radio scene. But if you wanted to hear songs off of almost any of those albums, I think there was a moment where you could hear the Cure and top 40 radio. Friday, I’m in love, I think you mentioned, and disintegration to some degree. But, like, I don’t think anything off the top was getting played anywhere by college radio in the US. On the flip side of that, I think Scott’s gonna talk about a band that is pure US college radio all the way if I’m not mistaken.
I picked the Pixies for this, and where we talked about the Cure kind of that natural progression from this album is on this album. The 4 albums I’m gonna talk about is a real roller coaster ride of not quality necessarily, but just sort of sound and and image and things like that. There’s reasons for that, and I I will get to them. But the 4 albums I’m gonna talk about are the 4 Pixies albums. I realized they have gotten back together.
They are recording albums now. They’re not bad, but they are a much different band than they were, back in the day. They just put out an album, like, in the last 2 weeks. It’s called, the night the zombies died or something like that. I listened to it last night.
It’s actually pretty good. But there is some key things missing, and I’ll I’ll get to what I’m talking about with that. So we start with Surfer Rosa in 1988. This was their only album produced by Steve Albini. And if you know anything about Steve Albini and his production style, you can hear it all over Surfer Rosa.
This is a nasty, aggressive, loud, chaotic, atonal mess of an album that unbubbling under the surface of all that noise and racket and what sounds like things that don’t work, there is some beautiful pop music. And that is, I think, the key to the Pixi sound is that, yes, they’re known for the loud, quiet, loud thing and and the, you know, Santiago’s screaming guitars over all of this, and this hard backbeat with a sort of crusty, rhythm and and bass guitar that’s, you know, holding the beat, but just barely, and the the male female dynamic vocals and all of that stuff. These are all the things that the Pixies are really known for, and they’re perfectly captured on Surfer Rosa. I wanna give just a quick shout out to the EP that came out before it. It’s called Come on, Pilgrim.
And the reason I’m not gonna cheat and include it because it it’s an EP and it’s not in the 4 that I picked, but it is great. And for a long time in the nineties, Elektra and 4 AD were their their 2 labels, were releasing them together. You could when you bought Surfer Rosa, it came with Come on Pilgrim. And, you know, so I’m gonna say, if you haven’t heard Come on Pilgrim, check it out. If nothing else, it has Caribou on it, which is one of the Pixies’ best songs, but that’s all I’m gonna say about that.
So Surfer Rosa, We talk about the Pixies’ sound, what they’re famous for, what they created. It’s that loud, quiet, loud. It’s the male, female dynamic things. It’s the the raucous noise with the pretty pop melody underneath it. You can hear all of that in the first three minutes of this album.
It’s the song Bone Machine. Your bones gotta let on my machine. Which is the first thing we hear from the Pixies pretty much, and maybe the best thing they ever did, but this album carries that all the way through. So some of the notable songs on this album are, obviously, Bone Machine, Gigantic is is a big song. That’s a Kim Diehl song, which is gonna get important here shortly.
The most famous song from Surfer Rosa is Where is My Mind? It’s been in a 1,000,000 movie trailers. It’s been remixed a 100 times. It’s all over the place. In fact, I think Hollywood’s kinda boycotted it now because it became too cliche, but that is on this album as well.
So when you talk about the pixie sort of signature sound, it’s this. It’s this album, Surfer Rosa. The next album up is Doolittle, which many, many, many Pixies fans consider to be their best album. I’m not one of them. Doolittle is the Pixies being glossed over.
It’s taking their sound and sort of polishing it, hoping for a little radio friendliness, which they do get. You have Here Comes Your Man on this album. You have Monkey’s Go Monkey Goes to Heaven on this album. There’s a lot of stuff on this album that is very radio friendly and poppy. It didn’t work.
The people in indie rock and people in alternative radio love this this album. But to me, I like the Pixies when they’re being loud and obnoxious, and Doolittle just doesn’t have that. That said, it’s a wonderful album if you like the Pixies, if you like good pop rock music, if you like the sort of dynamic of the sound of the Pixies. It’s captured very well here. What I wanna say about these two records is that if you are a pixie spam because you love Kim Deal, this is the 2 albums that you’re listening to.
She is prominently featured on this album. She wrote many of the songs on these albums. She is all over them. Now the next two albums, she’s there, but she’s not there. She is constantly fighting with with Blac Francis, Frank Black, whatever you wanna call them.
They’re constantly fighting. They’re throwing things at each other on stage. She almost quits the band several times. They, in fact, go on a short hiatus after do a Dolittle, maybe 6, 8 months, where they’re not touring. They can’t decide what they wanna do.
And Kim Deal becomes, at that moment, the bass player of the Pixies, not a vocalist, not a songwriter. She has no songwriting credits on the 2 albums. She can be heard singing on them, but not really. So that’s kind of the break of the the 2 eras of this band is is the Kim Deal era, which is Serfer Rosa and Doolittle, 2 excellent albums. And then you have the next 2.
When she is there slapping the bass, but not really contributing much to the sound of the Pixies. For a lot of people, that’s where they fall off. It’s where they’re they’re not really doing what they were born to do, so to speak. But I think the next two albums are pretty darn good too. The next one is Bossa Nova.
Bossa Nova is purely a Frank Black album. In fact, doing a little research on it, most of the songs on it were written in the studio while they were recording it. They got in the studio. They’d bang out some stuff. Those are the songs on Bossa Nova.
It has much more of the surf guitar feel that they sort of get credited with bringing back to life. I don’t hear it a ton on their early stuff, but it’s there on Bossa Nova. In fact, it opens with an instrumental cover of a surf guitar song, and then sort of breaks into what was the only single on the album. It’s called Veloria, and it’s it’s pretty good. It’s not it’s as radio friendly as the Pixies ever got, I guess.
But this album is not, perfect for men to end. It’s very sloppy. You can tell that things were being written on the fly. You can tell that sounds were being introduced on the fly. It’s a little messy, but it’s also coming out right about the same time that grunge is starting to become a thing, and I think the producer sort of leaned into that a little bit.
So it doesn’t work a 100%, but there’s good songs on it, and it’s it’s it’s a good album. That leads me to the next purely Frank Black album featuring almost no Kim Deal, and that’s trompe l’amont, which is my personal favorite Pixies album. I know it took a lot of guff when it came out because it essentially was the first Frank Black solo album. There’s not a lot of participation from the other band members. But that said, if you were missing the chaos and disorder of something like Surfer Rosa, Tremblemont ramps it up to 11 real quick.
It’s loud. It’s obnoxious. It’s really in your face, and it very rarely slows down. That sort of signature thing they’re known for, the loud, quiet, loud, there’s not a lot of quiet on trompe l’amond. It’s pretty much loud, loud, loud.
But it’s a fantastic pop rock album that’s just produced in a way that it sounds like messy alternative music. Entrance a lot, some of the great songs are Planet of Sound is fantastic. UMass is fantastic. This is where you will find their cover of the Jesus and Mary chains head on, which is one of the greatest cover tunes ever recorded. As soon as I get my way around you, a drummer catches thoughts on you.
I love the Jesus and Mary Chain version. I think this is one of those rare cover tunes that’s better than the original. TromPLE MON is where you will find it. And if you have never heard it, I think it was released as a single. K TXT might have played it.
I’m not a 100% sure. I don’t remember. But if you have not heard the song Alec Ifill from Trample Lamont, put it on now. Listen to it. It is wonderful.
And the production on it is fantastic. It has sort of a keyboard harmony vocal thing at the end that was very rare for them to do. It’s 3 minutes of absolute glory from the Pixies, and it came minutes before they called it quits. Now the Pixies have since gotten back together. They’ve recorded some albums.
I’ve talked about that before. They are completely without Kim Deal now. They have brought in a new bassist. And, again, you can still hear it. So I think that instead of being one of those Pixies fans, it’s like, well, when Kim Deal was there, they were at their greatest.
When she left, it’s all over. You will find that if you Google the Pixies and what happened or, you know, tell me about the Pixies. That’s the first thing you’re gonna read in a 100 articles, and I just disagree with it. I think Kim Deal was serviceable as a bassist. I like her vocals.
I love, although on the early stuff, when her and Frank Black are singing together or kind of not together, if you wanna it’s almost like they’re singing 2 different songs, but it works. The Pixies don’t get credit for that. X did it before they did, but I think they kind of perfected it. If that’s what you love about the Pixies, you’re gonna stop it, do little, and and be done with them. But there is some really good stuff to be heard on those next two albums, particularly on Trempe Le Monde.
It is a great, great rock album. Trempe Le Monde is, I think, my favorite Pixies album, as well. It was my introduction to the Pixies so that, I kinda worked my way backwards from the from that album, and I was coming at it from someone who who, at that point was kinda into metal, was kinda into the heavier stuff. So I think trompe laman is a perfect introduction to someone. You know, it rocks beginning to end.
It’s melodic. I have all kinds of feelings about how much where is my mind gets used, and it’s funny. A big teaser just dropped for thunderbolts, the new the latest in the MCU. And did they use where is my mind? Of course, they did.
Was it like some weird heavy keyboard sounds and, you know, stripped down to just the vocal? Of course, it was, like, because that’s just what you do now for some reason. It was funny. I, like, I’m not a huge MCU guy, kinda conticulate, but I was aware of this release for just a random reason. And so, like, I saw it the day it dropped, and it was just, like, if they can’t think of a more interesting song to use in the teaser, like, is the rest of the film really gonna be that great?
But, so I digress on that. But that that made out way too much. And I’m surprised they’re still using it. Honestly, I thought they put the kibosh on that years ago because it was in every trailer for, like, 5 years. Yeah.
I was able to find, like, an article about it, you know, where it’s like, whereas my mind is dead. You know, it’s been overused and, like, people were writing this, like, 2 years ago. And then to put it in an MCU teaser, I was like, wow. That’s alright. That that’s a choice.
Yeah. And then, you know, let’s put the Pixies in some trailers, but let’s let that song go. You know? Yeah. There there may have had 1 or 2 others on.
It’s not, you know, I I just I’ll have to look at that. But, yes, wait. I’m hearing, yes, they did in fact have have several other songs that you could use to be fantastic. Probably blast for me to say this to a, like, to a hardcore Pixies fan, but I I wouldn’t put it in my top 10 Pixies songs, honestly. You know, it’s good, but it’s not I wouldn’t even put it in the top 5 songs on Surfer Rosa.
So here’s where I’m gonna disagree with you guys because, Where’s My Mind might be my favorite Pixies song of all time. It’s just a fantastic song. I could hear it a 1000000 times and never get tired of it, so I guess there are differing opinions there. It is. It it is a good song.
I think it’s the played out factor that’s probably making me say what I’m saying. I just don’t I just don’t know that I ever need to hear it again. You know, if you’re gonna pick the Pixies for this, I don’t know that you can pick another run of 4 albums. I mean, this is one of the 4 albums in the first part of their career unless you wanna include, some of the second act, of the Pixies, you know, in that that list. For me, the Pixies, those first four albums, there’s kind of an every other album thing going on.
I think there are some fantastic songs on Surfer Rosa. I also think there’s a lot of filler on Surfer Surfer Rosa. I don’t think it’s that great. I think Doolittle’s a far superior album. Like we didn’t even mention Debaser or Wave of Mutilation or Gouge Away.
I mean those are some fantastic songs on Doolittle. Bossa Nova, I don’t actually care for much at all. Although it does have Dig For Fire on it which I think is a great song. And then you come back with Tramplem on which may very well be their best album. I know you said you thought it was.
I might throw my hat in that ring as well. Just a fantastic record and some great deep album cuts like motorway to Roswell, that you don’t usually think of a whole lot. Subaculture is on that album, also a great one. So, yeah. Well, I think that that is a great run of 4 albums.
For me personally, there was kind of an every other thing going on there. The 2nd and 4th albums, I think, are far superior to the 1st and third. I think you you kind of hit on something that and this has always been a a dynamic between you and I musically, you know, is is that you your your taste tends to run more to the, like, the the poppy and the sort of more melodic stuff, and my taste tends to run to the how much noise can we make. I think that’s why I’m more leaning towards Surfer Rosa, and you would lean more towards Doolittle. That said, they’re both fantastic records.
I’m not I’m not I don’t want it to sound like I’m saying anything bad about Doolittle. It’s just I was trying to think of a comparison of another band that sort of had a a raw, nasty album like that and then got sort of polished up by a producer. And I, unfortunately, can’t I one is not popping into my head right now, but it’s that. It’s it’s they took the same basic sound, the same basic song styles, and just sort of polished them up, just glossed them up a little bit. And I for me, personally, my taste just always runs to the chaotic and noisy, and so I’m gonna lean to Serpa Rossa.
But that is not to take anything away from Doolittle. It’s a great album. Yeah. I can understand that. And I and that’s by the same token, I don’t wanna take anything away from Serpa Rossa because I do think it’s a great record.
Bossa Nova really is kind of problematic for me. It’s just not one that I like a whole lot. But, yes, Surf Rosa, even though I like Doolittle better, don’t take that as a kind of an insult towards Surf Rosa because it really is a great album. It just has got some stuff on it to me that’s just forgettable. Just, you know, I could I could live without it, you know, a few songs on there.
And I I think we agree that Bossa Nova is the weak link in this chain, and and I think the reason for that is that they were sort of in chaos at the time and were trying to crank out an album on the fly. They should have taken the time to try to make the next Dolittle or whatever, because they were on that trajectory. But that said, Bossa Nova certainly has its moments. It’s it’s got good songs on it. And it’s the link between Dolittle and trompe l’amond, which I think we all just agreed is a fantastic record.
You’d be surprised when you look up reviews and people writing about the Pixies and stuff like that, how little love Trempe LeMond gets. It’s really kind of considered the dark horse of their catalog, and it shouldn’t be. It’s easily as good as as Doolittle and Surfer Rosa. Yeah. It’s a solid run front to back, and I think even more so given the context of what was happening in in the context of the Pixies, you know, writ large, especially now looking back in retrospect and knowing that they were gonna be one of those bands that was, you know, your favorite band’s favorite band, that kind of thing.
Right. I know, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that we spoke with Joey Santiago for the film, 35,000 watts, the story of college radio, available for download now at 35,000 watts.com. Joey Santiago had a lot to say about college radio, but he also had a lot to say about kind of being stepping stone. You know, I think they felt like they they didn’t break big the way, you know, Nirvana and Pearl Jam. They were ahead of that wave.
And, I don’t I wouldn’t say he was bitter about it in any by any stretch. But I think he at least and and I don’t know if this extends to, like, Kim Deal or or Frank Black, but certainly felt like they were the ones that kind of held the other bands on their shoulders a little bit. Yeah. I think that’s definitely true. If you look at you know, if you’re looking for the links between this and that and the other, the the link between punk and grunge is the Pixies.
It’s they took the punk aesthetic and polished it up into something more melodic, which is what grunge was. Grunge was punk music with a lot of melody and a lot of a lot more feeling, a lot less of the aggression, a little more of the melodic sort of compassion and things like that. The lyrics were more friendly. Everything was nicer. But the the link in the sound between, you know, something like Black Flag and Nirvana is the Pixies.
It’s that that is the blending of those two sounds. And so, yeah, they were the giants that these guys stood on to get there. They never got the fame that they were owed, I think. And I you I do find it interesting that they’re getting that dude now, I think. If you look around now, people talk about the Pixies the way we should have been talking about them in 1990.
We weren’t. But they’re they’re sort of getting their due now. And, like, I read when I was doing some research on this, I read that Surfer Rosa went gold. Finally sold 500,000 copies 5 years ago, in 2019 or something. So, you know, 30 years after its release, they have a gold record on their hands.
You know? So good for them. I’m not I’m happy for it. So my band is Blur, a band that I think was the best of the Britpop bands. That’s obviously a discussion that people will find about until the end of time.
When you talk about, like, the 4 album runs, a lot of time, you want albums that are that are great front to back that don’t have a bad track on it. I’m not necessarily gonna make that argument for some of the Blur albums. They’re they’re strong, though. They’re super strong. Again, the context that they were recorded and released in has a lot to do with why I think they’re important, why this particular run is important.
Blur recorded their first album Leisure, in 1991 and was released in 1991. It’s not part of my run and it really was, if you listen to it, you’re gonna hear a lot of Stone Roses influence. You’re gonna hear a lot of Happy Mondays a little bit, I think. And it really was kind of some a young band that was building off of what they had grown up with. You know, the madchester scene shoegaze a little bit, and it wasn’t really received all that well.
That was kind of there were bands are already doing that. They’re already doing it better. I think some of those scenes had started to peter out a little bit. And then, you know, if you know music history, some things happened in 1991. Things were changing in 1991.
The UK was not at all, immune to the music that was coming over from the US. And so this album kinda got released into a maelstrom of grunge coming over from the US. And I don’t think that the record label was pleased. I don’t think that the band was necessarily pleased with how it went. So fast forward a year or 2 and they record, Modern Life is Rubbish.
That is an album that was really meant to be kind of a rejection of what they were hearing coming from America. They didn’t want to be a grunge band. They didn’t want to be a band that sounded American. They wanted to be British and so they decided to lean really really hard into that. You know, they really wanted their their British roots to come out, but in a way that wasn’t necessarily tied to like the recency of the Manchester scene.
They wanted it to go all the way back from the Beatles all the way through, and to kind of redefine what British music was. And I’m not saying that they were, like, sitting around saying to themselves, oh, hey. We need to redefine what, you know, British music was. I don’t think it was quite that conscious, but it was certainly a conscious effort to be proud of where they were from and to make an album that was, inherently British if for lack of a better word. So Modern Life is Rubbish comes out in May of 1993.
You know, it doesn’t have these massive hits on it. It has Chemical World which was my actual introduction to Blur and I think an excellent introduction to where they were headed with what they were gonna do. It’s got for tomorrow which was one of those famous songs that’s recorded like after they’d already turned the tapes into the record label and the label comes back and they say, I don’t I don’t hear a hit and so they have to go back and and record a song, but it it works out pretty well for them. It it is successful. It is a great track.
You know, most importantly, this is an album that, a year before Oasis would even, you know, put out their debut, Blur was basically kind of planting their flag and saying this is where we wanna go with our career. This is where we wanna go with our sound, and we hope you like it, but if you don’t, tough. You know, and that led to, a relatively successful album and the record label not dropping them which was kind of the threat that they were under. And so they were able to record Park Life which was released in April of 1994, And Parklife is is a landmark album in Britpop. This is where everything starts to come together for them commercially.
This is where everything starts to come together for them artistically. And, it’s also where I think the average Americans view of Blur starts to really diverge from the average British person’s view of of Blur because in the US, you probably heard girls and boys and that may have been it. It was a relatively big single on the alternative charts in the US. It wasn’t particularly representative of what they did or what they do or what they were capable of, but it was, you know, a good song. It was a sing along chant kind of song.
I don’t think it’s even one of the top 5 best songs on Parklife. And I think if you go back and listen to songs like end of a century. If you listen to to the end, if you listen to this is a low. This is a band that is doing chamber pop. They’re doing orchestral arrangements.
They’re going super slow. They’re going fast. They’re going all over the place. Like, this album has a pastiche of of amazing touch points in British music. Park Life, the the actual album, title track is as British a song as you are ever gonna find.
It was one that Damon didn’t even feel comfortable doing the, verses too. He didn’t feel like he was really getting across, like, the feeling of British Parklife which Parklife is is basically, British link for suburban life. So like living in the suburbs, but but UK style. So they found, Phil Daniels who’s a who’s an actor and a famous comedian in in the UK to perform that part. It’s an album that I just I think you have to dig deeper.
You have to go back and listen to the some of those songs I mentioned to really get a feel for where they were going and why they got seen as rivals to Oasis, which is what starts to happen now. Definitely maybe comes out in August of 1994. So just a couple months after Parklife, Oasis comes out with, again, possibly one of the best albums in in UK history. It’s an amazing debut albums, I should say. You know, I have nothing bad to say about Oasis and and as a as a huge Blur fan that’s like this weird, you know, Rolling Stone versus the the Beatles thing.
I don’t think that I don’t think it’s relevant to talk about that a lot in in in the scope of artistic achievement or music, but it is relative to what happened, you know, with the release of the next album and kind of what happened to Blur’s reputation. Because Oasis gets seen as like the working class heroes. Blur gets seen as like the the kids from the suburb, the posh kids from the suburb. And I think it affects the way they approach the next album, which is the great escape, which comes out in sem September of 1995. The first single comes out on the exact same day as the first single from Oasis’ for, next album.
What’s the story morning glory, country house versus roll with it. It was this big thing that they were gonna come out on the same day. Who was gonna win the battle of Britpop? Blur actually ends up winning that particular battle. They famously lost the war.
Oasis, I mean, their albums in the US were massive. They sold millions and millions of copies and Blurb never, you know, achieved that over here. But again, if you go back and listen to The Great Escape and you listen to even Country House, which is the first single, it’s a silly song, It’s fun. It’s very humorous, but musically is, like, super complex. It has a lot going on.
But then there’s Universal. There’s Charmless Man. There’s Stereotypes. The album is pretty deep with some really interesting, and to my ear, more complex stuff than what Oasis was doing. And I don’t even think this would be a conversation, ex if it wasn’t for the fact that Oasis wrote some of the most amazing pop songs you will ever hear.
I don’t think that they were really stretching the limits of production or experimentation in terms of, like, musical styles or whatever. Oasis wasn’t known for that. Blur, on the other hand, I don’t think it’s nearly enough credit for the amount of experimentation that they would do. And I think you would go on to see that with what Damon Albarn did with Gorillaz. Like, he was full of ideas.
Ultimately, I think that that’s more interesting. You know, if you wanted someone to write a pop song that people are gonna sing for the next 30 years, and you can go to an arena and a 100000 people are gonna be singing it back to you, you’re probably gonna go to Noel Gallagher. You’re probably gonna want an Oasis song. But for my money going back and listening to each of these albums, I would rather go back and listen to a Blur album because I think it’s more interesting. I think they’re taking more chances.
And I think that there’s music that just wasn’t necessarily going to be a hit, particularly in the US that is is really worthwhile. By the time this whole Britpop battle, you know, kinda starts to wrap up, Damon Albarn is is not coming off well. I think in the media, he’s feeling that kind of pressure. His bandmates are are feeling the pressure as well. And ironically, they decide to kind of come full circle and do what they were trying not to do early on in their career, which was embrace American music.
But in this case, not so much grunge, but indie rock and lo fi. And that’s what Graham Coxon is really into. And and that is what is a becoming Blur that comes out in the the self titled album that comes out in February of 97. For my money, probably the best Blur album front to back. It’s certainly different from the other 3, and I think you can’t really fully enjoy Blur till you really go back and kinda listen to the more anglicized stuff as they say, you know, the the albums that came before it.
But if you only had to listen to 1, you know, front to back, for my money, it’s the self titled album. It’s a a fantastic melding of what they were doing, the melodies, the, complexity of some of their arrangements, but taking the elements of, like, lo fi American rock and picking up guitars a little bit more and really, you know, cranking them up and and seeing what happens when you make a lot of noise and make this this really ugly yet oddly sonically beautiful album in my opinion. I think they they figured out a way to do stuff that sounded really gritty and sounded really lo fi, but yet was kinda lush, which is an interesting combination. And so I think, you know, the the 4 album run to me is like this story. It’s a really cool story arc for a band that puts out their their first album and doesn’t really know what direction they wanna take.
They decide to lean into who they are and be true to what they think they wanna do with music. Make 3 albums where they do exactly that, and all 3 of them get better and better and better. And I think get more interesting and more experimental. And then flip everything on its head and come back with possibly their best album by embracing everything they were kinda trying to run away from initially. You know, I think it’s a really cool story arc and I think, it’s 4 albums that that stand up really great front to back.
It’s I think it’s interesting that you mentioned at one point in there comparing the kind of the oasis and Blur rivalry to, the Stones and Beatles from a generation earlier, also a thought that I had had myself. And what I always say, and first off, I let me say that I’m not trying to con, to say that Oasis and Blur are the equal of the Stones and the Beatles. By no means, do I believe that. But I think there’s a similar dynamic in that when asked that particular question for me, the Stones are a great rock band, maybe the best rock band of all time. The Beatles are just a great band.
It wasn’t just rock. They did like you talked about with Blur, the some chamber pop and orchestral arrangements and just all kinds of stuff. The Beatles were wildly experimental. And I think there’s a real, analogy there to what was going on with Oasis and Blur and that Oasis was a great plug in and play rock band but they were nowhere near as experimental and varied in their output as Blur was. So I think there’s kind of a neat little parallel there.
Again, not saying the 2 more recent bands are are the equal of the other 2, but I do think that there’s a parallel in the kind of the way the rivalry there worked out. Yeah. I think you hit it right on the head and I kinda wanted to get there with that. And and again, not as a nocturnalasis, but they I think they wanted to be the successors to the Beatles. They wanted, you know, to for people to kinda see them as the the heirs to that throne.
And again, in terms of just writing amazing pop songs, absolutely, you know, they are some of my favorite songs. They’re they’re they’re fantastic. But in my opinion, if you’re drawing a line from family tree of of of British rock, the Beatles line skews a lot more towards the Blur than it does Oasis, in my opinion, because of what you were saying. They were doing what the Beatles were doing. How can we make all these different kinds of music?
How can we go in the studio and experiment and come out with an album that that’s all over the map and yet still sounds cohesive. Something the Beatles were fantastic at. I think, you know, to piggyback what what Keith said a little bit, I think, you know, the reason we’re here is because of college radio and alternative music and things like that. We are people that like to be challenged a little bit when it comes to music. You know?
If if I wasn’t that way, I’d be in an arena singing Don’t Stop Believing right now, but I’m I’m not because I like my music a little more challenging. And I think that’s what kinda what you’re talking about. You know, the Stones were a straight up rock and roll band. The Beatles were more experimental, trying some more interesting things, and I think that’s a nice comparison to Oasis and Blur. Oasis, like you said, wants to fill arenas and and have you bumping your fist to that song we all know.
I think Blur is interested in doing much more interesting things than that. And you’ll see it throughout the history of of rock music, you know, that will cost you mega fame. But at the end of the day, I think it might be more satisfying to do. I don’t know. I’m sure Oasis is happy with their Latin life, but I, They’re doing they’re doing alright.
Yeah. They they’ll be alright. It’s just kind of that thing where you you want to see a band try something different, try something a little harder. Don’t just crank out the the catchy pop songs over and over and over again. And that option is going to get you way more fans, but I would rather hear the other band, honestly, you know.
And I’ll admit for me, Blur is a little bit of a blind spot. I I knew you were doing them today, so I listened to some stuff. And I have to say, that’s a a band that I personally have vastly underappreciated over the years. I I think they are much better than I ever gave them credit for. I think that’s endemic to to the US in general.
I think you probably know song 2, if you know it’s Blur. You know the song. You you maybe know girls and boys if you were in the club scene or were like our age, you know, when it came out. And that’s about it. And it’s a shame.
I mean, unless you’re listening to college radio and you’re seeking out that type of music, Blur is not gonna have, you know, a bunch of songs on on top 40 radio like Oasis is because of of the challenge of playing a chamber pop song on top 40, you know, that you’re not gonna hear that. You’re not gonna hear this is a low. You’re not gonna hear to the end on on the top 40 station in the US, which is unfortunate. But, yeah, before we start talking about Blur or stop talking about Blur, I should say, I definitely wanna advocate for Parklife. I know you said that you thought the self title album was their best.
For my money, Parklife by far is their best. I love Parklife. Lots and lots of great songs. We mentioned a bunch of them. We didn’t mention Tracy Jacks which is one of my all time favorite Blur songs which is kind of the the slice slice of life of suburbia or Parklife, story that’s in the middle, of that album or I actually like to say in the middle I think it’s the second or third track.
That’s always been one of my absolute favorite Blur songs and the funny thing is is I didn’t really associate it with the kind of the larger theme of the album about the Parklife or the suburban life. I’ve just always kind of taken it on its own merits, but it does fit that theme really well. But yes, so many so many good songs on Parklife. So, I will advocate for that one if you’re gonna check out a second Blur album after the self titled record, make it Parklife. Absolutely.
Yeah. Parklife is great. The other thing we we haven’t really talked about, but Tracy Jacks is a good, entry into that is the slice of life stuff that Blur does throughout these albums. Tracy Jacks is 1, Parklife is 1, Country House is 1 where he’s talking about, you know, the guy who has enough money to go blow until he goes and buys the country house to try to get away from the city. Charmless man is a slice of life about, you know, the guy, the famous line educated the expensive way, you know, but just like a complete glad handing jackass basically, you know, till he charmless.
He his ability to write those kinds of those kinda character study songs is kinda unmatched in terms of, like, pop music of that era. I think I I don’t know of a lot of bands that have that many songs that are just, like, painting a a very specific kind of character. And they’re all very British characters, so they may not be as familiar to us in terms of some of the, you know, the language he uses or some of the phrases he uses or some of the slang he uses to describe these people. But having gotten to know a little bit more about UK culture, like, he’s he’s writing some really biting things about these people, you know. This is some some very biting criticism about these people.
And it’s just another nice touch to some of the to some of the albums. Guys, we’ve gone through 3 great artists and 4, album runs for each. I think there’s not a lot to argue, but I bet people will be more than happy to in our comments, and I hope they do. So we’re on social media, we have a website, 35,000 watts.com. You can go to the click on podcast or go to slash podcast.
We have a feedback form, so you can tell us all the reasons we were wrong, all the albums we should have mentioned, all the artists that how could we possibly have forgotten. I would say we might come back and do this again. I think there’s other artists that that deserve this kind of treatment. Maybe we shift the time frame a little bit. I know there’s some artists that were in like the early 2000 that I probably would have chosen had we had we gone with that time frame.
So, let us know in social media. We have a movie. It’s called 35,000 Watts. It is the story of college radio. It’s available for download now, also on the website.
Keith Porterfield, Scott Mobley, thank you for joining me today. It was a super fun discussion and hopefully we’ll have you guys back soon on 35,000 watts, the podcast.
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