Talk Talk: April 5th

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[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]
[Read Alan McGee's Blog Post about Talk Talk]
[Read My Special on Talk Talk]

Why's This Bus Taking Me Back Again?

Writing in The Guardian, Alan McGee thinks we should give Ride their due:

With the resurgence of shoegaze - or nu-gaze - and Panda Bear, Animal Collective, Deerhunter and No Age all referencing them as an influence in interviews, I feel it's time to look back at one of the all-time underrated Creation bands, Ride.

In '91, Ride had the critical and commercial world at their feet. Their full-length debut Nowhere marked them out as teenage saviours of rock'n'roll. The Nowhere cover pictured an ocean wave, a knowing tribute to the wall of sound they were creating. And what a wall of sound: Andy Bell and Mark Gardener's guitars and harmonies underpinned by Steve Queralt and Loz Colbert's eight-mile-high bass-and-drum dance groove.

Nowhere fused Byrds and Sonic Youth influences with the exuberant spirit of their contemporaries, the Stone Roses and the House of Love. It epitomised the feeling that something was happening in independent music beyond twee C86 and third form baggy. However, by the time they released the follow-up, Going Blank Again (an album that originally had the title of Prog Rock), a year later, they were up against it. Critics accused them of having nothing to say. Their influence had spread - now they were competing with a hundred shambolic versions of themselves. Despite this, they triumphed with the lead-off single which went to the top ten - the first Creation single to do so. Leave Them All Behind was no longer the sound of shoegaze but full-blown psychedelic stadium rock. Their second single, Twisteralla, was played non-stop on Radio One. Going Blank Again demonstrated how powerful a group Ride had become. The sound they explored on Nowhere had coalesced into classic songs. The album's success kept Creation Records going during the My Bloody Valentine aftermath. Their sound was a revelation.

[Read the whole article]

Listen to "Twisterella":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Wiki]
[Read my piece on Ride from "Creation Week"]

What will the new Wes Anderson sound like?

Alan McGee writes in the Guardian:

The release of the trailer for the new Wes Anderson film, The Darjeeling Limited has set tongues wagging about what he's going to do with the soundtrack: Who will be on it? What will be the theme? Is he going to use Mark Mothersbaugh, lead singer with Devo and all-round genius to compose the score?

Whatever the answers to these pressing questions, the discussion around the next Wes Anderson soundtrack makes me reflect on the terrible fate that has befallen pop soundtracks. The golden era was in the late 60s to the mid 70s; think Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate and Easy Rider through to Shaft and Superfly. When you put the record on, you're transported straight back in to the world of the film.

Then soundtracks lost the plot. I remember purchasing Batman Returns because of Mazzy Star's inclusion on the album. The liner notes said that the song was there because it provided "inspiration" but didn't actually feature in the film. When did soundtracks become clearing houses for music publishers and tools for marketing men? It would seem the great days have passed us by, leaving us with bargain bins of nu-metal guy rock "inspired by" superhero movies.

While promoting The Life Aquatic, Anderson talked about his favourite soundtracks: Mean Streets, Toby Dammit (the third movie of Fellini's Spirits of the Dead trilogy), The Graduate, Harold and Maude and Woody Allen's films. Yet it seems that Anderson didn't fully realise the importance of a soundtrack to his own work until his first film Bottle Rocket was released to a terrible reception. It was pulled and he was told to retake the film with music, a fortunate move as it began the partnership between Anderson, Randall Poster (an infamous synth guy) and Mark Mothersbaugh.

The partnership of Anderson and Mothersbaugh is comparable to Fellini and Nino Rota, both in the symbiotic way the partnerships work and the spacey, kitschy sounds they often employ. However, it's Harold and Maude and The Graduate that both used pop music to demonstrate the deepening alienation of the main characters - who could forget Benjamin's ennui and despair set to Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair?

[Read the whole post]

Listen to "This Time Tomorrow" by The Kinks:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Movie Wiki]

"The Darjeeling Limited" Trailer: