Been a while since I posted one of these, so, by way of making up for lost time, not two but three songs cut from the same title cloth. And what very different sounding songs these three are indeed.
First up, from their 1990 debut album, Pod, a record cited by Kurt Cobain as being one of his favourites (“The main reason I like [the Breeders] is for their songs, for the way they structure them, which is totally unique, very atmospheric. I wish Kim was allowed to write more songs for the Pixies, because ‘Gigantic‘ is the best Pixies song, and Kim wrote it.” He has a point…), here’s rock’n’roll’s Kim Deal (her twin sister Kelley had not joined at this point), Tanya Donnelly, Josephine Wiggs and Britt Walford (the latter recording under the pseudonym Shannon Doughton for some reason):
Well, that’s got the day off to a cheery start, hasn’t it?
No fear, for the second track with the same name is from one of my favourite albums ever, and by a band who I really should post more of sometime.
See, hailing from Bristol long before hailing from Bristol was cool, The Brilliant Corners were one of the…erm…corner stones of my evolution into a fully-fledged Indie Kid. Literate and erudite, telling desperately sad stories of failed and failing relationships, singer Davey Woodward’s delivery mostly monotone, bordering on flat, set to a background of mostly jingly-jangly guitars, it would be oh-so-easy to make comparisons with a certain other band from Manchester. You know who I mean.
But in 1988, they released an album, Somebody Up There Likes Me, where they did something that ‘other’ band would never dare to do: they introduced a brass section. The result is a wonderful album which I own on vinyl having bought it back in the day and which still gets a spin every now and again, over thirty years later, and I still love it; twelve songs, pretty much all of them sounding upbeat and covered in horns, until you listen a little closer and realise the often mournful content of Woodward’s lyrics.
This, the closing track from Side One, is a case in point:
I sense a post featuring more from that album on the horizon.
And finally, to the third song of your trio, and this is much newer, having only been released in July 2021, so no mp3 links for this one; you should go stream or preferably buy it. Hailing from Los Angeles, these are The Linda Lindas and they need to be played loud:
That’s pretty darn fantastic in my book.
You can stream & download it here.
More soon.
A History of Dubious Taste 