Clap your hands say yeah
I thought rock was dead. I thought the likes of U2 had squeezed the life out of it, and now the only way to go was out into the wastelands of Godspeed or Mogwai. Yes, there are ravens who feast on the corpse: I'll listen to Interpol, for instance, and you could just about claim Hard-Fi are rock, but nearly all rock now is either inexpressably dreary (hello Bonio), boringly monolithic (most heavy rock) or achingly retro, and almost all plain rubbish. I find myself buying ever more older stuff, filling in the gaps in my collection with the good records of yesteryear. Perhaps, I began to worry, I've just grown out of it.But it isn't dead at all. There is still something out there that enlivens, makes you want to jump up and kick down the statues, smash the state and, erm, okay, okay, clap your hands and say yeah.
If you can imagine a psychotic David Byrne trying to reach notes at least half an octave beyond his range, backed by the Violent Femmes out of their minds on dope and speed, you're imagining Clap Your Hands and you're thinking, if you love music, I have to have that. And you do. If you don't have it, you won't hear the careening brilliance of Skin of my yellow country teeth, which is powerful and unhinged, or the fierce antiwar rhetoric of Upon this tidal wave of young blood, you won't be charmed by the demented loveliness of Alec Ounsworth's vision, the drive of the music, the twinkling melodies, the sheer joy it embodies. You won't hear the first fresh rock since the Pixies -- yes, it's that good. This is what rock is supposed to be and while I have this record on, rock lives and breathes just as fiercely as it did when Bill Haley rocked around the clock and kids everywhere first had anthems for their days.
posted by Dr Zen @ 2:50 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home