Youtube Killed the Video Star

I don't blog here any more. Let me get that out of the way from the start. Not that anyone who reads this will care, but just in case someone, somewhere, stumbles on this post. I write now here and here. I don't have any moral reasons why I don't use Blogger any more, I just find that Wordpress is a better blogging platform, and find that Tumblr is well suited to posts based around pictures.

Anyway.

Mez recently wrote about her favourite music videos, and I wanted to reciprocate. The only trouble was, such a post as this wasn't suited to either of those blogs, so it's getting written here instead.

I wrote in comments over on that post that, growing up, my family didn't have satellite TV so I didn't have access to MTV and VH1, and with them a lot of music videos. My taste in music was limited to what I was exposed to, and music videos were hard to come by.

That said, with access to the internet since my late teenage years I have tried to go back and find videos -- when it occurs to me -- for my favourite songs.

In no particular order:

It's an uncomfortable truth for a lot of people, but I always like Hole better than Nirvana. 

Hole were more than just Courtney Love. Eric Erlandson was (and, probably, still is) a brilliant song writer and this album also drew on the talents of people including Billy Corgan and Linda Perry. For some, this album wasn't as good as the raw grunge of Live Through This, but for me it was an album of its time: to make another album exactly the same would have sounded ridiculous. Celebrity Skin was a great song, with some typical Hole-lyrics ("Cinderella they aren't sluts like you") and harmonies from Melissa Auf der Maur. The video makes the song even better.   

The video brings together all the best parts of the song.

Celebrity Skin, Hole

I have issues with both Hole and Smashing Pumpkins these days, since the failed solo careers of Courtney Love and Billy Corgan encouraged them to restart their old bands, but leaving out some critical members. I was OK with the Smashing Pumpkins relaunch (mostly) while it involved Jimmy Chamberlain, since it was his powerhouse drumming that gave them such a distinctive sound.

Band politics aside, there are many great videos for the Pumpkins. Do you choose the videos where the talented Mr Corgan still has hair, or the later almost Addams Family stylings of the (pretty lousy) album "Adore"? The obvious choice is the middle ground. "Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness", as an album, was flawed for me -- it showed a lack of self awareness to make an overblown double album. But it still had some incredible songs on it: "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" being one of them. The video suits the song perfectly.

Bullet with Butterfly Wings, Smashing Pumpkins

Perhaps my all-time favourite band The Pixies are largely a mystery to me in terms of videos: a band that I have to go back into their catalogue to see what, if any videos, they made. 

The important thing with all my favourite bands is obviously the music first, and I tell people that The Pixies invented music (before them it was just tuning up). While that's not strictly true, they did more or less invent the alternative rock style we now take for granted with bands like Nirvana and Foo Fighters. It's well known that Nirvana's seminal "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was described by Dave Grohl at the time as a "Pixies rip off" and I've read amusing interviews with Grohl since were clueless journos ask him how he came up with Foo Fighters groundbreaking quiet-LOUD-quiet style, and he explains how the Pixies were doing it first in the '80s.

"Here Comes Your Man" might not have Frank Black's (or Black Francis) trademark screaming, but it is a classic song for them and one often mistakenly played on '90s radio stations (since it was released in the '80s). It also has a video fairly typical of the time: it's hard to tell now if it was meant to be a joke, because it's pretty bad. And that's what makes it good -- The Pixies were never about image for me. Or themselves, it seems.

Here Comes Your Man, Pixies

Yes, yes. Soundgarden. Chris Cornell is a rock god. Other than making misguided albums with Timbaland, he can do very little wrong. And even when he does, you just have to say the magic words "Temple of the Dog" and all is forgiven. 

Mez already featured Black Hole Sun on her blog, so I'm going with something different. Rusty Cage. Another fantastic song from the time period, and another awful video so typical of that period. So bad it's now good.

Rusty Cage, Soundgarden

Pearl Jam. Where would we be without the big PJ? Eddie Vedder is about as close as we come to a messiah. 

Pearl Jam also famously stopped making videos after "Jeremy" -- and that was a very long time ago. Many albums later, some good, some less good, but with some stand out songs, personal tragedies and amazing shows along the way, this video got made for "Do the Evolution". 

I don't know what the story with it is, whether Pearl Jam made it, whether it was independent and then officially accepted, or whether it remains unofficial. Either way, this song is a blazing powerhouse of a song and it is made all the better with such an emotional video.

Do The Evolution, Pearl Jam

A band you rarely hear mentioned alongside these greats is one from the city of Bradford in West Yorkshire. 

Terrorvision always had an uneasy relationship with success -- not that they didn't like it, but as they once put it, it would sort of come and go. Most albums would have a stand-out single and do quite well, but there was also usually several years between albums, and the momentum would fade. 

The band found fame with their song "Oblivion" featuring a distinctive, catchy doo-wap hook, but the album it came from was also responsible for some of their heaviest songs. By far one of their best -- and heaviest -- songs combines one of the best videos. 

Alice, What's the Matter is dark and almost surrealist, but compulsive viewing -- just like the song is compulsive listening.

Alice What's the Matter, Terrorvision

Keeping things surreal are Eels. From the album Electro shock Blues -- full of autobiographical songs about death and bereavement came "Last Stop This Town", it's beautiful and sad, and it sticks in your head. 

It is accompanied by a video featuring anthropomorphic genetically modified vegetables. It makes no sense, has nothing to do with the song, but it is doubtlessly brilliant.

Last Stop This Town, Eels

I love the White Stripes. Love them. I loved how every album was different to the last, without them having to do interviews everywhere saying "we're reinventing ourselves!!" -- mainly because they weren't reinventing anything. They were doing what they always did, which was be consistently surprising. I loved their raw, stripped down sound. I loved the weird dynamic between Jack and Meg. And most of all, I love the song Hotel Yorba. 

You might watch this video, and think "So what?" but it's good because it fits the song so well. It's not showy, it's just raw, and simple, and perfect.

Hotel Yorba, White Stripes

Our Lady Peace are criminally overlooked outside of the North American continent. I saw them play in London last year at the Canada Day celebrations, and then the next night in a very small venue. I sometimes try and request their songs on the radio, without success. I just don't understand they aren't better known here. But that's besides the point. 

"Superman's Dead" was the first song by the band that I heard, and remains one of my favourites. I think the video is typical of the time: it seems to have nothing to do with the song itself, but is interesting to watch. 

And as a fun fact, there's a slightly different version made for the USA: apparently the clown-type people were too scary, so that footage is removed. 

Another fun fact: I almost posted about the song "One Man Army" which I also like, and has another strange, unrelated video. The video is widely regarded by fans and the band themselves as one of the worst ever made. I decided instead to go with a "good" one.

Superman's Dead, Our Lady Peace

Radiohead are a surprise inclusion, because if I had to list my top 10 bands they probably wouldn't make the list. Like a lot of people, I stopped listening after "OK Computer" and while I'm told some of their more recent stuff has got a lot better, I haven't really come back to them. But this is both a fantastic song and a famous video. The video is a short film (by a filmmaker whose name I don't know, or remember) and the usual footage of band playing that you get in almost every video, ever. The short (silent) film is incredibly powerful, and I've seen fans having animated discussions on forums about what the man says at the end -- to the point where they were practically beseeching anyone who could read lips to reveal the secret. I wanted to shout at them and explain it's not real, it's just a story, there's no big secret that "explains" everything. And for the record, it's pretty easy to tell from the man's lips that all he says is "I'll you what's wrong, I'll tell you what's wrong". And I only just noticed today, the short film is filmed in London -- even though the motorcycle cop seems to be American, I recognise Liverpool Street station anywhere.

Just, Radiohead

Velvet Revolver were from that weird Noughties time of supergroups -- Chris Cornell was rocking out with Audioslave, and Scott Weiland had got together with the best musicians from Guns N' Roses to make Velvet Revolver. 

This was a particularly good move, as when they performed live Scott could join  them in covers of GNR songs and improve on the originals.

Slither was their first song, and set a very high bar -- one that, for me, they never quite reached again. What Scott Weiland is playing at now is the same old story, it seems, and it's a shame. But this song -- and the accompanying video, set in the catacombs of Paris -- is still brilliant.

Slither, Velvet Revolver

That old factory sense

Following a conversation over lunch with her colleagues, the girl asked me the other night what my favourite smells were.

I consider scent to be one of the most under-rated senses -- you might consider not being able to live without hearing, or a life lived without sight, but rarely is a thought given to our sense of smell.  Which is funny, because it reportedly has the strongest link to memory recall.

I remember the time I spent in New York -- ten years ago this year, as it happens -- and how I later came to think of Manhatten as a city of smells.  I had a theory that you could navigate the city blind, going only by the unique smells individual blocks or streets had.  One street always had a guy selling roasted chestnuts, another place smelled like blocked drains, somewhere else might have smelled like fresh bread, yet another of steam from the subway.  I wonder now what I might remember from those days and nights, if I was just given the smells -- if the jazz club in an underground disused meat locker might have had a particular smell of sweat and candles, or what the sheets in the hostel smelled like.

I struggle to name five of my favourite smells, without resorting to cliche -- like the smell of fresh baked bread, or newly-mown grass.  But even those have strong memories attached to them, of walking past the supermarket every morning on the way to school, and on cold, frosty mornings feeling warmed by the smell of bread as it came out the vents of the shop's bakery.  Or summer Saturday afternoons when the grass had been cut...

It's strange in a way how we can't smell ourselves.  I know that I must have a distinct smell, the combination of my deodorant and aftershave mixed with whatever makes me smell like myself, but I wouldn't recognise it.  I'm always slightly surprised when someobody notices my aftershave, comments on it, or even can name it.

I came across a smell earlier I had forgotten about, and forgotten the memories of.  As I poured what was left of a forgotten glass of beer down the sink, it foamed up around the plughole, and I smiled as I remembered weekends when my Dad would pull the sofa in front of the tv to watch West Ham play football -- and the big glass mugs of beer he would have.  Sometimes as a kid he would let me take a sip, or I would just smell it and get the foam on my nose.  In years to come, what smells will remind me of here, and now?

And as ever, I turn it over to whoever may be reading -- what are your favourite smells?  And what stories do they tell?  Do you ever smell something and recall something you didn't even realise you had forgotten?  Tell me everything.

Musical Monday #32

In 1994, I was 13 years old. What was on my mind at age 16, what was important in my life, what made me happy and what worried me -- all of this is largely forgotten to me now. I guess music was important to me, and girls. So what else is new.

In April of 1994, on the day Kurt Cobain died, I was walking to school with a friend, just like any other day. He told me Cobain was dead, and I didn't know who it was. I'm not cool enough to say that I was a huge fan and had a candle-lit vigil for him. My friend told me Cobain was "the guitarist" for a band called Nirvana. This meant nothing more to me than it had done a few moments before. Had I heard of them? Probably, yes. Had I heard anything by them? Unlikely.

I was 16 when I did.

My friend John and I had formed a band. Just the two of us. We could barely play, but we wanted a drummer. We recruited this obnoxious half-wit called Tim, who had a lot of power and strength but no natural flair or subtlety. What he did bring to the band was Nirvana. He liked them, we didn't know them. Over the summer, he lent John a couple of VHS recordings from MTV, of Nirvana Unplugged and Nirvana, Live and Loud. John also copied a Nirvana album from a cousin he had. A casette copy of a copy of a copy.

I take some music snobbery pride in knowing this album and the first material I ever heard by Nirvana was their debut album, Bleach. It sounded dark and dirty, grunge was the made-up genre used to describe their style, and the word seemed fitting. Detuned guitars and a sound like aural sludge. It was unlike anything I'd ever heard. Gone were the guitar solos of Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses, the theatrics and the pomposity.

We listened to it all, I'd watch Unplugged over breakfast, with my cornflakes.

Bleach was fucked up, Nevermind the difficult second album that the original fans felt was a sell-out, In Utero was my favourite at the time -- with better production than the debut, and less radio-friendly than the follow-up.

At that age, Cobain's untimely death at 27 seemed a world away. I could objectively acknowledge that he had "died young", but at the same time 27 was adult, grown up. He had a wife, and a child, and I won't give any oxygen to the claims of conspiracy and murder, because I don't much care.

Today I turned 28, having outlived Cobain, along with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Brian Jones -- not mention various others. He doesn't seem so fully grown to me any more.

I have more or less grown out of listening to Nirvana, in time. The rage and angst of their music got a little old, although I still like to dig out their albums from time to time, and still roll my eyes at commercial stations playing the listener-friendly In Bloom, or Smells Like Teen Spirit, the latter being every bit the Pixies rip off that Nirvana said it was.

Heart Shaped Box

Letter boxes

In some kind of attempt to tidy my room today, I sat on my bedroom floor with a shoebox filled with old letters. The box has become over-full and wasn't really doing a very good job of containing these various missives. Since I've recently bought some new shoes, I decided that all my postcards will get a box of their own and I would have a quick sift through the letters I have -- just to see if there are any that don't need to be kept.

It's a very strange feeling revisiting the past by way of old letters. It's like a form of archaeology, digging through the layers and discovering details about how a life was lead.

There were all the letters I received from Kath over the years -- from the very first pages she wrote to me when I advertised for a penpal, letters written on coloured paper and in colourful envelopes. Song lyrics written on the back of envelopes or heading the tops of pages. I didn't read the letters again, although sometimes I would have to unfold pages to see who the letter was from. There was pictures from festivals, pictures of nights in pubs. I found a small pack of black and white photographs, dating back to the time I stayed with her for a weekend when I was 17. Old pictures of Manchester, pictures of people sat on the grass in the sun. I've considered throwing away all of these letters from Kath before -- we've previously fallen out and even though our differences were resolved we've grown apart. I could find her online on things like Facebook and MySpace, but we aren't friends. Just the same, I keep the letters. I found a small piece of paper, folded like a card. What year it was I don't know, but it was a makeshift valentie's card from Kath "just in case" I didn't get one.

I found a couple of cards from a girl named Jo I knew at school when I was 18. There was a card she gave me when I left for uni, and I could remember feeling sad reading it at the time -- that she was clearly sad I was going away and she would miss me, and for a second no time had passed and I was still there. I found another card and a short letter she had sent me at university. I guess we eventually dropped out of contact, I've no idea where she is any more.

Going up through the layers to the years I was at university there were various letters from Fi, filled with romantic sentiments and longing. I was struck now by how young she was then. I was young myself, only 18 and in my first year at university -- envelopes addressed to my rooms in halls in Derby. There's been times since when I've been in Derby and I have stood in the street outside my old halls of residence and looked up at what had been my bedroom. I can only spot my room from the first year, but if I stood in the street at the back of the building I could also see the kitchen we shared. I could remember how together we covered almost an entire wall of the kitchen with postcards, the same walls now blank. I had letters from Fi talking about plans for New Year's Eve in 1999, and postcards sent when she was on holiday in France. Even later, there were letters sent to me in Utah. Much fewer letters than the early ones.
I know in the end I broke her heart, but at least we're still friends.

I found a single page of a letter from my Mum when I was in Utah. I couldn't find any more than the end of the letter, where she was asking me what I did with my time in the evenings and at weekends and if I saw any of the boys I had travelled out with.

It's a very strange feeling to find old birthday cards or cards of congratulations on passing my exams and going to university from now-deceased relatives or family friends. Even this year I got a birthday card that my aunt had apparently bought for me before she died, she knew she wouldn't still be here but she had selected cards to be sent just the same.

Here and there were scruffy letters from Jon sent to me at university, just short notes in his illegible writing that he'd include with compilation tapes he sent me.

After the letters in Utah there comes new contacts. Smart envelopes containing cards and written in San's neat script, correspondence between us at our universities and our homes. The smell of the paper reminding me of the musty passageway at my house in Derby, between the front door of the house and a door to the street. The way the door clattered when you slammed it shut, the smell of Rie's cigarettes.

There was a card I didn't recognise, sent to a university halls address. I had to look at the return address on the envelope to see it was from a girl named Amelia that Rie was friends with in Utah, we'd met twice or something and Rie had told her I had a crush on her. We had a very brief correspondence for a short while when I'd come back, but as these things went the gaps got longer and longer until one of us didn't reply. But this card was sent later. This was from the summer of my final year, after all of Matt and Rie's fighting and I'd had a bit of a breakdown and stayed in Derby for the summer to write my dissertation. We'd all moved out of the house, and I'd taken a room in halls for the summer. This card I don't remember ever seeing before was from Amelia, telling me to hang in there, not to give up on myself. I was touched by the sentiment, that although we barely knew each other she was clearly a little worried about me. If it wasn't for the fact the envelope was open, I'd wonder if I had ever read the card before.

Later there was a postcard from Rie of a Van Gogh print -- commenting on the back that it was a safer card this time -- since she once sent to my home a postcard of a half-naked fireman, and pretended it was from a gay lover. My parents had freaked, and I still don't think they really believe me that there really wasn't any gay lover.

That still takes us back almost 5 years now. More recently there are packages sent from Australia, large padded envelopes and neatly written letters tucked inside, sent from cities and streets I've never known. There's Christmas cards and birthday cards, postcards from all over the world -- the postcards now living in a narrow converse shoebox, cards sent by San when she was studying in the USA, Postcrossing missives from around the world, cards sent by various friends who know how I love the pictures and the dreams they offer.

Only a very small pile of letters and cards didn't make the grade. Almost everything went back into the box, still pushing at the lid. All the letters and memories to be kept for other days, and joined by more.