{"id":1105,"date":"2006-07-06T14:42:57","date_gmt":"2006-07-06T18:42:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cleek.lunarpages.com\/blogs\/?p=1105"},"modified":"2006-07-06T14:42:57","modified_gmt":"2006-07-06T18:42:57","slug":"this-record-changed-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/?p=1105","title":{"rendered":"This record changed my life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Skot, at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.izzlepfaff.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/06\/are_you_receiving_me.php#005039\">Izzle Pfaff<\/a>, it was XTC's <i>Skylarking<\/i>. For <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snarkout.org\/announce\/002174.html\">Snarkout<\/a>, it was SuperChunk's <i>No Pocky For Kitty<\/i><sup>*<\/sup>. Bernard Sumner, from Joy Division and New Order has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spin.com\/features\/magazine\/2005\/07\/0507_bernard\/\">whole list<\/a> of them, as does Robert Pollard of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gbv.com\/spin2004records.html\">Guided By Voices<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p>For me, it was The Cure's <i>Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me<\/i>. <\/p>\n<p>Up until I heard that record, I was pretty much into Metal; and metal was quickly turning into Hair Metal. But, just in time, the new kid showed up at our high school and turned me onto this album. The first thing it did was show me that it was possible for other genres besides metal to be dark, gloomy and angry (very important for teenage boys). For example, the first song:<\/p>\n<ul>\nOh kiss me, kiss me, kiss me<br \/>\nYour tongue's like poison<br \/>\nSo swollen it fills up my mouth<br \/>\nJust just love me, love me, love me<br \/>\nAnd nail me to the floor<br \/>\nAnd push my guts all inside out<br \/>\nGet it out, get it out, get it out<br \/>\nGet your fucking voice out of my head<br \/>\nI never wanted this<br \/>\nI never wanted any of this<br \/>\nI wish you were dead<br \/>\nI wish you were dead\n<\/ul>\n<p>To me, back in '88, that's was 100x more powerful than any metal song could ever be. Metal was, and probably still is, obsessed with sorcery, Satan, and insanity - stuff that I don't find scary, and that I can't relate to at all. But this song, \"The Kiss\", was the stuff of one guy having a really hard time with some woman (and probably some drugs). It seemed so much more <i>authentic<\/i>, to me. And even more importantly, the next song, \"Catch\", isn't angry at all; it's just a sweet little song about a crush:<\/p>\n<ul>\nYeah I know who you remind me of<br \/>\nA girl I think I used to know<br \/>\nTeah I'd see her when the days got colder<br \/>\nOn those days when it felt like snow<\/p>\n<p>You know I even think that she stared like you<br \/>\nShe used to just stand there and stare<br \/>\nAnd roll her eyes right up to heaven<br \/>\nAnd make like I just wasn't there<\/p>\n<p>And she used to fall down a lot<br \/>\nThat girl was always falling<br \/>\nAgain and again<br \/>\nAnd I used to sometimes try to catch her<br \/>\nBut never even caught her name<\/p>\n<p>And sometimes we would spend the night<br \/>\nJust rolling about on the floor<br \/>\nAnd I remember even though it felt soft at the time<br \/>\nI always used to wake up sore...<br \/>\netc...<\/ul>\n<p>It's happy, dreamy, whimsical, and intimate. While the first song is a 5 minute guitar freakout with a blast of angry lyrics crammed in at the end, Catch is a soft little 2:45 with synth-violins, acoustic guitar and Robert Smith's trademark \"doo-doo-doo\"-ing. The first two songs set the limits, and the rest of the songs ricochet back and forth between those extremes. There are <i>love songs<\/i> on that record - OMG! I wouldn't have been caught dead listening to a love song. But those love songs are so unlike anything I'd ever heard before that they didn't make me run out of the room screaming, the way most Top 40 love songs did - and still do. For example, \"Just Like Heaven\" is on that record: one of the best songs ever written (and I'll fight anyone who disagrees), and it's a bleeping love song! But you couldn't hear anything like <i>that<\/i> on commercial radio at the time (at least not where I was). Sing along with me:<\/p>\n<ul>Show me, show me, show me<br \/>\nHow you do that trick<br \/>\nThe one that makes me scream she said<br \/>\nThe one that makes me laugh she said<br \/>\nAnd threw her arms around my neck<br \/>\nShow me how you do it<br \/>\nAnd i promise you<br \/>\nI promise that I'll run away with you<br \/>\nI'll run away with you<br \/>\n.. etc<\/ul>\n<p>A love song sure, but worlds away from the stuff you'd hear on Top 40 radio back in 1987: Lionel Richie, Huey Lewis, Bryan Adams, Lou Graham, etc.. The lyrics were fresh, the music was fresh, the style was fresh, it was a <em>love <\/em>song, and it even rocked a little - just ask Dinosaur Jr.. <\/p>\n<p>This album was a whole new world: a wonderful world where love songs didn't have to suck, where dark songs didn't have to be about witches and black masses, and where dance songs weren't insipid (ex. see \"Hot! Hot! Hot!\"). I don't think I bought another metal record for years after that. Once I figured out that there were more than two kinds of music (metal and crap) I was on my way to becoming a muscial omnivore - except opera; that shit's poison.<\/p>\n<p>* FYI, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pocky\">Pocky<\/a> is a <a href=\"http:\/\/pocky.ne.jp\/info\/top.htm\">Japanese snack<\/a>: thin rods of a pretzel-like cookie, dipped in chocloate, or other sweets. Very yummy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Skot, at Izzle Pfaff, it was XTC's Skylarking. For Snarkout, it was SuperChunk's No Pocky For Kitty*. Bernard Sumner, from Joy Division and New Order has a whole list of them, as does Robert Pollard of Guided By Voices. For me, it was The Cure's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me. Up until I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}