Tags
Ball Park Music, Bombadil, Chris Church, Dwight Twilley, Fastball, Gary Ritchie, Mike Viola, Mo Troper, P. Hux, Parthenon Huxley, The Pine Club, The Springfields
Why not be positive? After the year we’ve been through 2021 can’t help but be an improvement. I know, I know, pandemic habits die hard. Bad news on the doorstep, again. So to help steel your resolve for positivity, here’s a slew of songs on the perfection theme.
Parthenon Huxley (aka P. Hux) has the perfect sound to kick off this themed post with the addictive guitar hooks and Eels-meets-ELO smooth vocals on his song “Perfect.” He even has another tune that would fit in here called “Perfection” – but let’s not overdo it. Irrelevant aside: I just discovered that Hux produced Eels front man Mark Everett’s first two solo albums and A Man Called E is about as perfect as a debut can be. Bombadil change up the pace and style of what we’re doing here with their song “Perfect,” a lilting folkie track with a lot of uplift, from their 2017 album Fences. “Perfecto” is another 2017 release, this time from big guitar guy Chris Church’s long player Limitations of the Source Tape. For Church this offering is actually a bit low key (well, until the end) but has a lovely Matthew Sweet vibe with vocals that remind me of recent work by that inventive iconoclast Brad Peterson. I don’t know a lot a about Louisville, Kentucky’s The Pine Club, other than that they have three albums of fab material dating from the beginning of the new century. From their self-titled LP we showcase “Oh, Perfect!” Nice horns and background vocals on this one.
Our next batch of performers move from vague ruminations about the perfect to more bold and weeping claims, singing about a perfect world of some sort or other. Mike Viola has some serious songwriting magic going on all over his many releases and “El Mundo de Perfecto” from his 2011 album Electro De Perfecto exemplifies these considerable skills. The song is so quintessentially Viola while also seeming to draw from acts like Crowded House stylistically. Fastball was one of those bands I only discovered deep into their career, on 2017’s Step Into Light specifically. That meant I had so many delightful surprises waiting for me dipping into their back catalogue. “Perfect World” is from 2004’s Keep Your Wig On and it really is a perfect manifestation of their new millennium Beatles/Tom Petty-inspired sound. From Dwight Twilley’s ironically titled The Luck album came a bona-fide should-be hit single in “Perfect World.” I still can’t believe this track didn’t race up the charts when it finally got a single release in 1998. Now, in the interests of journalistic balance I must include Ball Park Music’s “The Perfect World Does Not Exist.” I mean, they’re right, of course. And they say it with such a quirky You Won’t almost folkie charm.
Well, if a perfect world is beyond our grasp what about more accomplishable goals? Gary Ritchie would settle for a “Perfect Girl” on this Buddy Holly-esque workout. However, despite a delightful 2 minute and 41 second exploration of the issue, even Gary has to admit by the coda that it’s probably not gonna happen. In the late 1980s American janglers The Springfields (no relation to Dusty’s 1960s outfit) just wanted “This Perfect Day.” Well, if I were spinning this song and the rest of the collection it comes from, the 2019 retrospective of the band’s career Singles 1986-1991, I’d say ‘mission accomplished’! Perhaps we’d be wise to scope things down even further. Mo Troper has the right idea with his just released, wonderfully hooky “The Perfect Song.” I mean, I thought he already wrote the perfect song with that single from his 2020 album Natural Beauty, “Your Boy.” But more on that when I get to 2020’s best of lists …
Perfection is really just that space you’ve created, shaped, and defined where you can find some joy. For me that’s often finding, enjoying and sharing all this great music. So here’s to a perfect year, whatever that may amount to for you.
It’s something that’s all around us. Everyone is caught up and defined by it. Yet it is almost never publicly acknowledged, let alone commented on. Let’s change that. We live in a world defined by class, organized economically and experienced socially. A properly functioning culture would reflect on that. So today’s post is all about melodic ruminations on class.
What were the biggest hits that weren’t in 2017? Who were the biggest should-be stars? In our alternate universe here at Poprock Record, these guys were all over the charts, the chat shows, the scandal sheets, as well as memed all over Facebook, Snapchatted by the kids, and Instragrammed into oblivion. Jesus, they were so popular you are well and truly sick of them by now. But sadly for our poprock heroes, the universe is not just ours to define. In the world beyond our little blog, they could all use another plug.
Daisy House dominated my playlist this year, both their current record and their back catalogue. They channel the 1960s but never let it wholly define them. They have two amazing singers and one fabulously talented songwriter. They deserve all the accolades the internet can hand out. If this were 1970 they’d probably be headlining The Flip Wilson Show tonight. The Rallies were an accidental discovery that turned into an obsession. Their whole album is great but “Don’t Give Up” makes my heart twinge every time. Aimee Mann and Fastball ably demonstrated this year that veterans can still turn out fantastic, career-defining albums. And I got to see both of them live! Los Straightjackets did Nick Lowe proud, producing a phenomenal tribute to his body of work. “Rollers Show” was my go-to summertime happy tune.
I won’t review every selection from the two-four, but I will say that I think the mix of poprock I feature on the blog is evident here. There’s fast and slow, country and rock, guitars and keyboards, etc. And then there’s always the hooks. Case in point: check out the 42 second mark on Greg Kihn’s “The Life I Got.” If you don’t feel the excitement he creates with some classic poprock guitar arpeggiation and the subtle vocal hook you’re kinda missing what we’re doing here. Here’s hoping 2018 is as hit single worthy as this past year has been!
I am going to sneak in an honourable mention for what I consider the compilation of year: 
Putting a famous name in your song title would seem to be a sure fire way to have a hit. Kim Carnes’ “Bette Davis Eyes” or Weezer’s “Buddy Holly” readily come to mind. But really, those are the exceptions. A quick search of the internet actually turns up a whole bevy of celebrity names on songs, mostly on the indie side of things, most of them album cuts. So why do bands do it? Homage? Satire? Or are they just as celebrity obsessed as everyone else? The French duo Please was formed and recorded a song with the sole explicit intent of getting a response from Paul McCartney – not that Paul appeared to notice! The range of material covered in this post gives us a bit of all these approaches, from hero worship, to ridicule, to little more than just mentioning the celebrity name.
Are you a fan of Fastball? If you love straight up rock and roll with a keen sense of melody, you should be. Fastball is another band that I somehow missed when they broke out in the 1990s and have only just discovered recently. Now when you mention Fastball to people they nearly always know “The Way” and that’s about it. Sure, it’s a great song but I’m not even sure it’s the best song on that album, let alone the defining moment of their career. This is band that just keeps getting better and better with each album release.
Their debut album from 1996, Make Your Mama Proud, lays out the basic genius at work here. This is a band that gels solidly around the rock and roll combo fundamentals – solid beat, hooky lead guitar lines, and a generous helping of harmony vocals – captured nicely in the featured tune here, “Seattle.” Then came their breakout album, 1998’s All the Pain that Money Can Buy with its monster single “The Way.” Personally I prefer “Fire Escape,” “Slow Drag,” and the brilliant “Out of My Head.” The band followed up that hit album with The Harsh Light of Day, a record that really pushed the development of their sound melodically and sonically (let those guitars ring!), apparent on tracks like “Don’t Give Up On Me.” But audiences didn’t take to the new sound and sales fell off precipitously.
The band pressed on in 2004 with what might be their greatest achievement, Keep Your Wig On. The songwriting on this record is amazing, with Petty-esque brilliance on tracks like “Perfect World,” and “Our Misunderstanding,” or the easygoing, almost Eagles-like confidence of “Someday” or “Mercenary,” or the Mexicali fun of “Red Light.” Five years later, Little White Lies took the band into a more melody-drenched direction and the should-be hits are many: check out the James Bond undercurrent to “Little White Lies,” the great swing of “Mono to Stereo,” or the nice Beatles’ touches and bouncy piano on “She’s Got the Rain.”
Fast forward to 2017 and Fastball are back after an absence of eight years with what I am prepared to boldly declare may be their best record yet: Step Into Light. The record blasts off with “We’re On Our Way,” a rocking number with a few ELO flourishes on the keyboards. Vocals give way from the more rough-hewn Mike Zuniga to the oh-so-smooth Tony Scalzo on the next track, “Best Friend,” a song that screams hit single with its propulsive, driving hookiness. Other candidates for hit single include the Beatlesque “I Will Never Let You Down” (with its great video!) and the very catchy “Just Another Dream.” The care in choosing the instrumental mix on this record is impressive. Check out the nice guitar bits on “I Will Never Let You Down” that echo George Harrison’s simple and straightforward guitar lines on a host of mid-career Beatles records. Or the jaunty acoustic guitar that anchors “Behind the Sun,” clearly an homage to McCartney’s felicitous picking on tunes like “Mother Nature’s Son.” I could go on. Suffice to say, there isn’t a bum track here – if you like one song, you’re going to want the whole album.