thevoid99's Classic Albums # 1: Psychocandy
Nov 04 '03 (Updated Apr 22 '04)
The Bottom Line "Psychocandy" is one of the most seminal pieces of recording overlooked in the world of mainstream pop.
Introduction
Since releasing the very first part of my very own Mindless Rants & Psychotic Essays series for the film “Secretary”, I had been seeking some newfound ideas on what is next. What I found out was the concept of sadomasochism through the world of pop music where pleasure and pain can be found in the same sentence and it makes sense. There is a connection to the next two parts of this series in connection to “Secretary” where the idea of something very that seems to be off has a sense of beauty beneath its layers. Inspired by the Sofia Coppola film “Lost in Translation”, I found what I was looking for and it wasn’t one piece of art, it was two. These two pieces of art both were an evolution of how abrasive, ugly, and discordant layers of noise and visceral power can be used in the simplistic beauty of pop music. These two pieces today makes more sense than ever as pop music finds itself losing touch with what made it appealing in the first place. These two landmark recordings are the Jesus & Mary Chain’s 1985 debut “Psychocandy” and My Bloody Valentine’s 1991 masterpiece “Loveless”.
(Writer's Note: As of 4/22/04, the title has been changed to Classic Albums instead of the previously named essay with minor edits on this day).
thevoid99’s Classic Albums #1: Psychocandy
“I never thought that this day would never come. When your words and your touch just struck me numb. Oh and it’s plain to see that it’s dead. The thing swims in blood and it’s cold stony dead. It’s so hard not to feel so ashamed. Of the loving games we play, each day”. –“The Hardest Walk” by the Jesus & Mary Chain from “Psychocandy”.
The year was 1985; pop music had lost its purity and soul thanks to the new technology of the 1980s that resulted in something far less human and more machine-like. Dominating the pop charts all over the world were the likes of Lionel Richie, Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. On that year, whatever craftsmanship was left back in 1960s was dead in the mainstream. The machine age had begun as synthesizer-driven pop acts began to dominate the charts in both in Britain and in America. While there were groups like New Order, Depeche Mode, Erasure, and the Pet Shop Boys who would help find the soul in synthesizers, as they would move forward to the next decade, the idea of guitars, bass, and drums were inconceivable in the mid-1980s. While rock still used that concept to some success, they were ruined by the current wave of production of the 1980s as everything still sounded like machines made them.
In Britain, the only real hope for pop purists were the Smiths with their jangly-guitar melodies of Johnny Marr, mid-tempo rhythms, and the idiosyncratic lyrics and vocals of Morrissey. Though the Smiths did inspire a new wave of guitar-pop bands in Britain, they were just a cult band in the U.S. while the American underground were trying to create a new scene through punk and white noise rock led by the avant-garde noise band Sonic Youth. Though the Smiths were beloved in Britain, some didn’t like the ongoing rants of Morrissey since he didn’t act like a rock star and instead, acted like a pretentious tart on some spots. Still, there was a void left in pop music that was needed to combat the bland, machine-like tone of 80s pop and in November 1985, that answer came in the form of a Scottish quartet led by two unlikable brothers that called themselves the Jesus & Mary Chain and their album was their debut release “Psychocandy”.
I was introduced to the music of the Jesus & Mary Chain back in the early 90s just as I was getting into alternative music. When I heard the name, I thought it was some awful Christian band but I heard the song “Sometimes Always” with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star that I liked but I heard that it’s not what the band sounds like. I was immediately put off although I was interested in them from afar since they were considered one of the most influential bands of the 80s. Finally, I saw a video of “Just Like Honey” during a marathon of favorite videos of Nine Inch Nails’ singer Trent Reznor. I fell in love with the song at first instant and heard other songs like “Head On” and “Blues From A Gun” and what I liked about it was that it was both mean and catchy. In 2001, I finally found a copy of “Psychocandy” for $8 at my local used store and at the time, the album was out of print. I loved it because it was loud, abrasive, and noisy but I would only listen to it whenever I felt like it.
Now I found myself drawn even more to that record because of its sadomasochistic tone where it’s both sweet and ugly at the same time. Particularly on a performance level where everything seems so wrong but for all the right reasons, especially on the song “Taste The Floor” where the guitars of Jim & William Reid are just played at a snarling tone with its layers of distortions and power-chords next to the caveman like drumming of Bobby Gillespie. Whenever I feel angry or frustrated, I always felt like banging the drums the way Gillespie did on that song just to get some sort of frustration out of the way or play guitar so loud, my ears bleed. The lyrics itself are very ugly yet there’s something human about it.
“Here it comes, can’t you hear the sound of it? Just like a big brass drum. And some c*nts always scratching it. Just like a voice is pain. Just like the taste is pain. I wish that I could fly. You have to learn to fly”. –“Taste The Floor”
There’s a desperation that I could completely relate to, especially since things are so bad now with the world and there’s nothing that seems so real at the moment. Pop music is no longer what it is anymore. I can’t relate to the colorful images on MTV or the superficiality that Hilary Duff and her Lizzie McGuire alter ego represents, it’s because there’s nothing pure about it. It’s all made for corruptive reasons. The Jesus & Mary Chain were rebelling against the machine-like world of pop in the 1980s as they played the role of an anti-pop band. They were anti-pop because they were upset at the way pop music has evolved itself into. They missed the craftsmanship that was put into like the way Phil Spector produced records with his Wall of Sound tone or the upbeat melodies the Beach Boys made. Another major influence to the Jesus & Mary Chain were the Velvet Underground.
The Velvets may have not been a pop band but they did embrace pop conventions like melodies and hooks but were taking things to a darker level that was more real than what was going on in the 60s, particularly the past taboo subjects of sadomasochism, drugs, sex, and homosexuality. The Jesus & Mary Chain took the Velvets’ proto-punk sound and freshened it up with Beach Boys melodies and Spector-rhythms to combat the blandness of 80s pop. One of the best examples in their use of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound rhythm, notably the beats of “Be My Baby” was the song “Sowing Seeds” with Gillespie playing the bom, bom-bom, pssh, rhythm of bass and snare drums with Douglas Hart’s smooth, melodic bass lines as Jim Reid sings the song’s bleak lyrics of “I see people going down/All gods people going down/And I should not be alone/And I should be on my phone/Yes, I should be on my phone/(repeat line)”. The song was an example of the band’s knack for melody, as they get away from the layers of feedback for something rich with its washy and ringing guitar riffs to Jim Reid’s sullen, melancholic vocals.
“Cut Dead” is another example of the band’s melodic sensibility as the band plays acoustic-like riffs to their electric guitar reverbs and rich, ringing riffs along with the soft, smooth rhythms of Gillespie and Hart as the song at first, feels sweet but its lyrics are not sweet.
“What can I do? It’s gotten me beaten black and blue. Why don’t you know? You got me moving much too slow. Why can’t you see? You got me chasing honeybees. You made me fall. Broke me up and took it all. Call me your messed up boy”. –“Cut Dead”.
This is a pure example of pop craftsmanship where you make something sound sweet but the end result is very tragic. Take the Beach Boys “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” for example, the song might seem happy in it upbeat, melodic tone but the lyrics are very sad since it portrays the fear of growing up, especially in the psyche of Brian Wilson, who barely recovered from his fragile state. I’m not trying to say pop music has to be sad but there’s just some songs that seems misleading and people don’t listen well enough about what they’re trying to say. Nat King Cole’s “Lush Life” seems upbeat but its lyrics are very depressing. This leads me to where the Jesus & Mary Chain are coming from, Glasgow, Scotland. And from what I heard, Scotland isn’t a very nice place to live because it’s bleak and depressing and it of course, it gives me that mental picture of a famous scene in the 1996 drug black comedy “Trainspotting” where Ewan McGregor’s Renton character proclaims, “It’s sh*te being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low, scums of the f*cking earth”. For that, I can understand why the Reid brothers aren’t well liked by many especially each other which led to their downfall in early 1999 after a gig in Los Angeles and after that, they broke up.
The anger of their music isn’t just displayed in songs like “Taste The Floor” but also “The Living End”, “In A Hole”, “Taste Of Cindy”, and “Inside Me” were the guitars sound a lot like chainsaws in some cases with its menacing, caveman-like beats and rhythms. The band doesn’t abandon melodies in those songs but from someone who listens to mainstream pop, they’re too cynical to understand what the Jesus & Mary Chain are trying to convey. “The Living End” by all means has sadomasochistic references in its lyrics but the song is really about motorcycles and what kind of rebellion it provides. “In A Hole” is a more menacing song with its abrasive lyrics including a verse that says “God spits on my soul/There’s something dead inside my hole/In my hole/(repeat line 2 times). It’s the kind of angst bands like Nirvana, NIN, and other acts would find very interesting, especially since God seems to be a letdown on many people. Even if you’re living in a sh*thole like Scotland.
“Inside Me” is a more melodic track led by Douglas Hart’s brooding, dense bass lines that is later covered by its wave of feedback-drenched, chainsaw-sounding guitar riffs and Gillespie’s menacing, Teutonic drumming. Jim Reid sings more bleak lyrics that include the verse of “I’ve seen my time away/Blows up and far away/I’ve seen it all before/I’ve seen my head expand/My head expand”. It again, conveys the bleakness of where the band is coming from. “Taste Of Cindy” is a bit different since the song’s rhythm is a bit more mid-tempo and catchier but it’s forced to clash with the band’s demeaning guitar sound as Jim Reid sings something innocent for once, about a girl named Cindy but towards the end of the song, the innocent is gone as he sings, “And I tried and I tried/But you looked right through me/Knife to my head when she talks so sweetly/Knife in my head when I think of Cindy/Knife in my head is the taste of Cindy” where the song is revealed as something obsessive. Something I think we all can relate to. We’re all obsessive about something.
Many of the music the Jesus & Mary Chain is heavy, bleak, and abrasive and their clothing reflects that. Taking ode to the Velvets, the band dressed in black and Bobby Gillespie almost looked like a member of the band with his mop-top hair. The music may reflect the dark, dreariness of the Velvets but the band does have a sunny side although it’s a bit obtuse when you think about. Take their Beach Boys-inspired ode to surf rhythms like “Never Understand” that really sounds like a surf song from hell, especially with its lyrics.
“The sun comes up another day. And I don’t even worry about the state I’m in. Head so heavy and I’m looking thin. But when the sun goes down and I wanna start again. Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh. You never understanding, you never understand me, yeah”.
-“Never Understand”
Lyrically, the band conveys the fantasy of a surf song of guys surfing in leather as if the beaches became a dangerous place. It’s the kind of dark fantasy and adventure the Chains put into their sound and in some cases, it’s very sexy. Even in “The Hardest Walk”, the band puts a bit of sexiness into their music as the rhythm has some twist vibe although lyrically, the song is very bleak. Even as the album reaches its last four songs, the darkness continues with “My Little Underground” that features lyrics of escapism that is away from whatever is mainstream that might be something the “Ghost World” character Enid might have been looking for since her life in the film falls apart. It’s something the Chains can understand, the idea of escapism although they’re a bit more realistic when it comes to things. The band has a nice idea of dreaming but make sure their feet is still on the ground.
“You Trip Me Up” returns to that menacing tone of “Taste The Floor” with its layers of feedback-drenched guitars but the sound seems more melodic and soothing as Jim Reid sings as if it was a dirty and complicated love song that channels the band’s knack for traditional pop conventions as unconventional as they are in their presentation. “Something’s Wrong” is in that same tone but in a slower, more machine-like rhythm. Again, this is the band purveying to the stripped-down approach of real instruments where it can sound like a machine but without acting like one. The band’s humanistic tone is in its lyrics as they come back to reality of their bleak world of Scotland with its washy, feedback-drenched guitar riffs that keeps on ringing throughout the song. Then there’s the album closer, “It’s So Hard” where William gets a chance to shine as a vocalist as he is accompanied by Douglas Hart’s brooding bass lines to Gillespie’s sparse, machine-like drumming as the Reid brothers play through layers of feedback guitar washes as William moans throughout to the song’s bleak, desperate lyrics of love to convey the sense of sadomasochism in their music.
Throughout their careers, the Jesus & Mary Chain were a band that never played it safe. Sometimes, their music would be so loud, it would even out rock metal bands just through its layer of feedbacks while it made some people forget about the layers of pop melodies underneath their abrasive sound. The Pixies acknowledged them by channeling their abrasive sound to forge a new, post-punk American sound that would later inspire bands like Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins as the Pixies covered “Head On” in their final years. The Reid brothers stayed on throughout their career, sometimes experimenting a bit with technology on 1989’s “Automatic” album where it spawned the hits “Head On” and “Blues From A Gun” before returning to their original sound with 1992's “Honey’s Dead” that featured the controversial song “Reverence” that had lyrics like “I wanna die like Jesus Christ” and “I wanna die like JFK” that got them banned on Top of the Pops.
It’s something that is missed in pop music, the chance to take risks and be controversial, without being contrived. Madonna recently tried to be controversial at the MTV Awards but it made her look stupid in the process. The Jesus & Mary Chain never became stupid, even as they try to go soft for a bit on “Stoned & Dethroned” while again, returning to the sound that made them famous on their final release “Munki” in 1998. What made “Psychocandy” a seminal album is that it was pop music presented in an unconventional format of guitar feedbacks, minimalist rhythms, and bleak lyrics. Every song on that record worked, and they were all consistently well written and the flow of the album is amazing. It’s a classic album that had a great finish, along with great songs in the middle, and what’s even more amazing is how it began.
That beginning is the song “Just Like Honey”. Not since the Beatles, Phil Spector, or Irving Berlin has a pop song came out as something pure in an era were purity was rare. “Just Like Honey” belongs in a list of great pop songs ever written and recorded because it had everything you want in a pop standard, times a million. It has a great momentum that builds up to a powerful, emotional climax and leads back to its pop vibrato. The song had simple beats and rhythms courtesy of Bobby Gillespie with that echoing “Be My Baby” beat of “boom, boom-boom, pssh” that was followed by Douglas Hart’s bass following that same slow, seductive melody with washy, ringing guitar riffs from William and Jim Reid.
This was the first song that really got me into the Jesus & Mary Chain, courtesy of a music video during Trent Reznor’s marathon of his favorite videos. “Just Like Honey” was one of those videos that stood out with its white-wall background, the band in black clothing looking like the Velvets in the 80s, everything was slow-motion in some shots, while it features pink lights saying “Psychocandy” and that video is used as the album cover for “Psychocandy”. It was brilliance in its minimalism; even the song’s lyrics convey the kind of emotions that were lacking in the 1980s.
“Listen to the girl as she takes on half the world. Moving up and so alive, in her honey-dripping beehive. Beehive, it’s good, so good, it’s so good, so good. Walking back to you is the hardest thing that, I can do, for you. For you, I’ll be your plastic toy; I’ll be your plastic toy, for you. Eating up the scum is the hardest thing for me to do”.
-“Just Like Honey”
When I used those lyrics for the movie “Lost in Translation”, it was basically what the film was sort of about. Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of the young, aimless Yale graduate Charlotte in the film represented everything a young woman, who isn’t sure what to do with her life yet she touches an actor named Bob Harris, played by Bill Murray, who sees what kind of beauty she possessed. Not in it’s exterior, but also in the inside as she is someone with soul and grace. Sofia Coppola used the song in the film’s final minutes as the film reaches its emotional end. Now, I’m not trying to spoil anything about the film but Coppola used that song to channel the subtlety and emotion of the film’s story as the audience sees Tokyo for the final time. Just as the song starts, everything starts out smoothly until Jim Reid sings, “Eating up the scum is the hardest thing for me to do” where Bobby Gillespie beats his drums at a powerful, emotional climatic tone to the Reids’ washy, ringing guitar riffs as the song ends with Jim Reid and a woman saying “Just like honey” repeatedly as it briefly returns to its climatic tone in the end.
Though it’s unclear whether the Jesus & Mary Chain will ever return, they sure have made a lasting impact through pop and alternative music with “Psychocandy”. If it weren’t for “Psychocandy”, whom would Nine Inch Nails open for and blow away early in their career? Would’ve there been the Raveonettes or Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (B.R.M.C.)? Where would the Pixies and other noise-rock bands get their inspiration? Where would Bobby Gillespie start out if he hadn’t created Primal Scream a year after “Psychocandy”? Would there be a way for noise to be accepted into pop music?
All of this happened because of the Jesus & Mary Chain and “Psychocandy”. Today, noise-pop is re-emerging thanks to the likes of the Raveonettes and B.R.M.C., and the Jesus & Mary Chain are getting new fans now more than ever despite the fact that many of their old albums are currently out-of-print. Now that Sofia Coppola made “Just Like Honey” into a true pop standard for her movie “Lost in Translation”, it showed how much pop music has evolved over the year. The Jesus & Mary Chain merely were just getting started on noise meshing into pop music but it would be another band that would take it to stratospheric levels, that it might be outreached for many years to come.
What “Psychocandy” meant to me is that you can make something accessible through noise and that being dangerous is fun. For anyone interested in the music of the Jesus & Mary Chain, pick up “Psychocandy” (if you can find it) or the recent "21 Singles” collection disc. Noise-pop began truly with “Psychocandy” but it made its fruition and perfection on the next part of this series of essays from the band My Bloody Valentine and its seminal masterpiece “Loveless”.
Special Thanks to the Disc-Go Round for having that disc and making me review a couple of years ago along with MTV2, Trent Reznor, the Jesus & Mary Chain, and Sofia Coppola.
© thevoid99/Okrap Publishing 2003.
thevoid99’s Mindless Rants & Psychotic Essays Series:
Volume 1: Secretary:
Part 1:
http://www.epinions.com/content_3458572420
Part 2:
http://www.epinions.com/content_3458965636
Related Reviews:
The Jesus & Mary Chain-“Psychocandy”:
http://www.epinions.com/content_27410796164
My Bloody Valentine-“Loveless”:
http://www.epinions.com/content_69497753220
“Lost in Translation”:
http://www.epinions.com/content_113414475396
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
thevoid99
|
 - Top 100 |
|
Member: Steven Flores
Location: Smyrna, Georgia
Reviews written: 1448
Trusted by: 431 members
About Me:
R.I.P. Michael Jackson (1958-2009)
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.