(8) REM, "South Central Rain"
Tough selection—downbeat and plaintive—from one of the essential bands of the college rock era. The committee started with the more obvious “Everybody Hurts,” but listening to it decided that ultimately it is a song not of pain but of consolation, and you know, screw that. From there, it’s harder to isolate the saddest REM song. We suppose it depends what we mean by sad, but parsing that is the point of the whole bracket. Thought about "Country Feedback," "Man in the Moon," and about every other song in their oeuvre, all of which, barring "Shiny Happy People" could qualify. But rarely is REM as baldly sad as the chorus here: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Particularly in their earlier songs, even the sadness “Did you never call? I waited for your call” is cryptic and nested in less obvious lyrics: “The trees will bend, the cities wash away / The city on the river there is a girl without a dream.” The 8 seed represents the committee's unsureness about the song, not the band. There's no sadness in REM without complication. That's a good thing, we think, and we expect this song to go deep into the tournament.
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(9) Mazzy Star, "Fade Into You"
How good did Mazzy Star make this particular variety of languorous melancholy seem? How pleasurable is it to immerse oneself in the slowness of the lost cause, and to luxuriate in the fullness of this sound? Never mind that until maybe three years ago some of the committee thought the lyric was not “Fade Into You” but “Baby I’m Dreaming.” That portion of this selection committee has never been one for lyrics, to be honest, which is embarrassing to admit, and which has led to some recent surprises. This is a fact that might bear some consideration: how can you call yourself open to sadness without attention to the lyrics? Well, how important are they here really? Isn't it the spell that the song casts that holds you, and not the exact words in the spellbook? And anyhow, how irreplaceable Hope Sandoval’s vocals seem now and how iconic this song's become. How effortlessly you're transported with the first fifteen seconds of the song to the experience of sitting in a pool on a blisteringly sunny day with a glass of warm tequila as the sun wipes out everything in your vision as you become one with the one you love. How narcotic it feels to be here in this song again. This bracket offers few easy choices. By listening here, what do you start to understand about your susceptibility and capacity for particular sorts of sadness? What are you capable of?
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Which is sadder? Vote by 9am 3/9
Brutal matchup. Just brutal.
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else comes out of this tournament, this matchup helped me re-listen to one of my least favorite R.E.M. songs (that's obviously not true, since I don't really count most of the post Berry R.E.M. songs as R.E.M. songs). While I stand by my bravado regarding "Country Feedback," this one is better and sadder than my gut reaction suggested. To wit: how have I not really paid attention to that howl/snarl/mourning noise at the end of the thing. It's like the untranslatable grief words in Aeschylus.
And Mazzy Star somehow manages to have aged well.
Just brutal. Both deserved better.
Yeah, this is, I think, the matchup of the day. Hard not to want to run the bracket again with some of the other REM choices, like Perfect Circle. Mazzy Star could pull the upset. Maybe it's not an upset, since this is an 8 and 9 seed, but in terms of the level of fandom and fame, it would be... though the winner is probably up against freaking Joy Division in the next round, so there's that.
DeleteI am prepared to defend Mazzy Star here, as I think “Fade Into You” is quintessential in its inherent sadness, both in tone and lyric. Slide guitar only enhances the effect. What's interesting to me is the extent to which votes could be biased due to the embedded music videos, because what is un-sad about hazy glances of a drunken freight train sauntering by amid the glimmer of Hope Sandoval’s modest bosom? Indeed, it is a composition of desert isolation: the heat, the glare, the unrelenting decimation. Does the sun wipe out everything in my vision? Absolutely. Is tequila the best remedy? I would prefer a tall, refreshing glass of gin & chilled tonic to spritz on my face. Then fade into the tremendous duet, “Sometimes Always” and imagine life's capacity for particular sorts of sadness were Hope & Jim Reid my mum and pup. Cheers.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/OsOWNVkBhU0
That duet's a great song, yea. I think, actually, that J&MC and Mazzy Star have aged similarly well because both basically do the one thing, and do it well. No one's out here complaining about how Hope Sandoval and co jumped the shark with that country album (though I would totally listen to that country album if they made one).
DeleteCounterpoint: Hope Sandoval is annoying and seems half-asleep all the time. Sleepcore. Have an affect, Hope Sandoval.
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ReplyDeleteI'm not ashamed to say that Mazzy Star was once playing during a particularly memorable rendezvous with a hot guy I would never see again because he had a boyfriend. Don't judge me.
ReplyDeleteDuly judged
ReplyDeleteI really don't even think that the Mazzy Star song is sad. I think it's plaintive and Roback's slide certainly melancholies the whole thing but but, on this match up, it's Stipe that brings the infinite sadness. 100 + votes for Mazzy Star disagrees but I'm waiting to see Tom Wait's "Fawn" or "Why Wasn't God Watching" come up. Those are pretty sad.
ReplyDeleteI think you can definitely make that case. I mean, it's definitely melancholy as fuck, but I'm not sure how sad it is when you read it closely. The voters seem to have decided that it is, however. A triumph of surface over depth? Our Waits choice is (I know this is going to be controversial) "Downtown Train," for reasons partly to be explained in the post on the matchup tomorrow. He's got a whole boatload of sad songs. Maybe we're just looking for a reason to link to the WEIRD ASS Patty Smythe ("The Warrior") cover version and video...
ReplyDeleteREM?? A band named after a type of deep sleep characterized by low muscle tone? Fucking mandolins! Athens, Georgia? Has REM never not been REM? They aren't sad, because they aren't authentic, except for Shiny Happy People, one of the greatest early Norwegian black metal power ballads of all time.
ReplyDeleteThe REM vs Mazzy Star is a difficult one for me to vote on. Love both artists so much. Hope Sandoval emanates sadness before she even begins to sing. Beautiful sadness. But I;ve had a longer career with REM and besides, Michael Stipe once asked me for a light and kept my lighter.
ReplyDeleteThat's very Stipe of him.
DeletePS There is a live medley of So Central Rain where he does a bit of Peter Gabriel's Red Rain which is phenomenal. I had it once on this 3" CD. Anyway, the point is it is a much sadder version than the studio one, in case you care to seek it out.
ReplyDeleteYeah, man, that live version is killer. The sparseness makes it sadder. It's Time After Time/Red Rain/ South Central Rain and here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xivLI7440sA
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