(2) Concrete Blonde, "Joey"
“Joey” remains my favorite song from my high school self’s favorite album, Concrete Blonde’s Bloodletting. Yes, it’s kinda about vampires, but it’s mostly about loving doomed people. And Joey is the most doomed, “somewhere drunk / and passed out on the floor.” Joey offers no endearments or excuses, he’s not even really present in the song, which, despite the video, feels like a song sung in lead singer’s Johnette Napolitano’s head to an absent lover (Napolitano later confirmed that the song is about Marc Moreland of Wall of Voodoo, who eventually died of liver failure). She offers him money, forgiveness, and love, but the song’s last lines “Oh / Joey, I’m not angry anymore” feel more like resignation than hope. The song was the last one recorded for Bloodletting, because Napolitano didn’t want to sing it.
(15) Psychedelic Furs, "Heartbreak Beat"
Not to get meta, but “Heartbreak Beat” is not a
sad song so
much as it is a song about sad songs. It’s about wishing you felt
more, but
knowing that the world’s endless soundtrack of love songs are not
about you,
that in your relationship “...the world don’t stop /
Every time that you
call.” So maybe you end that relationship and go looking for that
“perfect
kiss, somewhere out in the dark.” But then! “Heartbreak Beat”
comes on the
jukebox just when you catch a glimpse of your ex across the bar.
For a second,
it feels like love, but then you remember. You brace yourself for
the sadness,
but instead you feel nothing. Which is sad, no?
Which is sadder? Vote by 9am 3/9
"Heartbreak Beat" doesn't meet the criteria for this tournament, but I voted for them anyway because I adore this song. A lot. To the point where I won't listen to reason. So the Furs over Heart for me.
ReplyDeleteOh man. This is an absolutely brutal matchup for me. Concrete Blonde's "Bloodletting" was a dominant force in my life circa 1990-91, because I was reading a lot of Anne Rice and in my pseudo-goth/vampire phase and also because it's just an awesome album, and Johnette Napolitano's voice broke my brain and my heart when I saw her live (with Concrete Blonde and Wall of Voodoo). I can hear "Joey" in my head today without even having to play the video.
ReplyDeleteBut...the Psychedelic Furs were THE attitudinal soundtrack of my teens and early twenties. I wanted to be Richard Butler--chain-smoking, cynical, wielding that sarcastic sneer as a sword fighting off love. And yet...this is one of their worst songs, on their worst sell-out post-Pretty In Pink album. In fact their majestic, sprawling, noisy, grossly under-appreciated follow up, "Book of Days" was basically a conscious decision to lose all those teenage girl fans who had started showing up at their shows in pink dresses. Because Pretty in Pink isn't a song about a cute redhead in a pink dress--it's a song about that woman that everybody used and tossed aside. But I digress. "Heartbreak Beat" isn't a bad song, really, and in truth that was my introduction to the Furs, from where I retroactively discovered their superior pre-"Heartbreak" work. However, "Here in My Head," from the Furs final album in 1991, or "Am I Wrong," from the Richard Butler-helmed "Love Spit Love" album are actually sadder songs. But I digress. Again. So...
Heart wants Psychedelic Furs, for their complete body of work and significant imprint on my 19-year-old self. But "Joey" is one of the saddest songs ever--and my pick to win it all.
And I had forgotten how execrable that "Heartbreak Beat" video was. Ugh. Watch the "Dumb Waiters" to help you forget:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrX9Mg4ersQ
For me this is the high point of the Psychedelic Furs, but I'm not much of a fan, to be sure. Care to send me a mix CD to change my mind?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. Do you want existential melancholy Furs or snotty, punk-ish, indifferent Furs?
DeleteI think you should choose the best stuff in your view. I've never really been moved by them (though I've liked Heartbreak Beat since the first time I heard it). Never liked "Pretty in Pink" much. I like "Love My Way" ok, Heaven ok, "The Ghost In You" ok. I think that's actually all I know, so I anticipate the education.
DeleteJoey should get a bye to round 16. This is insulting to Joey. Joey says "Ni!" to all of you.
ReplyDelete