(3) Nirvana, "All Apologies"
Nirvana’s music, in this 25th year (Jesus Christ) after the release of "Smells Like Teen Spirit," has a bit of a tragic aura, mainly because their output is so mixed up with lead singer Kurt Cobain’s legacy of drug problems and eventual suicide. Most of their songs are dark and angry and sardonic; “All Apologies” replaces the anger with sadness while hanging on to that cynical edge. “I wish I was like you / Easily amused” can be read as a burn, but it’s truly a pointed barb from an unhappy soul. The song’s opening lyrics “What else should I be / all apologies” likewise have a dual quality—is this a sarcastic, sorry-for-existing! moment of teenage sarcasm, or a literal apology for existing at all? But it’s the grim, repeated “All in all is all we are” at the end of the song that really pushes this over the edge, even better in the Unplugged version, which is our preference—Cobain’s droning voice gives us a tiny taste of the bleakness that characterized his life, work, and death.
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(14) Slowdive, "Alison"
Here's where I vote my heart and not my head: like I know Nirvana's showing up here with a legendary game. I've seen them warming up, too, hitting three after three, and they're one of the biggest sadnesses of the era, and I know that's tough to disregard. That kind of sad might be undeniable. But arrayed against them, the big dogs, we find Slowdive, named for a Siouxsie and the Banshees song, and of all the shoegaze bands I loved (I did love a lot of them), Slowdive's the one that's lasted—for me—the best and gets me back to that particular sweet sort of sadness that I'm still a sucker for.
I admit Neil Halstead's haircut in the video doesn't help matters, nor perhaps does the video itself (as is often the case in these matchups), though to its credit this shoegaze video actually does show the faces of the band, particularly Rachel Goswell's: the camera likes her best) and doesn't just have the lame-o washed-out lava lamp effects endemic to this era of shoegaze video. Lyrically, too, the song's maybe a little too interested in being stoned for me to take it as seriously now as I once took it, but—like Mazzy Star, like Low—the spell the song casts isn't about the words: who pays that much attention to them? Instead it's about the mood and sound and feel. And hell yes is that good.
I admit Neil Halstead's haircut in the video doesn't help matters, nor perhaps does the video itself (as is often the case in these matchups), though to its credit this shoegaze video actually does show the faces of the band, particularly Rachel Goswell's: the camera likes her best) and doesn't just have the lame-o washed-out lava lamp effects endemic to this era of shoegaze video. Lyrically, too, the song's maybe a little too interested in being stoned for me to take it as seriously now as I once took it, but—like Mazzy Star, like Low—the spell the song casts isn't about the words: who pays that much attention to them? Instead it's about the mood and sound and feel. And hell yes is that good.
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Which is sadder? Vote by 9am 3/12
I associate Nirvana with that Unplugged set, but I don't know what that means, only that I was skeptical at best in my youth. A closer call than I expected: going with Slowdive.
ReplyDeleteI love Slowdive, and I voted for them here. But I'm prepared to fully endorse another act which is not represented in this tournament, and which is criminally underrepresented across the music industry, worldwide forever, and an artist in which I am deeply, emotionally invested: Northern Picture Library. The scorned love, the busted love, the love of confusion & beauty & disillusionment, the isolation of their album Alaska: “There's a part of your heart / that's never belonged / to me I found out recently / I don't know, but all along / I've loved you more / You've always had all of mine / no less than all of mine.” The preceding lines being from NPL's “Insecure,” a song which cancels your weekend plans as it devours you night after night, radiating like an unmedicated malady across a moonlit sky. In the lifetime it takes to suss out and sift through, come to cope with “Untitled 2,” a one-minute clip that takes eons to hear. Quit everything and take up astronomy to fathom its galactic collision: “I love the sound of aeroplanes at night / I love the sound of aeroplanes at night / I love the sound of aeroplanes at night.” Then cheer it up with “Catholic Easter Colours,” for a more uptempo but no less decimating heart rending.
ReplyDeleteSlowdive is here but you don't choose Dagger? Blasphemy!
ReplyDeleteThis could've been a great showdown between southpaws, but cmon. Slowdive didn't even show up until 15 minutes after forfeit.
ReplyDeleteI've gotta go with Slowdive. I might have chosen When the Sun Hits, however. God I love that song.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, if you're into Slowdive, do yourself a favor and check out the documentary Pitchfork did on their album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjr6esFXJl4
With you on all these counts. With some bands the choice was obvious. Slowdive, not so, or at least not for me. Dagger, as someone mentioned, is an all-time fav, as is When the Sun Hits. I'll check out the doc.
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