Fluxblog Weekly #209: Pearl Jam, Faye Webster, Basement Jaxx, Stephen Malkmus
April 29th, 2019
Picture A Cup In The Middle Of The Sea
Pearl Jam “I Got Id”
Eddie Vedder can’t help but sound heroic. There’s a strength and nobility in his baritone, and a courage in how he wields it. So it’s always a bit rattling to hear him sound entirely vulnerable, or for him to express insecurity and anxiety. He does that on “I Got Id,” a non-album single issued between Vitalogy and No Code in the mid ’90s. Vedder sings from the perspective of a lovelorn shut-in who feels so scarred by bad memories that he can’t bring himself to act on his love for someone. I’d say it was an unrequited love song, but this person seems entirely within his reach – he’s just too scared and self-pitying to actually go for it.
The line that always gets under my skin here is when he sings “I’ll just lie alone and wait for the dream where I’m not ugly and you’re looking at me.” I know this feeling a little too well, and that I relate to this as much now as when I was 15 is rather depressing for me. Vedder sounds so ragged and tired on this song, like he’s exhausting his last reserves of energy just to get this horrible, self-loathing feeling out of his head. He sounds so anguished when he yowls “if just once I could feel loved,” like if the sentiment of The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now” was utterly drained of all irony and cleverness and concentrated into just the most potent dose of loneliness and fear. The hero sounds totally defeated by his own worst impulses.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 1st, 2019
But We Just Said Goodbye
Faye Webster “Right Side of My Neck”
“Right Side of My Neck” is a song about the early days of a romance, one in which the infatuation is strong, and very much requited. There’s no anxiety to this song, just a confident bliss and anticipation for more just moments after separating. There’s no sense of gravity in the arrangement – the sounds seem to float in mid-air as Faye Webster sings like someone whose head is in the proverbial clouds. Listening to this song without experiencing the same feelings makes one long for this feeling in real life, but also get a contact high from it. Webster and her band distill this specific feeling so accurately that it can be sort of abstract sort of calm, relaxed joy. It’s a bit like the art of perfume, really, which is appropriate given that scent is such a big part of the song’s beautifully evocative chorus: “The right side of my neck still smells like you.”
Buy it from Amazon.
May 2nd, 2019
The Incomprehensible Maze
Basement Jaxx “Where’s Your Head At?”
Whenever I hear “Where’s Your Head At” now I think of something Douglas Wolk wrote about the song in Pitchfork’s best songs of the 2000s list. He presents the song as a bad trip set to gnarly house music, and describes the vocals as “a three-dimensional array of disembodied heads screaming that something’s wrong and you’re letting everyone down.” And like… yes, I totally hear that! But at the same time, I’ve never related to the song as being particularly negative. I hear the song as a rational, empathetic message cutting through the clutter of depressed thoughts and harsh self-criticism. It’s advice on how to get out of the dark hole: “Don’t let the walls cave in on you / you get what you give, that much is true.” The screaming, accusing voices come in during the parts of the song designed to give you an adrenaline rush – it’s like you’re meant to run from those voices, like they’re chasing you down. The song is set up as an escape from the worst feelings, the music is evoking the bad vibes in order to provide catharsis. I never come out of listening to this song – usually on repeat – without feeling better than I was coming into it.
Buy it from Amazon.
May 3rd, 2019
A Neon Afternoon
Stephen Malkmus “Forget Your Place”
“Forget Your Place” is an exploration of vagueness and neutrality in which the most distinctive qualities of Stephen Malkmus’ musical identity – the way he plays guitar, the sound of his voice – are either removed or significantly altered to the point it’s nearly unrecognizable. The song is built around droning sound loops that feel both tranquil and slightly unnerving, evoking the drab hum of computers, appliances, and fluorescent lights. Malkmus’ voice is mostly pitched much lower than his natural range, and he sings phrases that seem lightly disassociated but also quite friendly. When his regular singing voice appears it seems like he’s breaking out a spell, repeating “24/7 creative adults!” like he’s realizing what’s going on in a light panic. This is basically the nightmare of having a kinda-OK day job from a guy who has been a successful artist for nearly his entire adult life. Or maybe it’s also a little bit of a fantasy? It’s not actually that bleak.
Buy it from Amazon.