alt dot rock

basically any music that originated in the 90s and could be called alternative

OK Computer: 10 Years Young

A number of people pointed out to me recently that Radiohead’s seminal masterpiece, OK Computer, turned ten years old a couple weeks ago. That’s right, it’s been a full decade since the band began to cement its reputation as “world’s greatest rock band.”

Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday, my friend Dan was imploring me to give Radiohead a shot. At this point in the band’s career, I had been less than impressed with their offerings. Don’t worry though, I came around.

Anyway, if I recall my history correctly, the record label received it coolly and feared that its immense sound and intellectual themes would scare away buyers. Fortunately for the band, people are smarter than record labels give them credit for. The rest, they say, “is history.”

To celebrate OK Computer’s decennial, Hypeful has compiled every song on the album, each covered by a different artist, as downloadable mp3s. I’m not sure which is the most intriguing, Shawn Lee’s quasi-soul adult contemporary rendition of No Surprises or the String Quartet version of Electioneering or The Illuminati’s glitched and distorted interpretation of Subterranean Homesick Alien. For my money, I think it’s Silent Gray’s inexplicable rock recording of Fitter Happier.

Of course, none of them improve on the original, but after ten years, the new perspectives are refreshing. But if imitation and inspiration are the sincerest forms of flattery, then the existence of these covers goes to show the extent of OK Computer’s legacy.

Update July 10: Not to be outdone, stereogum has compiled its own unique list of track-by-track OK Computer covers. This further demonstrated the impact of the record. It’s astonishing that it would be that easy to pull together, from existing sources, TWO complete cover records featuring 24 different artists, with no overlap.

Radiohead, Paranoid Android live on Later with Jools Holland, May 31, 1997 (two weeks before the record’s release). The band rocks oh so much:

Radiohead – Paranoid Android (on Jools Holland, 1997)

The Beatles + Nine Inch Nails = Come Closer

The Beatles vs. Nine Inch nails Come Closer Together

I was tempted to let this pass without comment, but it’s just so intriguing. It’s a mash up of the Beatles Come Together and Nine Inch Nails’ Closer by DJ Zebra. The ending is a bit flubbed, but overall this is a very good combination.

It’s particularly noteworthy since both sources are rock songs and it’s rare to see good rock mash ups. Because of the way most rock songs are written and performed, its harder to effectively combine two of them than it is to lay rap lyrics over a riff or rock vocals over a hip hop beat.

Soundgarden: The Day I Tried To Live

From the album Superunknown (1994)

One of the best songs from one of the 90s best albums (a 4.51/5 on my scale). The Day I Tried to Live is Chris Cornell and company at the tip-top of their game on an album that delivers smash after smash.

It’s not as frantic as Spoonman or as sour as Fell on Black Days, but more steadfast and determined in its manner of storytelling. The whining intro sets a cynical stage a sordid story of ambition and the depths one can sink to while trying to achieve a perverted definition of “living.”

What I find most interesting about this song is its unusual construction, which seems almost operatic in nature. Sure, it employs a contemporary structure, but not in the traditional pop/rock manner. From the speaker’s perspective, there’s clearly a conflict as shown by the contrast between the resolute, ominousness of the verses and the screaming, adrenaline-soaked choruses. As the song progresses, the conflict gets increasingly heated as both sides of the argument struggle for control. The verses get shorter and the screaming gets more intense, back and forth until he cast he final accusation.

This song is of the kind that sits in the back of your mind until one day, at random, its brilliance explodes into your consciousness. From there, it’s no going back.

What I Love: The song, on an Interstate at night, with windows rolled down and the volumed rolled up.

Soul Coughing: Unmarked Helicopters

Black Helicopters

From the album Songs in the Key of X (1996)

Recorded during the tumultuous sessions of the band’s second album, Irresistible Bliss, Unmarked Helicopters is prototypical Soul Coughing and an achievement in “slacker jazz.” That intra-band strife of the time seems to help this song, better than any other, capture the zeitgeist of The X-Files, the feeling of alienation and suspicion that the show projected.

The intro borrows from of the show’s disembodied main theme and sets the stage for an agitated and unnerving story. Over the course of three and a half minutes, the song makes oblique references to hovering lights on houses (and those that pursue them), fear of the end times and the role of the person who knows the truth. This thing is an ode to American society’s grand paranoia of truth and government that the show epitomized.

Unmarked Helicopters appeared as the second track on the Songs in the Key of X compilation, the whimsical soundtrack released at the height of the TV show’s popularity. In early 1997, the song was featured prominently in the fourth season episode Max.

[audio:070621Unmarked Helicopters.mp3]

What I Love: The whole shebang.

Photo from DefenseLINK

New Radiohead Album Preview

Radiohead will be blessing the world with its creative juices in the very near future. It is a time of much anticipation, with excitement and wariness rolled into a caldron of suspense.

What will the new album sound like?
Can it possibly match the group’s reputation?
What new musical ideas will the world be forced to grasp and understand?

We won’t know the answers to those questions until sometime this autumn, but for now here’s a bit of a preview, courtesy of YouTube:

Update: 9/30. The new album is titled In Rainbows.

Nine Inch Nails: Metal

From the remix album Things Falling Apart (2000)

Trent Reznor is no stranger to cover tunes, having turned in notable studio versions of songs by Soft Cell, Pigface, Queen and Joy Division, as well as performing a number of live covers at concerts. On the remix album that accompanied The Fragile, Nine Inch Nails added Gary Numan to that list, with a surprising faithful rendition of Metal.

To be sure, Trent layers on his trademark Fragile-era soundscapes, giving the song a gloomy NIN atmosphere. He even tacks on a superfluous 3 minute extended outro, but the soul of the song remains close to the original.

Rumors of this song’s existence circulated the late-90s Internet for a number of years before it was officially released. It was a point of contention among Fan sites whether the song was real or not. When a thirty second mp3 excerpt surfaced in 1999, many supposed that the song’s production was abandoned during the years in the wilderness between The Downward Spiral and The Fragile.

Fortunately for us, the song was completed for our enjoyment.

[audio:070609Metal.mp3]

What I Love: The subdued menace and relaxed feel.

Presidents of the USA rarity: Ça Plane Pour Moi

ça plane pour moi cover

A long time ago, while expanding my cultural horizons and getting to know a distant branch of my family, I spent a good portion of the summer in the nation of France. It had the works: sight-seeing, landmarks, historical places, family gatherings, camping, Eurorail, and of course shopping and souvenirs. An excellent summer well spent. And it was made more excellent by a handful of hard-to-find musical acquisitions I made while perusing various stores and malls.

One such find, I believe I picked up at the Virgin megastore on the Champs-Élysée or maybe FNAC, was a CD single by The Presidents of the United States of America, that quirky alt-rock-punk-pop band who emerged from the collapse of Seattle’s grunge scene. PUSA was near the peak of its success that summer and the band was a favorite of mine for a time.

Thus I was quite intrigued when I discovered this cardboard sleeve CD single while browsing the stacks. In French, the title read Ça Plane Pour Moi and the artist, to my surprise, was The Presidents. The song was certainly not a single release from the band’s debut album, with which I was already familiar. It was a baffling mystery, but as a third year student of the French language, I was quite attracted to this French language song.

Plus, I’ve always had a fascination with CD singles. There’s something about the combination of low price and rare songs that I, as a collector, can’t resist.

So, putting it all together:

Francophilia
Rare music
CD single
A then-favorite band
Being able to forever say “I bought this in France”

You bet it was a no brainer. I snapped it up faster than you can say Tout de Suite.

Ça Plane Pour Moi roughly means “This life for me.” There’s no direct translation of the phrase but it is an expression of detached contentment with one’s existence, possibly with ironic undertones. The particular recording is a cover of the 1977 hit by Plastic Bertrand, though The Presidents perform it in more of a happy-go-lucky surf punk style. The lyrics are chock-full of French slang that don’t make any literal sense, but if you have to delve into it, try this analysis.

[audio:070514CaPlanePourMoi.mp3]

For a long time, this song was a rarity, so rare that the disc doesn’t appear on either AllMusic’s PUSA discography or Discogs.com’s listing. Amazon has it for $20+, but fortunately for you guys, iTunes offers it for just 99¢.