No, I did not stare at the sun yesterday during the eclipse. It came and went within a short amount of time and we only got a tiny partial one. I was too busy working!
Coincidentally, this particular U2 song has been on the playlist at the Day Job and every time it comes on, I’ve been wanting to listen to Pop. I know, it’s always derided as one of their worst records, but I still have a soft spot for it because it came out during my HMV years and got a lot of play during my writing sessions.
After the promotion of The Cure and the Curiosa Festival had come and gone, the next phase was about to begin: a massive reissue of their early catalog. While this may not have been all that important in the UK where they’d stayed on the Fiction label for years, in the US they’d appeared on several: the indie PVC, A&M, Sire, and eventually an extended stay (complete with minor reissues) on Elektra. This would finally bring the majority of their discography together on one label, with its original packaging.
The new reissues of their back catalog began of course with their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in late 2004. Most Americans knew most of its tracks from the US collection Boys Don’t Cry or via the import. [I’d bought the original version at Al Bum’s in Amherst probably in early 1987 and much preferred this one. It flows much better and the band’s early gloom is much more prevalent here.
The bonus disc of this reissue would of course include the singles “Boys Don’t Cry” and “Jumping Someone Else’s Train”, both post-album stand-alone singles, though surprisingly it did not contain their debut single “Killing an Arab”, though that was most likely due to its questionable source material. Still, it did contain several demos and outtakes that are quite fascinating to hear.
The next three album reissues would appear all on the same day: Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography, in late spring 2005. The first two had been released at different times in the US, including as a double-disc two-fer called Happily Ever After, which I owned on cassette.
Seventeen Seconds expanded on their post-punk sound and added a pastoral feel to their sound, thanks to the melodic bass lines of new members Simon Gallup and the keyboards of Matthieu Hartley. This album definitely feels like something you’d listen to alone, on headphones, sometime around 2am. It was a huge inspiration to my writing in the late 80s and got a ton of play late at night. The extra tracks on this reissue are more focused on live recordings, some of which would show up on the cassette version of the live album Concert.
Faith, on the other hand, was a much darker affair. It too is perfect late night listening, but it leans more towards isolation and loneliness. There are two faces here: the anger and tension of songs like “Primary” and “Doubt”, and the atmospheric fog of “All Cats Are Grey” and the title track. The original cassette had included the twenty-seven minute (!!) instrumental track “Carnage Visors”, which they’d recorded for an animated film that would play before their live shows. This epic is included on this reissue, along with several studio outtakes and live tracks, as well as the non-album single “Charlotte Sometimes”.
Pornography, on the other hand…is not an easy album to listen to. Hartley had left, leaving the band as a barebones trio that only added to the album’s sparseness. They took several steps further down into the bitterly cold abyss, well past the darkness of Faith. Depression, desolation and entropy abound on this record. Is it any wonder that this was in super heavy rotation on my Walkman in the late 80s, then? While it’s not as violently dismal as, say, The Downward Spiral, it could probably be seen as its goth equivalent. Interestingly enough, its closing title track (like “Hurt”, come to think of it) hints at a sense of strained hope. This too features a lot of studio demos and live tracks.
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Are these reissues that you must have in your collection? Well, if you’re a huge fan like I am, then yes, definitely. The remastered tracks sound great, and the extras are all sorts of fun to listen to. For completists they are missing a few things here and there, such as a few single-only b-sides (which, to be fair, were easily available on the Join the Dots box set), but it’s worth checking out.
Coming Up Next: the final three reissues of the decade
While Bloodflowers was a great album, it wasn’t my favorite of their latter years. I think part of it was that it came out at a time when my time at the record store was coming to a close, but it was also that it simply just didn’t resonate with me as deeply as some past albums had. Still, this sparked off a slow but steady stream of increased visibility. They were constantly on tour at the start of the decade, and followed it up with a number of collections and appearances.
The band released the Greatest Hits collection in late 2001 as a contractual obligation to the Fiction label. It features many of their best known tracks, chosen by Robert Smith himself, and also two new tracks: the poppy “Cut Here” (the title an anagram of the band name) and the perky “Just Say Yes” featuring Saffron from Republica. It’s by no means a must-have collection, but it’s a good place to start, and also a good mix for those not interested in a discography deep dive. The expanded version features a second album’s worth of the same songs, this time recorded acoustically.
Smith kept himself busy by appearing on a few albums, many of which are definitely worth checking out. He provided vocals on the great track “Perfect Blue Sky” on Junkie XL’s Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin — an expansive two-cd collection of upbeat radio-friendly electronic tracks and expanded house instrumentals. This album is one of my favorites of 2003 and also features vocals from Saffron, Dave Gahan, Gary Numan, Chuck D, Terry Hall, and more. It also features the groovy reimagining of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” which had showed up in 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven. It’s a record worth picking up.
Also in 2003, he featured on…a Blink-182 album?? Sure, why not? The punk pop trio called The Cure one of their influences, and he features on the track “All of This”.
Then in spring of 2004, he featured on the second album by tweaker, drummer Chris Vrenna’s collective project. The album 2am wakeup call is about Vrenna’s wife’s insomnia so much of the record is dark and moody…but not necessarily gloomy. I listened to this album incessantly for most of that year, not just in the Belfry during my writing sessions (I was writing The Balance of Light at the time) but during my commutes to work. I highly recommend checking this record out.
Backing up a few months, The Cure also released the box set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities 1978-2001. It’s a four-disc collection that proves that these oddities weren’t just throwaways or one-offs. Their b-sides, like “Just One Kiss”, “Breathe” and “The Big Hand”, could be just as amazing and memorable as their album tracks and singles, and even their soundtrack and compilation offerings like “Burn” (from The Crow soundtrack) and the cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in My Eyes” (from For the Masses) are great. It’s worth checking these out.
But wait! There’s one more thing! One that often gets overlooked!
They also did the theme song for the French animated series Dragon Hunters by taking their track “Taking Off” (which would show up soon on their next record) and repurposing it into this fun and boppy theme. This one doesn’t show up on any greatest hits, reissues or box sets (at least not yet anyway), but it’s easy to find online.
Coming up: finally, another new album!
[CW: this video, while a hilarious nod to the old Windows maze screen saver, uses multiple lenses and quick cuts.]
Specifically, the early ’77-’79 post-punk era of the band. I’m really digging this album by Omni, an indie band from Atlanta, who I’d almost forgotten about (I also own a previous record from 2017 that I haven’t listened to in awhile). I do love that a lot of indie bands are completely embracing that twitchy post-punk sounds of tight Tom Verlaine guitars, odd chord changes, heightened tension, and crisp production.
The new album Souvenir came out last Friday and it’s worth checking out!
So what’s one of my favorite love songs? You’d be surprised. It’s actually not a Beatles song!
The first time I heard Alanis Morissette’s “Head Over Feet” I immediately thought wow, yeah, I would love to have that as a song written about/to/for me. It’s simple and yet so heartfelt and kind. It’s not about sex or having a good time or mind-blowing emotion or anything. It just…is. No strings attached. Just one person saying how awesome their lover — and friend — is.
And to me, that’s one of the best kinds of love songs there is.
Unlike last year, where I was just too preoccupied with Real Life and other things and hadn’t allowed myself to really get to know the new music I was acquiring, I’m making a concerted effort to pay attention to what’s coming out these days, and I’m quite happy to say that I’m finding a lot of really good stuff out there!
These two mixtapes were basically holdovers from late 2023 where I’d started a list of songs but hadn’t gotten around to completing it and arranging the tracklist flow. I’m quite happy with how they came out, however, and I hope you enjoy them as well!
From the Open Skies: In My Blue World 2, created 14 January 2024. No, I have not written the sequel to In My Blue World just yet! I only have a very rough two-page outline of an idea, but I think it’s worth working on as a future project later on in the year! All I’ll say that it involves our heroes facing off a new foe with a much stronger and creepier ability to siphon magic for their own nefarious uses! And what better way to prep for a future novel project than creating a mixtape soundtrack for it? [Note: for those of you playing along, the title here is borrowed from another ELO song, heh.]
Walk in Silence XXVIII, created 30 January 2024. First of all, I can’t believe I’m already up to twenty-eight volumes of this series!! (Then again, I’ve been making them since 1988, so…) This, Listen in Silence and Untitled have pretty much become my own NOW That’s What I Call… compilations that just won’t quit. This one came out surprisingly well and I’m finding myself returning to it more and more.
A few personal things came up recently that I have to take care of, so I might not be able to post much in the next few days. See you soon!
While going through some of my mp3s the other day I was thinking about the music that inspired some of the novels I’d written. They weren’t completely inspired by just one song of course, but there was that one track that was pretty much the stepping stone that got the project started in earnest. It got me thinking about some of my other projects and how they got their (musical) start.
The Phoenix Effect / The Bridgetown Trilogy. Poe’s ‘band version’ of her single “Hello” dropped probably a couple of weeks before I started writing The Phoenix Effect in March 1997. I’d had a vague idea of the story I wanted to write for at least a few months, but it was this song that made me realize I was ready to do it. The song itself is very Johnny Mnemonic in its theme — and I had a soft spot for that enjoyable but extremely flawed film — and I realized that movie had a similar mood I was aiming for with this new project. Darker, edgier, angrier. Those weren’t words you’d use to describe my previous writing, to be honest, but I was willing to give it a go. This single got my creative blood pumping enough that it ended up as the first track on the first Songs from the Eden Cycle mixtape.
Two Thousand. This trunked novel was to be my Gen-X ‘becoming an adult without a direction’ story that never quite panned out, based on several related ideas: a close circle of friends regularly meeting up at a bench in Back Bay; a trio of musicians starting a local indie band; the frustrations of following your dreams versus going into the workplace and which obviously paid the rent. The Wolfgang Press’ cover of Three Dog Night’s “Mama Told Me Not to Come” was on their brilliant album Queer, which got played incessantly in The Shoebox apartment while I worked on this. I felt it was the perfect theme song for the project.
Can’t Find My Way Home. I’d come up with the idea for this time travel idea during my time at HMV, when I’d first heard this phenomenal cover of the Blind Faith tune. That gorgeous intro played by Johnny Marr screamed ‘opening theme song’ in my head. It took a few years for me to come up with a story behind it, and it’s gone through various versions and has been trunked multiple times. I’ve recently had a few ideas on a new approach to the story, however, so perhaps this may surface one last time…
Love Like Blood. My trunked vampire novel (it’s there for a good reason in that it’s terrible despite a lot of really good ideas) had been started back in 2004 when I’d been frustrated by my inability to finish The Balance of Light, and I’d been reading a few vampire novels at the time, so I figured, why the hell not? Let’s give it a try, something to focus on so I can at least keep working? This Killing Joke song wasn’t just the opening theme of the novel (the first chapter has a band playing it live at the Paradise in Boston) but it was to set the mood with its ridiculous take on goth tropes. [I haven’t read it in years, so now I’m curious to see how bad it is and if it’s salvageable. I’m in no rush, however.]
Meet the Lidwells! I’ve mentioned before that a lot of MtL borrows from ideas that I’d used in Two Thousand (hey, I wasn’t going to be using them, so…). One of the biggest moments I’d planned in TT was a pivotal ‘make or break’ scene for the lead character and his band, in which they did a blistering cover of this final track off The La’s self-titled album. Years later when I started MtL, I knew that I’d be using that same idea for a pivotal scene, this time pinpointing The Lidwells’ highest career moment they’d ever achieved. It’s the scene near the end of the novel where Thomas Lidwell describes the band performing a live version of their song “Listening” that becomes his all-time favorite moment in the band’s career.
In My Blue World. This one’s a bit obvious, but yes, it was indeed this song that came to mind when I first started writing the novel. At the time I’d just been on an ELO kick and was playing several of their albums when I was planning out the novel itself, but once I started it, I knew this was going to be the opening theme song. For those playing along, in my head there’s a crossfade right at the end of the first scene where Zuze appears for the first time, and the theme song fades in with the movie credits!
Theadia. My space opera was kicked off by this Fuzzbox deep cut off of their second album Big Bang!, one of my favorites despite its 80s pop cheesiness. I just knew that the story was going to revolve around our two nerdy heroes who are trying to save the universe but would really rather be hanging out with close friends and having a good time. I wanted this novel to not be hard sf or steeped in Doctorow levels of tech geekdom. This was the album — and the song — that I put on when I started writing the novel in the last few days of my stay at the former day job at the bank, to remind me that despite how desperate things might become in the story, these two will always find time to be true to themselves. I’m really looking forward to getting this one out as well!
Queen Ophelia’s War. I’d said before that I wrote this novel with the plan of Dialing It Back, just like I had with Diwa & Kaffi. It has its moments of tension and conflict, sure, but I wanted to write something that could also be seen as pastoral as well. And to do that I realized that I also wanted a mixtape that would be similar in feel to what it felt like when I used to listen to Cocteau Twins when I was a teenager. The mood of both the novel and the mixtape then was about the wonders of the unknown and the willingness to get lost in them for a while. Thus putting “Blue Bell Knoll” as the first track on its mixtape!
There are many different ways I could go about relearning how to listen to music that resonates with me, and I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s to do it like I did before: one song, one resonance at a time.
My old-school style of finding writing inspiration in music used to be like this. A song that attracted my attention would then make me think okay, how can this song inspire a scene in the novel I’m writing? I haven’t done that in decades actually, but that’s how it used to work. It evolved in the 90s to ‘Belfry Soundtracks’ — the albums that would get heavy rotation during my writing sessions. They weren’t so much inspiration as they were setting moods, or simply pleasant to hear while working.
Life encroaches sometimes. I lack the time or the patience to pay attention. Or maybe the style or the genre evolves in a direction that doesn’t sing to me for a time. There are many reasons for that disconnect, and other reasons for trying to catch up afterwards.
Relearning sometimes requires unlearning. Stop focusing on the bulk of the chronology and the discography, and focus on the immediate that’s coming across. Discover something that passed me by, or be the first one in, it doesn’t matter, as long as we listen to the single song at that moment, and relate or react with the resonance. Pass it by if there’s nothing to feel, or hold onto it for a later time.
Just allow it to resonate, and that’s the most important and the most true emotional response.
Hi there, and welcome to 2024!
What are your plans? Are you looking forward to making your dreams a reality?
Let’s make them happen!
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