— Tony Cross
One of the very few highlights of my time on Twitter was the weekly, then bi-weekly, music polls done by one Richard Shaw. For one thing, he seemed like the sweetest person on social media: friendly, welcoming to all and happy to hear from others even as their opinions differed wildly from his own. (In a healthy society, these would be simply the bare minimum but on a platform like Twitter the bar had been lowered considerably) Plus, his polls were loads of fun while we were all coping with the pandemic. He'd pick a year seemingly at random and then give his followers the week to think over their Top 3 albums. Once he'd gone through every year from about 1964 to 2000, he went back to the beginning and did it all over again but with five albums to select and a fortnight for everyone to chew things over.
It was during this second round that I began posting pros and cons lists for albums I was considering — and some which I wasn't but which were notable enough to merit inclusion. For example, when we looked at 1976 I tweeted P&C for Station to Station (P: 'A triumph considering all the coke'), The Royal Scam ('C: A bit generic compared to the others') and Songs in the Key of Life ('C: That extra E.P. is just rubbing it in!') among others. I got some good feedback on it so it became my thing right up until I began losing interest. One observation of mine that I particularly liked was a con for Belle & Sebastian's 1998 album The Boy with the Arab Strap: 'It has aged well but I haven't'.
I meant it as a joke but I began to think that there might be something to it after a while. When critics and fans talk about songs and albums aging well or being dated, I often find myself unsure quite what they mean. The low hanging fruit in the argument is that anything from the eighties with a fairlight synth and some big Bob Clearmountain drumming hasn't aged well but is that always the case? (I personally think it only applies when you're dealing with an out-of-touch old rocker from the sixties who wanted to sound contemporary...yeah, those records haven't aged well at all) I can kind of see why we might say that The Beatles have aged well but I'm not so sure about others who supposedly haven't. The onus is on us: the records haven't changed, we have.
Take this Single of the Fortnight Best New Single from Ireland's The Cranberries. When I was seventeen — an age I was on the precipice of in February of 1994 — it meant something to me. Delores O'Riordan's lyrics read like the sort of poetry that I might have considered myself capable of jotting down on some loose leaf paper in my bedroom. (Suffice it to say, my attempts at profound, lovelorn verse were not up to scratch, an opinion held by everyone but me) At sixteen, I was keen to get me one of those girlfriends that everyone else seemed to have; "Linger" was the sort of song I heard at that age as a challenge: I could make this heartbroken girl happy even if others had failed. A year later, I was facing the end of my first real relationship — hey, four months as boyfriend-girlfriend in high school counts for something! — and now I was the one who couldn't let go, who let it linger for far longer than I needed to.
"Linger" also happened to play a role in my first breakup. It was a cold Friday afternoon and we walked together from high school over to the students centre at the nearby university. We didn't have a whole lot to say to each other by then. She was preoccupied by homework or jotting something in her diary or — most likely of all — building herself up for what she needed to do so I sat down and put Now That's What I Call Music 27 into my Walkman. Midway through "Linger" she gave me a look that said we were done. I turned off the music which put the cassette in a now-permanent state of being at a song that I couldn't bring myself to listen to again.
It took a while but I eventually got over that breakup. Other girls would come and go and it wouldn't be until I reached my thirties that I would meet the woman I would eventually marry. It was twenty years after having my heartbroken for the first time that we had out wedding. And what of "Linger" now that I'm in a happy and stable relationship? It just doesn't hit home the way it once had. But beyond that, I'm simply too old and grown up for it anymore. Jotting down your thoughts as poetry is something everyone should go through as a teenager but it's a phase no different than having a punk rock period or being into The Doors. It's teen stuff so what's a grown man in his forties to do but feign concern and scoff to himself? The music didn't change, I did.
~~~~~
Also Reviewed This Fortnight
Elastica: "Line Up"
North Americans didn't take Britpop well. The music press that had enthusiastically built up the likes of Hootie & The Blowfish and Dave Matthews Band were unhappy about English hacks over-hyping Blur and Oasis. But they were receptive to Elastica, possibly because they sounded like just another American alt rock act. I'd say "Line Up" sounds like Hole but at least Courtney Love had (has?) some swagger which is more than can be said for Justine Fricshmann and her Elastica cohorts. The Britpop depth chart was shockingly depleted once you got past Blur and Oasis and this even applied to those on the artier side of the movement. (Also, is this even all that arty?) Again, this record hasn't changed: it's as duff as it's always been.
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