Wasn't I Right About You?

There's something to be said for the model of album structure where the last track acts as a gentle easing out, rather than a grand conclusion. The last couple of Elbow albums come to mind in particular here, both with miniature songs that act like epilogues to the records, tying everything up nicely and preparing for the finish.
The Bluetones' last song "Wasn't I Right About You?" is more upbeat and musically substantial than those but still feels like it fits this idea, particularly the beautiful trumpet near its close. Thing is that without enough strength in the album before it, it just feels a little inconsequential rather than an earned winding down.

Baby, Back Up

I'm back!

San Francisco's Amoeba Music might just be my new favourite place in the world. I bought 17 albums there in my two visits last week, alongside a T-shirt and a DVD. I also discovered something odd there (although probably not as weird as eating at a place called 'Quaker Steak & Lube' as we did in Indiana): Amoeba had a wider selection of Bluetones CDs on sale than I have ever seen in any London shop. Good luck trying to mind the Mudslide EP here, for instance. It reminded of Mark Morriss' claims at their last London gig in April that "Baby, Back Up" had become a massive hit in America. Self-mocking humour in reality (and it wouldn't do them any
good if they carry on cancelling tours outside of the UK) but just momentarily, it was possible to imagine...

I've already mentioned my troubles with the most recent album, but that same gig really brought them home. See, it's one thing to find songs on a record unremarkable, but another thing to find them the same live, when they're cutting into time that could be being used instead to play much loved older songs. Listening to completely new songs at a gig can often be unfulfilling, but it shouldn't remain that way after they're actually released and the gig marked the first time ever that I had listened to the most recent Bluetones stuff out of duty rather than with any great enjoyment. It never happened with Luxembourg or Serenity Now, and it was a bit painful to realise.

"Baby, Back Up" was an unforseen exception to this, though. I'd never really noticed it as strongly before that point, but there's something of a spark there that missing elsewhere, a certain mischief that matched to its introduction. Mark plays the alarmed prude, with his chorus exclamations backed by guitar revving and jutting into the spacious lightness of the rest of the song, providing a sharp contrast that's funny and a little bit cruel.

'Baby, back up,
Enough is enough,
You're freaking me out,
not into that stuff...
I thought you were cool but you are just weird'

There's a great burbling organ line in the middle section and end of the song too, and you can just imagine him and his girl out flying kites and floating boats, as he professes his interests to be. But as for what it is that he prefers that to, not so clear. For someone who sang happily about S&M on the previously album, this is incredibly coy, with 'fumbling around under the coats' about as close as we get to details. With a first verse that's positively predatory, it's easy to come to the conclusion that it's a want for commitment that's freaking him out rather than any bizarre fetish, except that, huh, there's a final twist of 'these are the final days of our lives, we should be going at it like knives'.
I won't pretend that it fits together that well, but damn if playing the threatened bastard doesn't make for quite the nice change.

The King Of Outer Space

The one thing that I'm really not looking forward to in this project is writing about every track on last year's self-titled album. When I was at Stylus I put myself down to review it, sure that I would have no lack of things to write about the band (as I've hopefully demonstrated so far), but then it came out and, well, nothing. I mean, I could have talked about the band and my history with them, but trying to come up with anything interesting to say about the actual album proved futile, so I didn't bother.

Why this should be was diffcult to put a finger on, but I think I've got it now. It's not that the album is bad, at least in the way I'd normally use it, certainly. Nothing on it nearly hits the depths of "Fast Boy", nevermind some of their B-side atrocitities. It's closer to Science & Nature's uber-melodic pop sound than any of their other albums. Every single song is, well, accomplished. And there's the rub - accomplished is not a word I'd be using if this was something that I could love. They never put a foot wrong beause they never take a risk, leaving us for the first time in sequel land where everything that was great in the first place is put back in but the WHY is gone.

Perhaps it doesn't say much then that "The King Of Outer Space" is my favourite song on the album. It's a song about waiting, hopefully, for a visit from aliens, 'home-made transmitter point[ed] to the sky... blindly believing'. It's one prettily one mid-paced song among many, but I didn't really catch that until relistening, because such is its serene tone that I heard it in my head as being as much slower. And, more importantly, it's quietly clever and quietly heartwarming and just too goofy to fall into being too quietly everything and become involuntary background music.

Packed with arresting turns of phrase like 'Each day the world floats further away, all big and blue like it's bruising', it has a lot in common with "The Bluetones Big Score" in its detailed flights of fancy. While that song is all about how nice the dream is, taking a while to give us a wink and let us know that it isn't real, though, "The King Of Outer Space" is sort of the reverse. It comes straight out with 'long odds on receiving' but never gives up on a naive hope that the dreamed for events will really take place, packing a toothbrush (just in case). The minute of offbeat, bluesy guitar that closes the song leaves it as a mystery whether they really do, but hope in itself can be a beautiful thing.

My Neighbour's House

Last week, my iTunes library went past the 10,000 songs mark. I don't think I've even listened to a sadly significant proportion of those, let alone know them, but still, my mental library contains a lot of songs too. It's hardly surprising then that new songs can sometimes sound strikingly familiar because they have something in common with one of them. Just a hazard of listening to lots of music, really. But it still occasionally ruins songs, and "My Neighbour's House" is one.

You see, the riff in "My Neighbour's House", the big fuzzy one that blazes through it and rarely lets up, is basically the same one as in Oasis' "Rock 'n' Roll Star". Turn on "My Neighbour's House" and the first words that come into my head aren't 'My neighbour's house is burning down and I wish that I could care', they're 'I live my life in the city, and there's no easy way owwwwwt'. Followed, of course, by the unforgettable 'soon-shyiiiine'. The problem is magnified by the fact that the riff it resembles is a really well known song, by one of their supposed peers, and that they play it in very much the same turned-up-to-11 style. No other Bluetones song would sound as much like Oasis anyway. I'd like to think that the resemblence wasn't deliberate, but it all points to an uncharacteristic laziness.

A shame because in some ways "My Neighbour's House" has a lot more to recommend it than most of their other songs from last year's self-titled album. It's full of energy, has a really effective breakdown where the riff doesn't interfere, and has some of Mark's most idiosyncratic and intriguing lyrics, with him wishing for 'some fellow feeling' that he just can't find and fearing harsh (divine?) judgement as a result. But all that pales next to the Oasis factor and choosing this as comeback single at a time when mainly dismissed as Britpop throwbacks was sort of willfully stupid. The first full Bluetones single ever to miss the top 40, incidentally.

YouTube: 1-minute sample of My Neighbour's House. Enough to see my point, hopefully.