Payphones – I LOSE MY HEAD
I sometimes like to imagine what the music world would’ve been like if instead of the professional backup bands that recorded Michael Jackson or Donna Summer records, they would’ve got The Cramps or Sex Pistols instead. I imagine that the bass lines and drum fills would’ve been severely less complicated to play but that these groups would’ve found really clever, creative ways around these issues.
The first thing the producer would’ve needed to do, of course, is to calm these musicians down. If anything, it’s amazing that these characters manage to record any music at all. The second thing would’ve been how the song went. Sitting the musicians down, asking them to play what was required, and making them rehearse would’ve been, I suspect, a marvellously interesting and difficult task for those in charge.
Payphones come from the land where, seemingly, rock music has moved and where it’s still thriving – Northern Europe. They sound like The Cramps if placed in the fantasy setting I suggested earlier, that of a respectable backup band. “I LOSE MY HEAD” is clever, well-calculated punk rock about going off the rails. Payphones sound like a band that makes music so as to raise a bit of hell on Sundays on the old fjords. Cracking stuff!
White Mount Lightning – Hole in My Pocket
Standard, bland, radio-approved pop music is the thing that should make us most confident that alternative music is here to stay. For every thousand listeners taught to buy this music or to casually ignore it while they’re shopping through the mall, a few dozen critics of it will appear. Most of them will spend their resources ensuring that they keep as far away from pop music as possible.
In other words, doing things the wrong way is guaranteed to attract fans who are bored with routines and traditions. Bands like The Stooges played minimalist rock with the intensity of pyromaniacs. They earned a few but devoted fans. Then, Jack White or The Black Keys took a similar approach to playing the blues, and this earned them supporters.
White Mount Lightning takes a similar reckless approach to the roaring blues-rock of “Hole in My Pocket.” It’s a kind of sound that has been given a pop treatment and made to be very heavy in recent years. But White Mount Lightning chooses the tumult of ramped-up amps and vocals heading into the red instead, as well as stories about travelling the world in search of excitement of a similar type. There’s something liberating about exaggerating things on purpose. And if you’re doing that using an electric guitar, it may even pay off in due course.
