#285 ‘For Nancy (‘Cos It Already Is)’ by Pete Yorn (17 June)

Album: Musicforthemmorningafter, 2001

Justification: Well, following in the footsteps of our Blondie-related celebration of punctuation…

Had this come out a decade earlier, Pete Yorn could have been the poster boy of sensitive grunge (and thereby invented emo). In the early 90s major labels had suddenly worked out how to make stars of the sort of artists that had previously been distinctly underground concerns – Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Flaming Lips – but by 2001 they were too busy ignoring the internet and wondering why their sales in the computer-savvy 14-30 demographic had suddenly vanished.

Still, in the eyes of the Biz, Yorn was the slamdunk future of American music. He was handsome, talented (both as a musician and a producer), had a certain indefinable world-weariness about him that seemed tailor-made for making the Ladieez swoon, and the full backing of Columbia records. These days he’s releasing Frank Black-produced discs on Vagrant, which is far, far more cool but a pretty serious comedown from Star In The Making.

In 2001 Sony Australia couldn’t give journalists enough copies of Musicforthemorningafter, and while most of the album inspired a bit of a shrug, I feel deeply in love with two songs: ‘Black’ (which is to this day one of my most played songs, according to iTunes and Lastfm) and this, one of the several singles from the disc. I think it’s the arrangement more than anything else: Yorn’s drumming over the top of an overprogrammed drum machine still makes me grin creepily. His subsequent records have been a bit unexciting (though I’ve not heard the last two, including the aforementioned Black-produced disc), which I should probably amend.

THIS TIME IN 2010: Blur were beginning to invent Britpop with ‘For Tomorrow’.