Category Archives: Songs from 2010

Album: Gloves, 2010

Justification: There’s a rule of thumb that has proved to have remarkable predictive power in my years as a music writer, and it is this: if an act is popular, and they release a song I like, their career is on the skids.

"…because they're a prog band, right?" - the graphic designer

Operator Please were all cute and bratty and we’ll-do-the-show-right-here!-y when they first emerged from a Gold Coast high school band competition in 2005. They swiftly became Triple J darlings via ‘A Song About Ping Pong’ and whatever the other things they released were, and I can be that dismissive because I really didn’t care for them one goddamn bit.

They then went through the same thing that most bands go through when they’re a bunch of friends who get together for fun, become unexpectedly successful and then suddenly realise they have a 24 hour a day job: a good slab of the band left (including, notoriously, keyboardist Sarah Gardiner who did a shoot for Australian porn site Abby Winters under the nom de boobs “Tricia L”) leaving the construction of album #2 to singer/songwriter/frontperson Amandah Wilkinson, drummer Tim Commandeur and violinist Taylor Henderson plus some new hands and Semothy Jones (aka UK producer/songwriter Andrew Hughes) getting a whole bunch of co-writing credits.

This bass-heavy piece of awesome was the first single and was the best thing the band had ever done by a pretty large margin. it got decent airplay, a lot of anticipation as the comeback of the much-loved band, and stormed all the way to… um, #47 on the ARIA charts.

It’s hard to know whether they’re still a going concern – I’ve heard Wilkinson is working on other more commercial prospects these days and their official site was last updated almost exactly a year ago (May 24 2011, to be precise) but regardless, this is still a great tune.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010 AND/OR 2011: I must have been sick, or having a wonderful time, because I had this off as well. There’s not much in the 2010 archive, but you’re welcome to it – and it’s all freakin’ ace.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

469. Starky: Hey Bang Bang (14 May)

470. Hefner: When the Angels Play their Drum Machines (16 May)

471. Sparklehorse: Happy Man (17 May)

472. Timbuk 3: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (21 May)

473. Ivy: Lucy Doesn’t Love You (22 May)

Album: Odd Blood, 2010

Justification: This is another one of those songs that absolutely did nothing for me when I first heard it – I don’t think I even particularly mentioned it when I reviewed the album – but then it turned up out of context when my iPod was shuffling and I thought “dear god, who’s this?” And I’ve adored it ever since – and it was the single Yeasayer song I saw when they played at Laneway earlier this year, which was very gratifying since their set coincided with Les Savy Fav, in one of the most egregiously awful bits of scheduling imaginable.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Frank Black’s jaunty ‘Headache’.

AND HERE’S THE LAST FIVE…

393. Sugar: If I Can’t Change Your Mind (1 Dec) 

394. The Sugarcubes: Hit (2 Dec)

395. Soft Cell: Sex Dwarf (5 Dec)

396. Jack Ladder & the Dreamlanders: Cold Feet (6 Dec)

397.  Michael Penn: No Myth (7 Dec)

Album: Travellers in Space & Time, 2010

Justification: It’s not often that a band gets a serious shot in the arm 18-odd years into their career, but that’s what happened with the lo-fi indie pop collective the Apples (later the Apples (in stereo), then finally what’s at the top of the page), and all it took was years of public indifference, a divorce and the patronage of a movie star. Dreams DO come true!

See, Robert Schneider had pulled the band together initially as part of the Elephant 6 collective, a group of like-minded childhood buddies who pooled their resources to buy recording equipment, initially consisting of Schneider, Jeff “Neutral Milk Hotel” Magnum, Bill “Olivia Tremor Control” Doss and Will Cullen Hart (who played in OTC and did most of the label’s artwork) but going on to spawn the likes of Beulah, Of Montreal, Elf Power and a bunch of other awesome things. For most of the Apples’ existence the core of the band was Schneider and drummer Hilarie Sidney, but when their marriage ended in the early 00s she quit and Schneider changed the band’s direction dramatically, mainly by getting a – let’s be fair – really good drummer in the form of John Dufilho.

This is also around the time when Elijah Wood, flush with all the Lord of the Rings money, decided to start his own record label. This was the second album the Apples have done with Wood’s label Simian, and he stars in the above video if you haven’t bothered to click on it yet. Honestly, do I have to do everything?

Anyway, this is a glorious piece of pop confection with marvellously grim undertones, from the minor key progression to the chorus’ assertion that the dance floor “…isn’t there no more”. Remember: growing up means growing old, kids.

I interviewed Schneider ahead of his solo Australian tour where he was the last thing I ever saw at the Hopetoun, and he was a joy. The man’s a very accomplished mathematician and talked a whole lot about building instruments to play the logarithmic scale he’d invented, which was a lot more interesting than it might sound.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: Grandaddy’s magnificent ‘Summer Here Kids’.

Album: This is Happening, 2010

Justification: I think this makes it one from all of LCD’s albums. That’s got to be a first.

Look, This is Happening has been one of the most consistently-played albums in my collection since its release, and a lot of it was down to this song, at least initially. I expected to get sick of it quickly, yet that hasn’t happened. Instead – mainly thanks to seeing LCD three times while touring behind the album – I realised that it was James Murphy’s own ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ and that what at first appeared to be a throwaway tune is in fact a sophisticated piece of songwriting. Except maybe the line about waiting an hour to pee. And, like a ludicrous amount of these entries, it’s a Spike Jonze video. God that man does good work.

Anyway, there’s not a dud on the album and at least four hands down killers (this, ‘I Can Change’, ‘You Wanted A Hit’ and ‘Dance Yrself Clean’). Oh, that live BBC sessions album is worth getting too, because the “band” version of LCD was firing on all fucking cylinders by the time they recorded it.

SONG YOU SHOULD HAVE REDISCOVERED THIS TIME IN 2010: We got into a serious thing, and then we forgot how it ended with Beck’s mighty ‘Sexx Laws’.

Album: Root for Ruin, 2010

Justification: It’s my birthday today, so I’m going to be even more self-indulgent than usual.

OK, it’s been out for a bit over six months but I was expecting this to be the crossover hit for one of my favourite bands and it appears that it wasn’t. Furthermore, I can’t for the life of me work out why. While LSF have no shortage of amazing songs this one is actually stick-in-your-head catchy, begs to be bellowed along with, currently is their closing song of choice for live sets and there’s a desperate joy to it that’s at once jubilant and terribly sad that cuts me to the quick every time I hear it.

Part of it is its chorus being – let’s be kind here – something of a “tribute” to the Pixies ‘Velouria’, which soundtracked one of my deepest unrequited loves in my moody teenage years, and part of it is that it reminds me of the Animals’ ‘We Gotta Get Out Of This Place’, which my father used to sing in hospital when we passed the point that we all knew that he wasn’t getting out alive.

On a significantly more cheerful note, and a damn sight more directly, this song reminds me of the earlyish days of the rather wonderful relationship I’m in now. Specifically when my beautiful girlfriend turned to me at Laneway Festival in January this year having never seen the Fav live, gazed into my eyes and breathed “they are fucking amazing.” Which, to be fair, they were. This is definitely a significant track on the mixtape that is AHC and APS.

All this is, admittedly, a pretty heavy emotional load to put on a three-and-a-half-minute song that’s pretty baldly about wanting to get one’s freak on, but ‘Let’s Get Out Of Here’ can bear it. It’s not too late for it to change the world, you know.

THIS TIME IN 2010: I was being self-indulgent, of course, with another shoulda-been-huge hit by a favourite band: ‘Showgirl’ by the Auteurs.

Album: The Soft Pack, 2010

Justification: This isn’t so much as Song You Should Rediscover so much as a Song You Probably Missed Last Year But Would Really Like. This San Diego quartet were originally called the Muslims but changed to the Soft Pack once they started writing as a collective and, possibly, once they decided they’d like to be able to board a flight in the US without having time-consuming conversations with authority figures. Their self-titled album is filled to the brim with these kinds of three-minute guitar pop gems, recorded in a no-nonsense manner much as they play ‘em (and they are great live, and their drummer’s weird stand-up kit is visually compelling).

And maybe it’s a hypersensitivity bourne of growing up in Adelaide, but is there something pointed and narky in the deadpan delivery of the line “Now your town could be the next big thing”?

THIS TIME IN 2010: Ripe were being celebrated with their magnificent ‘Something Fierce’.

Album: I Believe You Liar, 2010

Justification: “But Andrew, this was a chart hit that only came out last year! And how could I forget Washington when she’s everywhere I turn around: on Dell ads, playing every festival under the sun, looking increasingly pale and exhausted on television: what are you thinking?”

Well, Straw Man that I’m Setting Up for the Purposes of Bolstering my Rhetoric, you can shut up. She’s here because, in my opinion, she’s a mightily underrated artist. She’s marketed as a young pop kid (and hell, today’s 13 year old girls could have far worse role models), but I genuinely think that she’s going to do something freakin’ great with her career. She’s young, she’s sharp, she’s an extremely adept musician, she has one hell of a voice on her, and she writes some very sophisticated pop songs – of which this, in my opinion, is her best.

There’s so much great about it: the stop-start rhythm, the triumphant chording in the verses, the fuck-you lyric about outgrowing her hometown (in this case, Brisbane) – but the thing I love most about it is that the chorus changes every freakin’ time, adding extra chords or swapping a couple of bars from minor to relative major. It’s a subtle but very effective trick that belies a solid grounding in musical theory, which would of course mean nothing if said chorus didn’t stick in one’s head like an advertising jingle.

I’ve gone on record saying that this woman’s going to be something special in years to come, and I stand by it. Last year’s debut I Believe You Liar is a perfect CV in that it shows off everything that she can do in the best light, but I think it’s going to be albums two and three that show what she’s really capable of*. And yes, the road of Australian music history is littered with the sun-bleached bones of solo female artists whose careers went nowhere after an initial burst (hi, Penny Flanagan, Merril Bainbridge, Max Sharam – hope you’re taking notes, Kate Miller-Heidke), but I have enormous faith in Ms Washington. She’s going to be something truly amazing.

You hear me, Meg? Prove me right.

*Except, please, not a concept album. Or, god forbid, a “song suite”.