ASH: 1977 (1996)
1) Lose Control; 2) Goldfinger;
3) Girl From Mars; 4) I'd Give You Anything; 5) Gone The Dream; 6) Kung Fu; 7)
Oh Yeah; 8) Let It Flow; 9) Innocent Smile; 10) Angel Interceptor; 11) Lost In
You; 12) Darkside Lightside.
Listening to «alt-rock» almost always produces
a poisonous effect on me — there is something innately sick about that sludgy sound, something very, very uncomfortable.
When all is said and done, pop is pop, and metal is metal: you cannot assure a
healthy, stable marriage between the two (which makes me all the more admire
those few lucky bastards, like Kurt, who did manage a temporary union; on the
other hand, he did that at an expense that might be too heavy for the rest of
us). Ash, even at their very best, never strived to be the exception from the
rule. Therefore, all of the music that Ash ever produced makes me sick, period.
But a more interesting subject to discuss would
be the reason why 1977, the band's
first proper LP, propelled them into the limelight like crazy — by 1996, the
album was hot enough to push Jagged
Little Pill off from the top spot on the charts, and, although both records
certainly qualify as «alt-rock» to whoever uses «alt-rock» as a bad word, they
are certainly different enough to acknowledge that 1977 gained its popularity somewhat on its own, not just because it
was the trendy thing to do (even if it was).
One thing is for certain: 1977 is more than just a
«three guys play tinny rawk» album. Certainly Tim Wheeler is not the easiest
person in the world to pigeonhole. The songs here blast off a whole wide
variety of influences — of which classic Ramones/Clash-era punk, heralded by
the album title, is but one, and not necessarily the strongest (in fact, it is
claimed that the title simply refers to the birth year of two of the band
members, and is also a subtle Star Wars
reference — ʽDarkside Lightsideʼ ring a bell?). But there is also regular
Oasis/Blur-derived Britpop, gruff retro-1970s metal,
Springsteen-muscle-powered «urban rock», shades of Hawkwind psychedelia, and...
you fill in the rest, I'm sure I've missed something along the way.
It is too bad that Wheeler's imagination is
blocked on subsequent steps — he seems to be doing his best to take all these
various ingredients and reduce them to the same formula, compressing chords,
tones, and moods into one big headbang-fest. 1977 may have been God's gift to modern rock radio stations — here
was something you could disseminate at top volume from your creaky car stereo
without spooking off the environment — but we will never know why he chose as
his mediator this particularly odd guy, taking off on a major highway and then
ending up on a one-track dirt road. It doesn't help that he can't sing, either.
One genuinely bugging aspect of 1977
is that nearly all of the vocals are... murmured?
Still, even with all the aspects of this record
that one could detest, 1977 is
likeable, to a degree. It has a mild sense of humor and hipness — not everybody
could have come up with the idea of using a Ramones-inspired (with an explicit
lyrical reference to «teenage lobotomy») two-minute pop-punk tongue-in-cheek
anthem to ʽKung Fuʼ as the lead-off single. In fact, had the Ramones recorded
the song themselves, it could have been a minor classic — as it is, Wheeler's
muffled guitar sound and boring vocals (that try to simulate excitement but
fail) make it more of a bark than a bite. A pleasant bark, nonetheless — cheap
swipes at pop culture will never die.
The other big single, ʽGirl From Marsʼ, rolls
along on what seems like the laziest chord set in the world, but is somewhat
redeemed by Wheeler's attempt to channel the spirit of Ray Davies, even
attempting to trade the whiny murmur in for a higher-pitched, naïve-romantic
delivery (which certainly works better for him than any attempts to raise the
aggression bar). The melodic wah-wah solo in the middle is also
attention-worthy: in fact, Wheeler's lead playing is quite superb throughout
the record — crisp, fluent, technical, and with plenty of love for various
pedals and stuff. What this band really
needed was a fourth member, one that could take away his rhythm playing and
especially singing duties.
Some of the stuff is quite below par, though. The
lumpy, leaden take on 1970s metal, ʽI'd Give You Anythingʼ, really plays out like
an inferior variation on Black Sabbath's ʽN.I.B.ʼ with all the cool Satanism
taken out and replaced by... never mind, it's impossible to make out anything
from that murmur anyway. ʽGoldfingerʼ somehow became the single that truly put
them on the map for the world to see, but it is the weakest of 'em all — a
rather transparent take on the basic Oasis style, yet without a mighty hook to
boot. But that's probably the exact reason why people were buying it at the
time. Does anybody even remember it any more these days, though?
Overall, 1977
is a firm chunk of 1990's musical history now, and should probably be listened
to by all those who are interested in learning more about the «spirit of 1996» —
and also by everyone who wants to know how a melting pot of superior
influences should not be brewn. But
hey, these guys just didn't want to stick to the underground — they wanted to
make it big, and in 1996, if you wanted to make it big, you didn't invent the rules, you stuck to them. They even had to go to
Oasis' producer for this album, for God's sake. Sorrowful, but understandable.
I think it's one of those you had to be there records. I was a teenager in Ireland when this came out and it sort of caught your mood in that musically messy time when there was interesting stuff around the hangover from grunge -- Soundgarden, Macy's Playground, Smashing Pumkins -- all dominant Oasis on the radio, cute stuff from Alanis, funny stuff from Presidents of the US. Looking at it now it seems like a very genuine adolescent record which is lyrically sweet in places, "still in her school skirt and her summer blouse".
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of crap music was to descend into for the next number of years and the pretentious, whinny would be Beatle-ry of Oasis, this just seems "genuine".
Michael
"When all is said and done, pop is pop, and metal is metal: you cannot assure a healthy, stable marriage between the two"
ReplyDeleteTry Therapy?'s Troublegum and the debut album of Alestorm. Or if you want to try individual songs first, Church of Noise and Keelhauled.