Sugar “Your Favorite Thing” (fu:el)
My Blood Valentine homage as desperate plea from Bob Mould and his post Hüsker Dü buzzsaw pop outfit. That riff is gigantic, ironically happy sounding.

Sloan “Sugartune” (peppermint)
A veneer of shoegaze on this one too, but even on their first EP, Sloan’s a pop band at heart. In the inspirational vein, this song is ostensibly about itself (”I wrote for you a sugartune”).

The Jesus & Mary Chain “Some Candy Talking” (psychocandy)
The candy here is something a little more dangerous, as danger’s always been JAMC’s stock in trade. Hell, there’s even a “Waiting For The Man” nod (or dozen) in the song, if that’s not too on-the-nose. Genius use of a few minimal elements to give us that hollow, hungry feeling.

The Strangeloves “I Want Candy” (nuggets)
More of a bubblegum bamboozle than a red-blooded ‘Murican garage rock group, the Strangeloves still knew their way around a swingin’ tom groove accented by sax bleats. It’s a jingle, it’s a New Wave hit, it’s the wellspring of many things…

The Push Kings “The Girl Who Only Loves Candy” (far places)
Speaking of bubblegum, the Push Kings first struck me as indie rock’s answer to Wham!–and you know, for me, that’s a good thing. This warning against vice feels more like an ode to the things we gorge ourselves on. I’d pick out a favorite part–the big-riffed chorus, the disco bridge, the overdramatic breakdown, that thing about “beads of sweat on yr turquoise underwear”–but let’s just say the whole thing’s my favorite. Toothache sweet.

Wilco “Candy Floss” (summerteeth)
Wilco in pop production full-throttle, slathering on keyboards and harmonies. It takes Jeff Tweedy to write an homage to early-day Beach Boys that’s about doubt and reservation.

Mike Viola and the Candy Butchers “All I Have” (falling into place)
Straightahead power pop from the Bostonian who, it turns out, is partially responsible for the song from That Thing You Do. Don’t hold it against him though.

Sweet “Teenage Rampage” (best of)
Bubblegum don’t get much tastier than Sweet, and with a surprisingly long chewing life. They’re starting to bridge from their T. Rex-ier times to latterday Queen-iness here. I don’t know why, but the feeling that their revolutionary call to arms is pure hokum–this isn’t actually a live recording, is it?–is a big part of the charm. Too good to be kitsch, but in the neighborhood.

Echo & The Bunnymen “Lips Like Sugar” (s/t)
Somewhere I heard that, as a UVa undergrad, from outside his dorm Pavement prankster Steve Malkmus could regularly be seen in his room lip-synching to Echo & The Bunnymen and prancing around in front of the mirror. I don’t know about sidewalk voyeurs, but I’m pretty sure I’ve done the same to this song.

The Mountain Goats “The Recognition Scene” (sweden)
Lovers on the run! A daring candy heist goes awry! News at 11! (I want to say that the candy is just candy and that the problems–and there are almost always problems between lovers in Mountain Goats songs, especially if they’re on a road trip of any sort–are for an altogether different reason. But that “hot caramel/sticking to our teeth” bit makes me doubt my reading, and I’m not sure why.)

The Spinanes “Halloween Candy” (imp years)
Unsettling and softly seething, this song reminds that “sometimes sweetness is not what it seems.”

Wilco “Venus Stopped The Train (Demo)”
Jay Bennett & Edward Burch “Venus Stopped The Train”

When Jay Bennett split from country-rock chameleons Wilco, he was apparently awarded a couple of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot outtakes in the divorce. For comparison today we have Bennett’s version, from his and buddy Edward Burch’s record The Palace at 4am (Part I), and the Wilco demo, sung by the band’s frontman, Jeff Tweedy.

Both feature piano prominently, but Bennett’s take is more layered (admittedly it’s not a demo), both with typical pop-rock accessories–lumbering bass, mellow drums, organ drone–and with some weirder stuff, like swamp chirp sound effects and backing vox that sound like they’ve been put through a Leslie speaker.

Other than the storm break at the opening–a nod to Black Sabbath? or Flipper?–and harmony vocals, the Wilco version is more of a piano ballad, leaving the song relatively bare.

Tweedy’s a singer-songwriter bandleader type who, according to all evidence, ultimately had the reins on YHF, and the demo’s keep-it-simple starkness may reflect this. Bennett can write a helluva tune himself, but he’s much more of a studio rat/multi-instro one-man-band in the mold of a Jon Brion, and while there’s nothing “maximal” about his album track, it does demonstrate the love of little details that can come out of a kitchen-sink approach.

I’m not really positing this as a competition, ’cause I can’t pick a favorite between the two, although the demo feels more precious for its being marginally harder to get ahold of.

I guess I really wanted to spotlight a song I love. A lot of “Venus Stopped The Train”’s appeal comes from its darkness and mixed emotions.

The song tells of a burnt-out, damaged gurl, tracing back the drug haze, the delinquency, the grasping need to be loved, to the abuse of a powerful father–”the light striking terror” as he opened her bedroom door and “reached out to her/while her mother slept.”

There’s deep, deep sympathy here, but also a revulsion at what the victim’s become, the regret over the price the speaker isn’t willing to pay for letting her love him. It’s not pretty–it’s complicated, it’s human, and it’s real.

P.S., and on a more light-hearted note, Jeff Tweedy doesn’t want yr kisses while he’s playing his music. (1:10)

The Palace at 4am (Part I) at Newbury Comics.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at Target.

Mountain Goats: All Hail West Texas (Emperor Jones)
It’s not like I can be totally “critical” or “objective” about West Texas… I lived inside this disc for months as I got over the dissolution of my first long-term relationship and fumbled my way through the single life. You see, concept aside, it’s three-quarters a breakup record. This is simply the most human album to come out in… a long time. And it’s mostly yelped vocals, strummed acoustic, tape fuzz and machine noise. The man responsible would probably string me up for saying it, but here is proof positive why lo-fi still matters.

Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Warner/Nonesuch)
Is this cheating? YHF also made my 2001 list in its MP3 form… Anyway, this record sounds less and less “weird” to me over time—the “experimental” angle is really unfortunate, because it confuses the issue regarding an album chock-full of great, diverse folk-rock songs dripping with pop dada and more often than not emnating a uniquely American dread. As for the backlash: like Chuck and Flava said, “Don’t believe the hype.”

Iron & Wine: The Creek Drank the Cradle (Sub Pop)
Iron & Wine snuck up on me… I was content to write the project off before even hearing it in the “just another singer-songwriter” category. But there are just too many gorgeous moments on this disc for me to sustain cynicism. I’m convinced that all the old-timey country trappings here are a ruse. It’s all about the songs, the harmonies.

(more…)

…in New Times Los Angeles.

…in Flak Magazine.