The Little Things That Once Could Make Me Whole - Longwave's The Strangest Things Turns 20
And it is, perhaps, indicative of the time, or the era it is a product of, that it was produced and engineered to sound, arguably, louder and a little more distorted, or crunchier, than it needs to—opening with a startling, clattering cymbal crash, and a kind of bombastic, ramshackle exuberance that courses throughout a majority of it.
Arguably louder and a little more distorted, or crunchier, than it perhaps needs to, though it is a sound that, over time, has become so familiar to me, and in some places, extremely comforting, so I wonder if it would be as impactful if it sounded any other way?
It opens with a startling, clattering cymbal crash—again, indicative of the time and the era (off the top of my head, I can think of at least one other album that begins this exact same way), and after two decades, one would think that it might be far less startling to hear today, or surprising to me, than it was upon my initial listen.
And I know it’s coming—that’s the thing. And I know how effecting it still can be, practically bracing myself for it when I do sit down and revisit this album—often enough but maybe not as often as I should, waiting for what seems like an eternity after the needle has been placed onto the vinyl, spinning on the turntable, for it to eventually arrive within the grooves where the sound was pressed; or, on the well-worn CD copy, purchased upon the album’s release when I was in my second year of college, watching as the timer on the CD player’s display reads 0:00, then 0:01.
And somewhere, in the space of that second, comes the crash.
It still startles me—not quite like a jump scare, but something close. Something that does momentarily, and maybe instinctively, shake you as the sound surges through your body, and in doing so, it, perhaps, makes you more receptive, or opens you up more, to the things that will come
*
I would argue, or at the very least, make a strong case, that the band Longwave has, in their nearly 25-year career, been a band for just about as long as they have not been a band.
Maybe I should clarify—they have, perhaps, anecdotally speaking, been active for roughly the same amount of time that they have been inactive.
Longwave originally formed around the same time, and in the same place, as a number of other outfits credited with the “indie rock revival of the early 2000s” were coming together—bands like, and perhaps I am generalizing here, The Strokes, Interpol, and The Walkmen, all of whom were founded while members were living in New York, and all of whom would go on to release their debut albums within the span of roughly two years, beginning with The Strokes’ debut full-length, Is This It?, arriving in the summer of 2001 via a major label.
After independently releasing their debut, End Songs, in 2000—like, a year after forming, Longwave spent the next two years developing their sound further, notably through the inclusion of more robust textural elements created through various effects pedals and guitar theatrics, and in 2002, they released an EP that, apparently, caught the attention of The Strokes’ manager, who was impressed enough to offer the group a slot as the supporting act on an upcoming Strokes tour.
Their association with The Strokes—geographically, certainly, as well as their time spent on the road together, certainly assisted in scoring Longwave a major label deal with RCA—the same imprint that signed The Strokes a few years prior.
The band’s sophomore full-length, and first of two records issued through RCA, The Strangest Things, was released in March of 2003.
*
Nostalgia and fondness, often intertwined, can, and perhaps regularly does, cloud an ability to think critically, let alone analytically, about something you have loved without second guessing for a long time.
This—this feeling, of realizing something you hold so dear could be, and in fact, often is, flawed in some way, or has not aged well, is ultimately what has prevented me from re-reading books that I loved at a specific time in my life, because when I am honest with myself, I know that time has not been kind to them.
And I am simply unable, or unwilling, to revisit the work through a different lens and be disappointed, or frustrated.
Music that you love, and have loved for a long time, is not as easy to avoid revisiting—and for me, with the revisiting often comes not a reassessment, no, not entirely, but listening through an analytical ear that I, more than likely, did not have upon the album’s original release.
I am confident that, despite the taste I thought I had in 2003, I did not have anything resembling a critical ear, nor the analytical way of thinking about music that I have developed over the last two decades.
Sobering is not the correct word, and neither is humbling, but there is something adjacent to both of those when you listen to something, not for a literal first time, of course, but for a figurative first time—paying attention to things that might not have mattered to you when you were all of 19 years old, or noticing subtle details that had been lost on you until this moment.
Focusing on what still works, or why it is still meaningful, of course, but also, unable to ignore whatever flaws might inevitably be weighing it down that you may have been obvious to previously, or simply overlooked out of being unable to take criticism of something you adored.
*
I am sure that, in the past, when the sound alone of a record has impressed me, I gave consideration to the role that a producer plays in the creation of an album—I am specifically thinking of Nigel Godrich’s work with Radiohead, beginning with OK Computer, Ken Andrews’ production on Failure’s opus before breaking up, 1996’s Fantastic Planet, or Terry Date’s ability to navigate the volatile nature of the Deftones, and figure out what they wanted both Around The Fur and White Pony to sound like in the end.
I had given consideration in the past, sure, but not much—not up until recently, when I was analyzing The Magnolia Electric Company, and thinking about the part Steve Albini played in its creation, and the role he plays in the studio.
I was thinking about that, specifically about some recent and rather strange quotes from Rick Rubin.
Albini, who has been involved in myriad, well-known and beloved records, infamously refuses to be credited, or thought of as a “record producer,” because he has long believed that putting a producer in charge of recording sessions will destroy the artistic vision of the band while they are in the studio—he, instead, is credited as an engineer of the sessions, because it is his job to capture the sound, not to threaten control over the process.
Records produced by Albini often have a raw, “in the room” kind of sound to them—not a “stripped down” approach by any means, but in engineering rather than producing, he captures the band, or artist in question, within very specific moments where he is simply observing, rather than interfering.
Albini’s outspoken demeanor and negative experiences working with marquee names on large albums have made him a polarizing figure in contemporary popular music, and I hesitate to refer to Rick Rubin as his anthesis, but he is in a way—perhaps a foil, if anything, because Rubin, himself, is just as polarizing but for different reasons.
In promoting a recently published book, Rubin gave an interview with “60 Minutes” where he claims to know “nothing” about music. Rubin, one of the co-founders of Def Jam in the 1980s, moving into producing for a wide variety of names over the last 30+ years, is alleged (per his Wikipedia entry) to have a “stripped down” approach to music production, though of all the Rubin produced records I have heard in my lifetime, “stripped down” is not an expression, or aesthetic, that comes to mind.
Bombast, or excess, isn’t either, but there is rarely anything sparse about his work in the studio.
In the interview with Anderson Cooper for “60 Minutes,” Rubin admits to seeing himself as what Albini is loathed to be within the studio—a tastemaker. “Well, I know what I like and what I don’t like,” Rubin explained. “And I’m decisive about what I like and what I don’t like.”
“The confidence I have in my taste and ability to express what I feel has proven helpful for artists,” he concluded.
And it is, perhaps, indicative of the time, or the era it is a product of, but what has me thinking about record production, and the role—however large or small—of a record producer, is Dave Fridmann’s work on The Strangest Things, and how it is an album that was created to sound, arguably, louder and a little more distorted, or crunchier than it needs to.
Dave Fridmann is more than likely not be a household name the way, say, Rick Rubin is to you, or the way Steve Albini is to me, but regardless of that, you more than likely have heard an album that Fridmann was involved in the creation of, or are familiar with one of the artists he has worked with over the course of his career.
A founding member of the psychedelic-leaning indie rock act Mercury Rev, Fridmann would go on to make a name for himself behind the boards for almost every album released by The Flaming Lips (including their most lauded, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots), as well as albums by Low, Sleater-Kinney, Mogwai, MGMT, and Spoon, among others in a rather surprising and diverse list of production credits—the most surprising, perhaps, was a late career album for Vanessa Carlton.
Among those production credits are two albums, Hope and Adams and Per Second, Per Second, Per Second…Every Second, by the Boston-based jangle pop group, Wheat, released in 1999 and 2003, respectively—which, outside of seeing his name on the back of The Strangest Things, is how I became aware of him as a producer.
Aware of him by name, and name alone, I should say, because some producers, or engineers, have a trademark, or style to the records they helm, but I would argue that, across his body of work, Fridmann does not, because his aesthetic does truly vary artist to artist, album to album, even depending on the year when the album was recorded.
His involvement in Low’s first album for Sub Pop, The Great Destroyer, and Sleater-Kinney’s final album before their breakup, The Woods, makes sense—they were all recorded, and released, around the same time as The Strangest Things, and all have a huge, bombastic, distorted sound to them—I am, specifically, thinking of the unhinged ferocity of “The Fox,” the opening track from The Woods.
Longwave, as a band, had potential on their debut album, certainly, and you can objectively hear the growth over two years when comparing End Songs to the tracks included on the Day Sleeper EP—many of which wound up being re-recorded with a bit of punch added to them for The Strangest Things.
And the band, certainly, could pile on the distortion, drama, and guitar effects—they would continue to do so on the three subsequent albums they released during the active portions of their career, but they haven’t done so with nearly as much depth, or breathless immediacy as they did with Fridmann as their producer.
*
Longwave has more or less continuously operated as a four-piece, though only two of its original members have remained in the group since its inception in 1999—guitarist Shannon Ferguson, and singer and guitarist Steve Schiltz.
Following the release of The Strangest Things, into the recording process for the band’s third full-length (and final for RCA) There’s A Fire, and up through the release of that album in June of 2005, Ferguson and Schiltz, for whatever reason, cycled through several additional musicians as both studio personnel to assist with the completion of There’s A Fire, and in attempting to cement a rhythm section in order to tour in support of the record.
The Strangest Things was, by no means, a “blockbuster” of a record, nor was it ever intended to be, I don’t think, but it came out at a time, though perhaps the tail end of a time, when guitar-heavy bands like Longwave (or The Strokes, or Interpol, et al.) were perhaps more viable, or more critically adored in some regards1, or were of more interest to a larger audience.
And perhaps, by 2005, when There’s A Fire was issued, that was no longer the case. Music, or at least what is widely seen as “popular” or accessible, is constantly changing, and it has to be difficult to build a name, and an audience, for yourself initially, and keep that momentum going, or even trying to grow it, with each subsequent release.
As many smaller acts often can be in circumstances like this, it certainly did not help the promotional efforts and sales of There’s A Fire, or morale within Longwave, with the band seemingly lost in the shuffle of music industry politics when their label’s parent company, B.M.G., merged with Sony Music in 2005.
The language, as it often is to describe the departure from a label, is intentionally ambiguous—the band’s Wikipedia states Longwave “parted ways,” with RCA Records following the release of There’s A Fire; and an old press release about the band, written in 2008, describes the circumstances of leaving the label as simply “exiting,” so I am uncertain if the band left the RCA roster on their own terms following the merger, or if they were dropped, though I have my suspicions which is accurate.
Regardless of how the band’s exit from RCA actually unfolded, the tumultuous situation was enough to more or less put an end to the band, at least temporarily—the aforementioned press release optimistically spun it as a “brief hiatus,” though in a time before places like Twitter or Facebook were used as a means of communication between artist and audience, I seem to recall a post, or update, on Longwave’s MySpace page alluding to the fact that the band was over, with Schiltz going on to serve as a touring guitarist for Albert Hammond Jr, (of The Strokes, but of course) supporting his newly launched solo endeavor.
And it was through Longwave’s MySpace that in early 2008, newly recorded demos began surfacing—specifically the thunderous “Life is Wrong,” with the band, at least temporarily, returning late that year with their third full-length, Secrets Are Sinister, before more or less disappearing for over a decade.
*
And what I have come to understand, or at least have a better understanding of now as The Strangest Things celebrates its twentieth anniversary, is that the album, when split roughly in half, serves as a mirror to itself—meaning, structurally, each side follows a similar pacing, and a similar trajectory of rising and falling.
It is an album that often finds itself, and regularly thrives, within large moments—sometimes dramatic, sometimes exuberant or highly energized, with these moments organized so that there is a natural building toward, and then pulling away, from something.
This structure, or formula, works best across the board on The Strangest Things’ first side—with the album really finding its way, and growing comfortable and more confident in this kind of regular use of tension and release, by the third song, the shimmery, very up-tempo and jangly, “Pool Song,” which serves as a slight respite from the strengths and extreme dynamism of the first two songs, as well as a continual shift in tone coming from the two that follow.
And what I have come to understand, or at least have a better understanding of now in listening to The Strangest Things through more critical and analytical ears, is that there is a sadness, or a sense of melancholy, present in a number of songs that I had neglected to truly notice before now—the album’s fourth track, the slow motion, swooning “I Know It’s Coming Someday” is one of those instances.
The speed of the song does, certainly, lend itself to melancholy, or a kind of bittersweetness, that runs throughout it, specifically Schiltz’s lyricism.
And I do hesitate to say that Longwave’s songs—or the songwriting within the instrumentation, are abstract in nature, but there is often, specifically the further you move through their canon, an ambiguity, or intentional vagueness that Schiltz’s is writing from. And this element, much like the melancholic tone in some corners of The Strangest Things, was not something I had not given a lot of thought to until listening through analytically.
There are strands, though, within that abstraction that you can grab hold of, and make something out of—bittersweet strands, albeit, that begin coming together in the moody, swirling tension of “I Know It’s Coming Someday.”
Pop songs, or songs even within contemporary popular music, are often about “love,” and there is a fondness of some kind written within the song’s narrative—though I say a fondness of “some kind,” because I have yet to unpack it completely, as it seems to teeter into a kind of solemn resignation and borderline desperation toward an off-stage “you.”
“When all your strength is wearing thin, hanging on until the end,” Schiltz sings quietly through the layers of intricate guitar textures. “I can give you what you’re looking for.”
Then, later on in the second verse, an even sadder admission: “Look back on the days you lived before. Look back on the nights and ask for more—and when there’s no one left, you see me there.”
Regardless of how sad, or self-effacing the writing to “I Know It’s Coming Someday” are, it, like many of the more successfully executed and constructed songs on The Strangest Things, and throughout Longwave’s work on subsequent records, it thrives because of the vibe it conjures and operates from within—the swirling and oscillating guitar atmospherics and the distorted soloing work effortlessly to create something beautiful tumbling toward you in hazy slow motion that you can’t help but become lost in.
The vibe, though, as the album’s first side comes to an end, moves away from the sweeping grandeur of “I Know It’s Coming Someday” into something surprisingly ominous and even menacing—a kind of simmering tension that Longwave does return to again within the second half of The Strangest Things as well.
“Meet Me At The Bottom” begins quietly, albeit extremely distorted in both the crunchy production on Schiltz’s vocals and the pensive strums of his guitar—this quiet does eventually expand once the second verse arrives, and the song really opens itself up, casting a long and rather bleak shadow, growing more cacophonic the further along it goes, with Schiltz singing surprisingly bleak lyrics, and in one instance, surprisingly sophomoric (“When they’ve got you, they’ve got you by the balls” he utters in the chorus.)
The Strangest Things is not an album that is front-loaded with its best or most interesting material, however, the element of the second half seemingly mirroring the first in tone and pacing does slow things down overall and makes for moments that are a little less compelling than their counterparts, like the bouncy “All Sewn Up,” which is still energetic, sure, but the band perhaps did energetic and jangly a little better on the first side, in “Pool Song”; “The Ghosts Around You” goes for big, anthemic bursts that arrive in slow motion, but they also did big bursts of slow motion, albeit slightly less anthemic, on “I Know It’s Coming Someday.”
They did ominous, but with far less blistering immediacy, on “Meet Me At The Bottom,” so the relentless rhythm and frenetic release of “Exit,” arriving within the final third of The Strangest Things, is a welcome last gasp before the conclusion.
*
Longwave’s return near the end of 2008 was ultimately short-lived, and I am uncertain as to why this was the case—after a short headlining tour of smaller venues before year’s end in support of Secrets Are Sinister, and then a slot opening for Bloc Party in the spring of 2009, the band was dormant for literally an entire decade.
Like, I was positive Longwave was, even without a formal statement from anyone in the band, completely done.
As 2009 continued, Schiltz turned his attentions to what was more or less a solo project called Hurricane Bells—finding placement for the fuzzy, infectious “Monsters” on the soundtrack to New Moon, the second Twilight film adaptation, then releasing a full-length Hurricane Bells album, Tonight Is The Ghost, before the end of that year, hitting the road in support of it in the spring of 2010.
He released an additional EP, and another full-length under the Hurricane Bells moniker before also seemingly putting an end to the project in 2012—in 2018, Longwave unexpectedly returned with a stand-alone single, “Stay With Me,” and in late 2019, the band issued its fifth full-length, and first in over ten years, If We Ever Live Forever.
Though, any momentum that the band might have had as they closed out 2019 and headed into 2020 was obviously halted. Not exactly the best at providing updates on recording, or the potential for a sixth album via social media, the band’s Instagram account, while indicating they have been practicing together, as of late, is mainly dedicated to archival photos and celebrating when someone within the group is having a birthday.
Longwave’s official website has not been updated since the digital release of a live album in 2020.
*
Writing about an album that is celebrating a milestone anniversary—and that I have had a copy of since its initial release two decades prior is one way to show my age, or date myself, certainly, but another way, and perhaps a more wistful way, is to reflect on how I was even introduced to Longwave as a band in the first place.
And this would have been prior to March of 2003, shortly before the release of The Strangest Things, when I happened to catch the video for the album’s single, “Everywhere You Turn” on “Subterranean”—a block of “alternative rock” music videos that aired on MTV2.
The video, and the way the band is presented within, is, much like the production of the album itself, a product of its time—the obligatory performance footage within the video involves the band all sporting shaggy, floppy hair, and their bassist at the time, Dave Marchese, wearing a Nueva York t-shirt; the rest of the clip includes shots of mannequins being assembled, though this narrative element has little, if anything to do with the lyricism of the song itself.
Perhaps it was not the video itself, though, in the end, but the song, or the enthusiasm that the song had, and still ultimately has, so many years later.
Musically, and structurally within the context of a song, there are things that Longwave does extremely well—and when they find that balance, which they nearly always do at least a handful of times on each album since The Strangest Things—it is when all of these compelling elements come together, crafting a moment that exceeds expectations.
“Everywhere You Turn” is one of those moments—and perhaps that was something, regardless of how enjoyable the video for the song was, that I could recognize early on.
It makes sense that “Everywhere You Turn” was released as the first single from The Strangest Things. It isn’t totally indicative of the places the band ultimately takes the album, but it is indicative enough of the band’s sound so that you can idea an idea of what you might be in for if, like me, you bought the album, the week of release, off the strength of one single.
The song is unwavering in its pounding rhythm—the drums sound enormous, and the bassline is fuzzy enough that it rides a little higher in the band’s dynamic while Schiltz’s and Ferguson’s guitar work more or less fight for who will have the more chaotic, or unhinged sounding contribution. Reaching for dramatic heights in the chorus, with Schiltz’s vocals absolutely soaring as he bellows out the titular phrase, “Everywhere You Turn” is a song that, for all of its three minutes and change, is propelled forward by a jittery, nervy kind of tension that sees small moments of release, but never relaxes. There’s a surprising and palpable anxiety that the band taps into, both within the music never rests, or breaks its pace, but also in the lyricism, which leans heavily into a kind of personal lack of confidence or comfortability—turning it all into something that was, and still is, two decades later, exuberant and anthemic.
*
It is, perhaps, indicative of the time or era that it is a product of, that it was produced and engineered to sound, arguably, louder and a little more distorted, or crunchier, than it needs to—opening with a startling, clattering cymbal crash that, after two decades, one would think that it might be far less startling to hear today, or surprising to me, than it was upon my initial listen.
But it isn’t.
It is a sound, and the volume of the sound, I still brace myself for every time I listen to The Strangest Things.
The album opens with “Wake Me When It’s Over,” which, if “Everywhere You Turn,” captured Longwave at their jittery, explosive best, or at least most successful when exuberance and an off-balance of tension and release is what the goal is, the opening track from The Strangest Things finds the band working within a place of tension with no release—creating something that broods and simmers, never really letting go until the song slowly fades out—which, for as loud and jarring as “Wake Me” is when it opens, a slow fade is a strange but I suppose fitting choice in terms of contrasting the beginning to the end.
Longwave does steer themselves into this kind of atmospheric, slow-moving sound later on in the album, but it is never as compelling as it is on “Wake Me When It’s Over”—perhaps it is the shoegaze-inspired guitar work that comes in swells, or waves, but never threatens to become too overpowering, just finding the place to hoover while Schiltz delivers what winds up being the first of ultimately a few bleak, effacing, and borderline melancholic lyrics. “When the weight is on your shoulders, then come on your knees,” he begins, his voice cutting through the bands of tension pulled by the layers of guitars. “Wake me when it’s over—wake me please,” he asks, or pleads, to someone later on. “Wake me when it’s over, when all the noise is gone. Anything you want—I would give always, just to watch you go.”
And if there is a place where these two things, or aesthetics, that Longwave can pull off, and pull off well, converge, it is at the start of The Strangest Things’ second half2, on the gorgeous, shimmering, and soaring “Tidal Wave.”
Something that doesn’t always prevent me from returning to music from my past and enjoying it through current-day ears, but does, regardless, impact how I hear things, and consider things now, is the idea of toxicity, or at least toxic masculinity, in contemporary popular music. And an album like this, with mostly abstracted or vague lyricism, seems like an unlikely place to find song lyrics one could, or might, deem toxic—and perhaps I am simply, at this point, too hyper-vigilant about this kind of thing, or perhaps too analytical w/r/t this kind of thing, but for as much as I do love the gradual build and then recessing of “Tidal Wave,” and how well, musically anyway, it has aged in terms of a beautiful “rock” song that is still impactful, the lyrics really struck me this time around—both the good, or poignant, and the ones that gave me pause.
There are not a lot of lyrics to “Tidal Wave,” and within the lyrics there are, a lot of relies on the repetition of specific lines, or the way that certain phrases are held over a period of time, like the way Schiltz impressively can carry the “But I can feel it again,” during the chorus—and there are some thoughtful phrase turns, like “I can see all the little things that one could make me whole,” within the second verse, or later on, “Give me the colors of a different light—give me the colors, grey and blue,” Schiltz asks. “Everything you ever hoped to be is when the colors bleed.”
But it is the expression that is returned to the most that I did have difficulty with this time around when listening to the album—and this is, of all the songs on The Strangest Things, the most beloved simply in how self-aware it is in its structure—was Schiltz’s utterance of “I am everything you wanted—I am everything you need” throughout.
Perhaps not meant to be ill-intended, or toxic at the time it was written and sung, 20 years ago, this kind of masculine assurance, of all the things on this album, has aged the poorest. It doesn’t ruin the song, or the memory that The Strangest Things holds for me—the song, itself, is still an incredible thrill that does, literally, feel like you are soaring throughout, but these lyrics have, as often is the case, caused me to think about the song in a way I had not expected in revisiting.
*
It is fitting, I suppose, in assessing The Strangest Things this way, after two decades, that I made this connection—albeit, one that was probably unintentional, or purely a coincidence in the album taking shape.
The album, itself, in “Wake Me When It’s Over,” begins with a startling, clattering cymbal crash, and the first line of the album’s titular track—the penultimate song, and the last one to include any lyrics, is “It starts with a burst.”
It did, in fact, start with a burst.
Structurally what I have realized about The Strangest Things is that it could have, and perhaps should have, ended on its eleventh track—“The Strangest Things.” Musically, a little slower, with a rhythm that just kind of gently bounces around in the background, with lyrics that do teeter into a place of reflection, it serves as a kind of comedown from the progression of highs, lows, and everything in between on both sides of the album. The album’s actual final track, an instrumental titled “Day Sleeper,” is certainly not unpleasant on its own, but it is a puzzling inclusion, and even more puzzling is its position at the end.
I am uncertain if, when I was all of 19 or 20, and was listening to The Strangest Things for the first time, for as much as I did adore it then, and still hold it in high regard now, I ever would have gone so far as to say it was a “perfect” album. So very few albums are perfect, subjectively, but what I would say now is that it does perfectly capture a moment when the band, still relatively young but having had enough time to grow into themselves, was working to their potential.
Longwave’s three subsequent releases over the course of their career—often defined by breaks, both short and extended, are not of diminishing returns in comparison; again, there are things that the band does, and when they do them well, which they often accomplish a handful of times on each album, it is a reminder of what made them so exciting to discover, and to listen to in the first place.
So very few albums are perfect, subjectively, but what I would say now, and what I realize about revisiting something after either a decade or two, specifically an album that has been a part of my life for that long, is that it does perfectly capture a moment—The Strangest Things is a reminder for me. Neither good, nor bad. But just a reminder of a different time and place in my life—ending my second year in college, and the friends I often found myself surrounded by but did ultimately drift apart from for myriad reasons.
Nostalgia can be and often is a dangerous thing, but it does provide the opportunity, especially with music, to assess how far in our lives we have come with an album, or an artist—is it something that has grown with us, that we have held close over time? Is it something that we have carried with us, in some way—still important but not as revered as it was at one point or another? Or is it something that we inevitably outgrew after understanding our appreciation for it, leaving it in the past?
And it does speak to the power of an album, regardless of how kind, or unkind, time has been to it, that you have carried it, for whatever reason, this far along.
It is fitting that the opening line of “The Strangest Things” is “It starts with a burst,” and it is, in the end, appropriate that the final lyric is, “In the end, it’s plain enough to see it’ll carry away.”
1- This was going to be too difficult to force into this reflection, but it is worth mentioning the polarizing response to Longwave and The Strangest Things. The hype sticker on the CD, in large block letters, features the word “Amazing,” which is attributed to a review from New Music Express; a different hype sticker, a little harder to read, is affixed to the sleeve of the LP edition, and features high praise from Mojo, Uncut, and Kerrang!. However, within the small amount of research, I did on The Strangest Things in preparation for this piece, I found two very unfavorable reviews of the album—Pitchfork, a month after its release, gave it a 3.7, calling it “hackneyed early Radiohead/U2 pseudo stylings,” but it is worth mentioning that Pitchfork has also given two other Longwave albums equally unfavorable reviews as well; PopMatters wrote a short piece around four months after The Strangest Things was released, and couldn’t help but draw comparisons to The Strokes, referring to David Fridmann’s production as being overrated, then ends the review by making a pun. I guess what I am saying here is that in 2003, I was not tough enough to withstand unfavorable criticism of something I liked, so that it is good I did not read either of these reviews 20 years ago; and now, I can both see and respect some of these points, though I disagree with a lot of them.
2- This is a small thing but a thing regardless—The Strangest Things was never released on vinyl in the United States, and the pressing I bought several years ago, on a whim, was from a limited European run when the album was initially issued in 2003. Vinyl production was certainly a lot different than it is now, but what is the most puzzling about this edition is how it is structured between sides, with five songs on the first side, and seven on the second. And the reason that this is so puzzling is that the album’s sixth track, a short, quiet piece called “Can’t Feel A Thing,” almost an interlude, really, would serve as a fine conclusion to the first side, with “Tidal Wave” being a very fitting track one/side two. However, “Can’t Feel A Thing” is the first track on the second side, and it just really disrupts the entire feeling, and flow, of the album’s structure. I had never really given it a lot of consideration before until listening for this essay, and now I cannot stop thinking about how weird it is.
Comments
Post a Comment