Two Songs to Kick Off September

1. "Barker of the U.F.O." by the Bee Gees

Some sorry souls don't know that the the third-greatest band of the nineteen-sixties was actually the Bee Gees. Early Bee Gees records sound like a schmaltzier Beatles, only Australian. Their Revolver rips are totally on par with the worse Revolver tracks like And Your Bird Can Sing (which is my boyfriend's favorite Beatles song, incidentally), and they are one of the only bands in history able to make "the ballad" seem interesting to me. My favorite early Bee Gees ballad is Massachusetts. A photograph of my very own copy of the 45 is seen above. It is a beautiful artifact. I would venture to guess that you've unknowingly heard Massachusetts a hundred times before-- I find that it is often playing over loudspeakers in semi-abandoned, once-great suburban shopping malls.
One song you will never hear playing at a semi-abandoned strip mall is Massachusetts' b-side, Barker of the U.F.O. (click the link and go to the weird website to download it; it works!) Conceptually, this is my favorite song of all time (kind of); its emotional vibe is something along the lines of "Lucy in the sky with diamonds gets abducted by aliens". Sonically, Barker of the U.F.O. sounds like one of the jauntier Paul McCartney ditties (Penny Lane; Ob-la-di; Martha My Dear) mixed with a hit single from whoever would be the most popular contemporary rock band in the fictional netherworld of The Jetsons. Now does that sound good or what?

2. "Sympathy for the Devil" by Sandie Shaw

Next up is a song that someone in the universe besides myself will enjoy. Everybody knows that Sympathy for the Devil is the best Rolling Stones song (besides In Another Land, DUH), and, as is usually the case, the only thing better than the real thing is its subverted approximation! Enter Sandie Shaw's 1969 cover of the Stones' classic. Sandie Shaw (pictured above) was a sixties-era cutie-cute English bubblegum poppet type who I guess rebelled from her clean-cut image as the decade matured (another fun fact about Sandie: in the '80s, she was tight with the Smiths). Her cover of Sympathy for the Devil is featured on her 1969 album Reviewing the Situation, which I've never heard in full, but it a) has a really cool album title, and b) has a really aesthetically pleasing album cover.
This song is totally badass. I mean that honestly. It is spastic, or maybe spasmodic-- frenetic in a way that makes me (or you!) feel anxious and unsettled. Somehow Sandie Shaw is able to communicate the true nature of Satan's evil antics with a lot more clarity than Mick Jagger, which is weird. The female vocal makes it fresh and novel.
Also, this is an incredibly cool song. I am actually kind of sad to unleash it upon the world, because I am anticipating that in nine months' time, this song will be featured in the previews to Sofia Coppola and Wes Anderson's new movies, played at Erin Fetherston's latest show, and listed as "What Agyness Denn is listening to" in i-D magazine. Then Devendra Banhart and the Mika Miko girls will collaborate with Sandie Shaw on a brand-new album and it will be the number one record sold at Other Music.
So get in on the trend now, before it's too late and people think you're a lame poser.

Posted by Laura in Music
Link back to this entry
+ Stumble This! | Digg This!
Contact Us
HOME

© K. Asharya, L. Barker and L. Faulds. All rights reserved. All content cannot be reproduced without prior written permission.

;