Tuesday Tunes

It was the first album I’d ever owned. A gift from my best friend because I said I’d liked one of the music videos I saw on the TV once. It was computer animated and looked awesome, and it broke my tiny country mind in the late 90s. Wailing synths and chugging electric guitars. The song spoke about video games and the sometimes inherent frustration they could lead to. The video included a freeze frame of Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness as “Lucy”, leading a Giraffe, a Penguin, a Monkey and a Rabbit over a rainbow bridge.

It immediately spoke to my sensibilities.

If I owned an album before, it has been firmly usurped from my mind. Having three older brothers, this one was the first I recall being purely mine. There were many swears on the record, a fact which I hid from my deeply Anglican parents. If discovered, they might have taken it away, which made the album even more precious. I also felt a sort of second hand buyer’s remorse, so I endeavoured to enjoy every song as much as I could. This was difficult when it came to the titular track half way through the record. But I’m going to focus on the songs that bookend the album …

The Song(s)
Song: “I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff” & “Just Another Beautiful Story”
Artist: Regurgitator
Album: UNIT - 1997 - Eastwest
Method of discovery: Gifted to me

Research:
Unit is the second album from Regurgitator, an amalgam of Alternative Rock, Electronica and Electropop, with other albums swinging around in Punk, Grunge, Alt-Hip-Hop and Rap-Rock. It won five ARIA awards the in 1998, including Best Album and Best Cover Art and and ended up going Triple Platinum in its homeland of Australia. It has featured in the 2010 book ‘100 best Australian Albums’, and in 2011 Triple J ranked it 10th in a similar list of their own.
”[…]Stuff” hangs around the IV and V, adding to the ethereal vocals and plead of the singer to get some sort of resolution, with the I coming in with the chorus, a simple, repetitive line which builds in a gradual crescendo to end the song.
”Just Another Beautiful Story” is another beast entirely, beginning with a lone Synth line, and then into another synth that for evokes more of a steam-machine vibe and always makes me loose the beat. The drums, bass and guitar make their entrances lightly, some orchestral strings in the background of the second verse, and then, the Trumpet solo over a counter melodic Trombone. Back to a rocky chorus and a re-entry of the persistent synth line which carries the song into the silent space of the end of the album. It’s a moving song that moves from the typical I-IV-V-vi Chords, navigates the less common III and bVII and throws in the pop-obtuse #V-Augmented. Not to mention the modulation up a half step for the solo and back for the final chorus. What even it this song?!

Personal thoughts:
The fact that the opener to a second album, vastly different in sonic quality to the first, is named “I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff” is perfect. It both acknowledges that the soundscape will be different, and pre-empts inevitable fan commentary of the same nature. It’s a clever way to telegraph to listeners that the rest of the album is deliberate, and not a case of the band ‘losing their mojo’ or ‘selling out’ per se. It’s a statement that I feel has continued to pay dividends for all future albums, because as a fan I’m always excited to see what new, or familiar, direction the band has chosen to go this time.

“Just Another Beautiful Story” has a special meaning all to itself. It was full of the same simplistic observation of some of the other songs. The lyrics put in stark terms the perspective that “there ain’t no god”, and if anything, I was more afraid of my parents finding this than the swears. It outlines that it wouldn’t matter if we were to “…all die away…”, but that it’ll be okay if “…you’re holding my hand…” . The crux of the song for me is how I’ve always heard the second verse

“All that I am is a brain in a body,
Live till I die and then rot away, it’s a beautiful story”

(Despite half of the lyrics websites saying run instead of rot). Its bleak. Sure. But for me it has always been a liberating perspective: make the most of your time, and the most of the people around you. While you have time.

Give it a go: If you feel like something strange, or enjoy saying you are listening to award-winning albums

Give it a miss: If you don’t like swears, electronica, or grunge

[links]
Spotify: I Like your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff, Just Another Beautiful Story
Wikipedia : Regurgitator, Unit Album
Band Website: Regurgitator
Similar Article: Polyester Genius