…yes, their music moved me.
I’ve been asked a lot about the bands that I listed in my profile. They are chosen because I fancied them at first listen. Have you ever had that rush? It is a rare, exhilarating experience. To borrow the phrase from Coldplay, it’s like a rush of blood to the head. Please excuse the verbosity of this entry because I am unable to write this piece in 200 words or less. Here they are, in no particular order of preference.
Live
The first song that I heard was ‘Selling the Drama’ and I thought "Oh I’d love to be able to play this." I didn’t know the name of the band or the song, so I hummed the tune to the guy at the record store. Happily, ‘Throwing Copper’ turned out to be one of the finest albums I ever gotten my hands on and Live has been a favourite staple in my CD player since. If I have to name my favourite albums as well, ‘Throwing Copper’ and ‘Distance From Here’ would definitely figure largely in the list. Live tends to write larger-than-life anthemic songs, with sometimes overly spiritual and confusing lyrics, but the songs are delivered with burning passion and conviction. Songs like ‘Run To The Water’ can, literally, uplift your spirits during a particularly difficult period in your life. Burnt to the core but not broken. Beat that.
Mr Children
To explain how powerful the impact of this band is on me, consider this. I have never heard of them, no one I know or the radio stations have ever played any of their songs and I don’t understand Japanese. Mr Children was an accident. I bought a 6-CD box set containing dorama theme songs and the song ‘Namo Naki Uta (Poem With No Name)’ was included in CD #4. I nearly pressed the next button when the song opened if it wasn’t for my sister who said let the song play. While she didn’t develop any particular liking towards Mr Children, I fell in love. If there is a moment when I could consciously say the damned three-letter-words: this would be it. I fell. Hopelessly. Madly. Completely. And I have never recovered. I may never will.
So, what can I say about them? Their lyrics are complex and achingly beautiful, but the songs are always written in a very simple manner that made you wish you had written them yourself. It’s amazing how deceiving their songs can be. ‘Everything (It’s You)’ sounds so much like a love song, but it’s a cleverly disguised cynical song about breaking up and saying goodbye. ‘Namo Naki Uta’ sounded like a feel-good song that you’d sing on a summery day, but it’s a courageous confession of a guy who can’t find the right words to express how he feels (hence the ‘Poem With No Name’). Each song is crafted with so much care and detail to attention, it’s impossible not to give them an A+ on effort alone.
Mr Children is one of those bands that continually blows me away with their extraordinary expressions of ordinary, everyday things that we take for granted. I love them. I love them. I love them.
Toad The Wet Sprocket
The ‘Dulcinea’ album was recommended to me by a friend after she learnt that I was listening to Live and Gin Blossoms. I was living the life of a poor student. It is laughable to recall that I couldn’t even fork out RM3.90 for a blank tape to duplicate the album! Immediately, I was taken by ‘Fall Down’. The line ‘For a good friend, I was never there at all’ did me in. I still get goosebumps when I think of it. Dulcinea was very good, a very well-produced album. I like Glen’s laidback singing and his simple, heartfelt lyrics. I like the way the songs are presented – with little adornment. There is an honest quality to it that makes you want to cheer them on….. yay, good guys can finish first. Though the band has disbanded, I remain a loyal fan. I still keenly follow Glen’s solo career. I wrote a song called ‘Needful Things’ as a direct tribute to the band.
Glay
What can I possibly say about Glay that hasn’t been said by millions of fans? I have heard so much about this band from as early as 1995 that I actually RESISTED listening to their album because I was afraid I would find them good just like everyone else. I only took it out for a spin after letting it collect dust in my CD rack for about a year. What an idiot! Glay is raw, honest-to-goodness rock and roll at its finest.
Glay appeals to me on so many levels. I like the fact that Glay is not ashamed of what they do. I like the fact that they started at the very bottom of the food chain and fought tooth and nail to get to where they are today. I like the fact that their albums sounded like something that could have come out of my own basement. I like their campy costumes and ridiculous hairstyles. Ben Stiller said it best in Keeping the Faith: "If you want to suck, suck with style". Believe me, Glay has no shortage in style, in whatever they choose to sing or play.
If you watch them in a concert, you would not know where to look because all 4 of them would be jumping around for attention – which is something you rarely see in other bands. The energy and chemistry is amazing. Their live sets are just as good - if not better- as their studio albums. Individually, each of them has powerful enough presence to make it on their own but as Glay they are formidable. Hisashi put it succintly when he said "Don’t ask me how good I am on my own. Ask me if I can I be as good as Glay, had I been with another band." I am running out of superlatives to describe them. ‘Beloved’ broke my heart, ‘Glorious’ reminded me of my own wasteful youth, ‘Yuuwaku’ brought memories of that dangerous romance, ‘Special Thanks’ mirrored my own struggles to get through life… I like them in so many ways it’s impossible not to include this band in this list.
Frente
A lot of times, I listen to a band because they are the anti-thesis of what is hot at that particular time. This desire to go against the grain is nothing new, there are times when I find myself going out of the way to be different simply because. Sometimes it’s stupid (like in Glay’s case), and sometimes I discover something that I truly liked because I didn’t listen to what the music executives are telling me to listen to (like Mr Children).
I bought "Marvin the Album" because it contained Accidentally Kelly Street, a song that I was humming without knowing what I was humming to. Angie’s voice is disarmingly gentle and sweet; it’s hard to imagine her singing about something ugly. But she did, with panache, I might add, in songs like ‘Cuscutlan’ and ‘Pretty Friend’. The thing that I especially like is the fact that Frente uses simple words to express their songs. How do you say ‘It’s no crime to say that you don’t love her’ but simply as that? Frente has since been disbanded but they’d be in my top 10 list for a long time to come. If you’ve heard ‘Goobye Goodguy’, you’ll know why.
