The Jesus and Mary Chain - Psychocandy
If you took the Smiths, gave them all Robert Smith's wonder-goth hair, and drenched the whole thing in Dick Dale quantities of fuzz, you'd have something sort of-vaguely-marginally close to The Jesus and Mary Chain. No one part of the equation really says anything about how wonderful and revolutionary the band (and moreso) this album was. This is an album that truly started a movement without intending to. The Scottish brothers (Jim and William Reid) who made up the core of the band were the pioneers to make music come off as aggressive through dodgy lyrics, feedback and harmonized distortion rather than windmills, power chords and seizure-victim dancing. This was backed up by a drummer who really did nothing more than bash the shit out of a tom and snare drum.
This was proto-noise, or something to that effect. It's not noise like we have today - it feels thin, trembly, hell, even a little sweet. Speaking of sweet, there's a nice recurring theme of honey and bees in the lyrics, which seems strangely appropriate, considering the songs fluctuate between sweet, flowing songs about beautiful girls - to quick, speed-freak jams about how fucking awesome I am when I ride my motorcycle. It becomes apparent that, most likely, JAMC didn't really give a fuck about pleasing anyone, they just wanted to shake things up, because, fuck you, it was about them.
-Thom
No comments:
Post a Comment