Galaxie 500 - On Fire
WHY ARE YOU SO BORING?!
Is this why Yo la Tengo’s meandering And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is so highly regarded? I don’t get it. I don’t see why I’d listen to this over Slowdive or something. The chords are simple and sound like when I was taking guitar lessons in grade 10 and recording myself. They were really drab guitar workouts that my mother suggested sounded ‘spanish’. But they were bad and they weren’t spanish. And repetitive, hanging on the same ‘groove’ (sans groove). The vocals are those same, timid lifeless vocals I’m beginning to have a problem with. Just think Helmet has vigor, Animal Collective has manic yelping, Peter Green has the blues real bad and a devil on his shoulder, Slowdive even have a stoned guy with an angelic presence singing alongside. Jimi Hendrix illicites sex, Marvin Gaye’s got soul, David Gilmour’s guitar sings for him. What the hell do these indie blow-hard type singers got going? They’re those type of slack jawed unaffected teens from the Hullabalooza Simpsons episode.
I can see the appeal here and I intend to listen to another record from the outfit, and the vocalist is nice when he stops talk-singing and meanders with wordless crying. The first two tracks have sort-of cool drumming (all the tracks do, but that’s the best I could say about the opening cuts), but the vocals sound like when I woke up the lead singer of the Violent Femmes (not reviewed here) at 4am.
Oh, and reading all with the lyrics thinking I missed something here made me dislike this more. Sorry.
Bad chords.
