Wednesday's Emotional Setup: Sweet Virginia
Boy, do a lot of people sure hate Gomez. For example, witness the NME giving them a going over. Now, I know the NME isn't exactly the most level-headed of publications (that's why we all love the thing when we're teenagers), but although that's a relatively severe example, it's far from solitary.
The first thing I ever heard by Gomez was In Our Gun, and although I resisted (having only heard horrible things about them), I liked it. I liked it a lot, actually - I wound up giving it to a friend but if I hadn't been asked for it I probably would have kept it, and am now looking 'round for another copy. There's not really a bad song on it (although a few are definitely "album tracks", if you know what I mean), and the good stuff is great - "Shot Shot", the first three minutes of "In Our Gun", "Army Dub", "Miles End" and especially "The Ballad Of Nice & Easy", which has surprisingly matured into one of my favorite album-enders.
I missed grabbing a promo copy of the Beta Band's newest at the Ontarion, but Gomez's new one, Split The Difference was in so I grabbed that.
It's longer and not as good as In Our Gun, but it's still pretty strong. The first ten tracks range from okay to great ("Me, You And Everybody" and "Chicken Out" are especially good). Even their cover of Junior Kimbrough's "Meet Me In The City" is good. The reason it's not as good as In Our Gun, in my opinion, is that this album sees Gomez backing off on some of the new territory they explored a few years ago. I don't have much time for Gomez's first two albums, as they're pretty stultifyingly worthy (with a few exceptions - "We Haven't Turned Around" and "Get Myself Arrested" in particular). Those albums are the reasons you had people saying things like this about Gomez:
"The problem has always been more their apparent unwillingness to wring some kind of emotional intensity from the damn things - a slackness of focus, music for music's sake, the sweetly subjective smell of your own farts."
But in addition to sprucing up the songs with all sorts of flourishes, In Our Gun actually sounds fully engaged. They're not emo or anything, but plenty of bands with worse lyrics than you find on Gomez's last couple of albums get off scot-free, sometimes even praised. Gomez made the mistake of coming across, initially, as perilously rockist, and then they went on to win the Mercury Music Prize, and there are few things the music press (especially in the UK) hates worse than success that they think is undeserved.
It only makes thing worse that Gomez has three good vocalists, one of whom had the sheer temerity to have at a young age a voice that sounds vaguely like Gregg Allman post-tragedy and drugs and so on. And even worse, they're not terribly difficult. They're a rock band. They make rock songs. Many of them are bluesy or rootsy (which is interpreted by mags like the NME as automatically fake, as if such sounds could only be "authentically" made by some people (and don't get me going on the crock that is "authenticity" in rock music)), and most importantly, Gomez are good at making them catchy. They tend to have good choruses. Horror of horrors.
The other reason that Split The Difference is a bit disappointing, and is going to be sold off, is the last three tracks. If the hata-baitin' "Chicken Out" had been the last track, Split The Difference would have been a ballsy 37 minute gem, and probably one of my favorite albums of the year. Instead we get the absolutely awful "Extra Special Guy" and two more tracks that are more aggresively okay than anything else here. The thought of owning an album whose last three tracks I always skip doesn't appeal to me, but I am keeping 7-8 of the other ones.
One I'm definitely keeping, and one that certainly sees Gomez "wringing some kind of emotional intensity from the damn thing", is "Sweet Virginia". It's the longest song on the album, at just over six minutes, and it's an absolutely gorgeous, aching ballad. It starts with a muted bass figure before someone (Ian Ball, I think) starts singing and the drums and guitar start shuffling along. Then, during the pre-chorus bit (a fine example of the form, whose purpose is to inform even the first-time listener the chorus is coming), a few strings sweep in while the guitar jangles underneath and Ball and company sing out,
If you know how to run, sweet Virginia
You should run
If you know how to play, sweet Virginia
You should play
If you know how to sing, sweet Virginia
You should sing
If you know how to be, be without me
You should be
It's a fine, fine vocal performance, rich with grief. I fell for it the first time I heard "Sweet Virginia" and have been coming back for more since. The song is good enough that when it goes into a standard extended outro for the last minute and a half, something I usually hate, I don't mind it a bit. The chorus is sweet enough you simply have to hear it - although each Wednesday's Emotional Setup consists of stuff I think people should hear, in this case I will be more explicit: Download this song.
Gomez aren't particularly difficult or challenging, but there are times where some of us just want to pop on an album of accomplished, interesting recent rock. I have yet to hear anything by them that convinces me they should be hated.
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The first thing I ever heard by Gomez was In Our Gun, and although I resisted (having only heard horrible things about them), I liked it. I liked it a lot, actually - I wound up giving it to a friend but if I hadn't been asked for it I probably would have kept it, and am now looking 'round for another copy. There's not really a bad song on it (although a few are definitely "album tracks", if you know what I mean), and the good stuff is great - "Shot Shot", the first three minutes of "In Our Gun", "Army Dub", "Miles End" and especially "The Ballad Of Nice & Easy", which has surprisingly matured into one of my favorite album-enders.
I missed grabbing a promo copy of the Beta Band's newest at the Ontarion, but Gomez's new one, Split The Difference was in so I grabbed that.
It's longer and not as good as In Our Gun, but it's still pretty strong. The first ten tracks range from okay to great ("Me, You And Everybody" and "Chicken Out" are especially good). Even their cover of Junior Kimbrough's "Meet Me In The City" is good. The reason it's not as good as In Our Gun, in my opinion, is that this album sees Gomez backing off on some of the new territory they explored a few years ago. I don't have much time for Gomez's first two albums, as they're pretty stultifyingly worthy (with a few exceptions - "We Haven't Turned Around" and "Get Myself Arrested" in particular). Those albums are the reasons you had people saying things like this about Gomez:
"The problem has always been more their apparent unwillingness to wring some kind of emotional intensity from the damn things - a slackness of focus, music for music's sake, the sweetly subjective smell of your own farts."
But in addition to sprucing up the songs with all sorts of flourishes, In Our Gun actually sounds fully engaged. They're not emo or anything, but plenty of bands with worse lyrics than you find on Gomez's last couple of albums get off scot-free, sometimes even praised. Gomez made the mistake of coming across, initially, as perilously rockist, and then they went on to win the Mercury Music Prize, and there are few things the music press (especially in the UK) hates worse than success that they think is undeserved.
It only makes thing worse that Gomez has three good vocalists, one of whom had the sheer temerity to have at a young age a voice that sounds vaguely like Gregg Allman post-tragedy and drugs and so on. And even worse, they're not terribly difficult. They're a rock band. They make rock songs. Many of them are bluesy or rootsy (which is interpreted by mags like the NME as automatically fake, as if such sounds could only be "authentically" made by some people (and don't get me going on the crock that is "authenticity" in rock music)), and most importantly, Gomez are good at making them catchy. They tend to have good choruses. Horror of horrors.
The other reason that Split The Difference is a bit disappointing, and is going to be sold off, is the last three tracks. If the hata-baitin' "Chicken Out" had been the last track, Split The Difference would have been a ballsy 37 minute gem, and probably one of my favorite albums of the year. Instead we get the absolutely awful "Extra Special Guy" and two more tracks that are more aggresively okay than anything else here. The thought of owning an album whose last three tracks I always skip doesn't appeal to me, but I am keeping 7-8 of the other ones.
One I'm definitely keeping, and one that certainly sees Gomez "wringing some kind of emotional intensity from the damn thing", is "Sweet Virginia". It's the longest song on the album, at just over six minutes, and it's an absolutely gorgeous, aching ballad. It starts with a muted bass figure before someone (Ian Ball, I think) starts singing and the drums and guitar start shuffling along. Then, during the pre-chorus bit (a fine example of the form, whose purpose is to inform even the first-time listener the chorus is coming), a few strings sweep in while the guitar jangles underneath and Ball and company sing out,
If you know how to run, sweet Virginia
You should run
If you know how to play, sweet Virginia
You should play
If you know how to sing, sweet Virginia
You should sing
If you know how to be, be without me
You should be
It's a fine, fine vocal performance, rich with grief. I fell for it the first time I heard "Sweet Virginia" and have been coming back for more since. The song is good enough that when it goes into a standard extended outro for the last minute and a half, something I usually hate, I don't mind it a bit. The chorus is sweet enough you simply have to hear it - although each Wednesday's Emotional Setup consists of stuff I think people should hear, in this case I will be more explicit: Download this song.
Gomez aren't particularly difficult or challenging, but there are times where some of us just want to pop on an album of accomplished, interesting recent rock. I have yet to hear anything by them that convinces me they should be hated.
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