trying to be tough in a pop music world.

i have an affection for the limp-wristed.

my first solid memory of realizing it was in junior high; listening to the smiths and feeling awkward and guilty. see, at that age, appearances are everything, and i was working hard to be hard. punk rock, industrial, and noise, the more abstract and unlistenable and difficult, the better... as far as i was concerned. it probably had something to do with the fact that i was over six feet, but didn't break 130 lbs. but those smiths, man... you couldn't deny it. gentle melodies, cascading electric and acoustic guitars, and the moz, what with his silly lyrics and falsettos. hell, my mom liked 'em. plus, i loved the fact that poor old morrissey just couldn't create a proper chorus, he'd just lay a "la la la la la di aye" or some such shit right over the top of the catchiest section of the song. awkward and retarded, just like i was.

of course, in the mid 80's, (at least here in the ol' usa) there was no short selection of catchy semi-underground sorta fey or at least sexually ambiguous bands to choose from. i can't help but remember a sad, stupid week-long obsession with the dream academy (famous for "life in a northern town", lately referred to by pedro as "the most mormon song ever written"), and not being quite sure if i could publicly admit to liking a band that had oboe solos. sheesh, back then, you could fall in love to any of number of records by japan, echo and the bunnymen, the cure, the teardrop explodes, tears for fears, the call, the church, the psychedelic furs... i'm missing an unignorable number of the others, but the point is, it was the era of that cusak jackass standing in your front yard with a ghetto blaster over his head playing peter gabriel, and it was obviously effective. so much so, that i can't help but remember quite a number of top-40 bands of that era really selling out to love, if not groping. it was howard jones and thompson twins, even with the electric guitar bands, it was the era of the power ballad. i think i teased pedro mercilessly for finding chris deburgh and double records in his collection, shit, even that sort of dreck was on the menu. it was the era when phil collins was getting paid. of course, i wouldn't ever let myself get that overly femme shit like culture club or spandau ballet... i mean really. it took a long time before i'd even listen to orchestral maneuvers in the dark, and only then because a friend pointed out that the early stuff came out on factory and was dark and techy and wasn't the sappy john hughes shit i knew best.

yeah, don't even get me started on depeche mode, then as now, i'm convinced that there are two divided camps for the synth-pop dance scene, those who thought that the mode ruled (bitches! nipple pinchers! erasure fans!), and those who found all that leather faux-disco s&m crap goofy, and worshiped at the alter of new order, a band that left your balls and your better sexual instincts intact. the folks who loved the mode back then now love "trance". enough said on that subject.

no question the love song will always sell, but is now like it was then? well, for one, i'm not fourteen. also, i have no idea what's being played on the radio and i'm pretty sure the mtv don't play any sort of music at all anymore. furthermore, i've heard all about this "emo" but no one seems to nail it down with any authority, so just when i think it's elliott smith and ray lamontagne, it's actually bands fronted by fifteen year old boys in trucker hats and pyramid spiked belts who think that punk was invented by other bands with non sequitur words and numbers in their names. whatevs, i'm sure it's no better than listening to soft cell in 1986. so to answer my own question, i dunno. this "emo" seems to be popular, but there's never been a shortage of well educated white kids singing about love troubles, and it seems that if you do it in anything other than a baritone, use literate references and enjoy the black keys, there's a strong possibility that you will come off like someone's got your balls in their purse.

so now i'm listening to ol' belle and sebastian, who define the limp-wristedness pop for our era. boy howdy, did i love this band when they first showed up. and then they released record after record, and i'm not even sure if they're any good anymore. i keep referring to such-and-such as "the new record" when two more have come since it's release. slow down kids, and let me try and absorb an album fer chrissakes! but i'm not here to discuss the carpet-bombing release schedule of b & s, i'd really rather talk about their moments of brilliance.

i was driving from portland back to seattle the other night, and i was thinking of songs that i could sing for my bro's not-yet-born daughter, and i was struck with "you're just a baby" from the first record, which is about the furthest thing from a lullaby imaginable, but apt none the less. and i dialed it up on the ipod, and found that it was in my range. and then i started thinking about "the rollercoaster ride", and "seymour stein" and even "this is just a modern rock song". i love the idea of bouncing a cute babygirl toddler around the room (with nobody watching, of course) and singing "i don't love anyone" with conviction. no matter the lyrical content, it's fun to sing to babies in gentle inflections and speech patterns, and it made me think of all the other toothless songs and bands i fell in love with, and now here we are. darla records. built to spill. the american analog set. the pale saints. saint etienne. heavenly. so many hundreds more.

for better or worse, i learned a sick amount about music from paul mccartney's "ram" album. when i was a small child, it was the only record i was allowed to put on the turntable (it was probably already scratched) and so i played it every night while my family ate, from as soon as i could choose until the folks could no longer stand it. and for that reason, i can conjure up the details of "long haired lady" or "ram on" or "back seat of my car" in my brain at a moment's notice. where does that leave me? lovey-shmaltz. bittersweet moments of earnest love, sung to either no one in particular, or a specific person i've never met and can't relate to. soft, easy going chord changes played on guitars. johnny marr could peg me as a mark from a mile away.

so an acoustic guitar, an idea no more grand than "gee, yer nifty" or "why don't you like me anymore?" or "i'm so clever yet girls don't respect me!". it's a recipe for success, and i seem to be a customer. that said, i do take some pride being able to smell the authentic shit through the headphones. just like "the dude", i fuckin' hate the eagles. i may like some bitch shit, but at least i got that going for me.