#495-#491

#495. San Cisco - Reasons (#31, 2020)

42nd of 2020

In the 2010 Hottest 100, Little Red finished at #2 with their song "Rock It". During the interview with the band, Alex Dyson brings up a YouTube comment that suggests the song could've been a hit in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or the 1990s. I like to think about comments like this because they can lend some weight to explaining the often intangible experience of seeing which hit songs go to that next level when I don't already have strong feelings myself. I can definitely see the logic with Little Red. There's a simplicity to it that doesn't age it, while that one piano riff goes some way to recalling evergreen hits like "December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" and "Dancing Queen".

I tried as hard as I could to find that YouTube comment, going so far as to read every single comment left on the original video, but I couldn't find it. If that sounds like an inane activity, then you're probably right, but I think there's some value with what you can learn from it. Just listening to the music of a bygone era won't teach you much because you'll find difficulty in building up the contextual clues of it, you'll just trap yourself in the present day. Unfiltered comments are unrivalled. All the cultural references are just a little different, and there's generally a lot of misplaced anger, with a strange feeling that people look like they've been prompted to say something even if they don't know what it is. I don't usually like saying 'AI could never replicate this', but it's true. I wouldn't say it's any smarter or stupider than things nowadays, just blunter.

Superficially, "Reasons" reminds me a little of "Rock It". It's a little shinier, more twee, but they occupy a similar space. So if you're one of those people in the comment section that said they don't make music like this anymore, I beg to differ. The other superficial similarities I found watching the videos is that they both start with a long cut with multiple subjects of focus, long enough that you might think it might be the video's whole gimmick, but then they jump cut at around the same point and just play things normally after that (it's 38 seconds for Little Red, 36 seconds for San Cisco). Also the drumming is out of sync with the video's audio and it's distracting.

When I was looking through the comment section for "Reasons", I saw a comment that complimented the band's recent singles, saying that they'd been invoking the '60s & the '70s, but that this song sounds like the '80s. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that the band could have been successful in any decade but I appreciate the enthusiasm. Both songs' videos also had accusations of ripping off different Passion Pit songs, some things never change.

San Cisco has changed just a little bit. I wouldn't say I can't hear the band who made "Golden Revolver" back in 2011 here, but there's a sheen that a decade's experience will provide. Maybe they'd look back at that song's last minute of 'woah's and probably have a better idea for how to finish the song nowadays. I should also note that this is one of the first singles the band released after the departure of their original bass player Nick Gardner. I've not seen an explanation given for this but he is the same San Cisco member who accidentally shot himself in the foot a few years prior and missed an entire touring cycle. You're not American, you know Example, right? I can round this out with some dubstep keyboard mashes and you'll be like 'aha, clever reference'. Otherwise, this song has the most "Let It Go"'s I've heard since Essendon came up to the Gabba in 2023 to meet their old friend.

#494. Gang of Youths - the man himself (#57, 2021)

52nd of 2021

A decade ago I made a false prediction. Arguably it wasn't really a prediction and I was just making a throwaway joke reference. I was talking about the song "Touched" by VAST and suggested that I'll never find a song quite like it again. "Touched" is a pummelling rock song that's built around a sample of "Pilentze Pee" from the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir, a very popular sample that's been used many times since. There'll actually be a similar sample utilised later on in this list. "the man himself" is not that song, as I believe they acquired their own choir for this one (indigenous singers from the island of Mangaia), but I won't pretend I don't hear a lot of "Touched" in this song. Even the respective singers have a little bit of resemblance to them.

Much like "in the wake of your leave" (#517), this song is about Dave's father passing away, only it's more about the immediate rush of feelings and emotions that come along with receiving the news. It comes along with some advice for those who are fortunate enough to not yet go through this process. I'm obviously not coming in here to rain on that parade. I'd rather pass it on. Make time with those close to you while you still can.

Otherwise I think I'm just inclined to re-iterate what I said before, where the only thing holding me back was the fact that I just wasn't looking for more of this at the time. A band like this can just be overwhelming at times when they take everything to its limit. I can appreciate the power of it, but it is another song that I don't think I've ever gone out of my way to listen to by choice.

#493. The Avalanches (feat Camp Lo) - Because I'm Me (#75, 2016)

53rd of 2016

On the day I was getting ready to write this entry, I heard it on a TV commercial. Or actually, maybe I didn't. I haven't yet seen it again but this particular use landed in a vague spot where I couldn't be certain I was hearing this song, or instead the song it samples, "Want Ads" by Honey Cone. The jokes write themselves but it is a genuinely very well-known song that hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 back in 1971. Belatedly I can confirm it was "Because I'm Me", but I only ever saw that commercial once more, odd to think about.

Last year when talking about "Blue (Flume Remix)" (#952), I mentioned how the older you get, the more recognisable and unadventurous these kinds of samples in music get. I think a better way to look at it is to say that it's more likely you've already come across them at some point, but when it comes to The Avalanches, it feels like a different story altogether. This is a group who made themselves through compiling all sorts of niche & nonsensical samples into strangely appealing tunes. Maybe I'm wrong and there's no shortage of people who listen to Wayne & Shuster radio comedy shows, or a niche John Waters film, which are collectively where much of their most famous song comes from (I can say "Frontier Psychiatrist", don't worry). When the second album came around, I felt they were flexing their resources a little more, both with their guest list, and the samples. A lot of strange things to say about how we ended up here, but a song with Biz Markie goofing around alongside a sample of "Come Together" by The Beatles was not on my bucket list.

With that in mind though, maybe Camp Lo isn't too crazy of a pull. They're a duo who you'd be forgiven for not realising were still releasing music, as they dropped off the map considerably quickly after the success of their first album in 1997. Yes, this is the very predictable part when I bring up the song "Luchini AKA This Is It", largely because it's an absolute classic. It's a song that does unexplainable things with the audio mixing that I don't think could be re-created. It captures that back & forth MC dynamic like they're pros at the game, and most importantly, this is it (what?!).

I wasn't quite as familiar with Camp Lo when the song came out however, so the main point of interest for me was the sample. I also didn't know that song, but I was very familiar with "Sunshine" by Australian Idol under-performer turned pop star turned media star Ricki-Lee. That song uses the exact same sample and she beat The Avalanches to it by a decade. Maybe they were willing to bet on the realistic expectation that most Australian pop tunes that don't reach enduring ubiquity like an "In The Summertime" or "UFO" are very quickly forgotten about by most, but I'm rarely going to forget something if I've heard it that many times and have it thrust back in front of me. Listening to them back to back, I can't deny that The Avalanches have polished it up a tad better, and maybe that's just part of the process when your release patterns will make Tool or Team Cherry blush.

There's also another prominent sample that you might have noticed. A lot of the vocals that aren't from Camp Lo, are from "Why Can't I Get It Too", a 1959 recording by Six Boys In Trouble, a bunch of pre-teen kids from New York. It might sound a little jarring, but it's crate-digging at its finest. A very significant but overlooked record that they put a spotlight on, and also play around with the original text, re-arranging it and providing (through a chopped up sample) the song's title. It's much like the Chicago song "Street Player" whose 'street sounds' became 'these sounds' when sampled by The Bucketheads, and then 'deep down' once Alok got a hold of that. We love a good game of telephone. The Avalanches aren't new to this either, as the original sample from "Since I Left You" is actually saying 'since I met you'.

It was a long road to getting around my initial reservations. When the Hottest 100 becomes part of the equation, there can be heightened frustration if you're aware you're going to get a haul from a notable artist, and whether or not the selection is to your liking. I could understand why "Because I'm Me" got the guernsey, but I felt like "If I Was a Folkstar" or "The Wozard of Iz" were better choices. I think the song's quite fun nowadays. It feels relentlessly out of touch with the era, which isn't surprising given the names we're working with here, but sometimes if you do a good enough job, you can get around that, selling the idea of The Avalanches to a whole new generation of listeners.

#492. San Cisco - When I Dream (#48, 2018)

52nd of 2018

Previously, as recently as in this very post, I said that "Reasons" (I'm not going to link it, just scroll up) was one of the first singles the band released after Nick left the band. I had to use a vague bit of weaselling here because the timeline is pretty vague, and music recording dates are hard to pin down unless you're an avid watcher in the moment. San Cisco announced Nick's departure at the start of 2018, but released this song that same year. I can't say for sure if he's on this song because identifying bass parts isn't a strong suit of mine, but I suppose it seems likely. This already sounds a bit different from what we're used to. He doesn't have a writing credit though.

This is also the song with the line 'I've lost a few good friends lately, and I think it's my fault, not theirs', so maybe there's something to be gleamed from this. Actually the whole song is a strangely cathartic exploration of self-reflection. Lo and behold, San Cisco have written their own "Runaway", just without all the grandiosities. It's a funny song to read the lyrics for, as it highlights the generally strange cadence of it all. Like, I've never felt more confident that the lyrics were written around the melody.

Otherwise yeah, pretty likeable tune. It does have me wondering about the exaggerated way I sometimes see people react to music like this, songs that don't necessarily invite much discourse and just thrive on their understood demographic. I'd like to think no one's out there hating on something just for this, but I guess I can understand the rationale. That's the situation when I make a list before I realise just how much I would end up writing, we're just gonna keep getting these middle of the pack entries where my recommendation is willing, but it otherwise just doesn't write itself.

#491. The Jungle Giants - Heavy Hearted (#8, 2019)

42nd of 2019

This feels like a big graduation. It's not actually a massive step up for the band in terms of finishing position (they only landed 9 places lower in 2017 with a lot of vote splitting), but it felt like they'd finally earned the trust of their listeners. This is fundamentally a very strange song that was thoroughly embraced all the same. I find it hard to imagine they could release it in 2015 to the same fanfare, it's just too far out there. With the big success of their 3rd album, they were granted the liberty to do what we all want to do: make a dance-pop song whose big hook is a high pitched drone.

That's not the entire story here. I alluded to this before but this is a particularly different brand of The Jungle Giants, mainly because it isn't really The Jungle Giants. Pretty much the entire song was made by Sam in his home studio, another one of those things that sounds like COVID in action but the dates won't make it be so. COVID-19 is probably responsible for delaying the album to 2021 though, as this single was released in mid-2019 with a 2020 album release slated at the time. It's interesting to see live performances of the song, where Cesira in particular doesn't have much to do. I wonder if they ever toyed around with playing a different version of the song live and just decided not to mess around with it at all. The live drums do give it a little more punch at least.

"Heavy Hearted" was another song that had me re-calibrating my expectations from chart performance, or rather just how little space is allowed for triple j bands to cross over. Another way to look at it is that when you see an artist like this manage to scrape into detection ("Heavy Hearted" spent 2 weeks at the bottom of the Spotify top 200 on release), then the Hottest 100 conversion rate is likely very good. It's only gotten harder since then, so the only logical conclusion is that you should bet your house on Keli Holiday this year.

I'm struggling to recall my initial feelings towards this song. I don't think I went out of my way to listen to it at the time but think I was weirdly pleased to see it poll this well. Suppose I just like seeing weird things being well received, not that the 2020 countdown was short of this. Sometimes you just have to trust the process. I don't know how Sam ended up thinking that weird sound should be an integral part of the chorus, but I just can't imagine the song without it. Also just worth it to see the crowd rendition at Splendour In The Grass 2022 when there's an initial fake out. Oh baby you're so [indecipherable].