Writers crave eyeballs. Without them we wither.
A reliable means of getting the eyeballs we need to survive is through making you hate us. And one way of doing this is through writing listicles with titles that are sure to make you scream at the sheer enormity.
Listicles are the mutated offspring of an unethical breeding experiment between lists and articles. An article in list form, or a list in article form; a listicle has its mothers i’s and its fathers t’s.
The titles we give our listicles do not necessarily reflect our true thoughts. A lot of the time, they’re not even fair representations of the contents of the listicle. They’re traps.
It works. You are not immune to these tricks. Nobody is.
A few weeks ago I read a piece, which I shan’t link to, promising to list a number of first person shooter games that are now “literally unplayable”. This list included Duke Nukem 3D, which seemed perfectly playable when I last careered through it around nine months ago. Indeed, it was more than merely playable. It was downright enjoyable. Then I realised: I’d fallen victim, once again, to the listicle writer’s tricks.
Promise outrage, then deliver.
But we’re not all bad. Sometimes we’ll give you the opportunity to feel better than us. We’ll promise a list of “forgotten” books, films, or albums; or we’ll proclaim that we’re listing a series of books, films, or albums that you’ve never heard of. If you are at all familiar with any of the items we list – and you will be, by design – then you’ll think of us as presumptive buffoons. You will shake your head, and perhaps even chuckle a bit, at our hubris. It’s our gift to you, that chance to demonstrate your superiority. It’s the least we can do. After all, you gave us your eyeballs.
So, regarding the title of this piece. This listicle. With one very important exception, I don’t actually find any of the music I’m about to discuss “disgusting”. These are albums I like a lot which I feel get off to a bit of a shaky start. Sometimes it’s the first track, sometimes it’s just the first few seconds of the first track. That’s it. That’s all we’re discussing here today.
I’m sorry if you feel misled. It’s just that I am starving for eyeballs, and I knew I’d have less chance of bagging those tasty orbs had I given this piece a more honest title: “X albums that don’t start off too good”. It just wouldn’t have the same allure.
I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, there. Would it help if we started with the album opening that actually does disgust me? OK.
James – Stutter (1986)
James’s debut is a hazy, crazy (but not lazy) shimmer of chaotic folk pop, tailor made for spinning deliriously in the middle of a field while wearing a smock and a bucket hat.
It’s a delight; so it’s a pity the very first track, Skullduggery, immediately opens with the most disgusting lyrics this side of goregrind:
An earwig crawled into my ear
Made a meal of the wax and hairs
Phoned friends, had an insect party
The song then describes how these insects gradually consume this poor man’s head from the inside, until:
Where my brain used to be
Now there’s only a hole
It feels like a warning. But are they warning us about the long-term impact of partying on Class A substances? Or are they simply advising against falling asleep in the middle of a field, lest something climb inside while you’re out of it?
True, other songs on the album touch upon such themes as nuclear annihilation, self-immolation, and environmental destruction, so it’s not as if this jolly tale of brain-eating insects is a dark outlier. But there’s something about those initial references to wax and hair that really gets under my skin.
Wolfmother – Wolfmother (2006)
Colossal Sabbath riffs? Stratospheric songs of myth and imagination? Jazz flute solos and ULTRAPROG organ breakdowns? A Frank Frazetta album cover?! True, the lyrics range from “passable” to “embarrassing”; but who cares? Apart from the odd rum line, Wolfmother’s debut barely puts a foot wrong.
Except, of course, that very, very first step. The first thing you hear is:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOW
I know what they were trying to do, here. Something primal. The Wolfmother is loose. None of you are safe.
It’s a shame, then, that it actually sounds like Andrew Stockdale zipped a certain zip too quickly. Which might explain why he sings in such a high register, actually.
The Beta Band – The Beta Band (1999)
The Beta Band didn’t like their self-titled debut. They dismissed it as, in so many words, “a bunch of half-songs with jams added to the end.” To which I say: As if that’s a bad thing!
This is the real sound of confusion. Any time this heady soup seems on the verge of boiling over, the band gives the pot a stir, adding unexpected new ingredients and putting a spin on sounds that were already at 90 degrees to the rest of the world. So a haunting wobbly folk dirge is utterly subsumed by the theme from The Black Hole; an otherwise irresistible party anthem is sabotaged with helium vocals; and a gothic trip-hop epic invokes an inverse Total Eclipse of the Heart.
I love it all, even if the lyrics to Round The Bend have hit painfully close to home, at times. And even if I often feel a strong urge to skip past that particularly challenging opening track.
It’s The Beta Band Rap, everyone. Depending on your disposition, on paper it will sound either irresistible or insufferable: In less than five minutes the group tells their story so far in three distinct musical forms. First we get a jolly bit of toytown barbershop pop in the style of Mr. Sandman. This is followed by a bad rap pastiche, which is in turn followed by a very bad Elvis impression.
The transitions are jarring, and it all sounds a little inept. I do believe this is intentional. It lets you know what you might expect from the rest of the album (anything), while acting as a sort of filter. If you can’t get through these initial five minutes, then you’re really going to struggle with the next hour or so.
It’s just that… you have to be in the mood, you know? Start from the second track and the album’s a masterpiece. But start from the first track, and it’s merely a flawed masterpiece.
Bright Eyes – Lifted or: The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)
Oh, speaking of albums that deploy a challenging first track to immediately create a mood and to give you a strong idea of what to expect!
Lifted… is a raw album dealing with raw, and often ugly, thoughts and feelings. The vocals are often strained to breaking point, and the recording retains a lot of ambient noise, studio chatter, and even one or two mistakes.
So, it’s a warts and all sort of album. And alas, sometimes I find the opening song, The Big Picture, to be a bit too warty.
Before we hear any music, we get nearly two full minutes of Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley chatting in the car. They’re sharing directions, commenting on the temperature, and so on. Then this Bright Eyes song comes on the radio. For the next few minutes, Jenny gently sings along to a backing of engine noise.
Initially, the song itself sounds distant and tinny. It’s supposed to be playing on a car stereo, after all. But it eventually comes into focus. Then it’s just warblin’ ol’ Conor Oberst and his guitar, giving us a few pained verses about ambition before the song dissolves once more into radio gabber just at the moment Conor’s voice soars and cracks.
The whole album’s over 70 minutes long. If this opening “skit” achieves anything, it’s to make it clear that you’re going to have to be very patient indeed if you’re to make it to the end. And I suppose all the car sounds are there to let you know that this is going to be a journey.
So, I can see what they’re going for here. But the case could be made that all of these conceptual bells and whistles only serve to muddy the waters. This opening track is certainly a powerful statement of intent. But as it’s also a cute little insight into life on the road, maybe it’s not as powerful as it could have been.
Also, because the album takes such a while to get going, I find I don’t want to take this trip all that often. Which is a shame, as it’s such a rewarding trip, in the end! Can I get a goddamn timpani roll?!
Sigur Rós – Von (1997)
Let’s just say that Sigur Rós’s debut album does not get off to a good beginning.
The band took its name from Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson’s younger sister, Sigurrós, who was apparently born just days before the band was formed. And the first track on their debut is seemingly named after her too.
Now that she’s old enough to listen, I just wonder what Sigurrós thinks of the song with which she shares a name. Because it’s scary stuff! It’s nearly 10 nightmarish minutes of dark ambience and terrified screaming. The second track, Dögun, is a lot brighter, and a lot shorter too. But it also happens to feature nearly three minutes of distant wailing and rainfall.
As we’ve seen, The Beta Band weren’t too happy with their first album. But Sigur Rós were so dissatisfied with their debut that they apparently considered scrapping it entirely. I’m glad they didn’t. Nothing this band ever did sounded quite of this world, and Von is the group at their most otherworldly. Listening to this album can feel like you’re intruding on a secret universe that you weren’t meant to see.
I much prefer the murky original versions of Hafssól and the title track over the Hvarf/Heim reworks, and Syndir Guðs is by far Sigur Rós at their most spellbinding. Considering all that would follow, that’s really saying something. And among all this we have Myrkur, which oddly enough is the most straightforward and immediately gratifying rock song they’d ever record. True, it sounds more 4AD than four-to-the-floor, but still.
It’s just a shame that, with those opening two tracks, it’s over 16 minutes until this magical album truly starts to sparkle.
Well, there you go. That was the listicle; those were the five great albums with disgusting first tracks.
Usually, when we write listicles we try to avoid round numbers. It will be a top six, or a top 11, rather than a top five or a top 10. It creates the impression that we’ve really thoughts about our choices. But alas, these were the only five albums I could think of at this point.
Wouldn’t it be ace if, having familiarised ourselves with the sly tricks of the listicle, we’ll all henceforth find the strength to resist their charms? But you won’t. And neither will I.
