Singles Of The Week: Eminem’s lyrical guff, Everything Everything’s rudery and lots more

Eminem

Eminem – Not Afraid

Comparisons with Sex and the City probably don’t come thick and fast for Eminem. But think about it – both gained notoriety around the end of the ‘90s for the blunt manner in which they discussed boobs, bits, and the unspeakable things they wanted to do to their lovers (weeing on/killing them). However, these days it’s pretty difficult to locate the faintest whisper of their early brazilliantness amidst the mires of appalling clichés they both wallow in. Let’s list some of the hackneyed lyrical offences on Eminem’s comeback single, ‘Not Afraid’…

(1) “I’m doing this for me” – If a band ever says this in an interview (see also: “basically, we just love playing live”), THEY ARE TELLING YOU PORKIES. It’s code for, “I know my record’s total bobbins, so here’s a handy disclaimer that I can bandy about when all you mean ol’ critics poop on it from a great height”. Or, as in Slim’s case, it’s supposed to mean using the music to really work through your problems, maaaaan, which is a sure sign that the humble listener is in for an odyssey of self-indulgence.

(2) “Yeah, it’s been a ride / I guess I had to go to that place to get to this one / Now some of you might still be in that place…” – Urgh, life is a ride. Life is a fucking rollercoaster. Now, considering that this song is supposed to see Eminem back on the straight and narrow (the “path” of right that comes after the “ride” of wrong, if you will), talking in the kind of mumbo jumbo that only dribbles from your slack lips when you’re pupil-dilatingly high isn’t really going to help your case. All this vague piddle about places reminds me of that old stoned chestnut: “woah, but how do I know that the place I’m in is the same place as what you’re in and that what I see as blue is what you see is blue…”, passes out in front of South Park, end scene.

(3) “This fucking black cloud still follows me around” – Congrats, Eminem, you pass Pathetic Fallacy 101.

(4) “I shoot for the moon, but I’m still gazing at stars” – If this rapping lark doesn’t work out, there’s always inspirational slogan teacup manufacturing. ‘Mathers’ Motivational Mugs’, perhaps. It’s got a ring to it.

<<<And now, gird your loins, for the chorus is naught but pure platitude:>>>

(5) “I’m not afraid to take a stand / Everybody come take my hand / We’ll walk this road together, through the storm / Whatever weather, cold or warm / Just let you know that, you’re not alone / Holla if you feel that you’ve been down the same road.”

No matter how puerile and terrible, Eminem is always better when he comes back with a comedy single that riles everyone from the Pope to the glorious Kingdom of Pop, rather than srs business such as this. There was so much potential for a hamfisted lampooning of 2010s culture this time: Justin Bieber, autotune, Michael Jackson actually being dead, ferchrissakes. Instead we have this god-awful sub-guidance counselor hippy dippy shit over a beat so rudimentary that it’d sound cheap on Channel U. At least when the SATC ladies get old they can claim to be reprazentin’ hot flushes across the land. Clapped out rappers just sound embarrassing.

James Yuill – On Your Own (Summer Camp remix)

If you’re going to call a song ‘On Your Own’, it’s got to have a LOT of emotional chutzpah on its side. It either has to make you go, “FUCK YEAH I’m free and it’s AMAZING and I am an INDEPENDENT, STRONG PERSON!”  or on the flipside, it’s got to be so heart-wrenchingly miserable that you realise it’s the perfect reflection of your dejection and status as a pariah of romance, into which you will gaze wistfully before getting blinded by the sheer force of your own self-pity. Unfortunately, James Yuill’s original packs the punch of neither – it starts with a great thump and grind that suggests it might be a liberating dancefloor moment of the “FUCK YEAH!” variety, but then his voice comes in and the whole thing gets a bit tame and repetitive. Then there’s the outro, which really labours the point of how alone you are (“you’re on, you’re on your own” – yeah, cheers, James…), which is a lot like your best mate trying to comfort you after a break-up by saying that she never liked Derek anyway (when his name was Michael). It probably didn’t help that I listened to the Summer Camp remix before the original (and possibly a few too many times), but it is SO MUCH warmer and lovelier, and conjures a whole different kind of sadness. Elizabeth’s sweet tones somehow make it sound younger, injecting a bit of hope into the loneliness – you just know that this wily gal will be just fine. As SC are wont to do with remixes (see also: their remix of Active Child’s ‘Voice Of An Old Friend’), they’ve pretty much rewritten the whole song, this time as a paean to the delightful Charles Ryder of Brideshead Revisited. The sample of his plummy tones – “I felt so drunk that I’d almost begun to believe that the whole of yesterday evening was a dream” – seems like really quite an appropriate way to sum up the lovely impossibility of the fake nostalgia that Summer Camp sing about. Quite charming.

Everything Everything – Schoolin’

Pop’s often talked about as a factory, making Stock, Aitken, Waterman, Cathy Dennis et al the clever clogs scientists in search of creating the perfect ditty. It’s not hard to figure out the algorithms behind their craft – catchy verse to the power of ball-bustingly good chorus over equal measures of sauce, charm and grace. ‘Schoolin’’ contains all of these whilst simultaneously defying and bettering all known pop formulae, and yet I still can’t quite put my finger on how – like the meaning of life or something (which I think shirley means that Everything Everything are the meaning of life, a belief system I am more than happy to subscribe to). Quite often it sounds as though it’s about to explode into something huge, but then someone presses the restart button just in time, making it start and splutter like a Peugeot 106 with a dodgy clutch and scattershot alarm system. As ever, it’s totally impossible to hear what Jonathan Everything is saying, but the fine SarahGolde0 of YouTube fame has made an excellent stab at deciphering the lyrics in this here video:

Curiously, it is the second single of the week to feature someone talking about dicking the earth – Eminem rapped, “He’s got the urge / To pull his dick from the dirt and fuck the universe,” whilst those Everything Everything chaps, fond of rudery as they are, sing, “I learn dick about earth.” I don’t think there’s anything to conclude about this, other than that I’d advise you never to hold hands with a boy who expresses a fondness for such filthbaggery. The impudence continues as he sings, “I’ve got myself a fire hydrant with more tyrant and watery blast than all of my past,” and if that ain’t a hint to the fact that he’d like to be the one to extinguish the fire in your loins, then I don’t know what is.

Tracey Thorn – Why Does The Wind?

And so to an ode to drafty old emotions by one Tracey Thorn, whose heart is chilled by wind when she looks into your eyes. Now this isn’t Tracey’s fault at all, but I’d read a lot of really very good things about her latest album before listening to it – that she sings about the grown up side of love in a really clever, sophisticated and funny way, kind of getting her ’69 Love Songs’ on by exploring the possibility and potential of the romantical ditty. Unlike Stephin Merritt, however, she fails to inject a great deal of charm or wit into ‘Why Does The Wind?’’s look at the comings and goings of fancy, which makes more like the tiresome tropes of a women’s magazine sung over the top of some appropriately breezy (and quite dull) synths and violins. Given that she’s dealing with supposedly “adult” themes and the tribulations of Serious Relationships, some might argue that as an unmarried dame, I just don’t understand what she’s going through. But that’s bunk – arguments about people not “getting” music because they’re too old or young, or born in the wrong period, are ridiculous and apologetic. And besides, Low, Arcade Fire, Cocteau Twins and more have proven that becoming a smug married is no barrier to writing excellent songs on the subject.

Veronica Falls – Beachy Head

It looks about as easy as 1, 2, 3 to form a lo/bro fi/surf/scuzz band, especially after watching the video to ‘Beachy Head’: take two chords, some oversized sunglasses, pudding bowl haircuts, film your whole video through Hipstamatic, and fake attitude by standing around looking scathing. Voila. My friend Leah and I were going to form such a band called Frolic Acid (if you steal our name, I kill you), and the fact that I can’t play guitar would have been no barrier to realizing that dream – we just don’t have cool enough haircuts. Anyway. After recently yawning through Spectrals slumping through the most uninspired surf rock pastiche I’ve ever seen, I swore I’d never listen to anything that didn’t possess pristine, crisp fretwork and tuneful singing ever again, but Veronica Falls might have made me change my mind. ‘Beachy Head’ might not exactly be a cat amongst the lo-fi fishes, but given Veronica Falls’ menacing prowl, you definitely wouldn’t say that to their face.

Joe Worricker – We Hug In Bed

Love them as we do, Rough Trade have made some serious balls ups with new signings this past year. Rox proved too dull to even grace my dad’s coffee table, Wilder sound like any old mildly insouciant electro band, and then there’s this chap, Joe Worricker. His voice has been likened to that of Arthur Russell, but in reality he sounds more like one of the blander members of The Feeling with a chronic head cold.

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