Veruca Salt - "25" One of my all-time favorite single drumbeats is on the fourth beat of the measure as "25" is slowing and softening to a halt. Just a crack out of nowhere leading into the return of the wall-of-sound guitars.
Veruca Salt - "Sleeping Where I Want"
Veruca Salt - "Earthcrosser". I used to marvel at the degree of pent-up rage VS could express/release in their album finales. But that was when I had cassette tapes and didn't realize that the CD version of American Thighs ends with "Sleeping Where I Want," a nice low-key denouement with funky harmonization.
Veruca Salt - Shutterbug" ("You monkey you left me...")
Nina Gordon - "Now I Can Die". Tonight and the Rest of My Life has almost the opposite sound of Eight Arms to Hold You, yet Bob Rock produced both. Go figure.
Posted by Matt Bruce at June 10, 2005 06:27 PMListening to these tracks it finally clicked why you go for Veruca Salt and not, say, Babes in Toyland, Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney (other than the simple possiblity that you hadn't heard much, which may be true... but this could be furthered to include why you might not like the latter bands even if you heard their best stuff over and over.)
I heard the standard radio hits back in the day and, well, it was cool and all but it didn't grab me and force me to put my money down.
Then Nina left and Louise put out Resolver. I'm guessing I've gone over my love of Born Entertainer, Officially Dead and Used to Know Her repeatedly... though possbily not here.
What just struck me was that VS generally isn't as harsh and bitter as, say, Used to Know Her. More common is the big guitar song... certainly not arena rock but closer to that than the remedial punk of BK's first releases.
That is I figured that there was more overlap... and that much of the remaining gap could be filled by Hole... but maybe I need to reevaluate.
These are great songs but I shall decline to rank them at this time because I need to listen to these albums more than I have.
Posted by: John at June 11, 2005 04:17 PM