Track This: Weston's "Heather Lewis"/"Your Summer Dresses Bore Me"

I've always had a fascination for lesser-known power pop bands and singles. Whether this means singing the praise of 20/20's second album, championing Brendan Benson's pre-Raconteurs efforts, or even calling Pansy Division's Absurd Pop Song Romance the greatest power pop album, I sometimes find myself reaching for that sugary, disposable pop single. Albeit, I generally grab one that won't make the radio or even get noticed in this age of increasing vocoder usage and auto-tuned pop atrocities.

Case in point, these two songs by the pop punk band, Weston off of their 1996 album, Got Beat Up, are so dynamic, poppy, and well-written that they deserve space in the echelon of killer pop tunes. While the rest of the record is an excellent pop punk record with the type of sugary licks that Weezer wishes they used, these two songs stand out due to their maturity. No small feat on a record where most of the songs deal with immature love and the awkwardness of being young and aimless, such as "New Shirt," which deals lyrically with getting a new shirt because "I thought you might like me in it" or the pop punk standout, "No Kind of Superstar" that pleads, "I know I'll never be the number one that everyone wants to talk to / I know I'll always be the fat kid on the bus everybody's a jerk to."

"Heather Lewis" blasts out as an immediate continuation of "New Shirt" ("Heather Lewis when you left for college / I thought you would visit . . . I thought you'd call me / that you would miss me / I guess I understand you're busy") Ultimately, an ode from a nerdy kid for his potential sweetheart, the song has big hooks and cooler back-up vocals. Its naivete is underscored by its insistent drumming and stadium-sized yearning that wouldn't feel out of place if it was played during a Major League Baseball game.

"Your Summer Dresses Bore Me" is a greater statement, recalling the summery feeling of later Beach Boys tracks with a dash of 1990's singer-songwriter regret. A spurned lover deftly reexamines a faulty relationship with a few well-chosen, biting lyrics. He grows as a person, while acknowledging his regret.The vocals are clean, crisp and thoughtful; this could be another response to Heather Lewis after the two dated for awhile. He sings, "I called you up to say I'm sorry / that we deserve a second chance / but you won't pick up the phone / I sat around just thinking about what you never meant to me." The chorus is huge with catchy guitar hooks and well-produced drum fills -- "Your summer dresses bore me / just like everything you do / I could wait around forever / but I won't wait long for you." A perfect addition for a last mix tape or a late summer confessional, the song rewards repeat listens far beyond its three-minute playing time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contractions: Henry Standing Bear's Ethical Code

Image
I recently finished watching the last season of Longmire , a show that I believe only got better when it moved to Netflix. A & E cancelled it, despite good ratings, because it did not directly appeal to the 18-35 age demographic. The writing and plot development improved as the show started focusing more on major themes and story lines and not story-of-the-week subplots. While the show's general premise is typical cop show fare, the strong characterization and settings give the show a primacy over similar procedurals. While I enjoyed the show, I never got around to reading the books even though I watched dutifully for six seasons. Once I started reading The Cold Dish , I realized how hard it will be not to binge the book series. The books are a treat. Craig Johnson's prose is punchy, and the characters are even better realized. Walt Longmire's love for Rainier beer and obscure literary metaphors, as well as other character's predilections and habits, become crys...
Read more

Do you remember huH Magazine?

Image
The other day when I was writing the "Track This" for Jawbox's "Cooling Card," something jogged my memory about music magazines I had read in my formative years, particularly those published while I was still in High School. Many, if not most, of them are gone now. They gave way to blogs and online publications. These include zines like Flipside , which covered mainstream and underground bands -- they also had some of my favorite columnists of all time, Punk Planet , which ventured further into Indie rock as it progressed, and MRR , which is still going strong. The magazines that I read often included Alternative Press and Magnet , as well as Ray Gun Publishing's huH which turned me on to a ton of great music because it included a cd with each issue that served as a sampler for what had been released that month, divided by genre. While other magazines did this, huH undoubtedly was more inclusive in the types of bands these cds covered. In fact, these col...
Read more

Cal Smith: "So Long, Country Bumpkin"

Image
Cal Smith, born Calvin Grant Shofner on April 7, 1932, died on October 10. He was best known for the 1974 hit, "Country Bumpkin." A tangible part of my childhood, the song still echoes in my head whenever pumpkins are displayed or the newest batch of Pumpkin ales hits the store shelves.  Where I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, the old  Blues Brothers  adage rang true that there were two kinds of music, "country and western." My parents always listened to country music in our house (My mom preferred '90s country radio) and there was always a bunch of western in there as well.(Mostly from my dad). I remember hearing "Streets of Bakersfield" often drifting from car radios and home stereos. I developed an early attraction to some of these songs, even though years later I would hide it behind a sheen of four chords and punk rock. A secret shadow self of country knowledge and Western Swing bravado remained, only unsheathed for music trivia and in the dar...
Read more