Middle of the Roadie

Jackson Browne - Running on Empty



This song sounds like it was written as the backing music for a beer commercial. You can almost picture three shiny white 30-something guys in cowboy hats sitting in the front of a pickup truck drinking beer and driving into the sun with this song playing in the background. They'd probably have guns too. It's not even a real song - it starts off pretending to be a live song and then sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom, which it probably was. Browne and his band recorded this road music(and their roadies) onstage, backstage, in various hotel rooms and on their tourbus. Thanks for the focus on production values, Jackson. That said, at least there's a song about a roadie masturbating to spice things up a bit

Country-tinged, soft focus guitar and piano, MOR vocals and even a slide guitar solo - this song (and album) has been described as the one album Jackson Browne's true fans don't own, and the one that everyone else does. Well, not me, obviously, because it sounds like Garth Brooks impregnated Boston. And, of course, this is an album that's been mythologised as the Odyssey of the tour band, a paen to the road musician, with Browne being compared to Gawain, of the Knights of the Round Table fame. So I suppose if Browne ever reads this he'll come and impale me with his lance (Ooo-er.. that said, I've heard it gets lonely on the road).

Well, I'll do my best to make it quick - this song is so middle of the road it wouldn't offend a nun with a hangover (I'll bet that even the song about the roadie jerking off is so MOR as to be innoffensive). I don't like it. It's a power-ballad to driving a big truck while wearing a cowboy hat.

I think you need to be an American to get it.

More than a feeling of nausea

Boston - More Than a Feeling



We kick off the review of the 500 greatest songs of all time with Boston's More Than a Feeling, a song which I feel should come somewhat lower on the list, preferably somewhere in the region of 5 - 6000. Rolling Stone motivate for the track's inclusion by saying that "Inspired by the heart-tugging mood of the Left Banke's 'Walk Away Renee,' Polaroid engineer Scholz tinkered with this anthem for five years in his basement studio. Driven by an epochal riff and Brad Delp's skyscraper vocals, 'Feeling' helped Boston sell more than 17 million copies -- and inspired the riff for Nirvana's 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'"

This song conjures up two feelings within me. One of which is memories of watching Adam Sandler movies, although I think he actually idolises Kansas rather than Boston. While I quite like some of his movies, I could never understand why he would like music loved only by meatheads and accountants with moustaches thinking that they were being badass for loving Rock 'n' Roll, despite their mothers warning them against it.

The other feeling is one of nausea. Mainly due to the horribly polished production and castrato vocals. 5 years of tinkering? If 15 minutes is good enough for Black Flag and hell, I'd bet that Operation Ivy viewed that as extravagant, how on earth do you spend 5 years on a song. That fact alone, notwithstanding the guitar solo defines this song as a feat of massive, masturbatory self-indulgence.

Basically this song's legacy is that it inspired Smells Like Teen Spirit. It was also covered by South African metal band Agro and N*Sync, which is probably something Tom Scholz is particularly proud of, far more so than the zillions of dollars in advertising and licensing revenues that this song must have raked in, through profligate use in beer and car commercials and shitty movies. More Than a Feeling's album (Boston) sold 16 million copies - not bad scratch for an engineer who should have stuck to engineering.

Oh, the song. Back to the song. It's pretty standard: Verse-Chorus, Verse-Chorus, Bridge, Verse-Chorus (compound AABA) in D Major, with the bridge in G Major. AABA was a popular form in the 50s and 60s, before the verse-chorus form became a la mode. Tom Scholz's guitar solo is harmonised dross, with a pick harmonic that would make Dimebag Darrel from Pantera posthumously recant his use thereof. That said, the song would probably be of value played continuously to keep dogs off your lawn, thanks to Brad Delp's "skyscraper" (read man-child castrato) vocals.

If you think I'm being uncharitable, this album has been hailed for being a landmark in terms of production values, arena rock and power-ballads, neither of which are characteristics of bands that I love. It just .. leaves me cold. It makes me think of a weeping audience holding lit cigarette lighters in the air while Tom Scholz improvises on the guitar solo for 20 minutes. And for that reason I'm glad that arena rock and power ballads are dead.

Edit: Bugger, it's still stuck in my bloody head, 3 hours later.

Taxonomy: Masturbatory power-ballad

Tomorrow: The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy