Nothing’s Gonna Stop The Flow

Folk Implosion “Nothing Gonna Stop” – Don’t get me wrong, I like a fair few Sebadoh tunes, but I get the impression from the Kids soundtrack that Lou Barlow may really be a lot better off pretending to be other people. It would seem to me that to Barlow, a lot of the music he recorded for that record were just piss-takes to suit the characters and the vibe of the film, but I think it’s actually some of the most inspired music of his career. Whether or not a song like “Nothing Gonna Stop” was meant to be ironic is irrelevant – playing stylistic dress-up suited him well, and it would seem that most people would agree, considering that the man’s only real hit (“Natural One”) was a product of this soundtrack experiment. Judging by the musical sameness of the overwhelming majority of his arrangements, Barlow doesn’t seem like much of a risk-taker, and so pretending to be someone else was probably a very liberating thing, to get away from this monumental sense of artistic self that he had created through all of his other records. It’s too bad that he more or less returned to form after this experiment, even though it was by far the most successful record of his career.

Barlow’s written a lot better songs than “Nothing Gonna Stop” (at least a quarter of Harmacy and half of Bakesale, and that song “Flame” off of that final Sebadoh record are all better in terms of being well-written pop songs), it would be interesting to see how much better those songs could be if he was less uptight about keeping the arrangements focused on the classic guitar/bass/drums formula. Bob Pollard is the same way – here’s a guy who has literally written about a hundred of my favorite songs, but I still get frustrated by the fact that he almost never strays from that basic guitar/bass/drums arrangement, or even changes the emphasis of the instruments in that arrangement, as Barlow does on most of the Kids songs. Why just settle for writing great songs when you can play with how they sound, and play with how different sounds change what they mean and how they feel? It seems like a lot of folks just give up before getting to the really fun part.

Two more notes about the Kids soundtrack while I’m on it – I’ve always assumed that the emphasis on bass and drums on the record was Barlow’s attempt at mimicking hip hop, but it’s really amazing how similar a lot of the drums and bass parts sound as if they are outtakes from Can recording sessions. “Simean Groove” in particular may as well just have Damo Suzuki on guest vocals. (To be more accurate, this is more of a Silver Apples homage, though that didn’t become obvious to me until Jack pointed out that the verse lyrics to “Nothing Gonna Stop” are a string of Silver Apples song titles, and it suddenly occurred to me that a) the title “Simean Groove” is a direct reference to the name of the homemade instrument that the Silver Apples used on their recordings, and b) its beat is nearly indentical to that of the Silver Apples song “Lovefingers.” Thanks, Jack. I still think there’s a bit of Can there – the song still reminds me a bit of “Mushroom” from Can’s Tago Mago album.)

Aside from Barlow’s material on the record, it also includes the song “Good Morning, Captain” by Slint at the end, though it is not included in the film and has no obvious reason for being on the record in terms of lyrical theme. I imagine that Barlow just included the song because he liked it and wanted other people to hear it, which is a pretty cool thing considering that by doing this he makes it so that no one who owns this record should ever feel a need to buy an actual Slint record now that they own the single amazing song in their catalog. Nevertheless, as a teenage record buyer eager to buy “classic” records by bands I didn’t really know, I still went off and bought Spiderland. What a disappointment. Honestly, if you really like that song and want to hear more stuff like it, you’re probably way better off buying Red Medicine and End Hits by Fugazi. It’s a very similar kind of sound, and trust me, Fugazi never fails to deliver, and they never meander into lame “spooky” soundtrack music. However, if you’re really into Godspeed You Black Emperor, Mogwai, and the rest of the legion of gloomy soundtrack-y indie bands out there, then you’ll probably love Spiderland and think I’m an idiot. Yeah, well. Fine.