[In case you missed it or you're new to the site, I'm spending 2009 revisiting my annual song of the year lists, posting comments about the top 10 from each year. It was supposed to take all year, but at the rate I'm going your kids will be going through menopause by the time I finish.]
#8. Clem Snide, Joan Jett of Arc
I first encountered Clem Snide in the summer of 2000. They were opening for the first Throwing Muses show in almost five years, and I was completely blown away by set. Mainly because they had a cello player, but I was also immediately smitten with singer Eef Barzelay, adorned in a bad tux jacket and cute glasses, asking Calgon to take him away. The band was touring for their still-wonderful Your Facorite Music album, unceremoniously released on a major label that dropped them before the disc even came out.
After Your Favorite Music came The Ghost of Fashion, put out on the much smaller (and now sadly defunct) SpinART Records. Some songs–like Joan Jett of Arc and Ancient Chinese Secret Blues–are among the group’s best, though as a whole the album lacks the cohesiveness of their first two records. Ice Cube, for instance, is too bar-band rocky next to the dreamy Chinese Baby, and some of the album’s production is a little bit noodly.
The collision between pop culture and heavyhearted sorrow was something I had never heard before, at least not so bluntly, though it was something I really liked in books and art. Barzelay’s voice is not strong, but he sings every syllable like his heart is being broken. Which would be massively annoying to a lot of people, I guess, but I thought he was a genius. Of course, if The Ghost of Fashion were released today, the songs would seem too jokey, the lyrics cynically-crafted ploys to garner Youtube hits by name-checking Corey Feldman. (The Junkie Jews, a track on The Ghost of Fashion, came out a year before The Surreal Life debuted.)
Maybe that’s why the group’s quality declined to markedly as the decade progressed. Their last three albums–including one recorded in 2006 that was only released this past February–aren’t very good. There’s good tracks here and there, but the emotion is lacking. And as we get progressively more saturated, culturally and musically, by gimmicky concepts, it gets harder to believe that someone could really want to sincerely sing waltzy ballads about pop detritus .
Clem Snide, Joan Jett of Arc
BONUS:
Clem Snide, Chinese Baby
Clem Snide, Ancient Chinese Secret Blues
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