Soi Disantra: Our Own Hall of Fame: The Wedding Present, Watusi

March 10, 2006

Our Own Hall of Fame: The Wedding Present, Watusi

In honor of the Wedding Present putting on the show of the year – again – at the Black Cat on Sunday, I figured we’d salute them. For the longest time, I merely liked the Wedding Present. In college I only heard their earlier, hyper-strummy Brit-pop stuff, and while it was certainly nice and all, I never loved it. Then four years ago or so MZ got Watusi and I became obsessed. I never knew the Wedding Present could sound like a mid-’90s American indie rock band. I love mid-’90s American indie rock bands! Well, some, at least. Anyway, this is certainly one of my favorite sounding records and is easily my favorite Wedding Present record, which puts me in a serious minority. I’m talking, like, Aleutians. Although I suppose it is the AMG pick, but still, maybe I know that ZR much prefers Bizarro and that MZ prefers Seamonsters, and those are both indeed wonderful albums – who knows, you may even read about them in this very feature in the future. And most folks probably prefer the early George Best-era stuff. But this is the one that does it for me. It’s an album that fits the colors on its cover – it’s bright and vibrant. Albini did a great job on the two albums prior to this, but Steve Fisk did better on here. It sounds so great that it helped me not even notice the lyrics for a long while. It’s not that I dislike the lyrics it’s just that sometimes they are a bit … too much. I know that’s the whole point, but still. It’s sort of the same problem I had with Comet Gain for a while. Like, “Oh, they really are this sincere, huh? Well, at least it’s honest and fucking rocks.” Anyway, the top songs…

1. So Long, Baby – One of the great album openers of all time. This song floors me every single time I listen to it. The way it explodes right after Gedge’s vocal opening, the way the drums thump during the “Got it all wrong, baby” part, the way it seamlessly shifts tempos and then gets even heavier when it switches back. Just a monster tune. A great steering wheel pounder, too.

2. Click Click – The album starts off strong, what can I say? If there was some sort of graph to show how much I could possibly like a song while despising the lyrics, this would be the most interesting one to plot. Because these are some cringe-worthy lyrics if there ever were any. Well, maybe not cringe-worthy, but the complete lack of subtlety just jarred me. But you know what? I didn’t even notice them until about a year of listening to this album. I swear. A few reasons – I don’t really pay attention to lyrics, I can’t always understand what he says, etc. But it’s mostly because of how everything else sounds. Man, those drums just snap, crackle and pop so excellently! And that rhythm in the chorus is really hypnotic in this slightly complicated way. And Amelia Fletcher’s backing vocals are an extra treat and the harmonies at the end of the track work perfectly.

3. Catwoman – Who can resist and excellently done Velvets inspired guitar freakout? Not me, that’s for sure. Once again, listen to those drums! Do you hear how that floor tom thumps? My god it’s wonderful. Is it somewhat odd that I get all worked up about the Wedding Present because of the thumping of the floor tom and that I wish I could totally disregard the lyrics sometimes? Probably. But that’s what makes them so great, the versatility. This is another song that just completely switches gears and becomes a different song. I have gone on record many times as loving that.

4. Shake It – Wanna know why I like this so much? Because it helps me feel OK about liking those first two Strokes records. Not that I should need a reason to justify it, but certain people have given me shit in the past. But listen to this song. Hear those distorted vocals and those insistent, down-strummed guitars? It could be lifted right off of Is This It?. Does this song make me want to shake it? Perhaps. It depends on what “it” is.

5. Swimming Pools, Movie Stars – At this point most of the songs on the album fall into the “very good” category, so it’s hard to really rank them. So I went with this one – not because of the Beverly Hillbillies reference, which ZR just pointed out to me this morning – but because that lead guitar line makes me all tingly. The sustain on the distortion, the way it cuts back to the clean sound. I’m telling you, Steve Fisk should get an award for his work on this album.

Worst Song – Spangle
Pretty simple reasoning here. In case you couldn’t tell, I sort of love the way the drums sound on this record. And this song has the least drums. Imagine my disappointment last year when I saw the setlist for the tour and this was the only song from Watusi that made the cut. Heartbreaker. And it was still the best show of the year, easy. Lots of people love this song, which makes sense in the way that I love the Wedding Present in a different manner than most.

--DM--

March 10, 2006 | Permalink

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March 10, 2006

Our Own Hall of Fame: The Wedding Present, Watusi

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