From his 1993 album Illiterature, please enjoy Adam Schmitt and his totally gorgeous "Just Listen."
Schmitt was (and is) a pop classicist who, like The Posies, kind of got blindsided by the emergence of Nirvana and the whole grunge thing; I remember hearing this song when it came out and thinking, yeah, wow, it's great, but that guitar sound is needlessly distorted in a sort of chic, trendy way.
I hadn't listened to the thing in maybe fifteen years, but when I downloaded it over the weekend, I was struck by how conventionally accessible it now sounded to me. Unarguable, actually. Although I'd love to hear a band with a more Keith Moon-ish drummer take a crack at covering it.
....please enjoy brilliant pop classicist Adam Schmitt's lightyears beyond addictive "Speed Kills." From volume 1 of the essential Yellow Pills series.
In all seriousness, if this one doesn't make you smile, I'd really have it looked at. You may recall that I posted another Schmitt song a couple of weeks ago; that one -- from his major label debut album -- was great, but on some level a response to grunge. "Speed Kills" is a little more traditional, and in retrospect I think it's even better. God knows that wordless "doo-doo-doo" chorus thing at the end is a hook for the ages....
Okay, and getting quite a bit closer to the mission statement of this here blog than we have in the last couple of days, here's power pop god Adam Schmitt and, from 1993, the catchy as all get out and equally kinetic confection that is "Speed Kills."
NOT a drug song, obviously.
I said something similar earlier in this series, but if this one doesn't make you want to run around in your room jumping up and down like a fool then there is, quite frankly, no hope for you. Just an amazingly wonderful track.
I should add that it first saw the light of day on the now (sadly) out-of-print compilation Yellow Pills Vol. 1, which also features music by some band called Shoes. I'm not sure why that name is ringing a bell.
Well, it's Friday and you know what that means.Yes, my Oriental non-dairy creamer Fah Lo Suee and I are off to....
And at this point I was going to make a joke involving the Ohio state legislature that's inviting a fetus to testify at an anti-abortion hearing (this is for real, in case you haven't been paying attention) and how there's a part of me that (perversely) wishes Senor Wences was doing the voice. But the stunt is just so infuriatingly stupid and, frankly, depraved that sarcasm really isn't a sufficient response. And so, to every one of the Republican pols behind this crap I will thus simply say -- go fuck yourself, you miserable misogynist ghouls.
Okay, and without that out of the way, and because things will more than likely be a little quiet around here till we return, here's a fun little project to help fill the empty areas in our lives:
Best or Worst Post-Elvis Pop/Rock Song Referencing Rapidity of Locomotion in Either the Title or Lyrics!!!
Speed (not the drug) or fast stuff, in other words, and no arbitrary rules that I can think of at the moment.
And my totally top of my head Top Five is/are:
5. Adam Schmitt -- Speed Kills
Pop perfection. Why this guy isn't a household word is beyond me.
4. Steppenwolf -- Faster Than the Speed of Life
From their second album (one of the most underrated artifacts of the late 60s, believe it or not) and written by the same guy who penned "Born to Be Wild." I actually kind of prefer it, if truth be told.
3. Pat Boone -- Speedy Gonzalez
This one's really so objectionable on so many levels I almost don't know where to begin. Not as bad as Pat's heavy metal album, though, so that's something.
2. The Dictators -- Young, Fast, Scientific
These guys are way overrated, IMHO, and the song ain't so hot. Great title, though.
And the Numero Uno blink-your-eyes-and-you'll-miss-it track of them all simply hast to be...
Generally, I like vacations because I like to nap. I lay down with a book and after five minutes fall asleep and wake an hour or two later, rejuvenated.
But.
Today, I laid down with my new book: John M. Borack's Shake Some Action: The Ultimate Power Pop Guide. (Available from Not Lame Records, here.)* I missed my nap, because I read it, cover to cover. And I have some small complaints, but on the whole, it's a terrific achievement of a lot of different writers. It's rather "list"-y--lots of 100 best this and ten best that, but the analyses defending the choices are fascinating and there are some very solid essays. Perspectives vary widely, as there are a lot of contributors here. But they all live pretty much in our neighborhood.
The centerpiece of the book is Borack's top 200 Power Pop albums. I was ready to rip this one apart, I was... but I can't. Oh, I might place some things higher or lower, but the top ten (Raspberries, Big Star, Shoes, Cheap Trick, 20/20, Chris von Sneidern, Tommy Keene, The Orange Humble Band, Adam Schmitt, and The Beat (that's Paul Collins' Beat, not the British ska band)) seems about right to me. Matthew Sweet, Nick Lowe, Game Theory, Material Issue and FOW clock in in the top 20, The Spongetones, the Knack, Velvet Crush, and The Records well above 50, and even Red Kross makes the top 100.
As with any best of list, there's bound to be some debate (and Borack explains, though not wholly to my satisfaction, the exclusion of The Lemonheads and the New Pornographers), and my eyebrows did go up at the omission of steve's fave Rob Laufer, for example.
Other weird things in other sections: I'm not convinced that if you give yourself a strict one record per artist rule, you can count both XTC and the Dukes of the Stratosphear, and calling Elvis Costello's "Veronica" McCartney-influenced seems a little weird, since Sir Paul cowrote the tune.
Mostly, I was awed by my own ignorance: what I know, I know pretty well, but clearly I'm an amateur here. For example: I admit that I didn't know that ubiquitous LA Power Popper Robbie Rist was this guy. Weird, eh? So I invite my cobloggers and our commenters to help me review this book over the next couple of weeks. What do we think of it?
(And yes, we're mentioned in it, as are many of the folks on our blogroll, including the delightful Spike Priggen at Bedazzled and my darling Mike at Powerpopulist.)
Ans so, no nap, but still rejuvenated. Thanks!
Oh, let's shake some action for the hell of it.
*(steve, don't you dare. I know Hanukkah is 2 weeks away, but I bought you one and it's in the mail, so no sense bitching now.)
An idiosyncratic blog dedicated to the precursors, the practioners, and the descendants of power pop.
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