For Want of a Chill Pill

This idea may be related to the recent Humble Album thread. While visiting my friends at Phawker.com, I came across Fiona Apple’s video for her cover of “Across the Universe”. I’d forgotten about this cover. It wasn’t spectacular in and of itself, but what impressed me was that it was a rare time I got to hear Apple relaxed and, seemingly, not so tied to playing up to her troubled, precocious girl reputation. With the aid of a simple, direct John Lennon song, she took a rare chill pill.

As much as I like my rock ‘n roll of the high-octane variety, there are artists who don’t allow themselves to settle into a groove. These artists have something to offer, but they work through a smokescreen of anxieties, twitches, and whatnot. As a listener, I feel I feel anxious listening to their music. There’s enough to these artist that I wish they’d just chill and allow me to better enjoy what they have to offer.

I felt this way about AC/DC’s Bon Scott. He sang like he had firecrackers stuck up every orifice, or like Keanu Reeves keeping that bus running in Speed. As the band laid into each song’s groove just so, Scott sang like a man in need of a chill pill.

Around the time of the generally strong Blood and Chocolate album, Elvis Costello began thinking of himself as a Vocalist. As a result, he began oversinging most of his songs, losing his cool and single-handedly ruining some songs (eg, “I Want You”) that might have been pretty good had he taken a chill pill.

For 3 albums The Undertones’ Feargal Sharkey managed to sing like a man with a firecracker up his butt without getting anywhere near the need for a chill pill prescription. Then came The Sin of Pride, a desparate-sounding bid for commercial acceptance led by a most-desparate-sounding Sharkey making a bid to be respected as a Vocalist. It goes without saying that The Undertones were soon to break up, and to this day Feargal refuses to play with the casually reunited band. In the inspiring Undertones documentary, Teenage Kicks, Sharkey proudly speaks of his lack of respect within the band. Don’t take it so hard, mate. Try this chill pill.

Here are my last examples of bands in need of a chill pill: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Dr. Dog. Each of these bands plays with influences that I like. Each of these bands can’t calm the hell down and let the music do the talking. CYHSY singer Alec Ounsworth needs to down a bottle of chill pills. The guy’s nearly impervious to chill at the approved dosage. Load up, my brother, and let it flow once in a while.

Dr. Dog works in a hippie-dippy/White Album mode that I badly want to love. Despite their terrible Look I like some of what they stand for on a proctomusicologic level so much that I’m a bit jealous of them…in concept. I expect to love their records the way I love Stephen Malkmus’ Face the Truth, but unlike Malkmus, who’s blissfully hooked on chill pills, the guys in Dr. Dog can’t resist a “Look at me, Ma!” cry for attention. Chill, my brothers, chill.

How ’bout you, Townspeople? Are ther artists you’d like more if they could chill now and then?