Album That Fame Forgot: The Reigning Sound - Time Bomb High School
By Nate • Oct 9th, 2008 • Category: Music
Playing the part of musical trendsetter is a tricky business. Sure, you could become the next White Stripes, but you could just as easily become the next Detroit Cobras or Dirtbombs or Vines or whatever. Every five years or so, we all get bored with the music that we’ve been listening to and decide to grope around for something new. Of course, when considering a new type of music to get into, it helps if that music hearkens back to something that we’re already comfortable with, or at least something that we’ve heard before. This is how that whole late-90’s swing revival happened.
You think we’d learn. But no, we keep going on in this fashion. We’ve worked our way from swing to garage rock and now we’ve plowed through faux-disco and are well into our 80’s no-wave period, with the first hints of a psych-folk period creeping around the corners. It’s maddening, when you step back and look at all of it. It looks so stupid and arbitrary, how much music influences everything. From what we wear and eat and drink to how the other media we consume is constructed. Before you know it, you’re watching a hard-boiled 70’s-ish cop drama with a pair of tight jeans on, sporting a semi-ironic Led Zepplin t-shirt and drinking a Pabst. It’s dangerous following trends. Dangerous and expensive.
This is why I tend to like timeless things. A nice, clean, white t-shirt, for one. Black tennis shoes for another. Hooded sweatshirts, too. Some things never go out of style, they just get adapted to fit the newest trend. I’m the same way with the music I like. Sure, I can get into the newest and freshest interpretation of what was hot 25 years ago like everyone else,(Shameless plug: Just a few more months until I unveil my “Best of 2008″ List!!!) but time after time stuff that sounds like no time in particular is always near the top of my list.
This is why I like The Replacements and Wilco. Their music is malleable and timeless. Take a listen to an album like Being There or Tim and try to tell me I’m wrong.
This is why I’ve fallen head over heels for The Reigning Sound. Specifically, their 2003 album, Time Bomb High School. With a title that brings to mind the Ramones, a sound that alternates between Eric Burdon and The Animals, Big Star and George Jones, they’re the epitome of a timeless band. This album could have come out in 1963, 1975 or 1994 and I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
The opener, “Stormy Weather” is pure Nuggets-era garage rock, on the heels of that is “Straight Shooter,” which sounds like The Sonics reincarnate. It quickly moves to “You’re Not As Pretty,” a beautiful heartbreaker ballad that is one pedal steel interlude away from a Conway Twitty record. From there on, it’s just good music. There’s no other way to put it. Pure guitar, bass, drums, soulful vocals and the smattering of Hammond organ power this wonderful testament to music.
Take a listen for yourself:
Nate is pretty sure Mark Twain said it best, "Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place."
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Well, all I can really say is that music like everything else comes in trends and what goes around comes back around and around. It would be nice to see someone come along that has such a unique style and sound that it could not be replicated. Most music today sounds just like the repeat that you mentioned in your article. How do we get around this though, when people are brought up with the same influences.
Maybe doo-wop songs, DA haircuts on men, and poodle skirts (on women, I should hope) are bound to make a comeback.
What I dread is a 1970s time warp. I was a kid in the 1970s, and trust me, if you weren’t around back then, you didn’t really miss anything too great. (Okay…the rise of Steve Spielberg and George Lucas as filmmakers, and some good tunes by non-disco musicians, but we can get the movies on DVD/Blu-ray and the good tunes on iTunes.) The fashions were mostly lousy (except for miniskirts on women), and the politics…don’t get me started on those!
Anything is better than the example of ” terrorist rap ” done by MIA I found on the web the other day. The song Paper Airplane is hands down the scariest song I have ever heard in my life, and its being pushed on children too. No wonder our kids are screwed up.
I think that there is no much more appropriate name for such music than boring music. There are so many groups that I consider have been made by cloning. They all have more or less the same voices and the same repertoire. The only difference between them is the clothes. That is why I prefer jazz and classical music recently.
I agree with you Nate. Lately, our choice of music and even its genre has been fluctuating so fast, it is better not to let its influence creep onto the rest of our behavior. I tend to stick with the basics and the timeless too. Otherwise,who knows when you go out of “fashion”?