Sophia: Then the tune was very positive and friendly and comforting, and all the things that a car crash is not. Laura: Hello, this is the Saturn's favorite music podcast. I'm your host Laura Lee. I am the author of a book called Saturn's Favorite Music. It's set in a radio station in a small town in the years 1992 to 1993. But don't worry, the podcast is not about the book per se. It's about the music in the book. And each episode we talk about different music references. This time we're up to episode four, which is about the character Clara studying up her apartment. So she is working at a light rock station, but her personal taste in music is different, and we'll talk about that with Sophia Lee. Hello, Sophia. Sophia: Hello. Laura: So tell me a little bit about the music that you like to listen to when you're not listening to things that I made you listen to. Sophia: Typically in my spare time and stuff, I like to listen to a lot of musical theater show tunes, six, the musical Heathers, just a whole bunch of those. Occasionally a few pop songs, but it's mostly show tunes. Laura: Okay, so this will be a departure for you? Sophia: Yes. Laura: So the music this time is mostly alternative music. Clara puts up posters for Primal Scream Sugar Cubes, Bauhaus Nirvana, the Cure, and while she's doing that, she's got the Stone Roses going on her stereo. We're putting Bauhaus and Nirvana aside for the moment because they'll come up later and that gives us a nice clean four songs to talk about. Overall, what was your overall take on the songs that you had to listen to before? Have you heard them? Is it the kind of thing you would normally listen to? Sophia: None of them are the type of thing I would normally listen to. And I had not previously heard any of the songs or any of the bands, and so I was having a fresh take on everything and I liked all of them. I don't think that there was any song that I disliked. There were some that I liked more than others, but I don't think that there were any that I didn't like. They were all interesting. Laura: The first song is from 1990 and it's from a band called Primal Scream and the name of it is Loaded, and the title loaded comes from the opening clip, which is a clip from the 1966 film, the Wild Angels starring Peter Fonda. So you'll get Peter Fonda's voice before you get the singer's voice anywhere in this track. So what was your initial take on Loaded? Sophia: I liked it. I was listening to it kind of in the background a little bit and just trying to get a sense of the vibes just before giving it a really more thorough listen. And it had very something that you would dance to energy to it. It's got a very bright sound with all the trumpets, and I noticed that it starts with this chorus and it ends with the chorus, but in the middle it's all just instrumental and it feels like it kind of builds itself as it goes. And there's the song that's getting more layers of things happening in it as it goes along. And I thought that was cool. Laura: Yeah, it's definitely layered and it's layered with bits of an original song that Primal Scream did, and I sent you that as well. The band was, they did two albums and the first one was kind of a sixties Jangly Birds kind of thing. And the second one, I think a lot of their Rolling Stones influence was on it, but neither of them did very well. And their second album was just flopping. They were kind of into the rave house scene at the time where they were getting inspired by that. And so they gave their track to this house music dj, and he actually loved the song and they were like, oh, you're the one. And they said, why don't you try remixing it for us? And his first mix was very faithful to the song. It just kind of put a beat under it, and they went and they said, just destroy it. And so he just ripped it down to the studs and added all of these samples. There's a sample from the emotions, I don't want to Lose your love. So that's a kind of refrain that you hear in there. The guitar and stuff I think comes from the original song, but when you listen to the original, they put it out as the B side of Loaded. And some reviewers reviewed both tracks and didn't even hear any similarities between them or didn't mention them. And I wondered what your take was on the original song. Sophia: I liked it. I listened to it and it took me a little while to figure out how it was similar to like you mentioned to the first song, and it didn't come in until the very end when it had that musical part, but I thought the energy of that song was very different. It was a lot more of a sad song. It didn't give me the same energy of like, oh, we just want to go out and have a good time. It felt very singing about a relationship, going poorly. It kind of more of a typical rock song. Laura: I like them both and they're very different. And it's interesting that the dance mix doesn't use any of his emoting. He's got some strong emotional stay with me kind of vocals. And you'd think that maybe that would be something that got sampled. There's a little bit of the bass that's in the end of the song that kind of becomes the loop of Loaded. Yeah, loaded is definitely a dance floor song, but I think it's something you can listen to off the dance floor and not just get bored. I think a lot of just pure dance songs, they're all about the beat and they're very long, and if you're listening to them just in your car or something, they kind of wear thin. And I think this just has enough of that energy and that kind of sixties vibe in it a little bit. And just when it starts to get repetitive, it kind of changes up to a new kind of beat or brings in the guitars. I think it's a very feel good song made out of a breakup song, which is kind of an interesting thing. Sophia: I thought that the parts where they had some samples of speaking kind of reminded me of like you mentioned some 60 songs that had kind of a lead in where the singers would just be talking and then they would start playing their instruments, and that kind of reminded me of that. Laura: Okay, so that one was a positive. That's a thumbs up. Sophia: Yes. Laura: Okay, so let's move on to song number two. This is from 1987. It's the Sugarcubes and Birthday. This was the Sugarcubes' first single outside of their native Iceland, and they've been described as surrealistic or art pop. So I'm very interested to hear your take on the sugar cubes. Sophia: I thought it was really interesting. I thought it wasn't something that I would necessarily seek out to listen to, but it sort of had this slightly unnerving kind of energy to it. And I watched, it was just a little bit offbeat and I watched the music video and there were just tons of bugs everywhere, and there's this bird that's kind of 2D, and it's moving across a 3D world, and it felt very surreal to me. Laura: Yeah, it's definitely surreal and it's definitely, it puts you off balance. I kind of feel like the base in it, it almost gives you that feeling of falling stairs or something. You're tripping and then it's got the horns that sound like a car honking while it's racing past you. And there's something about it that sounds like the whole song is being played backwards in a way, and you kind of have to just listen to it and get your ear tuned in to what is going on here just to get oriented. And then you've got Bjork's kind of growling and crazy vocals. Yeah, it's kind of a dreamscape, I think. And yeah, you said interesting and I think interesting is the operative word with it because it's the kind of thing that I'm glad that I listened to. I listened to it a few times for this just to get my head around it and it's odd and experimental and unusual without going over that edge of just being weird for weird sake or at that point where you just go like, okay, can't follow this. It's still got that song structure and it keeps you in and it keeps you curious. Sophia: Yeah, definitely. I didn't realize that it was Bjork either. I've definitely heard of her and heard of her music, and I didn't realize that she was the singer, but I definitely liked what she did with the vocals and the riffs and sort of the vibrato that was happening throughout the entire song. There was sort of this wavering sound to her voice on a lot of the notes, and I thought that that added to this unsteady feeling of the song. Laura: Between a vibrato and a growl in the back of her voice. So I think of this as the kind of song that it's not the thing that I would put on all the time. I don't think that it's a song that you want to listen to unwind or to dance. It's you want to be focused on it and what all your attention in it. And you probably don't want to do that all the time with a song. But what do you think? Is this something that would be on your playlist? Sophia: I agree with what you're saying about how you probably wouldn't have it in the background all the time. When I first listened to it, I was playing a game and I was listening to some songs in the background to just kind of get them into my head and I realized I had to set down what I was doing and really listen to it. It takes some of your brain energy to really be there with it, but I don't think I would necessarily put it on a playlist, but I would definitely listen to it again and I would probably recommend it to people, a very interesting song. Laura: And it's definitely not, you kind of think that something that came out in 1987, you'd know what it would sound like and it would be synthesizers and it would be maybe Rick Astley, something like that. And this, I don't think you can really tell when it's from. Sophia: Yeah, it's got kind of a timeless sound to it, I think. Laura: Okay. So Sugarcubes, that's like a thumbs up, but probably not an add to the playlist. Sophia: Yeah, that's accurate. Laura: So the third song is The Cure and Fascination Street. And this was a song that was released, it was released in 1989. The chapter of the book is 1992, and the song at that time that The Cure was promoting was Friday. I'm In Love, which was one of the cure's more poppy songs, but I chose this one because I think it's more what Clara would listen to and why she put her poster up, because I think she's more in that goth vein. And this is kind of a moody alternative kind of a sound. It was issued as a single only in North America. It wasn't a single in the uk. They wanted to put out a song called Lullaby as the first single, but the album, sorry, the label didn't get it. And they said that they thought Smith was being willfully obscure and they told him not to put out lullaby. So in the US we got Fascination Street. So it was your take on Fascination Street. Sophia: I liked it. I think it's not something that I would typically listen to just because it is a little bit more alternative and what's the right word? I don't know if it's not quite like emo, but it's got that more emotional kind of negative feeling. You kind of sit there with it, and I tend to a lot more poppy, bright high energy songs. But it definitely was good. And I think it did a good job of setting the ambiance, setting the mood, and there's a really long instrumental lead in, and so you're waiting with anticipation to hear what they're going to sing about. Laura: It sets the mood for a really long time, more than a minute, it's just building this soundscape and it's got, I don't know, it's almost, I guess you might hear as a background in a movie scene where you're kind of walking through the woods and it's mysterious, and then these vocals come in. And it's Fascination Street. They're going down to Fascination Street, they're going to move to the beat or some of the lyrics, but it's definitely not loaded where you're going to have a good time and you just want to party. It's more like, let's go down to Fascination Street. We're all depressed and in a terrible mood, and maybe if we dance all night, we'll forget it or something. I think that's the idea behind the lyrics. Sophia: It sounded to me the lyrics were very about kind of a toxic relationship type of thing. So it's saying Fascination Street, but it's not saying Love Avenue or something. It's more there's this fascination, but it's not healthy or whatever. So it sounds like it's kind of got a double-edged sword or something. Laura: Robert Smith said that the way he got his guitar sound was by detuning the e string to make it slightly off pitch. I can't hear that myself. Maybe someone who is a real music aficionado can, but it definitely has a cure sound to the guitar. And so maybe that's the key is that it's actually not in tune. Sophia: It reminded me of other songs I'd heard before, and I don't know exactly which songs, but it had a very familiar sound to it. And I'm wondering if they might've been songs from the same band, because like you mentioned, having it be slightly off key definitely says something to your ear of like, oh, this is a little bit different. And I'm wondering if I've heard other songs from the same band and it has a familiar sound to it, but I liked it. I thought it was a good song. Laura: Okay, so that's another thumbs up. That's good. We've got two thumbs up. Is this a playlist song or is this a It's good. But Sophia: Yeah, it's good. I'm glad I heard it, but I'm probably not going to be adding it to a playlist. Laura: So now we're up to the final song of the episode. This is The Stone Roses and Made of Stone, the Independent called it a simple, mysterious, spiritual rapturous piece of music. Is that how it came across to you? Those were Sophia: A lot of big feeling words. I liked it. It was when I was just sort of listening to it in the background and trying to get my ear associated to all the songs. This was the one that I gravitated towards the most, just in terms of sound. I thought it was catchy. I don't know if I would call it rapturous, but it was definitely catchy. Laura: Yeah, it's definitely got that traditional, it's got a poppy sounding chorus, almost anthemic, but it's also got that alternative kind of mix. So the vocals are kind of buried in the mix. And the first verse, it starts out, I don't know if it's switched from a minor to a major key, but it's got that sound where it's kind of going along on one tone and then it kind switches gears up for the chorus. Yeah, it's got almost a sixties pop song kind of feel to it. Sophia: I think it's got that sixties pop song energy, but it's also got lyrics that are, oh, I'm imagining this car crash, if I'm understanding correctly, or maybe I'm not understanding the lyrics, but it had all this stuff about all these cars burning and... Laura: Yeah, that's the thing. See, so I remember this song from when it came out and I'd hear it, and I had, but I never really went deep into the lyrics. I could hear the chorus where he's talking about he fantasizes and the streets are cold and lonely. And so it had the sense that there was this disconnect in the emotion, the tone of the chorus and the emotion of the lyrics. But it wasn't until I was working on this that I read all the lyrics and I had never heard that really dark lyric in the first verse where he's saying that he's describing someone dying in a car crash. It has the line, you fry and melt. I love the scene, what that is, very dark stuff. Then you go into this kind of poppy chorus. It's kind of odd. And it's interesting. I never picked up on that lyric. Sophia: It also seems like it might've been a multi-car pile on, because there's the one lyric about how the 10 Twisted grills grin back at me, and it's like 10, there's 10 cars. Laura: So he wrote a song about it like you do. It seems like he's questioning himself, like he is expecting a certain emotional reaction and he's not having the emotional reaction he thinks he should be having. That's kind of how I took it. There's this emotional tension in how he's reacting at Gawing at this accident and how he thinks he should be feeling about it. I don't know how many people were sort of dancing along to this and registered the darkness of those lyrics. The interesting thing about this song is it actually entered the UK singles charts six times, not two times, not three times, six times. It was released in March, 1989, and it peaked at number 90 and then the Stone Roses had a hit with a song called Fool's Gold, and that's going to come up in a later episode. But when that was a huge hit, they rereleased this and it went up to number eight, and then the band broke up in 1996 and they had a farewell concert that didn't go so well. But the record label Reissued Made of Stone, and it made the bottom of the top 100. And then in 2009, it was the band's 20th anniversary and they put it out again and it got to number 11 on the charts, and in 2017 they announced they were reuniting and they were going to tour. And so the record label put it out again and it made it to number 54. So I mean, I don't know if that's a record, but that's certainly the most chart appearances I've ever heard of from one song. Sophia: Yeah, that's definitely impressive. For sure. Laura: So what did you think of the singer's voice, Ian Brown's voice? Sophia: I liked it. I mean, that's what I've been saying about everything, but I genuinely, I liked it. I thought that there was kind of familiar sound to the song, and I don't know exactly what it was about it, but it just seemed pleasant to listen to. And obviously the lyrics are a lot, but the music and the tune was very positive and friendly and comforting and all the things that a car crash is not. Laura: Yeah. When you were listening to it the first time, did you register the darkness of the lyrics or did you... Sophia: No, I wasn't hitting up on any of the lyrics. I was just link to the two and then I was like, oh, this is really nice. I should look at the lyrics for this song. Laura: So it took me, what, 40 years or something to figure out how dark this song was. Yeah, I think it's a good song, and it was definitely, it was a huge, obviously if it can make the charts six times in England, it was huge over there. And here it was more of like an indie alternative hit. So Stone Roses, is that something that would go on your playlist? Sophia: I think so, yeah. Laura: Okay. So we've added two songs to your playlist, right? We've got Loaded and Made Of Stones, so the More Happy songs all told you think that you're going to become an alternative music fan from early nineties alternative Sophia: Maybe? I don't know. I'd definitely be interested into looking into more of Sugar Cube songs also, just because that one was very intriguing to me. So I might listen to some of those other songs and just see what they sound like. But in terms of playlist songs, yeah, I think... Laura: Stone Roses? Sophia: Stone Roses might be showing up on my playlists. Laura: Well, this was great. Okay, so it was a successful, we got thumbs up on all the songs. Thank you very much for talking about them with me, and this was fun. Yeah, it was. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the Saturn's favorite music podcast. Coming up in episode five, we return to the radio station with the nearly Infinite. Hey, Jude, one of the lighter hits by Phil Collins and more Kenny G plus a musical murder mystery by Richard Marks. See you then.