Just in It For The Music

Though the world is obsessed with forward progression, for a rock ‘n’ roll fan, there are few… Though the world is obsessed with forward progression, for a rock ‘n’ roll fan, there are few things more satisfying than going backward.

I will explain with a story. My girlfriend and I decided on a day trip to downtown Philadelphia over winter break, namely because both of our hometowns become black holes of boredom within 15 minutes of arrival, because cable TV was already losing its flair and because we love to explore cities.

Our ultimate destination was South Street, the former cultural mecca of the city and current street with a lot of cheap jewelry places, expensive bars and annoyingly few parking spaces. Think East Carson Street if it were one-way, with much better pizza shops.

But back to the story at hand. After some time of meandering up and down the sidewalks, we made our way to Repo Records, a tight little record shop where they don’t sell the new Carrie Underwood but the new Fiest is on sale for a little more than $10, and the back room is filled with rare hip-hop vinyls and punk 7 inches.

(Note: In a perfect and possibly future world, I would not only own Repo Records but have listened to and be more than familiar with every album in stock).

We sifted through the small-ish selection of the punk/hardcore section and into the indie shelves, where, lo and behold, there was a record we knew damn well we’d be buying.

It was by a band called Cursive, and it’d been released in 1998.

“1998!” shouted my girlfriend with glee. “The earliest Cursive I’ve heard is from around the turn of the century!”

I shrugged.

“The year 2000, of course!” she clarified.

“I as well have not heard this album. Let us buy it immediately!” I replied. “Sir! Yes, you sir, at the cash register. We’ll be taking this new-old Cursive record!”

(All dialogue imagined, as I do not remember what was said in the euphoric midst of finding an early Cursive record).

We bought the album, along with another full of acoustic punk ditties by an artist who sounded like character from “Rent.” All in all, ’twas quite a successful trip to the local record emporium.

Soon after, we popped in the new-old Cursive record. Needless to say, general revelry followed.

But the record sounded far different from the Cursive we’d heard before. It was raw, very, very raw. And to say the record was rawer than later Cursive music is saying a lot, for few bands get as raw and messy, musically speaking, as the post-punk, emotionally bled-out guitar explosion that is (and clearly was) this Omaha, Neb., band.

The music sounded older than we were used to, also, because of the poor production quality. The tones weren’t as vibrant and clear as those on later records – they were a bit distant, leading one to suspect that the album was recorded in a rock ‘n’ roll studio inside some dude’s garage, probably the drummer’s cousin, or some near-relation like that.

At face value, the record isn’t nearly amazing. Cursive’s 2003 record, The Ugly Organ, is amazing and will scare the hell out of you if you read the lyrics, listen to it while driving alone or both. But, no, this old, mostly unknown Cursive record was more interesting than good.

And with that, we return to the first sentence of this piece. Think about your favorite band. No, not your favorite band – think of a band you really enjoy, whose most recent album is all you’ve heard of them. Do you know where that music came from? Do you know why the songs sound like they do? Do you care?

If the answer to all three questions, or really just the last one, is “no,” then turn the radio back on and enjoy nodding along to something that Timbaland probably produced.

Now about five lines ago, I advised against thinking of your favorite band. This is because, if said band is truly your favorite, you’ve probably already heard at least a majority of said band’s music, and hence, you could note any musical progression from record to record.

But for all those other bands you listen to, whether you love their one hit single or you accidentally downloaded one of their records (Sense Field and Senses Fail are two totally different bands, and I know at least one of them is boring), if you are a music fan who doesn’t just hear the tunes, but really listens and pulls them apart, going backward can be amazingly rewarding.

By finding the early work of a band, you can understand how they got to where they are now or whenever it was they put out the record(s) you like.

Here’s an example. The first U2 record I ever got into on my own was Pop, which came out when I was 10 or 11 and, in terms of U2 music, basically sucks.

After I’d played Pop to death, thinking it was totally awesome, I began to dig in to the band’s back catalog and realized that, compared to 1980-1993 U2, 1997 U2 kind of blew.

Even a 10- or 11-year-old can tell that “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is an utterly badass and completely fantastic song, while “Staring at the Sun,” the biggest single off Pop, is just OK. You don’t remember “Staring at the Sun?” Exactly.

Still, by studying the beginnings of the band, incorporating the earlier music with the outside influence of musical trends, I could see Pop in a brand new light. I was able to understand some of the musical choices the band had made, which in turn made listening to the record a more rewarding experience.

Of course, those bands that you’ve been listening to since the beginning are different. You already know the musical roots of those bands, and now that the most recent stuff has come out and made the band more popular, you hate everything about them. Alas, that’s another gripe for another column.

But it’s the casual acquaintances, the bands whose second and third albums sit without the first in your record collection that I speak of.

If you’re really interested in music – how and why it happens and is the way it is – you owe it to yourself to go backward. Get that first record, find the early demos. Because, sure, Cursive may have hit their prime in 2003, but they never would have gotten there without 1998.