My name is Eddie Grogan. I am an Art Director. I spend a lot of time behind an iMac listening to music. So I figured I should make something out of the time I spend absorbing album after album on Apple Music. This is a blog dedicated to music. A blog dedicated to music that I feel matters and how that music affects my life. Great albums are works of art that sometimes need to be passed on from one generation to the next. Kind of like a good recipe. If it is not passed down, I fear important periods of music will will be lost forever. I experienced this first hand recently. I was watching an 18 year old as he listened to David Bowie for the first time. Bowie had recently passed away so it sparked his interest. The album "sounded old" the 18 year old said. "Ugh" I thought. This can't be a thing. Not with unlimited access to decades worth of music. The younger generation has so much music at their fingertips. Although they have no idea what is out there. Or what it even sounds like.
And so Yetti Tracks was born. To pass along music. One album at a time.
First up:
The Cure // Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
The Cure is a very fitting way for me to start Yetti Tracks. They are the first current, non-classic rock band that I ever liked. The very first band where all members were actually still alive. The first band where I stood more than a snowball's chance in hell of seeing perform live.
I was 15 when I first discovered the album "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me". The cover had an extreme closeup of a pair of big, red, lipstick covered lips. Lips that I assumed belonged to a woman. This was a time before the internet. I had yet to see any of the band members. I knew nothing of the lipstick, wild hair and oversized clothing that were trademarks of the band. If I had been able to "Google" The Cure, I would have seen that those big red lips on the front cover of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me most likely belonged to the red, smudged lipstick wearing leader of The Cure. The band that would soon take over my being.
Enter Mr. Robert Smith...
Robert Smith definitely occupies his own space and time in this universe. As well as a decent portion of my teenage years. His ethereal voice has hair to match, and his songs of lost love and obsession have a dark yet whimsical way about them. The very same whimsical darkness that first gripped me and removed all traces of the little boy I had grown out of. Putting Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in my CD player and then pressing play forever changed who I was. The album would change the way I dress, the people I hung out with, and the music I listened to. The Cure tore down the walls of my innocent youth and replaced them with an insatiable passion for music, and art. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me goes down as one of the most character defining moments in my life.
I was introduced to The Cure by my girlfriend at the time. Her name was Jen. Jen, like all her friends, was Goth. Not skinny jean wearing, ear gauge having, pop listening, Emo-Goth. But 90's black clothing, black hair, gaze at the floor, horrify your parents and pretend you're miserable Goth. The OG of Goth. I never really had a tolerance for Emo. I was too old for it when it came around. Emo just seemed like a dumbed down version of the movement I had once been a part of and it had all sorts of shitty music to go along with it. But I digress...
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was the first Cure album I ever heard. It was on "permanent loan" from my then girlfriend Jen. From the very first notes of the album I was transported into the universe The Cure had created for me. The opening track "The Kiss" strikes synth, bass, and drums like a war is coming. A call to it's floor-gazing soldiers to enter the battlefield. What follows is a swirling mass of guitar that slowly pulls you into it's blackhole of sound. Tension continues to rise till hitting a peak when Smith cries "Kiss me kiss me kiss me, Your tongue is like poison, So swollen it fills up my mouth." An amazingly honest and brutal thing to write. "Your tongue is like poison"... You can feel Smith being torn in two as he sings that line. It is a Do I want to kiss you? Or do I want to stab you? emotion all wrapped in glorious, swirling, musical confusion. The song ends with Smith singing "I wish you were dead" over and over. He's in love with something he can't have. Once upon a time I had been there myself. Feeling that exact same emotion. Which is why I sometimes feel like I could listen to this song over and over.
"Catch" the album's second track shows the Bi-polar writing style of Smith. The master of whimsical misery serves up a lighthearted sound with the sadness of a love gone by. "I sometimes even tried to catch her. But never even caught her name". Beauty in misery.
Song after song takes the listener to different places. "Why Can't I Be You?" takes us to a party with with bouncing balloons, champagne, and people dressed like animals. "The Snake Pit" is a opium den in a far away land, and "Hot, Hot, Hot" is a music festival somewhere in England. Let us not forget about the album's break out single "Just Like Heaven." "Just Like Heaven" is the song that cemented the deal for me as far being a Cure fan goes. Another instance where Smith spins a lighthearted poppy web and fills it with sadness.
"...I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me"
There is not a single bad track or lyric on this album.There is something for everyone here. Something that deserves to be listened to track by track in it's entirety. One thing I've recently learned. The layered complexity of this album sounds much better with 42 year old ears. Truth.
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
Happy Listening.
And so Yetti Tracks was born. To pass along music. One album at a time.
First up:
The Cure // Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
I was 15 when I first discovered the album "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me". The cover had an extreme closeup of a pair of big, red, lipstick covered lips. Lips that I assumed belonged to a woman. This was a time before the internet. I had yet to see any of the band members. I knew nothing of the lipstick, wild hair and oversized clothing that were trademarks of the band. If I had been able to "Google" The Cure, I would have seen that those big red lips on the front cover of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me most likely belonged to the red, smudged lipstick wearing leader of The Cure. The band that would soon take over my being.
Enter Mr. Robert Smith...
Robert Smith definitely occupies his own space and time in this universe. As well as a decent portion of my teenage years. His ethereal voice has hair to match, and his songs of lost love and obsession have a dark yet whimsical way about them. The very same whimsical darkness that first gripped me and removed all traces of the little boy I had grown out of. Putting Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me in my CD player and then pressing play forever changed who I was. The album would change the way I dress, the people I hung out with, and the music I listened to. The Cure tore down the walls of my innocent youth and replaced them with an insatiable passion for music, and art. Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me goes down as one of the most character defining moments in my life.
I was introduced to The Cure by my girlfriend at the time. Her name was Jen. Jen, like all her friends, was Goth. Not skinny jean wearing, ear gauge having, pop listening, Emo-Goth. But 90's black clothing, black hair, gaze at the floor, horrify your parents and pretend you're miserable Goth. The OG of Goth. I never really had a tolerance for Emo. I was too old for it when it came around. Emo just seemed like a dumbed down version of the movement I had once been a part of and it had all sorts of shitty music to go along with it. But I digress...
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me was the first Cure album I ever heard. It was on "permanent loan" from my then girlfriend Jen. From the very first notes of the album I was transported into the universe The Cure had created for me. The opening track "The Kiss" strikes synth, bass, and drums like a war is coming. A call to it's floor-gazing soldiers to enter the battlefield. What follows is a swirling mass of guitar that slowly pulls you into it's blackhole of sound. Tension continues to rise till hitting a peak when Smith cries "Kiss me kiss me kiss me, Your tongue is like poison, So swollen it fills up my mouth." An amazingly honest and brutal thing to write. "Your tongue is like poison"... You can feel Smith being torn in two as he sings that line. It is a Do I want to kiss you? Or do I want to stab you? emotion all wrapped in glorious, swirling, musical confusion. The song ends with Smith singing "I wish you were dead" over and over. He's in love with something he can't have. Once upon a time I had been there myself. Feeling that exact same emotion. Which is why I sometimes feel like I could listen to this song over and over.
"Catch" the album's second track shows the Bi-polar writing style of Smith. The master of whimsical misery serves up a lighthearted sound with the sadness of a love gone by. "I sometimes even tried to catch her. But never even caught her name". Beauty in misery.
Song after song takes the listener to different places. "Why Can't I Be You?" takes us to a party with with bouncing balloons, champagne, and people dressed like animals. "The Snake Pit" is a opium den in a far away land, and "Hot, Hot, Hot" is a music festival somewhere in England. Let us not forget about the album's break out single "Just Like Heaven." "Just Like Heaven" is the song that cemented the deal for me as far being a Cure fan goes. Another instance where Smith spins a lighthearted poppy web and fills it with sadness.
"...I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me"
There is not a single bad track or lyric on this album.There is something for everyone here. Something that deserves to be listened to track by track in it's entirety. One thing I've recently learned. The layered complexity of this album sounds much better with 42 year old ears. Truth.
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
Happy Listening.
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