Word: songe
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...sense speaking to Lou Reed, Murdoch tells of meeting a strange man who told him, "The world is soft as lace." The singer replies, "There's always somebody saying something." Herein lies the obligatory generational angst: a reversal of "Sweet Jane." Of course, there is also "Expectations," a song about a woman in a dead-end job; she is said to have a hobby of making life-size statues of the Velvet Underground...
...Girl," the first single, illustrates this move away from any concessions to rock. With its overtly synthesizer- and sample-based sound and relative lack of lyrics, it's not a song that will necessarily appeal to a crossover audience. By choosing it as their lead single, the Chemical Brothers are perhaps making a conscious commitment to doing it on their own terms. Certainly Surrender has other songs more immediately appealing to the casual listener. But "Hey Boy Hey Girl" is an out-and-out dance song, with an eminently catchy hook ("Hey Boy/Hey Girl/Superstar DJs/Here We Go") that launches...
...sounds. For example, "The Sunshine Underground," the album's halfway point, anchors the album with eight minutes of instrumental music, moving from an Indian-tinged opening to an insistent, psychedelic loop. The album closes with "Dream On" (featuring Jonathan Donahue of college radio favorites Mercury Rev), an impossibly beautiful song that begins with delicate guitar strumming before soaring into its synthesizer refrain: the perfect comedown after too many electric highs...
This meshing of eras is most effective on the standout track "Porcelain." Crackling with the sounds of a vintage record player and a wordless chorus, the song ebbs and flows with synthesized vocals and drumbeats, all carried by tranquil New Age piano...
Equally brilliant is the more personal "My Weakness." A quintessential closing song, the soaring instrumental sounds like it should be playing over a camera pan of a glorious landscape scene at the end of a movie, or even to the end of a life...