House of Jealous Lovers

[Byron The Bulb]

The Rapture - House of Jealous Lovers (Original 12" Version) - 2002

is ten years old. How did this happen?

 

[Incandenza]

This was a big indie club staple. Danced to this so many fucking times.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

When this song came out, I was a fresh-faced 14 year old with my whole life ahead of me. And now...

 

[Incandenza]

I'm still every bit a miserable bastard as I was then. Stayin' the course!

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot also turns 10 this year. All we are is dust in the wind.

 

[Incandenza]

I got my first-ever speeding ticket the day YHF was released. I was listening to it when I got pulled over.

 

[Incandenza]

"War on War" just makes you want to put the fuckin' pedal to the metal, man.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

You should have told the cop. If he knew about the controversy and attendant hype surrounding the album's release, which he almost certainly would have being that it was easily the biggest story in music that year, he would have surely let you off with a warning.

 

[Sesquipedaliantique]

"War on War" just makes you want to put the fuckin' pedal to the metal, man.

'War on War' is fine, but it's also the only Yankee Hotel Foxtrot song I don't like enough to listen to outside of the context of the full album. Weird.

 

[Edwin]

Music is the thing that makes me feel old. I mean, I put HOJL on every single party mix I could for about 3 years. It's the 10th anniversary of I Get Wet, too! I'm turning into fuckin' The Thread Killer over here.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

2002 was the year I first discovered pitchfork. Truly a life changing event.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

2002 was the year I first discovered pitchfork.

Same here. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, it was when our (former) very own Man In Blak posted a link to their 80s albums list on one of the various splinter boards here. I was intrigued because Sonic Youth were at the top, and I knew who they were because of Nirvana.

Two 10.0 albums in one year, and neither topped their year end list. 2002 was a tumultuous year in Pitchfork-dom.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

Also Byron and I, if my timeline thinking is accurate, got into indie music just in time to be snobs about it, right before the mainstream success of Modest Mouse, The Shins, etc.

 

[Incandenza]

I got into indie stuff in the mid-90s. I was never snobby about it, since I still liked Soundgarden and Alice in Chains and whatnot

 

[Sesquipedaliantique]

Most mainstream British rock was already being described as 'indie' by the time I was deeply invested in any kind of music

 

[Incandenza]

Bands like Supergrass and Manic Street Preachers had a relatively marginal following in the US, in spite of being Big Deals in their home country. Neither were ever considered mainstream here.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

I'd never heard the song in the original post until today. Best thing about that video is the tags, precisely none of which I can relate to, but still find amusing.

 

[Incandenza]

Did you know Echoes is 10-years old this year? Did you know I'm listening to it for the first time in maybe nine years? (Well, now you do.) Do you remember this rapturous (pun intended!) review from Pitchfork?

Change has been boiling under ever since the decade clicked to double zeros. We've wanted more of something, and slowly we've realized what. What you're increasingly witnessing at every club, at every show, with every passing night, is the death of the horrible, awkward, uncomfortable tension of devoted music fans pretending not to enjoy music they have paid to see. Finally, we are shaking off the coma of the stillborn slacker 90s and now there is movement. Arms uncross, faces snap to attention, and clarity hits like religion. We have buried irony and pissed on its grave and for the first time we are realizing what rock music, rock shows are all about.


Fuck, was that a dream? Pavement playing the Showbox in Seattle to throngs of unwashed hippie revivalists acting as if they'd been imprisoned there by a cruel master of ceremonies, their peer and equal Stephen Malkmus? Eddie Vedder iconically scrawling PRO-CHOICE up his left arm like he bore the weight of the entire fucking world and was the only living person with this Great Important Answer to all the world's problems? That the Dismemberment Plan-- among the first to envision this future at which we've now arrived-- called us out to our faces with "Doing the Standing Still" and we actually still just stood there? It's almost impossible to believe in light of music like this, music that finally places as much emphasis on real, true, palpable fun as it does on art.

Seriously, click the link and read the whole thing. Echoes is a p. good album, by the way. Now that we're far, far removed from all the hype.

 

[Incandenza]

Man, "House of Jealous Lovers" is far and away the best song on here. (Not to speak ill of the rest of the album, mind you.)

EDIT: Title track comes close, but the last 30 seconds undermines everything that came before it.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

"Ignition (Remix)" turned 10 a couple days ago.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Also ahahahah hahaha ahahah @ that review

Bands like The Rapture have sent their message: The rock show was not meant to be a collegiate study. We have all stopped caring what snotty academics find acceptable, because now there is real, true, palpable fun, and it is the greatest liberation. You people at shows who don't dance, who don't know a good time, who can't have fun, who sneer and scoff at the supposed inferior-- it's you this music strikes a blow against. We hope you die bored.

Viva La Dance Dance Revolution !

 

[Incandenza]

Now that I listened to the entire album, I *can* speak ill of "Love Is All," which is awful.

And "Ignition (Remix)!" 2003 is probably the last year I really cared about new music. Sigh

 

[Incandenza]

Also, I'm not a betting man, but I was certain Echoes got one of the rare 10.0 scores.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

They were probably too gun shy to give it the full monty after dropping two 10.0s the previous year.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I do often wonder what was behind the editorial decision to make 10.0 ratings a once-a-decade event for new albums rather than something that could be given to an EP by 12 Rods.

 

[Edwin]

I totally thought it was a 10.0 too, but now I remember that it just won best album from their staff poll. Clever girl.

 

[FLAM]

Man, I was super into The Rapture in 2003. Listened to Echoes so many times. Saw them open for Mars Volta that year. Good memories.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

That seems like a super weird bill.

I heard HOJL at a New Year's Eve party. It brought the room down. That review is silly, but indie culture has been really dancey around here for as long as I've been engaging with it. Old guys, how true is the stereotype of the mopey, shoegazing nineties indie rocker?

 

[Incandenza]

I saw Interpol in 2002, and me and this girl I went with were the only ones in a capacity crowd to get down to the "dancier" numbers. And you know that Dismemberment Plan song "Do the Standing Still"? I also saw them around that time and can testify a whole bunch of people standing about with their arms crossed.

 

[Edwin]

When I saw Interpol in 2002 (for $10! No one charges that little anymore!), there were some guys drinking Stella Artois who kept holding up their bottles and shouting "Stellaaaa." I remain convinced that it was completely unrelated to "Stella Was a Diver And She Was Always Down."

Also, I know I saw the Rapture as one of the openers for somebody major. The Cure, maybe? I want to say it was Sparta/the Rapture/Interpol. Wonder if someone in the Rapture really liked At the Drive-In.