For a period of time, Myspace rebranded its social media presence as a music-oriented content site. I both wrote and contributed to a number of pieces published there, all now scrubbed from online existence. In their absence, I share selections of some of that work, albeit sometimes in submitted draft versions, sometimes with draft titles, as opposed to edited form.
This piece was originally published at Myspace in August 2014 and later expunged from their site. If you are the copyright holder and wish to have the piece removed from this page, please contact the site owner.
The Eighties were a lot of fun, or so we’ve been told. VH1 did a bang up job with the lighthearted ribbing of its I Love The 80s series, a mock paean helmed by third-rate comedians. 2010’s quantum farce Hot Tub Time Machine efficiently parodied a culture of gaudy outfits, arresting hairstyles, and synthesizer laden sounds. (A sequel is due in theaters this December.) Still, most viewers in that film’s target demo were too young to have experienced the decade much, if at all. Generation Y and beyond are likely more familiar with Ecco The Dolphin than Echo And The Bunnymen.
Despite our propensity to celebrate anniversaries of inanimate artifacts, our memories and impressions of the Reagan-Bush years often overlook the lethargy, melodrama, and melancholia of so much of its contemporary music. Sure, girls just wanted to have fun when they weren’t blinding people with science, but not far beyond the now adorably dated pop songs from ridiculously attired video stars lurks one of the bleakest periods of music.
Back then, you didn’t have to look hard to find something to completely bum you out. The Church, Simple Minds, Tears For Fears, and countless other new wave acts had Billboard charting hits that offered a morose soundtrack to counter and complement all that progress, heartbreak, and casual drug abuse. Nobody did miserable quite like 4AD Records, a British indie imprint that spent its first decade doling out dour releases from Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, and The Wolfgang Press. The phrase “hauntingly beautiful”--made mendacious marketing cliche in the early 21st century--succinctly encapsulates many of its best records. Though the label was pivotal in the careers of far less gloomy types such as Belly and The Breeders, the 4AD sound will forever be linked with a somewhat gothy post-punk style.
Unlike other contemporary signees Future Islands, Grimes, and Zomby, Merchandise most closely represents the 4AD of old. More in common sonically with Modern English than the Tampa, Florida punk and hardcore scene that purportedly birthed them, the band seem to relish an existential state of difference, their sound having now morphed into the glum soft rock of After The End. That descriptor should concern those who’ve followed Merchandise since 2012’s critical cult favorite Children Of Desire. In only two years they’ve gone from the charmingly scuzzy dream pop of “Time” to what could be reasonably marketed as adult alternative.
Like so many in the Sunshine State, Merchandise appears to have aged a touch too rapidly. After The Endshowcases a band a bit too keen to reach through the supermarket milk fridge and live inside an A-ha video, only to realize the shoot ended thirty years ago. There’s something supremely unpopular about what they’re doing on “Telephone,” a mildly jaunty ditty a few steps removed from sitcom theme song. On lead single “Enemy,” singer Carson Cox might fancy himself Steve Kilbey but he’s perilously closer to Bono on “Green Lady.” Much to my horror, “Looking Glass Waltz” is true to its title.
Yet before we gather up our virtual torches and pitchforks for message board mob justice, it behooves us to again acknowledge the selective memory problem of the 1980s. Echo And The Bunnymen’s Ian McCulloch was barely 25 when his career-defining Ocean Rain debuted in 1984. The orchestral arrangements and acoustic guitars of that record starkly contrast with the jagged, atonal post-punk of their Crocodiles LP, which appeared just four years earlier. It was a startlingly mature record, not one you’d expect from a bunch of twenty-somethings and much riskier than anything they’d attempted before.
Similarly adventurous, Merchandise’s earnest adoration of this barely hidden musical history comes through on the understated yet gripping “True Monument” or the humming hymn-like “Life Outside The Mirror.” A standout, “Little Killer” combines The Cure with The Rolling Stones and hits on an addictive fusion. Of course, Merchandise could easily crank up the noise and distortion and try and catch the last whimpers of the so-called shoegaze revival, but they’ve moved past that even if festival promotion companies haven’t. Instead, they’ve recognized that the beauty and nuance hidden underneath distortion pedals and overpowered by drum machines deserves to be at the fore, even if that means growing up in public. A vexing yet appealing repeat listen, After The End presents a band perpetually in motion, running away from categories and genre tags as if lives were in danger. If only they’d slow down a little, they might keep from burning out completely.