Clash ’s in-house music boffin is Alex Hils, a composer and lecturer in the department of academic studies at London’s Royal Academy of Music. Here, he blindly reviews the compositional merits of four songs.
This issue, Alex goes back to school in music…
Song 1: Hot Chip ‘Boy From School’
My first impression here is of the contrast between the unbelievably short repetitive figure that is the groove and the more expansive, relaxed, but also very repetitive, vocals. This starts off interesting, but begins to grate after two minutes or so, when I’ve really had enough of the groove. The last two minutes or so break this down, though, and the instrumentals become far more diffuse and unpredictable and everything seems to gradually just melt away. This really makes the song and it earns its five minutes!
Song 2: Alice Cooper ‘School’s Out’
A real stadium rock, build up, sort of beginning. Ah, come the chorus I know the song. This has been in far too many adverts for its own good. Mostly it is just cliché, but the little transition after the chorus – no more teachers – with the long held guitar E and the melody surrounding that in semiquavers is actually rather stunning. The ‘we can’t even think of a word that rhymes’ line is also brilliant, sort of ironically relocating his celebration of stupidity back into their own song.
Song 3: Nirvana ‘School’
This is a thrasier version of the same clichés that we had in the song before, but without the redeeming humor or moments of musical relief. Surely we can try a bit harder with our lyrics than ‘Just my luck, no recess’… Quite quite awful. I can’t think of much else to say about this!
Song 4: Supertramp ‘School’
This song is really full of surprises – it never quite settles into its genre – there are times I think it is going to be conventional soul-blues, but then other things come from disco and even muzak: the really strange keyboard solo. I like how much this keeps me on my toes – I really have NO idea what is going to happen next, and when I think I do I’m always wrong. But I wonder if it isn’t taking this a bit too far, it could do with something to hold onto as well as all the extreme contrasts.
The Verdict:
These are all songs about going back to school (or not, in the case of Alice Cooper), which is dangerously appropriate at this time of year – I start teaching next week! Despite the very hackneyed bits, the best parts of ‘School’s Out’ for ever were surprisingly striking and memorable. I also liked the transformation that happens half way trough the first song. Song 3 is really quite abysmal, and an easy loser. The last song, despite my reservations about its coherence, is really risk taking and adventurous.
The Winner: Supertramp ‘School’
>
