Since we’re on this kick let’s talk about Single Gun Theory for a moment. I bought their first album purely based on being on Nettwerk records. This is the Nettwerk before their pro Napster stance and Sarah McLachlan, Junkie XL and the Submarines. This was the Nettwerk of Skinny Puppy, Moev, Severed Heads and The Tear Garden. I figured it’d be another industrial barn burner. Nettwerk was like 4AD and Factory in that most of the album covers had a house style - newfangled fonts, full bleed zoomed in video stills and some geometric shapes. It was safe to assume that the music was all pretty similar too. Not sure why I thought that, given that the same wasn’t true of 4AD and Factory.
And it wasn’t true here. Imagine my surprise when I found a sensitive, sorta dubby, melodic album of slightly dark pop. Nostalgic and brooding and regretful, but with a sense of wistfulness.
It was really up my alley. Most of the noisy stuff i was listening to then I think I was listening to mainly because it was what was cool. When I go listen to Skinny Puppy, I think I actually like them more NOW than I did then. I was a sensitive child. So Nettwerk provided me cover to like this record.
And I still listen to them with some regularity. This entire album is in my “ALL MY FAVORITES” playlist, some 10,000 songs with which I fill up my iPod with a random selection every month or so before resetting and doing it again with a new batch. So they never really leave rotation.
OH ALSO, Splendor in the Grass. I had to watch the movie in AP English, and that was about the same year that this album came out. The movie is dripping with sensuality. Our english teacher, Mrs. Mears, tried to tell us that, but she was a grown up. When Single Gun Theory told me, though, I listened. It’s one of my favorite movies to this day.
(Source: Spotify)
