Useless
| Useless | |
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| TV Smith studio album | |
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Publication |
April 9, 2001 |
| Label (s) | JKP , Eastwest Records |
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Format (s) |
CD, LP |
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Title (number) |
15th |
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running time |
44:18 |
| occupation | |
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Studio (s) |
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Useless is an album by the English musician T. V. Smith from 2001, which offers a cross-section of his musical oeuvre since 1977. Almost all of the tracks were originally published by Smith's former groups The Adverts and Cheap or by him as a soloist, but were re-recorded for this production together with the Düsseldorf band Die Toten Hosen .
History of origin
T. V. Smith is one of the musical role models from the English punk scene , whom Die Toten Hosen contacted in 1991 for their album Learning English Lesson One . After Smith's bands broke up, his record company went bankrupt and no longer found a producer for his music, his name recognition fell. His early adverts and solo album March of the Giants were no longer available, and the songs seemed to be completely forgotten. Die Toten Hosen wanted to counteract this development , and so it came to repeated collaboration with Smith for this album, which was released as the so-called best-of album by the artist, but represents a separate, labor-intensive and new production.
When the band had to cancel their tour in October 2000 due to an injury to their singer Campino , the gap was used to realize this long-planned project. The other band members Andreas von Holst and Michael Breitkopf played on the electric guitars, Andreas Meurer on the electric bass, Vom Ritchie on the drums, and Campino took part in the background vocals. The former keyboard player of the Adverts, Tim Cross , was also involved in the recordings for the album . In principle, the melodies and texts of the original versions have not been changed. In contrast to the minimal accompaniment on the first release, the six-member support band contributes a stronger "rock sound". The older pieces also benefit from the improved possibilities of recording technology.
The cover photo by Slavica Ziener shows a well-frequented beach by the sea, despite the cloudy sky, and the booklet contains all the lyrics and black and white portraits of the band members during the studio work, recorded by Donata Wenders .
Subjects and title list
| Track list | |
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All texts by TV Smith Date of first publication in brackets |
T. V. Smith deals in his songs with the social circumstances and the political thoughts of the "little man", clearly identifying what bothers him by name, but uses metaphors and puns that often contain a portion of gallows humor . Musically, he uses different stylistic devices from punk , rock and blues . The pieces of music on the album are not sorted chronologically according to the date of first release, nor are they thematically arranged. Faster tracks alternate with quieter tracks. However, the songs all deal with human values in different areas.
Aesthetic standards
One Chord Wonders dates back to when Smith was a member of the Adverts and musically uses all punk rock clichés. The song begins with a single overdriven electric guitar note. This is followed by the classic time signature, “one, two, three, four”, replaced by the words: “One, chord, won, - ders”. Then the drums and guitar kick in and strike an energetic rhythm to which Smith yells the lyrics. Instead of a refrain, the last word of the respective paragraph is stretched over several highs and lows. The text plays a game with the English word “wonder”, which is translated as a noun with “wonder”. Here it is also used as a verb to question something. The group that introduces itself with this song wonders whether they shouldn't practice some more and come back next year with New Wave , in order to then surely meet the taste of the audience. However, the musicians come to the conclusion that they would not care whether you would like them or not. They clearly express this opinion in the last sentence, which is repeated twelve times at the end of the song: “ The Wonders don't care - we don't give a damn! ”
The second song on the album is juxtaposed with the composition Only One Flavor , published here for the first time, 24 years younger . The melodic rock sound and a catchy chorus make the song look more mature, while the lyrics deal with almost the same subject. It's about the nightmare of an overconforming society, in which everyone listens to the same music, wears the same clothes and only has one direction given that everyone has to take.
youth
Smith wrote Bored Teenagers at the age of eighteen, when he himself lived in the country and saw no opportunity there to develop his skills freely. He gets rid of his displeasure with this two-minute punk song. Wolfgang Büld chose the piece as the theme melody for his German TV film Brennende Langeweile from 1979, in which Smith played a role as the singer for the Adverts.
With its calm, even sound, Gather Your Things and Go has the character of a roadsong and also the line of text: “ Get on your bike, gather your things and go! ”First suggests biker freedom. The plot, however, is far from this romanticism, because it is about unemployed sixteen-year-olds who are told by the authorities with the words: “Get away! (On yer bike!) “Be put in front of the door. The background of the song is part of a speech by the conservative politician Norman Tebbit from the 1980s. Tebbit said he grew up with an unemployed father in the thirties who, after all, didn't rebel or put his hands on his lap, but sat on his bike and looked for work until he found it . This is how the slogan "On yer bike !" Was born, with which unemployed young people were denied any support.
In Generation Y , originally recorded in 1998, a ballad played purely on acoustic instruments , Smith expresses his disappointment in those born in the late 1970s who have no goal in mind for any political engagement. Smith comments on the matter as follows:
“The generations after punk seemed very unmotivated to me. They no longer have any incentive from the government to use their skills properly. They are only told that they have to adapt, they have no creative freedom. "
Power and money
Smith plays the peppy song My String Will Snap every time he has to wind a new guitar string during a concert. In the booklet, he jokes that he wrote it specifically for this purpose. In fact, it is about the thread of patience that would break him if the rulers continued to pull on him. He warns of the energy that would then be released. A driving fast rhythm and the use of all instruments underline the rebellious text.
Ready for the Ax to Drop is accompanied by an aggressive rock sound and warns all heads of state who are starting war out of sheer ambition and hunger for power. They should clear their necks for the guillotine that will hit them if they then stand in the minefields and are shot back.
In Immortal Rich , Smith criticizes the decadence with which we "enjoy" our wealth in the affluent western industrialized countries and have forgotten the true value of things in our affluent society . We think everything can be paid for in money. The music is very rocky, with a catchy melody that is supported in the chorus by the “ pants choir ”.
science and technology
The narrator in Gary Gilmore's Eyes wakes up after a cornea transplant in the hospital and realizes that he has had an organ transplanted by the executed Gary Gilmore . He cannot cope with the fact that from now on he looks through the eyes of a murderer and fears that they would take possession of him. He decides to keep his eyelids closed forever. The song begins at the tempo of the drums with a mysterious whisper: “Gary Gilmore's eyes”. After a few guitar sounds and a clear emphasis on the first word of the sentence “I'm lying in a hospital”, the music sets in, which only supports the vigorously sung text rhythmically. The title was one of the adverts' first successes and was covered by Die Toten Hosen for their album Learning English Lesson One in 1991 with Smith's participation.
The Day We Caught the Big Fish has the character of a shanty , with the keyboard replacing a boatman's piano . It tells the grotesque story of a couple of fishermen who have to pack a lot when one day a small nuclear submarine goes into their net. After that day they were never seen again. The American music magazine Goldmine said the following about the song on June 12, 1996:
"Even stronger… a candidate, in fact, for the most lyrically powerful song he's ever written, is" The Day We Caught The Big Fish ", a first-hand narrative of the last minutes in the life of a deep-sea trawlerman, as his nets snag onto a submerging submarine. School kids should be made to write essays about this song; movie directors should be bidding to option it: and fishermen should go out of their way to avoid hearing it. That's how deeply it will affect the listener, and that's why you should drop everything now, and get your hands on this album. Now. "
Runaway Train Driver is the fictional story of a train driver who feels uninfluential and insignificant in life. During a Castor transport , described in the text with the words: “It's a loaded son of a gun with the hammer cocked”, he sees the opportunity to make a “name” for himself in public and decides to increase the speed of the locomotive and steer the train towards a fatal end. The music reproduces the rhythm of a train that thunders over the tracks. There are two choruses: “ I'm a runaway train driver, heading off the rails ” and “ This is not the green train ”. The German translation for "Runaway Train" is "Train out of control". The train has no green light and is not allowed to travel at top speed. In 2002 a cover of the piece appeared on the B-side of the single Nur zu Visiting from the Toten Hosen and in 2007 in the new edition of Crash-Landing .
Loser of society
The man who talks about himself in Expensive Being Poor has not lost his sense of humor even in poor living conditions and emphasizes in the refrain that he looks good when he is desperate. Because the cheap supermarket is too far away, he pays more for his groceries. The car would have been taken out of service long ago if he'd ever owned one. His television is broken and he can't afford to go to the cinema. Nonetheless, he makes “a good face for a bad game” and makes his way through life “just like that”. The list of his bland everyday problems is accompanied by monotonous guitar and drum sounds, a keyboard that sounds like Christmas bells and subtle choir singing. Only during the chorus does the sound gain a bit of highs and lows. Nevertheless, the music sounds a bit stronger here than in the purely acoustic version of the song originally released in 1998. Wim Wenders included the title in the soundtrack of the film Land of Plenty .
The fairytale poetry in Lion and the Lamb , a poetic ballad, also relates to the title of the album. Even if your life has so far been crowned with little success, you are still valuable: “ I see you sparkle in the mud, like a little diamond in the rough, ready for the cut, ready for the cut. ”The text also says that you cannot emerge victorious from every fight, sometimes you would just be the sacrificial lamb. This is nature's plan and cannot be changed. However, one should not come to terms with everything and have to take care of one's own concerns, because there would be no redeemer who takes life into his own hands. Preaching Smith next title Lord's Prayer , the English name for the Lord's Prayer , which, however, has the opposite statement here. In the booklet Smith writes about the title: “ I once sold this song for £ 150. Who says religion is worth nothing? ”Smith had sold the composition to The Lords of the New Church , who released the title in 1985 on their album Killer Lords .
In the final title song Useless , which has a blue character, Smith only accompanies himself with the acoustic guitar and sings in a hoarse voice how worthless you feel if you have tried hard in business for years, then lose your job because of the bad economic situation and through the social network falls. As a heading for this, Smith writes in the booklet: “ Nothing and no-one is useless. You can't use a hammer to turn a screw, or a screwdriver to bang in a nail. What they believe to be useless is only waiting to find its use. ”
Video and vinyl
In the 2001 music video Only One Flavor by director Sven Offen, Die Toten Hosen play on a rainy day on the roof of the former diamond flour factory in the port of Düsseldorf . T.V. Smith sings in the foreground and moves lively to the music, while Campino, the otherwise dominant front man of the Toten Hosen, is largely in the background and is barely recognizable through tinted glasses and long black hair.
In 2004, the Bochum label Dirty Faces released the album Useless as a record and also on colored speckled vinyl in a limited edition of 525 pieces. Another pink vinyl edition of the album was released on Drumming Monkey Records in 2017 .
effect
The “Useless Tour” through Germany, Austria and Switzerland, on which the Toten Hosen gave a guest appearance in Düsseldorf and Zurich, was well attended. The album received little attention from the major radio stations, and one looks in vain for it in the chart lists. Nevertheless, the German club scene found an interest in T. V. Smith and managed to gain a foothold there. Smith is still a welcome guest at smaller radio stations and fanzines . He now sells more records in German-speaking countries than in Great Britain.
Stephan Hageböck writes on laut.de about Useless from an album that spans the arc from 1977 through the 1980s to what is considered punk in Germany in 2001, and he continues to think that punk did not really die in 1979 and it did would have given it before the Sex Pistols . Punk is in everyone who wants to live it, maybe even some high school pimple kid. In this sense, Useless is certainly not a big, but still a good, important album.
The reviewer in the article Always punk stayed in the music magazine Access! said it was "amazing how fresh this bunch of veteran punk rockers presented on Useless ". Useless is “a consistently successful retrospective with many highlights from over 20 years of songwriting, which the odd-headed Brit with the Toten Hosen recorded as a backing band - as if there weren't enough punk rock youngsters in England who gave them a lot of limbs to be allowed to stand on the stage of a TV Smith. "
Henning Richter described the album in Metal Hammer magazine as "a juicy punk production full of melodic hammers." Smith's songs came "without frills, but always to the point". In addition, "it would be fun to grapple with the critical texts of the untamed survivor of the old guard."
Web links
- Lyrics on the T.V. Smith official website
- Music video for Only one Flavor on the New Musical Express website .
- Useless at Allmusic (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Birgit foot : conserve energy - with the Toten Hosen to the studio: TVSMITH. In Rolling Stone , June 2001 issue, p. 22.
- ↑ The year 2001. Die Toten Hosen , accessed on September 2, 2013 .
- ↑ a b booklet for the album Useless , 5245-09815-2.
- ↑ Quote from the booklet: “ I like a cheerful song about a depressing subject. Unfortunately, most are the other way around. ”-“ I like cheerful songs about depressing subjects. With most of the songs it is unfortunately the other way around. "
- ^ Interview with T.V. Smith in Ox-Fanzine , Issue 43, June, July, August 2001, accessed January 11, 2012.
- ↑ Excerpt from the lyrics from One Chord Wonders translation: "We don't fucking care if we arrive like a miracle."
- ↑ Biography on the official homepage of T. V. Smith, accessed January 11, 2012.
- ↑ Wolfgang Büld: Brennende Langeweile , Sunny Bastards , DVD 2007, 4-250137-270142.
- ^ Generation Y , JKP 1998, 5245-00000-2.
- ^ Friends of the House - TV Smith. From nothing to a hit single in six months. Die Toten Hosen, December 2000, archived from the original on November 3, 2009 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
- ↑ Excerpt from My String Will Snap : “You can push me so far, but only so far. One day my string will snap and the balance will swing back. "
- ↑ Excerpt from the last stanza: “You're walking through a minefield, heart full of fear. Around you shells explode like chandeliers. You stuck your neck out across a chopping block. It's time to get ready, get ready, get ready for the ax to drop. "
- ^ Dave Thompson : Your Ticket Out of Here - The Armchair Guide to TV Smith , E-Book, p. 93.
- ↑ Translation: "An even more powerful candidate, '' The Day We Caught the Big Fish ', in fact, the lyrically strongest song he has ever written, is a first-hand account and depicts the last minutes in the life of a deep-sea fisherman, whose nets get caught on a diving submarine. Children should be encouraged to write essays about this song in school; Film directors should bid for the rights and fishermen should run away to avoid hearing it. It touches the listener so deeply, and that's why you should drop everything now to have your hands free for this album. "
- ↑ From the Lyrics Lion and the Lamb , translation: "I see you sparkling in the mud, like a small rough diamond waiting to be cut."
- ↑ Booklet page 12, translation: “I sold this song once for £ 150. Someone should say that religion is worthless. "
- ↑ Quotation from the booklet on page 13, translation: “Nothing and nobody is useless. You cannot use a hammer to turn a screw or a screwdriver to drive a nail into the wall. What they consider useless is just waiting to find its purpose. "
- ↑ Video shoot for 'Only one Flavor' with TV Smith. Die Toten Hosen, March 22, 2001, archived from the original on December 23, 2008 ; Retrieved October 20, 2013 .
- ↑ Dirty Faces, Bochum, 4-250137-232010.
- ↑ Interview with Voice of Culture , accessed on January 11, 2012.
- ↑ Review at laut.de including the music video of Only One Flavor , accessed on January 12, 2012.
- ↑ Access !, May 2001 edition, page 35.
- ↑ Henning Richter: TV Smith feat. Die Toten Hosen - Useless - The Very Best Of TV Smith. In Metal Hammer , May 2001, p. 102.
