friday five - 14.11.08 - end of the world

I love apocalyptic imagery. I'm not sure why. We all have things we're intrinsically drawn to; this is one of them. Believe it or not, I'm even taking a class this semester called The End of Days, which features as its main point of study ... well, you may have guessed it already. You're smart enough.

For better or for worse, most popular music isn't concerned with death, decay, and destruction. It's all about the party, right? The girls? The sex, drugs, and rock and roll? But what happens, as The Doors said, when the music's over? What's left? Let's take a look, shall we, at a few apocalyptic visions in popular music. For music is your only friend, until the end, until the end, until the end...



Godspeed You! Black Emperor - "The Dead Flag Blues" (mp3|22.61MB)
Forgive me. I keep posting these gigantic Godspeed You! Black Emperor tracks on this blog, and it's gotta be friggin' annoying. But honestly, when Lea sent me the topic for this week's entry, this was the first thing that popped into my head. Though, yes, it does run an epic sixteen-and-a-half minutes, it captures a certain mournful apocalyptic beauty I haven't been able to find anywhere else. This is dreary, gray, hopeless music, but there's something so alluringly gorgeous about it that, despite the overwhelming bleakness, I find myself listening to it perhaps more than I should. "The Cowboy," which lasts from roughly 10:10 to 14:25, is among my favorite stretches of music in any discipline.

The Gutter Twins - "The Stations" (mp3|6.27MB)
Speaking of bleak, few -- if any -- rock acts of 2008 have managed to equal the gloom and doom of The Gutter Twins. These are two guys with a dark, dark vision. Some would argue (and have) that it's too dark, that it gets oppressive listening to track after track of Judgment Day and Rapture-laden imagery. I respectfully disagree. Album lead-off track "The Stations" is as representative a track as there is and, once again, the apocalypse never sounded quite so inviting.

Barry McGuire - "Eve of Destruction" (mp3|3.25MB)
Finally, I get a chance to post this song. While this easily could've fit in with last week's political post, and while it would certainly come very close to being a "starred entry" in my Sunday Superlative series, it just seems to fit best in a post about the end of the world. Simply put, Barry McGuire's impassioned folk-rant is perhaps my favorite protest song of all-time. Though written as an attack on Vietnam-era America, its themes are wonderfully timeless. The lyrics are the real star here. With the exception of a couple amusingly ill-conceived rhyme clunkers ("China" and "Alabama"? Really, Barry?), the observations here are so scathing and so undeniably true that the song leaves something of an indelible imprint. (That last verse from "You may leave here for four days in space" on is wonderful.) My hat's off.

R.E.M. - "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" (mp3|3.73MB)
You knew the instant you saw that title that this song would be included, didn't you? And well it should be: in their prime, R.E.M. could've easily stood among the very best in American alternative-rock. "It's the End of the World as We Know It" is R.E.M. in their prime: one of the most hypermanic, wryly amusing songs ever to find its way to FM radio waves. It's so smart, so catchy, so brilliant that it makes you wonder how they ever managed to record anything better. Little did they know that, in 1987, it wasn't the end of the world: the next five years were going to be very, very good to them.

Jeff Wayne - "The Spirit of Man" (mp3|9.27MB)
Plunge with me, for a moment, back into the realm of quasi-esoterica. In the late 1970s, some dude no one had ever heard of named Jeff Wayne somehow managed to get some really popular, talented people together and record a musical version of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (which is, as you know, as fundamentally an apocalyptic story as you're likely to get). While overflowing with great songs and brilliant musical ideas, my favorite song from the album has always been "The Spirit of Man," an intense, dramatic duet between singer Julie Covington and Thin Lizzy vocalist Phil Lynott. Maybe it just has something to do with the fact that I was hooked on this thing in third grade and therefore will hold it close to my heart always, but I think it's quite the powerful piece of music. Check it out.

While perhaps not the end of the world, this is the end of this week's Friday Five. With any luck, I shall be here again in a couple nights for three more all-time favorites from the Sunday Superlative. 'Til then!

As always, send lovemail/hatemail/anymail related to the Friday Five to fridayfiveradio@gmail.com. Requests are always considered and welcomed. See you next week!