“Psycho Popsong”—Grabbel and the Final Cut
It sounds to me like a couple of guys who on the weekends would get together to play Tom Petty-esque Americana in bars and church basements got ahold, through the bassist’s dealer, of some early Jesus and Mary Chain singles and were so taken with the sound that that Tuesday, when usually they’d just watch a movie or hang out with their girlfriends, they got together and in one take banged out this song, this psycho popsong, and were so embarrassed by the results that they buried it in the bassist’s backyard, and years later the bassist’s son, strapped for cash and home for Christmas, went scouring the backyard with his metal detector and found the grimy decayed tape and played it through the one beat-up tape deck he could find in the basement. Apparently it’s a little-known German shoegaze song from 1991 that Captured Tracks has recently excavated. Right now I can’t tell if I’m ill or deranged, pleasantly hungover or doomed to spend the rest of my days in a sort of all-natural narcotic trance. It’s been a while since a song hit me like this. Makes you realize that all contemporary noise-pop is inherently fake, the aural equivalent of wearing a monocle, or sending someone a letter when you have their e-mail address.
