Song of the Week #45
Although touted many many weeks back (and admittedly blasted at Sinner’s Gin HQ a few weeks back), I didn’t want to disrupt all the good work I’d done on turning March into a guitar hero month. This is the first time where this Song of the Week had arguably always been planned into the year at some point, but the cogs didn’t start turning until the news broke.
I will be the first to admit I never listened to Mark Lanegan until a certain chef told me to in a Seattle episode of Parts Unknown. Since then its been a strange one because there is such a large back catalogue, that is all fantastic, but nobody’s ever listened to. It’s a macabre thing to say for the grunge King, but perhaps the best thing to happen to his career will be the fact that there is nothing else to come, and no more music for anybody to hear. People will pause for breath and listen, and appreciate what Mark Lanegan put out into the world. So many bands and musicians slow down as they enter middle age, and enjoy the fruits of their labour, but Mark was such an oddball character, that the troubled poet inside him never stopped trying to get out.
The music in him never stopped, and part of me wished it never would. Although the latter albums were hit and miss, you could never fault what went into (or came out of) them. The best of them though, is universally agreed. Bubblegum from the early 2000s is essential listening for any rock fan, and Anthony Bourdain already took Strange Religion for that Seattle episode, so I couldn’t do the disservice of listing that again for my own benefit. Instead I went for a song that is best listened to on a bootleg from 2004, which is linked below. Methamphetamine Blues has something of everything in it, an unsettling rhythm beaten on a piece of metal, a non-stop grunge guitar lead and best of all, Mark’s gravelly cigarette-stained voice box churning out the lyrics without fail. Seattle lost a legend, and strangely, it’ll probably be another generation passing until they realise.
You couldn’t help it Mark, you left this heaven too soon. RIP.
https://mundoeleven-blogspot-com.translate.goog/2007/12/johannes-mark-lanegan-live-at-wireless.html?m=1&_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp - password for the downloaded file is mundoeleven, enjoy!