Essential, to me, means that your life -— not just your record collection -— is
incomplete without having a particular album within 50 feet of you at all
times. If anything unfortunate should ever befall your copy, whether
it be stolen, lost, or damaged, you would run out that same day to replace it --
even if it is for the fifteenth time. Since the day I discovered it,
Rites of Spring's eponymous LP has always been essential.
ROS was fronted by Guy Piccioto, current lead
vocalist and emotional basket-case of Fugazi. Released in 1985 on Dischord, this album more than any other pioneered what is now known as emo (for better or worse). They were
trying to make you cry. Maybe not the big crocodile tears normally
shed by weepy girls with long, stringy hair; more like tears that burn like
acid as they stream down your face, making you clench your fists. Theirs is an intensely emotional music, which seems to channel all the frustration and rage of adolescence into a sharp point which deftly glides between your ribs and sticks you where it hurts. It’s an
astonishingly precocious album -- one which implies a lifetime of experience
and a mature talent -- yet it was written and recorded by teenagers!
How many nineteen year old boys do you know who could pull off the line "And if I
started crying, would you start crying? / Well I've started crying, why
are you not crying?" without sounding totally lame? I know I'm harping on
all of the crying imagery, but it's crucial to my point. These were punk
rockers -— not sissies like Morrissey (not that I have anything against
Morrissey). They got up on stage, and rather than singing about the system,
or drinking and puking in a bar, they sang about real human pain -- the kind
that anyone who's ever had to grow up or love or learn can relate to.
But the magic isn't just in the whimpering lyrics. It’s also in the discord
(how ironic) between the thoughtful, poetic words and the tinny, aggressive
music behind them. ROS had a far more complex sound than most of the other
DC punk bands of the time. And surprisingly, the vocals were almost
buried, as if the lyrics didn't matter. (How could the line "I woke up this
morning with a piece of past caught in my throat, and then I choked" ever
not matter?)
In "Spring", we hear a noisy guitar slide, with a brief moment in which
you think that feedback is about to erupt, though it never does. Each track
takes a risk, either emotionally or musically, being far more daring about
dynamics, tempo changes and vocal styles than most of the straight-up punk
bands of the time were willing to be. "End on End", the album closer, dissolves into free-form exploration, sustaining the lyrical message of the
song long after the words stop.
Rites of Spring reawakens dormant parts of me each time I hear it --
parts I thought had not only died, but completely decayed, when I made the
transition from teenager to adult. The album sounds as fresh and vital to
me now as it did when I first listened to it in the 8th grade. And come on,
what’s more essential than 8th grade?
-- Alex Zorn
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