The Jesus and Mary Chain
It was 1985. I was in the throes of my own British invasion, obsessed with the likes of Echo and The Bunnymen, The Cure, The Smiths, and Joy Division/New Order, and was willing to give any band with wacky haircuts from the UK a try. After hearing the simple, echoing song “Just Like Honey” on a local college station, I bought Psychocandy, the debut album of a Scottish band called The Jesus and Mary Chain. The lead track was the one that I had heard and fallen in love with, a pretty song whose buzzy atmospherics only hinted at what was to come. Then track two started. “The Living End” came howling out of the speakers of my cheap all-in-one stereo like a pissed-off vacuum cleaner—a basic, three-chord rock song that would make The Ramones proud, but a drenched in squalling feedback. I was breathless. The rest of the album proceeded to hit my eardrums in a perfect staccato punch of short songs that went from the merely reverb-drenched to ones smothered in layered wails of distortion and feedback, and it was a revelation. I had discovered the beauty of noise.
When you strip off all the sonics, you are left with an album of songs that aren’t groundbreaking, and in fact are very basic if well-crafted rock songs informed by surf, punk, and the Velvet Underground. With the feedback and distortion, they morphed into something else entirely, and it was intoxicating. I spent a summer with Psychocandy dominating my Walkman™, hiking in the woods with my dog Miranda with the volume turned up all the way, pressing the headphones closer into my ears as if that would help the banshee shriek of guitars fully penetrate my brain. When the album ended, I would start it all over again.
I honestly think a good portion of my hearing loss can be attributed to this season of aural abuse. More importantly, this was the gateway drug to Sonic Youth, The Boredoms, The Dead C, Merzbow, Big Black, My Bloody Valentine, and a whole host of other bands who embrace the noise. For that, this album remains one of the most influential 39-minute experiences of my life.
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