30 Day Song Challenge, Day 4: A Song That Makes You Sad

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This was a hard one. I think I listen for sound and for aesthetics, but really never for emotion per se. This song sounds melancholy, but I wouldn’t say it makes me sad. I actually like it a lot.

Peter Murphy, Cuts You Up

First, this is a fantastic pop song. In the US, it was the #1 Alternative song for all of February and March 1990. It was a huge, huge hit in the modern rock/alternative world. Its pop sensibilities, warm timbre and mixing, these made it exemplary of the overall ‘feel’ of British indie in the late 80s (I also think of Siouxie’s stuff from this era as another exemplary instance). This was how indie was gonna sound…until effing Nirvana broke…and made everything a lot less pop and a lot more rock and…well, brought the bros to the scene. So, you could say I’m sad that we didn’t got more records like this but instead got grunge. (I mean, I actually do say this, out loud, sometimes.)

 

Runners up: Psychic TV, “I C Water” (It’s their tribute to Ian Curtis, which actually also sounds like a great New Order tribute/ripoff); Smashing Pumpkins, “Disarm” (not so much that it makes me sad but reminds me of listening to it as I cried out a lot of teenage angst).