Pink Clouds

In which Alex reminisces about discovering Superchunk via the internet

Back in the early days of the internet, streaming radio was a pretty neat thing to a whole lot of people, like certain 15-year-olds who spent all of their free time staring at a computer screen.  Early on in high school, I was pretty obsessed with They Might Be Giants.  And I was obsessed with finding out about new music.  So it was a nice surprise to find a combination of these two hobbies in "Radio TMBG", an "application" which you could download and use to "stream" music for free.

This was a fairly nifty device at the time, as I was realizing I could no longer rely on my local

alternative rock station to discover new music.  Yes, traditional radio had plunged into the abyss of Limp Bizkit, Matchbox 20, and Creed.  It was dark times and it only grew darker.  Yet late at night, I logged on to the internet and enjoyed some TMBG, plus a bunch of indie rock, a genre I was not yet at all familiar with.

Above and beyond everything else that was on, I discovered Superchunk through Radio TMBG.  At least 7 songs from their 1999 album Come Pick Me Up played frequently through the service and I quickly fell in love with Mac McCaughan's high pitched voice (I totally thought it was a female singer for several months), the melodic lead guitars, dynamically shifting songs with string and horn sections accenting driving drums and distorted guitars... I bought the CD through some Amazon.com competitor, CDnow.com or something, because I needed it.  It's still probably one of my most listened-to albums.

There are too many good songs on Come Pick Me Up for me to choose a favorite, but "Pink Clouds" is one that always struck me as pretty amazing.  It shows the dynamic variation which is typical throughout the record, starting out with a subdued clean guitar and bass, with McCaughan practically whispering the lead melody line in octaves, singing about the end of the day.  From there, the song leaps into distortion and dips back to its quiet beginnings over and over.  It's quite beautiful and finishes off with an explosive jazzy horn section.  It's good, seriously.

I know I picked a pretty timely and controversial subject to talk about with Superchunk.  They have a new album out, which I hear from all the critics is a "smash hit," and I'm quite excited to hear it.  What do you think about Superchunk?  Tweet me @berkley84, or leave a comment.  My friend Alex A. was not able to leave a comment, but he did tell me over the Facebook that "I realize that most of the bands I consider my faves today all came from one guy--my roommate junior and senior years."  So that makes me wonder, does music discovery end after college for most people?