Imagine a band. Now imagine that they’re about to break up.
It could be for any reason: they’re all tired of each other’s stupid foibles, success has not been forthcoming, the drummer has spontaneously combusted, etc.
So – at what point does a former member stop contributing to that band, and start saving songs for a new band? And how do they feel when making that decision?
Gold Bears were formed after Jeremy Underwood’s previous band had made like a banana, and the songs he now plays were presumably scrabbled together from a period that overlapped the demise of the old and rise of the new.
I wonder if he ever thinks about what the songs would sound like if the old band had sung them? Probably not, as even I can’t imagine Record Store being sung by anyone else, so perfect a marriage is it between band and song.
That Record Store will readily draw comparisons with The Wedding Present is insignificant in so many ways: here is a song so intent on rushing forward that looking backwards would be entirely out of keeping.
Breathless and dizzied by its own momentous outburst of joy, this is the kind of song that proves that sometimes the equation of more + more = MORE, not less.
If this is what happens when bands break up, I urge all bands to do so immediately, and finally set lose those songs they’ve been saving up. A triumph.