Elvis Costello on GIRLS’ Hellhole Ratrace
Jukebox Jury with Elvis Costello, includes wise words on GIRLS’ forthcoming single Hellhole Ratrace, see below and here for more.
Who is this?
This is a band from San Francisco called Girls.
I thought this was Jarvis Cocker at first! The changes are kind of arcane, aren’t they? It’s got that minor in there so that it sounds like 50s music. That’s a change Orbison used a lot, but you don’t hear it very much anymore. Jarvis used it in “Common People,” too. The clave… When it first started, I thought, “Oh this is something like Phil Spector,” but it doesn’t ever open up the way his songs do. I like the sound of this, it’s intriguing. Also the proportions of songs are really interesting. At the first moment, you went, “Oh, it’s a record from the 60s, it could be a Doc Pomus recording.” But then when the vocalist didn’t come in, I knew it was a modern recording, because in the ’60s they would have come in after 4 bars – 8 bars at the most. That’s good, though, because it doesn’t do what you expect. I liked it.
For point of reference, the song is about 8 minutes long.
Does it go somewhere else?
It sort of steadily builds.
Ah, like Spiritualized? That was my other guess. Or… what’s that other group with the guy with the beard and the blood? The Flaming Lips.
It’s exciting for me to hear new bands – you can hear a young band and think, “That’s really strange, the harmonies they’re using there are like the harmonies from a George Harrison record. Why would they like that? They’re 18!” But they’ve heard it because it’s all part of the mix of things. But, as with the Girls song, it starts out where you might expect but then goes somewhere completely different because they’re listening to a much broader range of music because it’s available to them.
One Response to “Elvis Costello on GIRLS’ Hellhole Ratrace”
This is the best thing I have ever seen