SONG: "Golden Skin" - Silver Sun (Silver Sun, 1997)
If there were any justice in the pop world, Silver Sun frontman James Broad would reign supreme. I’ve always been utterly mystified by the travesty of his band having never made the big-time – along with fellow guitar-pop practitioners Fountains of Wayne and The Lemonheads, they always seemed the most likely candidates for mainstream acceptance. Arriving at the tail-end of Britpop with a rash of equally great bands who never found the recognition they deserved (Out of My Hair, Blameless and Livingstone to name just three), Silver Sun’s blueprint was a simple one: The Beach Boys + Cheap Trick = instant pop perfection. If the immediate influence of these two acts wasn’t exactly difficult to discern (Scarecrow, one of the standout cuts from their second album Neo-Wave, is I Want You to Want Me), neither was the quality of Broad’s songwriting. Pitched partway between the fun-time bubblegum bop of The Monkees and the more classical approach of girl-groups like The Ronettes, he perhaps emerged three decades too late – had they been around in 1963, Silver Sun would’ve had teenage girls in pigtails squealing round their bedrooms.
Predictably massive in Japan, the band’s trademark multilayered falsettos were augmented by a glossy, radio-friendly sheen which saw the band equally loved by Chris Evans, Saturday morning TV and Kerrang! magazine. In an age of Weezer, Ash and Joyrider, the horizon was looking luminous indeed for Silver Sun; inexplicably, however, following brief flirtations with the Top 40 through radio favourites Last Day and I’ll See You Around, the band scored their biggest hit with an arbitrary cover of the Johnny Mathis standard Too Much, Too Little, Too Late before vanishing off the face of the earth.
Surprisingly, the band recently re-emerged from the wilderness after a six-year hiatus to release not one but two self-produced albums: Disappear Here (on which Broad allegedly plays every single instrument) and last year’s Dad’s Weird Dream. You’d think that six years of bitter reflection would herald some kind of misanthropic Kid A-style reinvention – however, like The Ramones before them, it’s a comforting testament to the singularity of Silver Sun’s vision that their formula never changes. Despite not having any kind of major-label backing, they still manage to make their albums sound like the most expensive records ever produced. Their kitsch B-movie comic-strip artwork remains as endearing as ever. And the tunes are still top-notch.
Though I’ll See You Around was a much catchier song, for me it’s former single Golden Skin which always best captures what Silver Sun are about. A joyful, carefree skip built around an ascending day-glo riff, the song’s sugar-sweet exterior offers the perfect firewall for Broad’s slyly acerbic observations on the illusion of celebrity. Silver Sun have always been suckers for a massive chorus, but this one is more restrained: heralded by a rolling crescendo, the melody hangs teasingly in the balance before bursting into a resplendent refrain which sounds like the perfect call-to-arms for anyone unfamiliar with their futuristic sunshine aesthetic: “Open the door, and let the light in”. Come the song’s gloriously overblown finale, the band pile on vocal harmonies in the grand tradition of Twist and Shout before thundering into the final chord with gleeful intemperance.
Fads come and go, but great pop lasts forever. I suspect that James Broad knows this – it’s one of the only ways to find solace from the disappointment of almost cracking the mainstream and then being cruelly slapped back into obscurity. To this extent, the image which forms part of the artwork for Disappear Here (that of the singer standing alone on a beach staring at the ocean, one man against the world) seems to me an apt metaphor of his refusal to let the bastards grind him down. The man is a hero to be saluted – and not just because he once sneaked a song onto daytime radio which contained the lyric “All of my ex-girlfriends, they were shit”. Against all the odds, he’s still here. His band’s still out there doing their thing. His fans remain as loyal as ever, and the next record can’t come soon enough. We’ll see you around.
Predictably massive in Japan, the band’s trademark multilayered falsettos were augmented by a glossy, radio-friendly sheen which saw the band equally loved by Chris Evans, Saturday morning TV and Kerrang! magazine. In an age of Weezer, Ash and Joyrider, the horizon was looking luminous indeed for Silver Sun; inexplicably, however, following brief flirtations with the Top 40 through radio favourites Last Day and I’ll See You Around, the band scored their biggest hit with an arbitrary cover of the Johnny Mathis standard Too Much, Too Little, Too Late before vanishing off the face of the earth.
Surprisingly, the band recently re-emerged from the wilderness after a six-year hiatus to release not one but two self-produced albums: Disappear Here (on which Broad allegedly plays every single instrument) and last year’s Dad’s Weird Dream. You’d think that six years of bitter reflection would herald some kind of misanthropic Kid A-style reinvention – however, like The Ramones before them, it’s a comforting testament to the singularity of Silver Sun’s vision that their formula never changes. Despite not having any kind of major-label backing, they still manage to make their albums sound like the most expensive records ever produced. Their kitsch B-movie comic-strip artwork remains as endearing as ever. And the tunes are still top-notch.
Though I’ll See You Around was a much catchier song, for me it’s former single Golden Skin which always best captures what Silver Sun are about. A joyful, carefree skip built around an ascending day-glo riff, the song’s sugar-sweet exterior offers the perfect firewall for Broad’s slyly acerbic observations on the illusion of celebrity. Silver Sun have always been suckers for a massive chorus, but this one is more restrained: heralded by a rolling crescendo, the melody hangs teasingly in the balance before bursting into a resplendent refrain which sounds like the perfect call-to-arms for anyone unfamiliar with their futuristic sunshine aesthetic: “Open the door, and let the light in”. Come the song’s gloriously overblown finale, the band pile on vocal harmonies in the grand tradition of Twist and Shout before thundering into the final chord with gleeful intemperance.
Fads come and go, but great pop lasts forever. I suspect that James Broad knows this – it’s one of the only ways to find solace from the disappointment of almost cracking the mainstream and then being cruelly slapped back into obscurity. To this extent, the image which forms part of the artwork for Disappear Here (that of the singer standing alone on a beach staring at the ocean, one man against the world) seems to me an apt metaphor of his refusal to let the bastards grind him down. The man is a hero to be saluted – and not just because he once sneaked a song onto daytime radio which contained the lyric “All of my ex-girlfriends, they were shit”. Against all the odds, he’s still here. His band’s still out there doing their thing. His fans remain as loyal as ever, and the next record can’t come soon enough. We’ll see you around.
posted by Chris Carter at 5:07 AM
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