Rock and roll, in its nascent years, was focused on a central theme.
No, it's not love, nor is it sex or drugs; it's youth. Youth, that time of our lives where actions are filled with a desperate vigor, all the more desperate for how ephemeral that thing fueling it is. Youth, that thing that amplifies puppy love into something grand enough to serve as subjects for works of art; in this case, songs, even as nobody in those years considered rock music to be
art.
Just for the kids, they scoffed. But, I ask, does that make it any less art? Shakespeare didn't write for the kids, but my idea's still there; he wrote for the rich
as well as the poor. Shakespeare wrote works for his time, and a main contention of rock and roll is that
our time is now, and this music is for our time. As the times have changed, so has rock music. But the cornerstone of the genre was youth.
I bring this up because this is something a lot of rock music has become estranged from (I have Radiohead in mind as I write this, as great of a band as they are), and which other musicians have addressed in less than artful statements (I have Weezer's new albums in mind as I write
this). This has been the rule for much of modern rock, with a few exceptions. One such exception is Japandroids' blistering debut,
Post-Nothing.
While other artists did the whole
Metallica: S&M thing and employ orchestras as backing bands, like the Foo Fighters did at the Grammys a few years ago, Japandroids stripped rock down to guitar, drums, and vocals, and turned it up to 11, so to speak. They aren't exceptionally fast or loud on record, but this album is nonetheless great, for its focus on that subject I expounded so much on: youth.
Much of this album has the giddy and heroic yet oddly sentimental spirit of taking your dad's keys and sneaking out at night to drive outside of the town you grew up in - not giving a shit what happens if your parents find out - and finding that it now seems much smaller than it once did. The album opens with this in mind, with the self-explanatory "The Boys Are Leaving Town". It also surfaces on the penultimate track, "Sovereignty": "It's raining in Vancouver / But I don't give a fuck / 'Cause I'm far from home tonight."
Other themes are: puppy lust ("Wet Hair") love ("Crazy/Forever"), losing love for the first - and, you say to yourself, last - time ("I Quit Girls"), and, in one epiphany, realizing that, as young as you may be, you are only mortal, as illustrated in "Young Hearts Spark Fire", which might also be about every other theme I just mentioned. I don't know.
But I should say this much, as Japandroids have often been compared to their L.A. cousins, No Age. While I like No Age, I personally prefer Japandroids. I heard No Age's
Nouns, and, although I liked some songs, I just don't believe it is any comparison to
Post-Nothing. This statement might irk the Pitchfork crowd, but don't say I was the first person to do so, nor will I be the last. Nor will this be the last time I irk that crowd, for that matter.
To end on a higher note, I will just say that this record should be required listening when you are in those years in between being a kid and being an adult. I don't believe in rites of passage; the transition is much more gradual. It's a strange and emotional time, which has been captured on record exceptionally by Japandroids.
Videos for "Young Hearts Spark Fire", "Sovereignty", and "I Quit Girls" after the jump.
-The Anachronist
