I had some professor one time, I think in grad school, who pledged this bizarre, incredulous allegiance to “kid a,” apparently a reference to the 2000 Radiohead album. That’s kind of like how Rumours is, Fleetwood Mac’s apparent commercial and artistic breakthrough from 1977. It’s like there’s this puzzling level of pride at mentioning “rumours” (most people don’t typically have the nerve to turn off The Office for long enough to actually PUT IT ON, but at least they mentioned it, I guess).
Sure, the singles are strong, including “Dreams”; a song that was covered to transcendent, trippy beauty by one of our local bands City Sun at our festival this past summer. That two-note bassline reminds me of the drum fill in Modest Mouse’s “A Different City” [2] — a musical mechanism so simple that it seems ridiculous, delivered with dramatic, poignant enough fashion so as to ironically earn its keep. During City Sun’s performance, that bassline came in, and it was almost like I immediately joked with myself, “It sounds like their playing ‘Dreams’!”
Never in my wildest notions did I expect this to actually become the case, of course, and while on some level I shunned the manifestation of this radio dad-rock within this otherwise blistering jam-rock set that City Sun was uncapping, the performance of “Dreams” seemed to work, in that setting, on a holistic level. The romantic themes were a hit, I assume, with all the couples there, and the style of the song proved, I think, to be in soliatary company within Rumours in terms of being able to represent a “groove,” if you will, as in blending an eclectic set of influences and so catering effectively to a band that is otherwise playing jam-rock. Of course, much credit should be given to City Sun for their ability to ingenuously process this song as ironically capable to fit into this slot, a hopeful testament and reminder to bands to leave no stones unturned and not adhere to rigidly to convention, when preparing sets, songs, grooves and life.
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[1] On a light note, it hasn’t come to my attention yet the singles on Kid A actually becoming regulated by the FCC, so that’s a positive, I suppose.
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[2] For what it’s worth, this is a track on The Moon & Antarctica [2] that hipsters and critics often find cool to hate, for its relatively conventional structure, but that actually bleeds with that quintessential Modest Mouse vitality, along with those warbly, trippy guitar tones and stupefyingly self-deprecating lyrics.
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