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Charty Chart Chat: Death Becomes
Them
Tuesday September 23, 2003 @
03:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com
Staff
"Everything is great when you're dead/The family surrounds
you/There are flowers on your head," sings Motorpsycho
drummer Hakon Gebhardt on "When You're Dead" on the band’s
2001 album Phanerothyme. What at first seems a morbid song about
death really is an uplifting view of a man not fearing death, but
embracing its inevitability. This view of death may not sit well
with the majority of humans who fear their mortality. Many songs
about death speak of its finality; some more religious material
focuses on the afterlife, giving the listener hope of avoiding that
ultimate end. Rather than dreading death, Gebhardt imagines the
great party that will take place, a gathering of family and friends
to celebrate the life of the deceased, a much healthier view of
death.
The Executioner's
Last Songs
Volume
1 |
There are countless songs about death in the pop music canon,
such as John Lennon's "My Mummy's Dead," George
Harrison's "The Art Of Dying," Nirvana's "I Hate Myself
And I Want to Die" and Alice in Chains' "Them Bones." Then
there are the many songs that recount the deaths of others, like the
traditional folk ballads "Tom Dooley" and "Knoxville Girl," and
popular top 40 hits including Jan & Dean's "Dead Man's
Curve," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her" and The
Adverts' "Gary Gilmore's Eyes." Several artists have written
whole albums with a death theme, including Nick Cave's Murder
Ballads and the two volumes of The Pine Valley Cosmonauts'
Executioner's Songs.
Through out the top 50 Chart for the week ending September 19,
there are no obvious album titles about death. In fact, there is a
number of uplifting titles such as, Shine A Light, Love Energy,
Happy Songs For Happy People and Operation Infinite Joy. Off the
top, there is a new #1 for the week as The Weakerthan's
Reconstruction Site squeezed up past The Constantine's Shine
A Light, which drops to #2. Remaining steady are Ween's Quebec at
#3, Metric's Old World Underground, Where Are You at #4 and
The High Dials' A New Devotion at #5.
Our Work And Why
We Do It |
Frank Black And The Catholics’ Show Me Your Tears jumps up
one place to #6, while newbies Guided By Voices catapult into
the Top 10 as their latest album, Earthquake Glue, rises to #7.
The Dandy Warhols' Welcome To The Monkey House drops to #8,
Broadcast's Haha Sound also drops to #9 and Hot Little
Rocket's Our Work And Why We Do It moves into the #10 position.
The top new entry for the week belongs to Jim Bryson. His
new album, The North Side Benches debuts at #28, beating out the
Hamilton electronic compilation, Futur*Sonic Volume 1 at #29. The
Parkas' Now This Is Fighting arrives at #31, Rufus
Wainwright's Want One is at #36 and Martin Tielli's
aforementioned happy album, Operation Infinite Joy at #38 also make
solid debuts this week.
The North Side
Benches |
Finally, The New Pornographers' sophomore release,
Electric Version has spent 20 weeks on the top 50 chart. They are
four weeks short of their record-breaking debut release of 2001, A
New Romance. After a look back at all of the charts for the past
eight-plus years, the Vancouver super-group (that includes Neko
Case and former Zumpano lead-man Carl Newman) are the
first band to have two albums break the 20 week barrier. For you
baseball enthusiasts, The New Pornographers are the Albert Pujols of
the Canadian campus charts. Pujols is the first player in the
history of major league baseball accumulate over 30 home runs, 100
RBIs and hit over 300 in each of first three full years of playing
in the big leagues. Check back in a month to see where Electric
Version will sit as the all-time length leader on the top 50 chart.
—Chris Burland
 
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