Now and then the chart stratosphere contains the inspiration of singular talents who come up with distinctly different ideas but, use the same title to sell them to what they can only hope and/or pray is an eager public. Today I'd like to stage what, by all accounts is a "same title showdown" The point of this exercise? To decide which song best represents its signature title. Bear with me on this one. If I haven't lost you in the thick forest, I'll consider that a victory in and of itself. In the red corner we have The Firm, a British supergroup that can lay claim to having Led Zeppelin rock god Martin Page amongst its personnel. His "corner mates" are Paul Rodgers who is best known to classic rock enthusiasts as a former member of Free ("All Right Now") and Bad Company ("Bad Company"), Uriah Heep ex Chris Slade, and Tony Franklin who, if Wikpedia is to be believed, doesn't have any notable past classic rock affiliation. This curious foursome scored one, count it, one Top 40 hit with "Radioactive". According to dictionary definition radioactive material can damage living tissue. Does this brand of "Radioactive" do the sort of cosmic damage that can rattle grandpappy's peacemaker, send young girls swooning, and bring the riot police to full alert? Um...not really. I'm honestly relieved the song doesn't even last three minutes. What we have here is a full fledged one off jam session by a bunch of guys out to prove they haven't grown long in the tooth since Led Zeppelin signed off at the front end of the '80s. Paul Rodgers does still have the pipes that stare deep into your vulnerable zone. The lyrics he has to work with are not as corny as an episode of Hee Haw but nobody should be pointing fingers at someone else's thinly veiled sexual probings.Take stanza two for instance..."There's not a fight and I'm not your captive. Turn me loose tonight 'cause I'm radioactive." Do those words make you want to grab a box of condoms and screw like the world's about to expire? If you said "no" then wonderful, you've just restored a fraction of my faith in human intelligence. Stanzas three and five are contradictory. The third one claims: "I want to stay with you. I want to play with you baby". Fast forward to the fifth stanza and we're told: :I want to stay with you. I don't want to play with you. I don't care if you were an influential part of one of/if not the most influential band in hard rock history. That doesn't give you the right to be the Y-chromosome version of a shameless flirt. Do you want to play with her or don't you? Either your body's prepped to be in the hang loose and unlocked position or it isn't. If you guys think the lyrics make you look like bad boys you need to find some other brains to inhabit because mixed messages aren't the right way to a woman's heart. Tony Franklin does okay keeping the bass pickings just a notch above subdued. Think of a steady drip of water that doesn't manage to distract you from those other things you have to do. It's a reassuring presence but won't linger long after the fade out. Chris Slade uses his drums to keep the trains running on time. You won't find any clever stick change-ups here. Given how sexual the song threatens to be I'm surprised. Even when Jimmy Page does a little playful scrambling here and there that doesn't push the needle of approval all that far from "Snore" to "Identifiable Pulse". I'll level with you. I own the 45. I'm not saying that it's the worst song ever hatched by a member of the human race. I'm just saying the messages we're privy to amount to all blow and no show. No need to sound the doomsday whistle. A pot of strong coffee will erase the memory of this feather soft lightweight platter. In the blue corner, coming to us from one of America's most shamelessly unapologetic gambling meccas, Las Vegas, Nevada, I give you Imagine Dragons who, right off the bat deserve a fist bump for what I feel is a refreshingly cute name. It's all about standing out in a historically crowded marketplace. So...is Imagine Dragons grasping what it means to be "Radioactive"? Well, I'm still not pissing my pants scared but, I have to give them the nod because their "Radioactive" isn't so much a rock song as it is an unsettling invitation to relive the visions of a fifty-foot woman stomping down the corridors of some helpless metropolitan area, each step infused with equal or greater malevolent intentions than the one preceding it. If you're involved in a radioactive disaster situation what you want more than anything is a clear headed alpha dog who is capable of guiding you out of the darkness. Dan Reynolds is steadfast. We're talking slice through creamery butter audible. Ben McKee is guiding you with a bass that won't allow you to forget that self-doubt isn't an option at this point. Dan Platzman's drums come crashing down step by step. He's the thunder to Wayne "Wing" Sermon's fret board lightning. Lyrically, these guys have a better grasp on what a newly minted radioactive person ought to look like. Our hero is adorned with these markings: "I'm waking up to ash and dust. I wipe my brow and I sweat my rust. I'm breathing in the chemicals. Sounds like Homer Simpson on any day of the week not beginning with "S". We're greeted repeatedly with: "Welcome to the new age." Continuing on in this peptic acid unleashing vein we hear: "I'm waking up, I feel it in my bones. Enough to make the system blow." The storyline unfurling here hints at what might have happened had we reached nuclear war with the Soviets. "We're painted red to fit right in" pushes words like "glastnost" and "detente" to the front edge of my frontal lobe. In this mano a mano tilt between classic radiation and a more recent gradation the arms raised in victory belong to Imagine Dragons. It's too early to tell if the Las Vegas tribe will be the latest teen rock fad or sprout enduring chart legs. At the very least they appear to have learned that if you're going to put "Radioactive" on your song list you'd better not piece together a performance that conveys to the masses that your creative juice is stuck on DefCon 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment