Advertising card for Powder Monkey by Brooke, Benjamin, and Co., c. 1930
So we've got two indie-rock songs called "The Hook". The first comes from the debut album by Grant Lee Buffalo - the album was called Fuzzy, and to this day I think of it as the album that taught me an important lesson: Don't trust music recommendations from Michael Stipe. Fuzzy was an album I never really connected with, but for some reason I ended up owning all four Grant Lee Buffalo albums - two of them I still like quite a bit. The strongest song on Fuzzy was "The Hook", a jangly, acoustic number with a slippery melody that made the most of Grant-Lee Phillips' sweet drawl. Also, unlike many of the other songs on Fuzzy, "The Hook" had a decent chorus hook. You know when it arrives because Phillips helps out by saying, "This is the hook!"
The eponymous post-Pavement album from Stephen Malkmus, on the other hand, is an album I liked right away and still enjoy. But, where Grant Lee Buffalo's "The Hook" was the bright spot on a spotty album, Malkmus's "The Hook" is a lone clunker in a set of great tunes. It's just SO goofy - the honking horns and cowbell on the intro make me wince every time. Malkmus delivers a talk-sung lyric that is too straight-forward to play to his strengths, and, as the song has no chorus (no "hook"!), there's little but the lyric to focus on. It tries to sound tough, but it comes across like a children's-story narrative. And what's up with that "Bop-pow!" exclamation Malkmus squeaks out as the song ends?
Everything about the song grates on me, but I have to admit that I have more fondness for a grating song from a great album and a great song from an album that MIchael Stipe tricked me into buying.
Winner: STEPHEN MALKMUS
"The Hook" by Grant Lee Buffalo
"The Hook" by Stephen Malkmus
2 comments:
As much as these two songs more accurately depict the kind of music I generally like, there is only one Hook for me--Blues Traveler.
Also, as for Grant Lee Buffalo I picked them up from a Billy Corgan recommendation, and have had a soft spot for them ever since. I made the Grant Lee Buffalo investigation as far as two. I liked 1 of 2, so I match your 50%, and raise you...well, Blues Traveler I guess. Anyway. Hope you guys are doing well. Just wanted to comment as a hello and a "just sayin".
Georgiana! I'm not sure which is more surprising, the fact that you found your way to my blog, or the shocking revelation of your Blues Traveler fandom. I thank you for leaving a nice comment but, unfortunately, I'm going to have to reject your proposal on the basis that the Blues Traveler song lacks the requisite "The" at the beginning.
If I was accepting songs with the one-word title "Hook", my first pick would be the one by the Toms from their 1979 debut album. You can check it out here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mm2dGpbgaWk
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