23. "I Can't Pretend" by The Barracudas

A lot of people spend a lot of time debating what is and isn't power pop. There's only one thing I'm sure of: if a song has a tight little boogie-sounding bit and then breaks into giant folk chords on the chorus and then goes back again, giving one the impression of listening to Chuck Berry turning into the Byrds and back three times in as many minutes, it's power pop.

Elsewhere, damn am I getting sick of drum loops. I thought about doing this one a little differently, but the truth is, it's so close to what I do with Skates & Rays that I thought I ought to do it "correctly" to make a point, and then when The Machine gives me something by Teenage Fanclub I'll record that one on a toy xylophone played backwards and re-recorded off of a cellphone speaker in my shower. Okay, sorted.

Oh, and a prize to anyone who identifies whose vocal style I'm aping on the word "obsession".

Personnel:

Rex Broome ~ Everything

"I Can't Pretend" performed by The Barracudas

"I Can't Pretend" performed by Rex Broome

_____________________________

POSTGAME ANALYSIS:

This seems to me to have been the first time I went all-out to use GarageBand to simulate a real live rock and roll band. When I conceived of 39-40, I'd thought that I'd probably be getting weekly live band performances from Skates & Rays rehearsals, but by this point it had turned out that the band was doing very little due to scheduling issues, so I felt I needed to establish my credentials at what I did "best".

As I recall, it wasn't that hard, but it took a long time, and I was very pleased with the results at the time. In retropect, the drums sound pretty weedy... those are all drum loops that came packaged with Garageband because I hadn't figured out how to make my own drum loops yet, nor had I spent much time working out compression and effect treatments to unify loops from different sources. Still, it's not bad.

EASTER EGGS:

The vocalist I'm ripping off on the "it's an obsession with you" line mentioned in the challenge above is, of course, Richard Butler of The Psychedelic Furs. It still sounds screamingly obvious to me, but I like it.