0.1.2 - Come together
I don't know quite what it is that has made the idea of the Supergroup such a compelling idea to me. If I am honest, this is the first time I'm seriously trying to unpack it for myself, so you'll forgive me if this gets a bit rambly. But without doubt, for as long as I have known that the idea of the supergroup was a reality, I've found the promise of them to be a compelling one.
I assume it's something to do with the way we, as humans, tend to group and understand things by the boxes we put them in, and the mental associations all that carries with it. We understand that George Harrison is a part of the Beatles, and when they are together they form a unified whole and it sounds like this. We build a framework of understanding, but like all mental conventions, the possibility of those expectations being subverted piques our curiosity, draws us in, makes us ask...what if? What if this brownie had chilli flakes in it? What if this New Japan wrestler showed up in All Elite Wrestling? Why is Charlie Cox playing Daredevil in this Spiderman movie - I never thought that could happen?
The mental appeal of the crossover seems to be universal, though I worry it marks me as particularly basic in my enjoyment of things. However, let's not make this an attempt to pick through the garbage of my self doubt, otherwise we will be here all night - instead, we will accept that since an early age, the idea of "What if this musician in this band I like made music with other people? What would it sound like? Why not make music with the band they are known for - are they trying something new, different, innovative? I must know" is a reasonable opinion, not worthy of further introspection.
In some cases, supergroups are ones of necessity; 2000's rock supergroups Audioslave and Velvet Revolver are just Rage Against The Machine and Guns n' Roses with different vocalists because the original vocalist left/retired/moved on to pastures new, and the band wasn't ready to break up - for some reason, I can't get as excited about those as the concept of the true merging of talents from other, successful bands into one unified whole. For the record, I love Audioslave and will almost certainly do a triple-bill on their discography at some point this year, but they're not a supergroup, despite what Wikipedia says.
There are still bands out there which clear my lofty mental bar of what a true supergroup is - a merging of talents from across multiple bands into a unified whole, to create a unique sonic pallette from which to paint brand new masterpieces. And I have, again and again throughout the forty or so years I have been listening to music with some degree of intent, sought out these collaborations - and friends, I am here to tell you that like most crossovers, sometimes they're just , you know, trying something.
That's not to say the reason behind the experiment can't be a noble one - Temple of the Dog exists because the members of Soundgarden and Mother Love Bone wanted to release something to commemorate the death of their friend Andrew Wood, the lead singer of Mother Love Bone and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden's old roommate - and in doing so, coincidentally brought in members of a nascent Pearl Jam to form the ultimate Seattle grunge crossover. It's an album which feels like a wake; the kind of where everyone has had ten beers and has got to the point of telling funny stories about the dumb shit they used to do with the friend now gone, but in musical form. It fulfils the promise of sounding a little like Soundgarden, a little like Pearl Jam, a little like Mother Love Bone, often all at the same time, on top or around or next to each other. It's the platonic ideal of the supergroup album, forged in bad times, as so often the best music is.
But good intentions and touching remembrances aside, the primary motivation for the formation of a Supergroup seems to be that professional musicians like making music, often know each other socially, and then they hang out and play together enough that someone says "we should make an album" and they do just that. I'm aware that could sound a little reductive, and I am certainly painting with a broad brush there, but so rarely does the intrigue measure up to the reality.
How did this end up being the mini-topic of my day's listening today? Slightly happenstance, slightly some mental management. It's been cold and bleak and returning to work isn't my favouite thing in the world, and initially I was thinking, as I do from time to time, about death while I was at work, and picked Temple of the Dog to listen to because of the aforementioned theme, and the fact that Chris Cornell only recently passed away. Originally I was going to follow it up with Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens and A Crow Looked At Me by Mount Eerie (which is bonafide the most devastatingly sad album I have ever listened to) but that I realised that as topics go, it wouldn't make for a light, breezy exercise in either reading or writing, and the sun came up outside my window and I got over myself, and pivoted away from what was probably a bad idea.
But having already listened to Temple of the Dog, I was left wth a thread to pull on, and many directions to chase it. Then I remembered the boygenius* album from last year and how much I had enjoyed it, and the supergroup theme emerged, and here we are.
I was predisposed to like The Record from the outset. Julien Baker's Turn Out The Lights had been my favourite album from 2017 after I was turned onto it by listening to an episode of the Podcast Song Exploder about her song Appointments, followed by Stranger In The Alps the following year from Phoebe Bridgers (I was late to the party with Phoebe Bridgers - somehow she slipped through the net of new music discovery I've tried to weave around myself for several months before I heard Motion Sickness somewhere I can't even remember, and then I went back and listened to the album solidly for about 4 weeks, much to Catherine's annoyance). I knew of Lucy Dacus but had never sought out her stuff (and still haven't, a weird deliberate gap in my musical knowledge that feels intentional, but I can't put my finger on why I've never gone and listened to her music). It's hard to say that there is anything spectacularly new going on here - the sad girl sound all three women are associated with is amplified only slightly by their proximity to each other, but that doesn't make the album any lesser a work - its still filled with great songs about having no idea what to do or how to live your life without circling the edge of constant disaster and its angry/confessional/therapy session aesthetic still does it for me. Less of a supergroup then, more of a merging of three forces operating in the same musical theme. Felt like an inevitability then, still does now.
I enjoy Them Crooked Vultures but it only just clears the supergroup bar for me; Dave Grohl may no longer be the nicest man in rock and roll, but he just can't stop being in bands. In reality, I like this album because it exists as almost an alternative universe version of Songs For The Deaf, one of my all time favourites; Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age plays with Dave Grohl on the drums on that as well, and Them Crooked Vultures substitutes Nick Oliveri on bass for John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, passing over the supergroup bar just barely. Like Songs For The Deaf, this feels like a soundtrack to a doomed road trip culminating a terrible fate for all involved; I can't tell you that I can pick out the difference between the Bass players here (sorry Bass Player fans); Homme and Grohl drive this album, much as they did the one from 2002.
Because of the nature of my schedule today, I ended up with time to listen to another album. I'd already listened to the 3 I had in mind, but I needed something to stay on theme. I considered The Travelling Wilburys, Vol. 1, which was the first record that told younger me that supergroups could exist at all when I heard my dad play an album which had Roy Orbison AND George Harrison on it. But having time, I went to Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't missing something obvious. Instead, I found something, well, stupidly intriguing, as only Supergroup lineups can be.
Note I clicked through the top entry because I had to be sure it was actually the kid from MMMBop
Somehow, members of 80's alternative rockers Cheap Trick, 90's Alt-rock-metal band Smashing Pumpkins, and 2000's Pop-Rock kinda-one-hit-wonders (name a song Fountains of Wayne did which isn't Stacy's Mom, I'll wait) Fountains of Wayne formed a band with one of the kids from Hanson and made a record and published it just like a real band. This was the ultimate supergroup test, the true culmination of "I have to know what this sounds like" curiosity and so I listened to all 39 minutes of it to stand before you and say, its kinda ok at best middle-of-the-road radio friendly pop rock with nothing to say and weirdly just reminded me of Status Quo.
The songs on Tinted Windows one and only self-titled album have generally sub-100k plays each, which means even the Hanson fanbase (I assume one of those exists still) aren't interested in exploring this particular side project. In spotify terms, this is the professional musician equivalent of performing at the local YMCA for a crowd of 12 people, most of whom you know and told to come. It's not bad, or offensive, nor does it elicit any kind of strong emotion apart from bemusement at it's existence. It gives me a weird pleasure to have found and heard it, just for the novelty, but there can be no more fitting example of what the reality of the Supergroup album is and can be - a powerful idea; a featherlight execution.
*I know that the all lower caps styling is cool (though it seems to have been superseded recently by the even less pleasant ALL CAPS STYLING), but writing proper nouns without initial capitals makes my skin crawl and I just had to say that here before my head exploded.
