https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEPPnANgO4Q
Emma Pollock used to be co-leader of the indie pop band the Delgados, who released five interesting and tuneful records, each with some directionless songs here and there, but also occasional bursts of spectacular inspiration -- one of their songs by Alun Woodward will show up later on this countdown. After 2004 they stopped making records, devoting more of their time to record production (especially drummer Paul Savage) and running their own record label (especially bassist Stewart Henderson). When the band broke up, she could have fallen back on her honors degree in Laser Physics and Optical Electronics. Instead, she applied her scientific and technical skills to audio engineering, Pro Tools, and making albums full of precise, measured, careful, and often-lovely songs under her own name.
I listen to many, many, many records. This is a choice I've been happy with since 1990, but the overflow can make me erratic about keeping track of artists I like but don't love, so I can easily imagine the career of an ex-Delgado under a new name slipping past my notice. Her 2007 debut single "Adrenaline" made sure that didn't happen.
Five years earlier, an annoyingly successful band called Coldplay, whom I simply had disliked to that point, had released "Clocks", with a simple but wonderful piano-and-drums hook, rippling with beats divided into a fast 3-3-2 pattern that combined the strengths of 4/4 time (steadiness, beats evenly divisible by the most usual number of legs per human) and triplet-based 6/8 time (the headlong rush of seeming too impatient to round out the expected measure). Coldplay were still Coldplay, so "Clocks" didn't do much from there -- it was just a nice blur for Chris Martin to sigh over, indistinguishably worried about the dark, drowning, tigers, clocks, homesickness, and William bloody Tell.
"Adrenaline" didn't steal the hook exactly, but it remade it (same drum beat, similar piano melody) and turned it into a *song*. Drum emphasis changed and changed again, steering the music to fit new ideas; instruments dropped out to focus attention on Emma's words, then rushed back in. The chorus music was different from the verse music, also unlike "Clocks" -- more frazzled, too, not the obvious choice of more anthemic. The lyrics were focused. Taking adrenaline rush as an actual topic, not merely a title selected so radio programmers knew which track to cue, it describes the feeling in detail; it also expresses urgent, conflicting feelings *about* the feeling. "Adrenaline" is built on momentum, but it's a thinker's song, every detail meaningful. I think it sounds much, much better that way: I like a song that ebbs and flows, and uses its full run-time, where Coldplay cause me to tune out. I like a singer who enunciates. It wasn't a hit. You can claim it's coincidence if you like.
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"Hug the Harbour", from three years later, is the song I've picked to represent Emma Pollock, though. It's not that different, as songs go. It's more staccato to "Adrenaline"'s legato. The drums thump and gallop and quick-march more; the keyboard has spent more time being influenced by marimba, later bells, later accordion; the bass line repeats a single low-growl note dozens of times in a row to build surprising tension at one point. It strikes me as her anthem, though, in a way a song about internal chemical buzz cannot.
"You should have hugged the harbour, avoiding all disaster". "All the people who are dear to you/ are sitting right behind and trusting you". "You do not know your up from down, you see/ your inner ear a liability". "I met a man and he said to me/ 'It's only with your heart that you can see'/ But I confess I have to disagree". It's deeply un-rock-and-roll, and unmistakably sincere. The refrain goes "My trust lies in your precision".
Precision is at the heart of Emma Pollock's greatness: there are legions of guitar-bass-drums-vocals pop songs in the world, many of them good, yet so very few that are crammed with perfect little details built to reward repeated play. Precision is at the heart of more important things, too: doctors-in-training memorize endless details, pilots spend hundreds of hours practicing with consoles full of switches, and when they're not in the mood to remember their training later, things go wrong. I dislike lots of things about Hillary Clinton, but of all the candidates in either party, she was the one who'd devoted her life to mastering difficult topics, and as Donald Trump has remarked with occasional astonishment -- although no humility, since he assumes everyone else is equally stunned -- being president involves a variety of difficult topics. She'd've been okay at the job, I think; she would have forced herself to be.
On this particular axis, if I'm honest, I'm more like Donald than I am like Hillary. My writing aims for precision, because I can sit down and re-check it; I'm a good math teacher, because I'm taking constant feedback from my students to make sure the things we're doing are clear to everyone; but in the conduct of my daily life I can forget almost anything that isn't either a habit, or something I wrote down. I fall behind on things and make impulsive decisions about which ones to catch up on first. I'm not anyone you'd ever want to live with. But that's why I at least *try* to develop habits, and try to write things down: I'll be more like Emma Pollock to the degree I can.
"Wait a minute", you might say. "Rock and roll is far less important than medicine or piloting or presidenting or locating your keys. Screwing up the details is fine". And I agree! There are 406 songs ahead of this one in the countdown, some bounding ahead with irrational risks. But getting the details right is a worthy enterprise. And an astonishingly rare thing to sing about.
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