Oblivians – Popular Favorites (1996): Elvis Gone Snowblind
one-two-three-fuck
America is best not when it is exercising in being the world’s twisted moral police, but the America we love is honestly and fiercely degenerate for our pleasure. This was expressed in the rise and global conquest of rock’n’roll with its openly sexual, depraved and violent rhythms and lyrics while simultaneously being rooted in a more saccharine and folksy tradition. Not only can you map a good part of imperial American history on to the life of Elvis, but the downfall of the Empire correlates with the death of rock’n’roll and ascent of manufactured cultural jingles and nihilistic cacophony after being hopelessly stuck in the bloated, addicted “Vegas King” phase.
The last great wave of rock’n’roll that’s held up the charmingly degenerate torch took place from 1988 to 2001 and was labeled ‘gunk punk’ by Eric Davidson. Next to bands like the New Bomb Turks, Dwarves, Mummies, Lyres, The Gories and many more that are gathered under the term, the Oblivians are a standout band within the last American rock’n’roll frenzy. Oblivians are Greg Cartwright and Jack Yarber of Memphis, Tennessee, who in 1993 in Ramones-like fashion became Greg and Jack Oblivian, later also to be associated with Reigning Sound, The Tip-Tops, Compusive Gamblers and other sublime groups.
The Oblivians are the sound of the Memphis of our dreams: heartbroken fury in fuzzed-out explosions of mean venom, Elvis gone snow-blind. Their second album Popular Favorites is a menace, nothing but a massive bomb and an absolute evergreen that kicks off with a fantastic cover of Brownie McGhee’s “Christina”, a perfect harbinger for the ride to come: a single-toothed ride full of mischief and high-energy fueled by joyous evil. The Oblivians tell desolate and depressing stories of another patriarchate, one which turns out to be worthless because there’s nothing to gain other than the endless headaches and low-life it generates; mean tales of beaten up young characters from a raw blue-collar world, the den of depravities that Elvis should have never left but cultivated further. Tales of men untouched by middle-class aspirations or success, impulsive men giving their best but failing to be as it is expected from them, men burning with passion and consequentially both fucking over and getting fucked over.
There’s “Guitar Shop Asshole“, a demented, ongoing frustration about having no money and spitting your anger at the local seller who’s got all the objects of your desire. Or “Pinstripe Willie“, a barely cloaked envy jam that’s watching girl-magnet Willie from the sidelines („All the chicks on the scene / You know they’re digging his motor machine“), or “Drill“, a demented answer to the Stooges’ classic about adolescent ennui, “No Fun”: „I got my drill / I found my thrill / I was bored / So I bored holes / Inside the walls in the cheap motel“. Gems like “She’s a Hole” leave little space for imagination but are pure trailer park poetry painting vivid pictures of the debauchery going on underneath the confederate flag that’s backdropping the Jesus shrine, “She’s a hole / I keep falling in / She’s a hole / Filled with other men / Don’t got a lotta trouble, don’t got a lotta time / When I get home, gotta stay in line / She’s a hole“. There’s a variety of retarded topics on Popular Favorites, but as usual the Oblivians are best when their songs are dealing with heartbreak, and in their trademark fury and rage.
“He’s Your Man” starts of with a roaring „Goddamn!!!! that sets the tone for a love declaration that always sounds angry within the Oblivians’ social-realism : „He’s your man, does what he can / He just loves you, baby, yeah / And works all day, brings you his pay / Oh, you know he’s your man / Well, you know that somebody is thinking of you / All goddamn day“ – every line a scream. But the Christina’s and Susie’s are not innocent either and at least maliciously clumsy in a life where dignity is an alien concept: they fuck those men up, bring them down, and whore around too much while their men are earning their measly day laborer dollars. “You fucked me up, you put me down” is the melodic and visceral roar of a man that’s finally had enough „And now I tell you, baby, I won’t be around“. “Bad Man”, a break-up song that’s so pretty underneath its obscuring layers of reverb that it reveals itself best in the Lo-Fi toy-piano version by Greg Oblivian & The Tip-Tops, strings a similar chord. The song starts with the immortal lines „Time was in a vacuum / When I wanted to be free / Yeah, yeah, but now my adolescence / Has all but left me” and is the driven meditation of a young man who has to move on and search for more. The lyrics come with a crude twofold realization which denies any repentance or guilt:
I’m a bad man
I’m a bad man
I’m a bad man
But I’m too good for you
The very special thing about Oblivians’ songs and lyrics is that they arise from pure anger and unfiltered emotions without the retrospective transfiguration or reconciliation. They are unforgiving. They are savage and real. To quote the head-savage Iggy once again, “If I had wings, I wouldn’t do anything beautiful and transcendent”. I’m in for the crude flight.
by Saliha Enzenauer