u/thewickerstan

Per what I said the other day on r/indieheads...

This is such a banal observation, but I was thinking about The Sonics the other day (i.e. iconic garage rock group from Washington, kind of the forefathers to grunge in some degree), and on the cover of their debut album, the drummer is (almost defiantly) posing in a fuzzy cardigan. It came to mind again when I saw pictures of him up close.

Now, you can't always "Point A to point B" these things in a linear fashion and Kurt Cobain could've gotten his love of cardigans from a plethora of different things (the twee fashion of the K-records calvinists, maybe from his own childhood), but it did make me wonder if The Sonics played a roll in that. Even the texture of the sweater itself looks similar to the mohair ones Cobain seemed to have a penchant for.

It very well could just be a coincidence, though, albeit an amusing one.

- A big one I always think of is Elvis Costello planning Emotional Fascism as the title of his third record before his label pressured him into the more commercial (checks notes) Armed Forces. I dig Cats and Dogs over Trust too. The latter is apt given that the entire album is arguably a meditation on a lack of it, but for some reason, Cats and Dogs to me seems to nail that feeling of utter chaos covered in the album.

- "Come as You Are" is pretty iconic, but "Memoria" is so pretty, well, pretty! The elusiveness of it also feels aligned with Cobain's patchwork lyricism. "Nine Month Media Blackout" is also just as cool, if not cooler than "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter".

- Margaret at the Guillotine would've been punk as fuck and makes The Queen is Dead almost sound like the title of a Disney Channel original movie.

- The Lemon Twigs were originally going to call A Dream is All We Know the wonderfully whimsical Unreality in my Kitchen and I'm still flabbergasted that they didn't tuck that puppy away for something else!

What say you, r/music?

Random shower thought I had involving Kurt Cobain, The Sonics, and cardigan sweaters...

What are some working/original titles for songs and albums that you preferred to the eventual titles used?