![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/semisonic_fsf.jpg\")
Certain music becomes an exemplar of the time in which it was made and released. If the artist involved is lucky, that music not only evokes memories of that period, but also withstands the test of time. To qualify for the latter, the music must somehow avoid at least some of the trappings of its era of origin, earning the descriptor timeless<\/i> and escaping the epithet dated<\/i>.<\/p>\n
From my perspective, Semisonic\u2019s 1998 album Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i> meets all of those high criteria. A three-piece, Minneapolis-based Semisonic featured Dan Wilson on guitar, bassist John Munson and Jacob Slichter on drums. Wilson and Munson had played together for years in the critical darling (but commercially overlooked) Trip Shakespeare<\/a>; Semisonic was \u2013 whether its members planned it as such or not \u2013 a more commercially-friendly refinement of their old band\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n One hesitates to employ the word formula when discussing music-making \u2013 especially when one has great admiration for the musicians and music under consideration \u2013 but there is a kind of template for many of the songs on Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>. In some ways, it fits into the \u201cdon\u2019t bore us \/ get to the chorus\u201d approach used so effectively by Raspberries in the early 1970s. Semisonic\u2019s songs on its second album are models of economy; the hooks come right at the listener (often in the first few bars) and the memorable choruses come around quickly.<\/p>\n Much of Trip Shakespeare\u2019s endearing quirkiness is absent in the music of Semisonic, bit all of that earlier band\u2019s charm and knack for melody remains intact. The lyrics \u2013 all by Wilson \u2013 are a near-perfect balance of cleverness and repetition. Take \u201cSinging in My Sleep\u201d as one of eleven examples on Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>. A verse includes a quick reference to the Capulet family, familiar to lovers of Shakespeare\u2019s Romeo and Juliet.<\/i> That\u2019s not the first time Wilson would ti his hat toward the bard; he did it I nhis old band (at least once) as well.<\/p>\n And the latter is exemplified in what \u2013 in less assured hands \u2013 could be a risky approach. The chorus of \u201cSinging in My Sleep\u201d is little more than a sentence with that phrase, repeated several times. But against the backdrop of the soaring band arrangements \u2013 thank the band aided by producer Nick Launay for those \u2013 the repetition is a pleasing feature, not a bug.<\/p>\n The album\u2019s opening track, \u201cClosing Time\u201d was a substantial hit on its original release. Most casual listeners won\u2019t know much of Semisonic\u2019s body of work beyond that tune. And while \u201cClosing Time\u201d is a fine song in and of itself \u2013 nearly a power ballad but with more verve and spirit than that type of song can typically muster \u2013 it\u2019s not the best track on Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>. That honor goes to one of two other tracks.<\/p>\n \u201cNever You Mind\u201d is one of the most uptempo cuts on the album, and it\u2019s a showcase of all of Semisonic\u2019s myriad strengths. The playing and arrangement are superb:finely nuanced yet powerful. Wilson\u2019s writing is clever and memorable, with quick references to classic Star Trek<\/i> masterfully woven in. And Wilson\u2019s vocal is a thing of beauty, demonstrating his seemingly effortless ability to climb to his highest register and then back down again. Munson and Schlichter provide expert vocal support throughout. Piano \u2013 a key component of many of Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>\u2019s songs \u2013 is front and center, and (coupled with Slichter\u2019s taut yet splashy drumming) Munson\u2019s thundering bass lays down a wonderfully thick bottom end. A middle-eight worthy of Lennon and McCartney As it races toward its premature end, \u201cNever You Mind\u201d scales heights of pop grandeur that stand up well against Jellyfish, another of the late \u201890s best acts.<\/p>\n Whether it was Semisonic\u2019s intention nor not, \u201cThis Will Be My Year\u201d can be thought of as a kind of cousin to the Zombies\u2019 \u201cThis Will Be our Year.\u201d The Semisonic tune is a slice of transcendent pop, with a keening synthesizer line snaking through the song. Slichter\u2019s insistent snare drives the song forward, forward, forward while Wilson spins out his wordy lyric. When the breathtaking yet simple and straightforward chorus comes around, you believe what Wilson sings.<\/p>\n The rest of the record is more than strangely fine as well; \u201cShe Spreads Her Wings\u201d is a lovely John Muson showcase. The acoustic guitars-and-string-section \u201cGone to the Movies\u201d is achingly beautiful. \u201cDND\u201d sounds like a single but that description applies equally well to many of the other cuts on the album. In fact, three singles were release from Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>, and all three charted: \u201cClosing Time\u201d (#1 Alternative, #13 Mainstream), \u201cSinging in My Sleep\u201d (#11 Alternative, #31 Mainstream) and the anthemic \u201cSecret Smile\u201d (#21 Alternative).<\/p>\n To the shock and dismay of fans \u2013 this one at least \u2013 Semisonic\u2019s third album All About Chemistry <\/i>failed to perform commercially in the U.S. Despite a single (\u201cChemistry\u201d) that rivaled the best from the second record (and wickedly clever cover art), it wasn\u2019t as well-received. Semisonic broke up (or went on hiatus; you pick) shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n Happily for fans of some of the qualities that made Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic special, John Munson teamed up with Matt Wilson (Dan\u2019s brother and a founding member of Trip Shakespeare ) in the \u2013 here\u2019s that phrase again \u2013 criminally overlooked Twilight Hours. To date Twilight Hours has released two albums (Stereo Night<\/em><\/a> and Black Beauty<\/em><\/a>) that are sure to please fans of any of these Minneapolis-based musicians.<\/p>\n In late 2018, Geffen\/UMe released a 2LP version of Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i>, in honor of the album\u2019s 20th<\/sup> anniversary. That release marks the album\u2019s vinyl debut, and includes three non-album b-sides. Those tracks are very much of a piece with the rest of Feeling Strangely Fine,<\/i> but they\u2019re ultimately not quite to the creative height of the album-proper. Of course that\u2019s a high standard: two decades after its original appearance, Feeling Strangely Fine<\/i> is truth in labeling: it describes how it will affect listeners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Certain music becomes an exemplar of the time in which it was made and released. If the artist involved is lucky, that music not only evokes memories of that period, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,64,65,73],"tags":[1930,2269],"class_list":["post-15774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-semisonic","tag-trip-shakespeare","cat-51-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15794,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15774\/revisions\/15794"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}