03.20.2005

When I was 13 I had a crush on two rock stars, Bono and Joe Strummer. (When I was 16 I added Shane McGowan, but I tend to not tell people this as admitting to finding him cute is enough to put one in an insane asylum.) I have always tried to figure out why these two rockers were it for me, when most girls my age loved Duran Duran. I thought they were fine and all, but somehow they just seemed too flighty. Both of my men had one thing in common. They had that fighting spirit. That one thing that impossible to describe.

In the book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, the gist is thinking without thinking and how that is both a deterrent and an advantage. In one passage, people are asked to try and describe what it is about something that they find attractive. As they start to describe the object, the object loses it's magic as the mystery of it's greatness is suddenly diminished in trying to uncloak the man behind the curtain.

Take my two men again; in the 17 years of trying to figure out why I have this deep admiration of these two men, the only thing that I can tell you is this, they both have the ability to write songs that become anthems to the world at large. When Joe Strummer starts in on "London Calling," the way the music moves you forward is an indescribable force with a message of anger, frustration and joy at a world that he was in love with and at the same time trying to expose to the world. So, now that I have discovered my deeply rooted love of anthems I can to to express why it is that Kaiser Chiefs' first single, "I Predict A Riot," has become something that has not left my car for the last week.

The single starts out in the same fashion as Strummer's "London Calling," with the fear of a well-known city building to the fabulous crescendo of the chorus. All the while with the perfect pop hook connected to as certain indescribable kinetic energy that is something that Gladwell's book says would be best left indescribable. With traces of The Kinks and The Clash, the band moves on with a classic organ that some producer felt would be best left in the background slightly heard through the anthemic chorus coming up once again. Then oh joy, is that the handclaps or just the illusion of ones made by the solid rhythm section. Sadly it comes to an end.

And with that end, I hit the repeat button and listen to the whole thing all over again.