TS: Wonderwall vs Unfinished Sympathy

'Unfinished Sympathy' was voted as best song ever by Kiss 100 listeners as early as '94 or so. Other than that I guess there was consensus among British dance mags in general that it represented for convenience a clutch of ideas and aspirations about how they saw themselves and their relationship with music+culture. But the song is/was too obviously anthemic and a lot of this love felt somewhat forced as a result. It is/was a great track tho.

There was an article about this in yesterday's oh why do I bother.

ban ILM

Given that Bryan Adams was number one for 968 weeks in 1991 it's hardly surprising that something like "Unfinished Sympathy" would underperform in the singles chart of that period.

Similarly, "Wonderwall" was kept off the top by the Singing Squaddies.

But Blue Lines and What's The Story continue to sell (and occasionally chart) to this day.

I think that explains the mechanics of the thing.

I do like Massive Attack, but I have never understood all the fuss about "Unfinished Sympathy". Sounds like a completely ordinary R&B-pop song to me. The genius of Massive Attack rather lie in such dark and moody songs as "Protection" and "Safe From Harm".

"Wonderwall", to me, is obviously the better song but it was not at all a typical 90s effort.
And unless only British efforts count, I would guess a lot of people would go for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" too.

Here we go...

STAKKA BO!

do the bartman

I kind of agree with Geir re: Massive Attack

kids today *sighs heavily*

I've only heard Unfinished Sympathy like three times so I could be v. wrong.

people preferring darkness/moodiness boring shockah

bright merry colours of nuremberg etc.

"Unfinished Sympathy" got all of that attention because of:

1) the soaring string arrangement;
2) the fantastic singing;
3) the outstanding percussion;
4) the melancholy sentiment.

It really is an encapsulation of a specific emotional instant, made even better because it really is desperation and loneliness matched with a euphoric beat that makes you want to jump and dance; "Safe From Harm" and "Protection" are arguably better songs (I would argue that at least one of them is), but both are also navel-gazers in terms of physical response. The fact that "Unfinished Sympathy" so effortlessly melds these incongruous emotional responses into a cohesive unit makes it really special and memorable for me and I assume that other people are, consciously or not, reacting to it the same way. Furthermore, it did so using a template not very widespread at the time it came out; people who came to it later did so in the context of having some exposure to host of imitators/homages/pastiches of what that song did, so it's understandable that its impact would have lessened over time.

Yeah I guess I kind of missed out on the whole uniqueness thing. I'm listening to it again and it's a decent chill-out song (good for driving in rain maybe) and I do like the strings + percussive hook. The drums are a little too slick '90s breakbeaty for my tastes but that's not unforgiveable, they work against the strings well. The vocals I think are ultimately what I don't "get" about the song, but then again, I suck.

sorry to sound like the lex here (tho lex probably likes this song)

'Protection' is Massive Attack's finest single (w/finest video) by a street.

at the time the inferior Oakenfold mix (starting with the extended piano loop) of 'Unfinished Sympathy' got more mainstream radio and TV play than the album version and they even did this version on TOTP iirc.

Oh...at first I thought this poll was matching the Verve single with Wonderwall - what was that one, Bittersweet Symphony? And I was going to protest because they totally ripped off (sampled) the riff for that from some other earlier thing which I can't now recall. But now that I have figured out what is being talked about, I'll vote Unfinished Sympathy without a moment's hesitation.

Ironically, Wonderwall vs. Bittersweet Symphony would probably be a far more appropriate comparison.

Or Unfinished Sympathy vs. You Got the Love.

(Unfinished Sympathy CLEARLY pisses all over Wonderwall, by the way, and anyone who thinks otherwise has more than likely got exactly the opposite musical taste to me and is a big smelly wrongun)

You're too kind, Chap. Anyone who thinks otherwise has absolutely no musical discernment and must be hounded off ILM as viciously as possible.

(/Jonathan Swift)

Although US is better, there is a case for Wonderwall should you be brave enough to make it.

I am in agreement with that, thanks offed.

"Wonderwall" = a thousand times better (catchier, hookier, better beat, etc.) than "Unfinished Sympathy." Perhaps you have to be not-British to think there's anything even remotely "brave" about saying so.

[actually, i got that last part completely backwards...if you're not British, I mean to say, you might scratch your head over why saying so would be considered an act of bravery.]

Ok, Wonderwall is, perhaps, more traditionally catchy than US, but BETTER BEAT? You should be locked away.

fwiw I much prefer US to Wonderwall!

sw00ds, you are the crown prince of utter wrongdom.

I'll take "Unfinished Sympathy," but no way could I dance to it.

I mean, you could SHUFFLE in a melancholic fashion to it, but not DANCE.

I'm serious about the beat. I love the beat in both, to be honest, but "Wonderwall"'s beat has this enormous, wide open sound I love (and don't hear very often). I've always said the beat on the second Oasis album is what makes it a great album, but most people tend to think I'm joking. (Heh, or the "crown prince of utter wrongdom"!!)

...sung to the tune of "the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging," of course.

Fucking hell! Sung to the tune of what?? I LOVE YOU for saying that! Sung to the tune of the Grand Parade, god I love you.

I have never understood people who say they can't dance to "Unfinished Sympathy". Can you also not dance to "Back To Life" or "Strike It Up"?

Oh please. "Wonderwall" is, was and e'er shall be CRAP!

AHahahah

So Alex, I've been trying to figure this out...why didn't Killing Joke do Live Aid in 1985? Did no one ask them?

HI DERE, "Back to Life" and "Strike It Up" have much more obvious dance beats. I mean, maybe my feets are funny or something, but I agree with Alfred that, good as its beat is, "US" isn't really that danceable.

god, my "feet" not "feets"!

Can you also not dance to "Back To Life" or "Strike It Up"?

"Strike It Up" seems friskier cuz of the sequencer and synth stabs; and although I love it I've never hit a club at which "Back To Life" has played.

i like wonderwall i said why once:

today i have been thinking about Wonderwall. it always seems so stark to me like someone who can't communicate their emotions trying to say something but being hampered by inante aggression or lack of vocabulary there's a conflict between the lyric (Noel searching to say something in a head filled with kids tv and beatles lyrics) and delivered almost callously by the Liam. it's like an autistic love song; "i don't know how" indeed. or as jon savage i think pointed out it's class with the Gallaghers; thick northerns of irish descent, chavs perhaps in the parlance of the moment, lacking education recycling the past not in the art school post modern detritus fun park essex of damon albarn but the cultural wasteland of the fall. The North Will Rise?

I remember on my fathers birthday, there were quite a few of us there listening to the chart to hear the inauguration. it missed, number 2 robson and jerome were number one but looking back how thin the line is between the two both were populist ballads only autism to differentiate, that’s unfair. Looking back Common People to me looks like the high water mark. Blur had razed the ground at the Brits the old guard (annie lennox et al) seen of by the descendent of the '80s underground (perhaps not ideologically) after the high summer (as a child i believed it all this was 1966 or whatever this was better than that cos the nostalgia hadn't really kicked off well not in my world, i went to bed early, I Love 1970 + didn't start for another few years, that’s when the walls closed in on me) wonderwall is the first slide on the slope down. live aid to live 8 with britpop in the middle, wonderwall the sticky wicket the moment that the most popular drone rock band ever reinstated englebert humberdinks victory.

-- elwisty (elwisty), Tuesday, July 5, 2005 3:37 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

Songs on "What's the Story" that are better than "Wonderwall":

Hello
Roll With It
Some Might Say
Cast No Shadow
Morning Glory

thinking 'wonderwall' is better than 'unfinished sympathy' means you're saying that you prefer liam gallagher's voice to shara nelson's. THAT is wrong.

people unable to dance to 'unfinished sympathy' - the rest of us can't help that you're bodily retarded

i love US obv, but there are about 5 other massive attack songs i prefer. 'safe from harm' might be my favourite.

thinking US is a dirge - wtf? have you even listened to it? it's fucking BLISSFULLY euphoric.

I usually dance like I'm bodily retarded, Lex, if that helps.

I could dance to "Unfinished Sympathy" but the beat doesn't drive me to dance. It's much less danceable than "Back 2 Life" and "Strike It Up." Hell, it's much less danceable than "Sadeness."

blissfully SAD you mean

(xpost)

[man, can't keep up with this]

I used to play "Strike it Up" AND "Back to Life" all the time in the clubs I worked at back in 89-91-era, and both were huge (if you could dance to "Keep on Moving" you could dance to "Back to Life"). Didn't play Massive Attack, but it wasn't really known on that level, I don't think (i.e., it didn't really have mainstream crossover appeal in North America).

I like all those Oasis songs too, MC, except "Cast No Shadow," which is even too much for me (as someone who generally forgives Oasis for most of their indulgences).

I could dance to "Unfinished Sympathy" but the beat doesn't drive me to dance.

I agree with that.

The centrail failure or rejection of the greatness of Britpop lies in the lazy assumption that all music is meant to dance to.

Damn it, just as this thread was getting good.

The thing about Do The Bartman is that, in your mind, it sounds great, but when you listen to it again it's a bit weedy. I remember Deep Deep Trouble being better, but that may be a result of the same phenomenon.

I was using that as a moderately ironic example of the kind of thing which did get to number one in that era instead of Unfinished Sympathy or Higher Than The Sun or Smells Like Teen Spirit or anything else that was even half-decent.

i wonder if i was mixing do the bartman up with this

http://www.discogs.com/release/84178

So, how many other number one hit singles were inspired by Wild Man Fischer? "Do the Wild Man" indeed.

"terrorising people wherever i go, it's not intentional just keeping the flow"

For some reason "The Importance of Being Idle" is about the only Oasis song I can stand to listen to now.

Good video.

Can you believe it? A good Oasis video?

It's also the best song they've done in an eternity. But the vid helps, yeah.

Five points automatically deducted for the use of Autotune.

CampaignforRealMusic.jpg

Autotune is for people who can't stand other human beings.

Importance of Being Idle is above par for latter day Oasis, though it is tonally and conceptually suspiciously similar to I'm Only Sleeping. The video loses about a million points for making you look at that smug Rhys Ifans prat's face for four minutes.

xpost

Hence my defending it.

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glasshouses.jpg

nowthennowthencalmdowncalmdown.gif

onlyplaying.bmp

goandsitonthestairs.wav

I think there's a certain group of people who automatically vote for "Unfinished Sympathy" as the best single of the 90s every time one of those polls is done. Interestingly, that group includes Dannii Minogue.

That makes its "universalism" seem a lot stronger/broader than it actually is. And it perhaps unfairly bugs me how it kind of stands in for an entire discourse which becomes interested in hip hop/dance/(insert scary genre here) only at the precise moment when it produces its first "classic song". I'm not implying soem sort of geirbot agenda here: "Unfinished Sympathy" (like "Gorecki" or "Sour Times" or a whole host of comparable stuff) blew my mind at 13/14 years old for precisely this reason... it wouldn't have even occurred to me to look past it to the stuff it grew out of.

Also perhaps I'm being unfair in the sense that people were also reacting to its genuinely novel modernist sheen. It's perhaps the first electronic record to sound truly like the nineties (though I'm open to correction on this point).

I don't like "Wonderwall" as much by a long stretch, but I feel warmly towards it after having been in a mileu (online and IRL) which has dismissed britpop out of hand for so long.

"Safe From Harm" beats all comers. And "Your Love" beats that too.

It's not a race (think about it).

I was more thinking of a wrestling match actually.

The other day I found a Jamie Principle album from 1992, Steve Silk Hurley behind the controls.

I thought that combination would be yoga flame for all time but it's a bit underwhelming actually.

Well, you know, 1992.

True, but i thought it would be like Erotica but gay!

Wait, that sentence doesn't make sense...

also, he has a fabulous shock of blond hair on the cover.

my A&R dream right now is hooking Jamie up with Lindstrom for cosmic sauna anthems.

"There's Poppers In My Dark Room and I Need A Hot LadyBoy"

It's perhaps the first electronic record to sound truly like the nineties (though I'm open to correction on this point).

This was a relatively easy thing to do, considering it came out in 1991. (Also, "Daydreaming" preceded it by four months and Seal's "Killer" and "Crazy" were also released before it.)

(IOW my Wikipedia pages, let me show you them)

"There's Poppers In My Dark Room and I Need A Hot LadyBoy"

-- Tim F, Tuesday, 12 June 2007 11:04 (7 hours ago) Link

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

To be honest if I had to plump for one band that summed up the (British) 90s I would go for Massive Attack straight off, without even having to think about it.

I'd go with co.uk

Or maybe Orange Orange. One of them.

maybe Prodigy

Blur. My honest answer. Shoegaze, intelligent pop music, pre-millennial angst, experimentation, growth, cultural responsibility, the lot.

Yes, but no awesome breakbeats.

I second Blur. They were part of several important UK movements. They may not have been dance until the 00s, but other than that they were baggy, shoegaze, britpop, and then this britpop backclash-influenced flirtation, first with low-fi and Beck, then afterwards with krautrock.

Okay that is certainly up there in the top three stupidest most naive posts I have ever made.

you have a way to beat "Mozart, Bach, Davis and Orbital", Matt, I wouldn't worry

Actually tell me more about that important UK movement 'Krautrock'.

Blur also summed up what was bad about British 90's culture, in their meaningless media-constructed 'war' with Oasis and their place amongst the pantheon of Britpop, alongside Dodgy, Kula Shaker, James, and The Longpigs.

You forgot Mozart.

And Orbital.

James weren't britpop!

neither was do the bartman

although, in a way, perhaps it was

C'mon Matt, I even signposted that one a couple of posts beforehand!

everyone really under-performing on this thread. uninspired, workmanlike. disappointed in all of you.

-- blueski, Monday, June 11, 2007 1:31 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Link

# Bart performs the song and dance in the 1998 episode "Simpson Tide" to prove that he is still cool to his classmates. However, the only response comes from Ralph, who makes an unimpressed quip of "That is so 1991".

Sounds Britpop to me.