Okay, last one. I promise. More recent, Daniel Johns finally healthy, and the album this comes from is bizarre, but I love it. Enjoy!
This video is incredibly screwed up, but this song is awesome. I love it. It’s so sarcastic and mean. And fun to sing.
Another good Neon Ballroom era video. The song is great, too—very much the feelings I often have regarding relationships.
Is it bad that I love this song? I mean, it’s about depressing, screwed up things—anorexia and stuff. I shouldn’t love it. But it so beautifully encapsulates the experience of mental illness. It’s so perfectly done. And the video’s visual metaphors are great.
Since I’m a bit tipsy, you’re all getting Silverchair vidspam. <3
Another video, for a couple of reasons: I’m not quite recovered from the plague of upper respiratory infection, and I kind of doubt my abilities to coherently discuss music; also, I have been thinking about how sad it makes me that I never did get to see Silverchair live. And this is one of my favorite old Silverchair songs, and one of the ones I most wanted to experience live.
Reasons I will Always Love Silverchair Part 2
My last post highlighted the brilliant ways in which Silverchair captured the horror, the sense of pressure and darkness inherent in mental illness. I don’t think I could write enough posts to fully explore the genius of Silverchair’s oeuvre; particularly in the case of the last three albums, there’s just so much to work with. “A lot to unpack,” as one of my University mentors would phrase it.
I’m going to move forward in Silverchair’s body of work and try to re-approach a thesis I left dangling last time: as Daniel Johns has become healthier and happier, his music has become more difficult to “get.” And I think there’s something intrinsically valuable about that experience. Read on if you’re ready for weird:
Reasons I will Always Love Silverchair
I know that, in a previous post, I kinda made fun of Silverchair for some odd/nonsensical lyrics, but I’d like to turn the spotlight of this post onto their more shining moments.
Neon Ballroom is by far one of my very favorite albums of all time. Daniel Johns has said that he feels as though Neon Ballroom was the first “real” Silverchair album; that the two previous had been sort of “our high school band.” I can sort of see it, though songs on their second album, Freak Show, certainly showed some of the promise demonstrated in their later work.
Neon Ballroom is part of a theory of mine: Daniel Johns was at his most coherent, lyrics-wise when he was at his most miserable. This isn’t to say he’s any less talented now, or anything like that; it’s just that the lyrics in the songs on Neon Ballroom are extraordinarily clear. There’s still metaphor, still a little abstractness, but the intent of the songs is very apparent. I’m going to look at only a few of the songs, but I definitely recommend checking out the whole album.
