Volcano Suns: White Elephant
Saturday is lost classics day, and today’s song is “White Elephant” by Boston’s Volcano Suns from their 1986 album All-Night Lotus Party. Forty years ago, college radio and small college clubs were the only places you could hear the foundations of the music that would become Alt-Rock in the ’90s and change the future of rock and roll. Before Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Green Day became the new face of rock, bands like Volcano Suns were struggling to survive with releases on small labels like Homestead Records and gigs in clubs that could only hold 300 people if fire codes were given a wink and a nod. Volcano Suns weren’t the best of the hundreds of bands who laid the foundation for bands like Nirvana, but they were good enough to get national college airplay and tour the country’s small venues. All-Night Lotus Party was their second album and has been all but forgotten by anyone who wasn’t there at the time. There were 11 tracks on the original vinyl release, and they define the post/cow/indie punk sound of the time as well as any of the other contemporary releases. It is the first track, however, that lives on in the post-punk canon. “White Elephant” is a 3-minute masterpiece of noise. Starting with an infectious harmonic guitar riff, the song grabs you from the start. Then, after the rhythm section kicks in, the first verse builds into an infectious chorus. From there, the guitar riff, lo-fi harmonies, and clever lyrics tear through the final 2 minutes as well as any song of the era. The simple break at the 2-minute mark is almost a throw-away, but it shows that there was a time when even bands who had no chance of recording a pop hit understood that songs should have more than 2 chords and 1 level of intensity and dynamics. I have probably listened to this song at least once every year since it was released (and probably 1,000 times in total), and it still feels more inspired than almost any of the pop hits of the last 25 years.
To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.
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