Alvvays - Tom Verlaine

"Cigarettes and old regrets piled in a stack."

Album: Blue Rev [3rd album]
Genre: Shoegaze, Synthpop
Album Release: October 6th 2022
Length: 3:27
Producer: Blue Rev & Shawn Everett
Vocalist: Molly Rankin
Label: Transgressive Records

Live on KEXP in 2022


Live in 2024

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Credits

Details

• The Tom Verlaine from the title references the singer of the New York band Television, whose 1977 release 'Marquee Moon' was one of the most influential punk records of that year. It's romantic, syncopated guitar sections inspired band such as Sonic Youth and Pixies to take the sound to new heights of sophisticated instrumentation mixed with poetic lyricism.
  
  'Blue Rev' has a fuzzier, more guitar-centric sound than the indie pop of Alvvays earlier work and the groups singer Molly Rankin told KEXP that while recording the album she would imagine Verlaine sitting in a leather jacket and judging her.
  
  The album has one foot in the past and sounds like the jangly synth music that was popular in the eighties. Rankin has listed some of her favourite songs as 'Black and White' by The DB's and 'He's on the Beach' by Kirsty MacColl. The influence of the songs, from the clear as glass vocals, guitar melodies and striking key changes, are apparent on a first listen.
  
  Alvvays influences are such a key part of their music that they name their songs after them. It's difficult to get a more direct influence than that. Not only is 'Tom Verlaine' names after Tom Verlaine but 'Belinda Says', from the same album, is named after Belinda Carlisle, which is what I mean by the band having one foot in the past.
  
  The other foot though is rooted in the present of their own sound. Rankin told the Guardian that she wants to sound like Morrisey and Teenage Fanclub but what comes out is different. Creativity comes from channeling your influences through yourself and yourself is an inextricable part of that. It's your inspiration processed by the way your own particular brain works and its an unusual truism that one persons experience of a song is different to anothers.
  
  If we all heard music the same way there wouldn't be any debates about which song is better it would be an objective fact, but music is and always will be subjective which is what makes it great.
  
  
• 'Blue Rev' was the name of an alcopop that Rankin and MacLellan drank as teenagers in Canada.
  
  
  
• Add 'Tom Verlaine' to the Molly Rankin doomed relationship song list. She sure does seem to be unlucky in love. This song features the line "when you walk away it better be for good."
  
  Rankin has likened her songwriting to Tracyanne Campbell's from Camera Obscura because they both share "a fondess for the pathetic perspective."
  
  

Artwork