couple weeks ago i wrote a post after my buddy jon and i saw St. Vincent in Portland. a week ago, we saw TV on the Radio in Boston. and so the sequel to that post suggests itself! today we’re making a TVOTR mixtape.
shoutout to jon — who writes about movies/tv here, about comics here, and does a podcast here. also shoutout to my guy mackenzie, who helped us coordinate a decent parking situation at the venue (and who has a new song out today with his band little miss echo). and shoutout to tunde adepimbe, kyp malone, and the rest of the crew from TVOTR (including the great dave sitek, apparently no longer involved), one of the best rock bands of all time.
i’m not confident on how to position this post, because it’s hard to gauge how popular TV on the Radio is these days. am i introducing you to their work, or are we looking back together? they’re a mostly inactive band, apparently not writing or releasing new music. their set at Roadrunner (good venue!) leaned heavily on their first three records, which is fine by me as this list does, too. but it was a packed house, and a really diverse age distribution in the audience. (mostly dudes, though). jon said he thought a big part of their legacy comes from their legendary letterman performance, which goes viral on twitter once or twice a year. i genuinely believe that song, “wolf like me,” is the best rock song of all time. which probably gives away this list a little!
there’s a great comment on that youtube video linked above: “these guys look like a bunch of high school science teachers but they rock the fuck out.” i know that’s right!
“Golden Age” - TV on the Radio’s third record DEAR SCIENCE is a slick, glittery party. it’s got heavy beats, blaring horns, and lots of traded lead vocals between the active, emotive tunde adebimpe and the comparatively stoic kyp malone. malone’s on the mic in this one, and the way the music swells and churns around his steady falsetto is one of the band’s signature sounds.
“Killer Crane” - nestled among their catalog of wall-to-wall bangers, TVOTR also has some delicate, ornate ballads in the repertoire! i was surprised this one made it into the live set just because it is so quiet and delicate. but that chorus really hits.
“Will Do” - this is the romantic mid-tempo ballad for the list, and it can serve as a stand-in for some of their others. like, “You,” for instance, if that’s more your jam. there’s two on every record.
“Young Liars” - the best TVOTR songs have a real power — a kind of cosmic energy. “Young Liars” has that in spades — what it lacks in lyrics that make sense (“But will psychic ability/Clinch the nativity?/Or simply diminish that flinch?”) it makes up for in swagger and spirit and groove. for my money this one has some of the best shared vocals between adebimpe and malone.
“Mr. Greives” - this is a cover of a Pixies song that’s twice as long as the original. this is made possible by swapping out black francis’s "LOUD quiet LOUD” hollering for what instead sort of sounds like a satanic barbershop quartet? it’s beautiful and haunting.
“Staring at the Sun” - to me, this song is the sound of TV on the Radio. that big, blaring guitar, that deep, droning bass, pounding drums, and adebimpe unflappable at the center of it. it feels a little like an incantation. It’s also apparently based on a Sufi poem from the 13th century! I guess every one of those words rang true like it was written in their souls!
“I Was A Lover” - i’ve been listening to this song for almost 20 years and it still breaks my brain a little bit. i think it’s that crazy, choppy synthesized horn loop that forms the backbone of the song. it’s such a huge and incomprehensible sound. this is another kyp malone lead vocal number, for the record, as is the next one. a lot of kyp representation on here!
when prince died, i always said that it was kind of like when superman died in the comics in the 90s. he wasn’t replaced by any one person, but his legacy lived on in a bunch of other figures. St. Vincent inherited a piece of Prince’s (purple) throne. so did Janelle Monae, so did D’Angelo. TV on the Radio, too. these guys are also children of Prince, and you can hear it here.
“Crying” - every TVOTR song is incredibly textured, but some of them are so heavy you can’t always appreciate it. what i love about crying is how much space there is in the song, between all of the interlocked, syncopated guitar licks and synth parts and rhythms. the horns in the chorus tie it all together and then everything goes crazy at the end. a very satisfying close listen.
“Ambulance” - is it weird to say that a song with lyrics like “I will be your accident/If you will be my ambulance/And I will be your screech and crash/If you will be my crutch and cast” is one of the most romantic songs of all time? it’s all in the phrasing. when tunde sings “believe me when i say,” i really do believe him! it’s a song about forbidden love — circumstances that keep our narrator “where i belong: all strung out in song.” relatable! it’s a miraculous song.
“Wolf Like Me” - ok, here we go motherfuckers. i think this is the most propulsive, sexy, and thrilling song ever written. the pounding beat comes in, is met by a pounding bassline, and it only lets up at the bridge so that it can come back even harder. the lyrics are also wild and funny — framing your lust for someone as so animal that it becomes supernatural. “let me lay waste to thee,” tunde sings (hot). and by the end of the song, they’re “howling forever” and “writhing under your riding hood.” come on. that’s just tremendous. but to me, the key to the song is the incredible way our narrator surveys his transformation: “but god, i like it.”