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| Judy And Mary - Warp |
| If
you’ll excuse the stereotype, there were a few things that saved Judy
and Mary from being just another three guys with a chick singer.
The most obvious was, as they matured, the contrast between the too
sweet for words pop of the material and the squalling ballistics of
guitarist/songwriter/producer Takuya moved further upfront. At times, listening to “Warp,” the final Judy and Mary album, it’s difficult to believe that having THAT MUCH chaos front and center was as commercially successful as it was: at this point, they were playing stadiums. There’s no better example of the tension between the elements than opener “Rainbow Devil’s Land.” Starting with a sinister, murky, DJ Shadow-esque slog, vocalist Yuki sounds like she’s trying to push her way, face first, into a fever dream. Just when you have the sense that you know what this song’s about, the band throws the ultimate curveball: the chorus comes in, pure sunlight, kittens, and sweetness: it could pass for something off a Disney Kids show. Then into a musically unrelated Guitar God solo. Then back into the muck. After a brief ambient reprieve, “Brand New Wave Upper Ground” starts off with a guitar part that sounds like a refuge from My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless,” then proceeds like a Judy and Mary song does: straight into bouncy bubble pop. And that’s the template. Judy and Mary may have become a bizarre band, but they’re still a pop band at heart, and they know to keep it uncomplicated. The thrill doesn’t come from the gear shifts, the thrill comes from the tension between the gears. Pop always wins out, but it’s fascinating to see just how far it can go before it just plain doesn’t work. The closest the album comes to that lurking potential failure is “Peace,” the ballad that would, in a different (better) world, end the first side of the vinyl. It’s a nice, if unexceptional duet with…someone (Takuya? There’s nothing in the liner notes that indicate who it is.) Anyway, the discordant piano runs feel tacked on, as if the band feels uncomfortable doing a straight ballad. Now, granted, they’ve painted themselves into a bit of a corner on that score, since a straightforward ballad would have stuck out uncomfortably. While it would have needed some sort of edge to sound like it belonged to the album, the piano part ain’t it. Later in the album, we get to the true ringer, a little track called “Motto” (not the English word that means “the saying of a group,” it’s Japanese for “more.”) It’s one of those exceedingly rare, but immediately recognizable commodities: a perfect pop song. It’s got all the elements: it’s precisely three minutes long (the liner notes say 2:59. The liner notes are lying) it’s got enough adrenaline to power a city block, verses that build perfectly up to the chorus, and a chorus that grabs you by the crotch and forces you to sing along at the top of your lungs. I never saw Judy and Mary live, but I KNOW they played this at every show in support of this album. It’s inconceivable that they wouldn’t. It’s also inconceivable (to me, anyway) how something like this would come about. The guitar sounds like a sped up version of the angular, cranky jabs Andy Gill wrenched out of his guitar on the first Gang of Four album, shifting to the simplest of power chords when the chorus kicks in (and oh, does it ever kick in.) It sounds like prime era Buzzcocks covering The Jam’s “In The City” (which the guitar explicitly quotes, not once but twice) with the spastic energy of early Brainiac. It can kill the album if you’re not careful: the temptation to play it over and over until you’re tired with the whole thing is strong. Warp is generally regarded as Judy And Mary’s best effort, and I’d have to concur. The tension between the elements was never stretched as far, with such impressive results, as it was here. Which, if one is inclined to conjecture, might be why this was their swan song: tug of war is not an inherently friendly activity, and while I have no evidence that there was any animosity in the break up, I sure as Hell wouldn’t be surprised if there was. The first, schizophrenic track, impressive as it is, sounds like it the product of two opposing forces, each refusing to back down. It works brilliantly as a song, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see it as a battle between real world egos. After this, Takuya would embark on a brief solo career before becoming an in demand producer, and vocalist Yuki is currently one of the most recognizable faces in Jpop (although her solo material, aside from a startlingly abrasive debut single, has been decidedly less challenging.) But they managed to catch lightning in a bottle before they went their separate ways, and what more could you ask for? |