Stop Sleeping: Silverchair – Young Modern

Do you know how many people I’ve told about this album?

531

A couple of months ago I nominated in our roundtable poll and I was the only one who voted for it. This is a sign that I need to tell more people. So listen up you Autralian-hating piece of shits.

When I tell people of about Silverchair 92.4% of the time they repulsively say: ‘That band from the 90s?’ and 7.6% of the time they sarcastically sing ‘Fat boy, Wait til tomorrrrrow.’ Well….FYI…. Silverchair has come a long way from Frog Stomp, an album that they recorded at 16 years of age.

Need Convincing?

Fact: the album title, Young Modern, was the nick name Van Dyke Parks gave to Silverchair front man, Daniel Johns. Yes, the same Van Dyke Parks who collaborated with Brian Wilson as a lyricist and composer on one the greatest albums in rock history: Smile. Parks also happened to compose the orchestral arrangements for 3 songs on this album.

Still need convincing?

Daniel Johns is one of the best singers in rock music. He has recently surpassed Chris Cornell on my peg board of jiz-worthy voices. His range is as broad as Brooke Hogan’s manly shoulders. Listen to him boast some serious vocals on Reflections of a Sound. The lows rattle your core while the highs alternate from shear power to a sweet falsetto. Queue the music video.

Need more convincing?

The songs are creative, fresh, and interesting. Silverchair creates great pop rock with a slight twist of abstractness that contains outstanding harmonies, killer guitar hooks, and excellent orchestral arrangements. Listen to the fresh song arrangements on If You Keep Losing Sleep and in the monstrous 7 plus minute ménage-a-trios Those Thieving Birds (Part1)/Strange Behaviour/Those Thieving Birds (Part 2). Queue Music Video:

Seriously, if you still need more convincing then I suggest you take a q-tip and clean the shit out of your ears. Young Modern is an insanely great album by a talented group of Australians who are unfairly chained to an average mid 90’s hit that left us with such questions like: What town doesn’t have any bathrooms? And why is the water from the tap very hard to drink?

Let’s not hold this against them.