*Definitely* Not a Dweeb

165. THE OFFSPRING, "Self Esteem"
Produced by Thom Wilson; written by the Offspring
Golf 001 1994 Billboard: # 45

Yet another chapter in the continuing saga of loser protagonists in postmodern pop. I am particularly fond of this one, though, since it skewers in its oft-repeated title one of the most counterproductive post-hippie sociological concepts that the Donnie Darko generation had shoved down their throats while growing up.

As usual in Loser Pop, the listening experience is based in a double-edged irony. The (presumptively male) listener is supposed to identify with the narrator and feel superior to him at the same time. Unlike Beck's "Loser" et al, however, this lyric has a progression and a payoff. When the narrator gets to that last "little bit," we begin to realize that he may not be quite as dumb as we thought. Even if he's still far from boyfriend material.

A Moment in the Global Dreamtime

226. CHURCH, "Under The Milky Way"
Produced by The Church, Greg Ladanyi, Richard Wachtel & Waddy Wachtel; written by Karin Jansson & Steve Kilbey
Arista 9673 1988 Billboard: # 24

For a certain subset of pop-descended, art rock-derived bands during the 1980s, this is the single that everyone was trying to record. As in a Big Country single, you have a guitar (actually an e-bow) doubling for a bagpipe. As in a Hooters single, you have the attempt to use a melodeon to denote authenticity rather than calculation. Throughout, you have the indirection and vague dreaminess that characterized so many Brit and Anglophile bands in the post-New Wave, pre-Alternative era.

But the Church weren't Brits, of course. They were Australians, which I suspect is part of the reason why they actually pulled it off. That and the fact that this song is a collaboration between frontman Steve Kilbey and his girlfriend Karin Jansson. Allegedly, it's about a club in Amsterdam called Melkweg, and I can't help wondering whether Stew of Passing Strange fame frequented the same club, since he and Kilbey seem to have been in the city around the same time. In other words, this is a song by an Australian and a European about a place in Amsterdam that could only have been produced in the U.S. by one of the great L.A. sidemen (Waddy Wachtel). Because of all this, the song is global and particular at one and the same time.

It is also very much the product of a specific global cultural moment. You might not know what specific place produced this record, but you could never doubt what time. This is why, when Richard Kelly wanted to introduce his audience for Donnie Darko to a familiarly strange high school in the late 1980s, he chose to use this song. We've all been then, even if we haven't been there.