Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXCV--The Vines: Ride

I keep a notebook which lists all of the songs I've featured here on Friday Night Jukebox, and on any given week I usually have the next two to two and a half years of posts already lined up.  Which means that on occasion I have weeks like this week, in which I listed the tune o' the week quite some time ago--which makes the week all that much better as I get to visit an old friend I haven't seen in a long time.

The Vines formed in Sydney, Australia in 1994, and by the early 2000's had people proclaiming them as the second coming of Nirvana or the Jesus of pop music, resurrecting rock from the dead.  While they didn't quite live up to that hype, they've had a nice run (especially in their native land), and continue to record and tour to this day (though lead guitarist/lead vocalist/songwriter Craig Nicholls is the only remaining original member).  Over the course of their career they have released seven studio albums, with the first three being the most commercially successful, including a top ten in both Australia and the U.K.  They've also released twelve singles with the best being a top twenty in the U.K.  They've won an Aria Award (Australia's equivalent of our Grammy Awards), and they released their latest LP in 2018.

"Ride" was released in 2004 from their second album, Winning Days.  The single failed to chart here in America, but hit #44 in Australia and #25 in the United Kingdom.  

If you like seventies punk and nineties grunge, "Ride" is a song for you.  Opening with some righteous jangly guitars, Nicholls sneers through the stanzas that lead into the jubilant (and simple) choruses.  There's plenty of jangly guitars throughout, a guitar solo that recalls one Kurt Cobain, and some blasting drums to drive the song until its end.  It's two minutes and forty-three seconds of pure power pop punk--and another fine entry into now nearly three hundred of my hallowed hall of fame songs.

Lyric Sheet:  "That's the start, the middle, and the end/Aren't you glad the universe pretends..."

Enjoy:

187,000+ Dead Americans

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee