i first learned about the jesus and mary chain from the 2000 movie, high fidelity.
but first, context. the jesus and mary chain are a band from east kilbride, scotland, formed in 1983. the band revolves around brothers william and jim reid, who share vocal and guitar duties. they’re known for combining pleasant 60s-70s style pop melodies with extreme noise, and their 1985 debut psychocandy is considered an important predecessor to the shoegaze genre.
in high fidelity, there’s a scene where jack black is talking to a customer looking for echo & the bunnymen vinyls, and he states that the jesus and mary chain continued what echo & the bunnymen did in the early 80s. i didn’t listen to the jesus and mary chain until i heard this song in the 2004 movie lost in translation. then i decided to listen to it again this week.
“Just Like Honey” was the jesus and mary chain’s highest-charting song and one of the singles on psychocandy. the guitar is a lush, shrill blast of noise that weirdly compliment jim reid’s low, melodic, vocals. even with the extreme noise and the melancholic lyrics about yearning, there’s something childlike and comforting about the song, something about its structural simplicity that makes it memorable and even catchy. on the surface, it’s strange experimental alt-rock. but look beneath it, and it has a pop, almost nursery rhyme-like structure underneath the layers of reverb and distortion. this is what, i think, makes it more interesting than plain art rock/shoegaze.
restraint- and by that i mean resisting the urge to create something too complicated or unfocused- is sometimes an overlooked part of making music, and “Just Like Honey” is a good example of restraint being done right: complicated enough to be interesting, simple enough to not be distracting or exhausting. it lets me focus on the guitars, and personally, i like it!
