Music / Songs

You Need to Listen to this Song Right Now #41

Heavy Rotation — Millionaire, Beady Eye (Different Gear, Still Speeding, 2011)

Heavy Rotation was a music industry term for songs that one way or another got incessant airplay. It referred to the large amount of rotations that a particular record was given on turntables at radio stations. Since, until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, heavy rotation meant increased sales. These were good for record companies and artists alike.

Today, some of us still put records on at home and give them a spin. Most of us don’t. However, the term still applies, just in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.

For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song you come back to occasionally and still feels just as good.

This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.

Here, I aim to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. We should know a bit about the band, where the song fits into its history, and where it fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at, and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?

I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read this than the song itself. To that end, I’ll put a Youtube clip of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I’ll stick a live clip on at the end.

What song is in your head right now? Here’s the one that won’t leave mine today:

#41 — Millionaire, Beady Eye (Different Gear, Still Speeding, 2011)

Everybody who was still paying attention at the time remembers the implosion of Oasis in 2009 and thinks they know the reason for it. The yearslong wibbling rivalry between The Brothers Gallagher, Liam, and Noel, had finally rent the band asunder in an avalanche of fame, money, ego, feuds — and a probably unhealthy amount of not-so-legal substances.

Add to that the fact that the quality of their musical output had been on a downward trajectory for the better part of a decade at that point. One assumes that the finger-pointing would have been rampant.

Fifteen years later, it seems unlikely that the clamour for a reunion based on nostalgia for a time when all this was fields, and the pile of money that will go with it will keep these two apart for much longer. If Guns n’Roses can figure it out and continue to cash in, under not altogether different circumstances, why can’t they?

Since the split, both brothers have gone on to relatively successful solo careers, though nothing on par with the massive mid to late-90s juggernaut that was Oasis. Noel has put out three records with his High Flying Birds, with a fourth on the way soon, and Liam is responsible for another three.

Each is given the once over in earlier editions in this series.

What is less remembered, perhaps because it is less memorable, is the fact that before he went completely solo, immediately post-Oasis, Liam was in a new band. Beady Eye, it was called, and together with Andy Bell and Gem Archer (who both had been in the final incarnation of Oasis) put out two albums in the early 2010s.

It had the sound and fury, signifying nothing, of all of Liam’s laddish swagger, but it was clear something was missing. People may have expected more than a rehash, and Beady Eye never took off.

Still, there were a few gems. One of them is just over 3 minutes of pure pop chewing satisfaction off the first album called Millionaire. It was written by Andy Bell (who was also in Ride) and seemed to recall a summertime afternoon road trip in Catalonia to the home of painter Salvador Dali.

In the video, things kick off at 00:12 with some jaunty chords on the acoustic guitar. The bass and drums kick in at 00:17 to create a joyful noise over which comes Liam’s first vocal at 00:26.

Gallagher has two kinds of voices that he uses: the boundless middle and second finger extended skyward belter of a “Rock and Roll Star” and the sweet soothing, albeit always raspy, and somewhat held back innocence of a “Little James.” This song is from the latter group.

“Sweet Cadaques to Figueres, a forty minute ride

You drive it and I’ll spend it

Looking out the window”

The video certainly helps with the imagery. Who among us hasn’t in real life (or our minds) been on this very ride? Setting sun, the smell of the ocean, wind in your hair, and maybe some grilled calamari on the way.

“Sweet Salvador

The shadows painted, and the light he saw

The way I see it now

So clear, like diamonds on the water”

The sea shimmers, the engine turns over, and the bass just thrums us along, with no particular place to go all that quickly. But I have to admit, I can’t quite make head nor tail of the beginning of the chorus, “Medal with me, and you’ll meddle with yourself,” but I am definitely on board with the second line, “For there is a higher wealth, love them like a Millionaire.”

Maybe there’s a Dali-esque reference hidden there that someone can set me straight on.

On it goes, references to faded glamour, being out of season and being desperate for inspiration, and then back to the lights shining on the water again.

Who knows what it means, possibly about a person, probably nothing all that deep. But if a three-minute choon with Liam’s voice puts me in a planning mood for a road trip in northeastern Spain, then it has done everything that I need it to do in the dead of winter around here.

Here they are, live in 2011 at the height of their powers.

If you have made it this far, it will occur to you that if this is #41 in this series, then there must be 40 previous ones. This is a correct assumption, and here I will link #40. At the bottom of it, you will find a link to #39, and at the bottom of that, you can — if you so choose — be taken to #38. This ingenious system that I thought up all by myself continues all the way to #1.

I really do hope that you like what you have just read. If you want unlimited access to thousands of writers, consider a subscription to Medium. It will set you back $5 a month, and if you use the link below, then I get a slice of that. I’ll have to see about getting this one on vinyl.