Why the Vaccines is the best band ever, at least for this week

I have to admit, outside of a few exceptions, people who create for merely shock value do not impress, especially when the shocking expression is void of any real substance or meaning. I am not overly impressed with Lady Gaga’s stunts. I never particularly bought into Andres Serrano or Robert Maplethorpe. Although I find Gwar humorous and a really interesting show, I never was tempted to become a devoted fan.

Some shocking so-called art irritates me, not because it offends me, but because it is vacant of really any substance or meaning, that its shole raison d’être is its shock and the inherent commercial appeal arising from the controversy. I will never enjoy a Katy Perry song after hearing her “I Kissed a Girl,” a song trivializing the sexual confusion some teens suffer through as they develop into adults. I think it is especially ironic that Perry had formally sought success as a “Christian” recording artist but had failed.

So when I first listened to the Vaccines song “Post Break Up Sex,” my first inclination was to dismiss it as another attempt to utilize shock value for commercial purposes. As the saying goes, ‘Sex sells,’ a commercial trope used over and over again. I was inclined to dismiss the Vaccines as a one-hit wonder, never coming out under the onerous shadow of success of the song.

How wrong I was. I had ended up buying their album, “What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?” because it was on sale, and I wasn’t disappointed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the look of the Vaccines’ albums. They have two full length albums, “What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?” and “Come of Age.” “What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?” is a black cover with the name “THE VACCINES” placed over a picture of what appears to be a girl hugging a male torso. They both wear T-shirts. It is a disorienting picture because of the way it is framed. Are the subjects laying down? Who is the male? What is the occasion of the picture? We can’t really tell.

The second album cover is just as disorienting. It pictures four females gathered together for a portrait for an album cover. They are dressed like boys with T-shirts and jeans vests and jackets. Their hair is mostly fashioned in a masculine style. It is clear that they are meant to be stand-ins for the actual members of the bands. But why not just picture them? And why females? The picture is black and white which gives it a classic look.

Both of these album covers are so well done that it is hard to imagine how they will one day become iconic, like those of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. The album covers have that power to them.

The Vaccines tap into a old vein of rock and roll, born from the 50’s, a garage sound, which suggest loud muscle cars and motorcycles, leather jackets and ripped blue jeans, men with greased hair comb back over the head and accentuated women wearing tight dresses or tights and mid-drift. It’s gritty and sweaty and raw.

When the guitar is used, it is used heavy-handedly, loud and belting. The beat to the songs are also heavy and driven. Together, they are unrelenting and driving requiring you to actively push back against them to prevent being dragged to the floor and stepped upon.

Start listening to “What Did you Expect From the Vaccines?” and you’ll discover that stampeded feeling. Right from the gate, Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra) races at you, giving you no time for any intro or to ease into the album. And then once you have gotten you bearings in the song, it ends and immediately you are thrown into If You Wanna sweeping you in yet another direction. It has all the feel of a punk rawk mosh pit but for a more sophisticated audience.

Laid on top of the sound if guitars and drums and the occasional keyboard is a persistent echo giving the music a sort of depth which can be felt on songs like Wet Suit and Blow It Up, slower songs but equally moving as the quicker paced songs.

And then, thrown together the guitars and drums in one large morass of music, there is the vocals of Justin Young whose thick, deep voice is like amber, clear and golden, slow moving, encompassing everything it touches and preserving it. The timbre of his voice holds a longing, a straining, an emotion that rarely comes through with other vocal artists. You could easily fall into love (or lust) listening to him, like you might with Barry White.

And then beneath all that, beneath the rich guitars, drums, and vocals, there is the message, the expression of modernity in our lives, of how we find love and fail to keep it, the ennui which has crept in to how people handle relationships, a boredom which hides a deeper insecurity about ourselves, or of how we age now or how reject old responsibilities.

Take the songs If You Wanna and Post Break-up Sex for example. Both of these songs handle the difficulties of relationships casually. In If You Wanna, we hear the former lover inviting his former partner back but not with the vehement desire of love but instead of a kind of settling or convenience. The lover points out the flaws of his former partner, relying on the advice of his friends. Post Break-Up Sex describes the simple desire for intercourse without the baggage of the relationship that proceeded it. They are songs for a current generation who have separated out sexual desire and emotional needs.

Wetsuit seemed to mock the aging Gen-Xer’s, who are determined to age loudly. The chorus seems to describe a retirement ad or ad for male enhancement: “Put a wetsuit on. Come on, come on. Grow your hair out long. Come on, come. Put a T-shirt on. Do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong.” The image of those fifty somethings looking to retain their “hipness” and “coolness” come to mind.

Even the song Teenage Icon on the album “No Hope” speaks to a kind of rejection, its message seeming to be that the old notion of role models should be eschewed.

The songs are simple. The tunes are catchy and singable. They remind us of the Strokes or the Hives. But where the Strokes and the Hives burned brightly for a few songs and then faded, the Vaccines discovered a formula which keeps things fresh and moving. There is a gravity to their songs which does not threaten to tear the band apart.

That is why the Vaccines are the best band this week.