(100) Days of Soundtrack: #17 – Loud Lucy – Breathe

Loud Lucy’s Breathe, their only album as far as I can tell, is so well known that it does not have a proper picture on Allmusic or Amazon. It doesn’t exist on Spotify. Sorry, guys, I wish I could give you that extra dime. It’s lead single, however, is possibly one of the greatest simple rock songs of the mid-90s. “Ticking” was reason enough to buy this album once upon a time, and it was reason enough to dust it off to finally spin it through.

What I remember most about Breathe as an album is my sister having listened to it. I’m rather confident I never did listen to it myself, because I recall distinctly that she weighed in on it, declaring it mostly rather boring and not very good. This daunted me from exploring deeper for many years, and finally getting to the full disc, I can’t say she’s wrong. Boring may be a bit strong, and not good may be more accurately worded “nothing special,” but it’s not unfair. The album trades largely on being just better than middling. “On the Table” is fine, but standing alone it suggests a very limited range. “I’ll Wait” is fine, but doesn’t offer much in terms of content. “Fleas” is just a song, and despite being confusing as to why it exists, it’s no more or less listenable than the rest of the album. That’s really the crime of Loud Lucy; besides not being particularly loud, they also have no one real strength. The vocals aren’t strong enough to be the hook. The music is too basic to be the hook. The lyrics are simple and therefore not particularly hooky. “Ticking” is the exception and not the rule. The rest of the album is composed of tracks which are obviously of “Ticking”s family tree, but only one song got all the dominant genes.

By definition, of course, this is all music I can get into… it’s what I grew up on, and it feels good to revisit these sounds. “1000 to Five” is the only other song I recall ever hearing from this album, and it is a highlight as far as being memorable, but I feel like “Not Here” pushes my buttons far better. It feels more complete in some ways, where “1000 to Five,” despite having the far better hook, feels like it needs a rounder sound to compliment it. If we’re viewing this through a post-grunge lens, “Over Me” is also a highlight; it has a simple but effective wail to it, which gives way to a confusingly softspoken, slowed down chorus, but nevertheless feels like a spiritual companion to some Pumpkins work… perhaps a little brother as opposed to the full fledged glory of Corgan’s feedback, but an admirable riffing nonetheless. The changes on “Awaiting Time,” especially the one-two step to the chorus, keep the song interesting, and the the sleepy “Meet You Down” is intriguing for how out of the box it is from the rest of the album. It sounds like an early summer on a lush riverbank, maybe doing some fishing, but not doing a whole heck of a lot either way. So there. Sometimes not doing a heck of a lot can be great. For Loud Lucy’s album, it just leaves us with one more relic of an era, but it’s a nice era to go back to sometimes.

Comments are closed.