Let's Reconsider- EMF

Hey kids! Welcome to a new feature on this humble blog. I'll never forget that day in the early mid 90's while bored and high in Larry's car and he could not believe I had never *really* listened to Devo. He put on a cassette of Hardcore Devo Volume 1, a now long out of print collection of their 4 track demos which was a pivotal moment in my musical development. Really? The guys who did "Whip It" and "Through Being Cool," the inspiration for Weird Al's "Dare to be Stupid" were actually analog synth geniuses and punk pioneers? Well, yes they are. And if we never had that bored evening driving around Syosset I would have never gotten it.

Well, we don't have cars and suburbs and pot anymore. We have blogs. So this is a new feature that will occur with no regularity. I will pick a band that I love that, unlike other blogs which try to feed you obscure music, you *have* heard of but would never think to really listen to.

Today's inaugural band is EMF. We ALL know "Unbelievable" and the renaissance that song has experienced with Stephen Colbert obsessing over their re-recording of the song for Kraft Cheese's "Crumbelievable" campaign.

But have you ever really listened to the band? They were a great punk band with lots of synths and a decent hard edge. Schubert Dip, that fateful breakthrough album had some great songs, notably "Girl of an Age" and "Travelling not Running," but for me the recording that blew me out of the water in High School was The Unexplained EP, so startlingly out of print that Amazon doesn't even have a listing for people to sell it used. But it was AWESOME. Only four songs, EMF used it to showcase that they were a much different band than one runaway hit single, and they WERE.

Submitted for your approval are the two bookends of this 4 song masterpiece. First up is "Getting Through." For fans of modern day synth-punk ranging from Kasabian to Primal Scream to the Chemical Brothers, you should feel right at home. Listen to how wonderfully the hard panned synth on the left blends with the big guitars hard panned to the right. Then we move right into their cover of "Search and Destroy." Yes, the Stooges song. As it is below I'm not even going to try to explain or sell this to you. If you are reading this, you most likely know me and know how much I love the Stooges. How much I love Raw Power. How much I love SEARCH AND DESTROY. This is the best of the untold covers of this song by virtually every band ever. Yeah that's right. The BEST. Fire up the best headphones you have and enjoy the exceptional production in this 320k encoded Mp3. Go on. Enjoy. Treat yourself.

Let's reconsider EMF.

Direct download links. Right click and save!
Getting Through
Search And Destroy