Far Out There Character Soundtrack - Tax

Well, last time we had Stilez’s playlist, so it’d be downright weird if I DIDN’T follow it up with Tax. Obvious, anything Tax listens to is gonna have to be happy and boisterous and catchy and straightforward and… um… how do I put this… Annoying. Yeah, I tried to find a delicate way to say this, but Tax’s playlist just might be the most obnoxious collections of songs in this entire series. The bulk of this soundtrack is comprised of bubblegum rock, both the original 60s era version and Britain’s glitter rock version from the 70s. Heck, Tax’s soundtrack is bookended by the theme to The Banana Splits (opening with the original version and closing with the punk cover by The Dickies) and if that doesn’t sum this whole thing up right away, I don’t know what will. Now, I’m not the least bit afraid to inflict infuriating earworms on others in great quantities –and since most of these songs are pretty short, the quantities are great indeed– but it DOES put me in a bit of a bind as I try to write something about them. I don’t exactly do full artist bios in these blogs, but I do try to find SOMETHING about either the artists or the genre that I can tie back into the character’s personality, something beyond “this song sounds like something this character would like.” 

But here? For the bulk of this playlist, there’s really not much to say beyond “Tax likes loud, catchy songs.” Frankly, this stuff is shallow by design, and I’m talking about the faceless studio creations and intentionally disposable scenes as much as the trite, nursery rhyme songs. For the most part, the only band with any meaningful history or personality is The Sweet (who pop up twice, with “Ballroom Blitz” and “Wig Wam Bam”) and maybe, MAYBE The Rezillos (who contribute both a dover of The Dave Clark Five’s “Glad All Over” and “Motorbike Beat” as released under their “we can’t legally use our original name anymore” identity of The Revillos), and neither of them are enough for me to meaningfully tie into Tax’s character. As for the rest, we’re just talking about nonentities like The Ohio Express of “Yummy Yummy Yummy” fame or Mud, the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Sweet who contribute the sound-alike “Dyna-mite.” And God knows there’s willingly no deeper meaning to be dredged out of the LYRICS of these puffs of audio cotton candy, “Baby” by The Sensation just might be the single dumbest song in the English language. Tax likes loud, catchy songs.

…thankfully, that’s just three-quarters of the soundtrack, and the remainder I actually CAN dig into a bit. As you may have noticed over the years, part of Tax’s quirkiness is her brief out of character moments. Despite looking to all the world like Stilez’s comic relief sidekick, we’ve seen plenty of evidence that Tax is actually the smarter and more mature of the two. And she may also have some kind of psychic mind powers if Ichabod is to be believed. In this spirit of all those comics where Tax unexpectedly starts saying things it doesn’t seem like she should say, her soundtrack start playing songs it doesn’t seem like it should be playing, shifting into a more artsy, pretentious direction. It’s still really fast and loud and annoying if you’re not in the right mood, but no one can call it bubblegum. 

It’s also the portion of the soundtrack where the 60s really takes over. Early drafts of the playlist were pretty heavily based on that era, but once I started injecting 70s glitter rock into the mix, that kind of took over (The 1910 Fruitgum Company doesn’t coexist well with “Ballroom Blitz”). Once I decided to try an represent Tax’s weirder side, though, that opened up the door to the amped up freakbeat of garage bands trying to go psychedelic but not quite understanding how. We’ve got Love Sculpture’s arrangement of “The Sabre Dance” (itself a contender for the most annoying pieces of classical music in existence) and the utterly indescribable “Spazz” by The Elastik Band. From the fertile fields of 60s revivalism we have the suspiciously “Spazz”-esque “Skeleton Key” by The Coral, and a cover of “The Loco-Motion” by Thee 50s High Teens, which checks off the “find a way to include a Japanese band somewhere” box on the list (and also, there’s an unusually high number of covers on this one, huh). It’s all still loud and energetic and various levels of abrasive, but there’s unpredictable arrangements and weird tempo shifts and occasional loopy lyrics and other stuff that manage to make it sound wildly unlike all the bubblegum stuff, despite sounding bizarrely similar to the bubblegum stuff.

The 70s get some weirdness representation too, briefly stepping into glitter’s more pretentious and artsy big brother glam rock. No, there’s no David Bowie on this playlist (though just you wait for later!) but we do have a cover of The Beatle’s “It Won’t Be Long” (see what I mean about covers?) by The Quick and their L.A. compatriots Sparks and their signature song “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us.” Again, they’re both big and abrasive enough to exist alongside the bubblegum songs weirdly well, despite obviously being a lot more ambitious than any song built around the phrase “I got love in my tummy” will ever be. And that’s pretty much Tax summed up right there: seemingly smarter than she has any right to be, in flagrant opposition to most of the high-volume evidence.

…also, I should really apologize for all the big dumb hooks your about to get stuck in your head if you click that link down there. In some circles, this could probably be considered a form of abuse.

(This was one of those playlists where it was actually pretty easy to avoid YouTube blocking videos in various regions, since a lot of this stuff doesn’t have an “official” YouTube posting in the first place. Lots of fan rips off of the original vinyl or recordings of TV appearances. That’s the one weird thing, right there. Generally I try to avoid using performance clips for these playlists, since they usually don’t sound as good as those only-technically-videos where somebody just posted the sing with a single picture. For whatever reason, though, SEVERAL of the 70s songs had much higher audio quality in the live TV lips and any purely audio postings. I mean, it’s British pop acts, so it’s not like these “live” performances ever actually had live audio in the first place, but it still strikes me as odd. Then again, we are also talking about one of the most image conscious eras of rock history, so maybe it’s appropriate that the spectacle should be better preserved than the sound. In any case, enjoy some terrible, TERRIBLE 70s fashion! …also, I feel I should confess to spending as much if not MORE time flipping through old pages looking for a good banner image than I actually spent typing this thing.)

Tax's YouTube Playlist