A Year of Blind Spots: Sunshine Hit Me

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Sunshine Hit Me

The Bees

2002

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Sunshine Hit Me by the Bees:

The clue may well lie in the title, but if the Bees' debut were a season, it would most definitely be summer. As the first notes of the horn-soaked "Punchbag" shimmer out, you can picture the sunlight breaking through low-hanging branches. And all across these ten brief tracks, Sunshine Hit Me retains that lazy, sun-soaked vibe.

Part of the album's success can be attributed to the comparatively old-fashioned recording techniques. Duo Paul Butler and Aaron Fletcher (and a seemingly ever-changing cast of musicians) recorded the album in their shed on the Isle of Wight. The worn-in, worn-out sound of their vintage equipment makes tracks like the dub-tastic "No Trophy" come alive with period fizz and sparkle. Lesser producers would have emerged from such experimentation sounding overly clever or revivalist. Yet these determined men make this fusion of their favorite music (Sixties beat, reggae, smooth jazz) modern and vital.

Single "A Minha Menina" (an Os Mutantes cover) became a summer radio smash. For a few months, culminating in a nomination for the UK's prodigious Mercury Music Prize, it seemed that every hipster owned the CD with the masked wrestler. (Peter Lloyd's visuals, based on the elaborate stage costumes of Mexican wrestlers, became instantly identified with the band—and, appropriately enough, their chaotic stage sows.) They went on to play as the backing band for Damon Albarn's Gorillaz project, and became producers of choice for many bands in England, but Sunshine Hit Me remains a wondrous time capsule of master producers finding their creative feet.

What Joe has to say about Sunshine Hit Me by the Bees:

My thought process for including the full blurbs from 1001 Albums was that it might take the pressure off me (a pressure that I, as always when it comes to the blog, put on myself) to write long and coherent essays. I want to continue to give myself pressure to take the foot off the pedal slightly, even if it doesn't always work out and I continually get wrapped up in my own shit. So, beyond the blurb you just read, let's just have some disparate thoughts today, okay? I don't think the Bees would mind.

But the first thought is related to that. I don't think the Bees would mind because I hear a hazy, drug-fueled psych adventure, like it's sort of all over the place, and so shouldn't an incoherent album be denied a coherent blog post about it? It's really fun, though, is the thing. I wouldn't say "catchy" but it somehow burrowed into my brain anyway. I think if you're a weirdo psych band who's playing it cool, you either have it or you don't. If you don't have it, your shit is weird for weirdness's sake, and that's boring. If you have it, like the Bees have it, then the weirdness and jumbled mess can be exhilarating.

Second thought is that I don't think I would've ever heard of these guys if I want paging through the book. I don't think I appreciate that fact as often as I should in this column. How, even though 1001 Albums has its obvious flaws, it also is exposing me to a lot of cool and/or interesting stuff that I never would have known about otherwise. I'm glad I listened to the Bees, even if I'm American and this did not pass through my formative years hearing tunes from this album soundtrack various British TV commercials (so I'm told on Wikipedia, which isn't as skittish about exposing clear British favoritism in 1001 Albums). Sure, there are plenty of duds, but ain't that always the case with music? You take the good with the bad.

Third thought was how much "worked with Gorillaz" made sense to me after reading that in the blurb. Even if the blurb overstated it—the only Gorillaz music I could find that featured the Bees was the B-side "Bill Murray," which I feel like I must have heard at some point, and which I am aware of the existence of, but I couldn't hum it right now if asked. Regardless, it definitely connects some dots for me in terms of "who they sound like."

I wouldn't say that the songs sound like Gorillaz songs, but I would say that these two bands share a similar aesthetic, that aforementioned haziness, the laid-back coolness, the ability to try hard while appearing not to be trying at all. For a while, before reading the blog, I was thinking that they sounded like the Earlies, another British band (whose These Were the Earlies is a seminal album for me, despite its criminal absence in the words of this blog over the years), to the point that I was expecting to see some shared credits there (despite These Were the Earlies being important to me, I honestly know a much about the Earlies as I do the Bees). But no, the Gorillaz connection makes even more sense.

Fourth thought is definitely a stray observation, and has more to do with the blog than the Bees, but I'll say it here anyway. I believe truly that I "get to know people" as they write more and more for the blog. Even if the majority of what is written is album reviews, I still get a wonderful sense of how people tick. I also slowly build an understanding of their "musical tastes." It allows for that beautiful shift from "I'm recommending this song because I like it" to "I'm recommending this song because I know for sure that YOU are going to like it." The latter is hard-won, through hundreds of thousands of shared words on a blog.

For those who read this blog like I do, and chance a listen through Sunshine Hit Me by the Bees, you'll hear that this is a total Gloria Album. Our very first interaction as friends was about Peter Cat Recording Co., and I can comfortable slot the Bees in that space next to that band, perhaps not geographically but definitely by sound and pace and vibe. Somewhere between Peter Cat and Gorillaz, at least (and NO, I'm NOT just saying that because they all have animals in their names).

Isn't that cool? I like thinking about that, about what other people like, and how, and why. I'm glad the blog gets me there sometimes. And I'm glad I get to think about it in a blog column that I'm realizing now purposefully obscures my own tastes. I wouldn't say the Bees fits into "my taste in music." This doesn't define me. I'm just exploring some new-to-me shit, just trying to determine if anything pops. The Bees are not in my wheelhouse, and that's a good thing.

I could've probably fashioned all this into a coherent blog post after all. Fuck.