God’s Balls -1989 Sub Pop Records
Salt Lick/God’s Balls -1990 Sub Pop Records
8-Way Santa -1991 Sub Pop Records
Inhaler -1993 Giant/Warner Bros. Records
Live Alien Broadcasts -1994 Futurist Records
Infrared Riding Hood -1995 East West/Elektra Records
TAD were one of the first grunge bands that originated in Seattle whose music was influenced more from 1970’s metal rather than the punk music that influenced other postpunk grunge bands.
The album "8-Way Santa" includes songs Candi and 3D Witch Hunt. Throughout the whole song, Candi, there is a driving guttural bass, guitar and drum pushing the song along. The distortion on the guitar and bass is rough, course and gives an uneasy feeling of angst and hatred. The band consists of just distorted guitar and bass, drums and vocals.The lyrics are telling, screaming and begging for “Candi” to leave the singer alone. The issue being the interpretation of who, or what, “Candi” is; the practice of smoking marijuana in grunge circles was definitely not unheard of. Possibilities of the meanings of these lyrics could be a bad relationship with a partner called Candi, a song about addiction to drugs or other substances wherein the word “Candi” plays an apt part. The words to the chorus are:
Set me free!
Let me be!
Set me free!
On your leash,
Under your thumb,
Look at me and what I’ve become.
Something that seems to play a major role in grunge music, namely the singing, is the ability to sing in a way that not all words are discernable. Sliding between notes is also very common. 3D Witch Hunt starts off very different to Candi but still has the sliding vocals and undiscernible words, although not to quite the same extent.
This song was a bit more confusing to interpret correctly as the lyrics are often ambiguous and the music doesn’t offer any extra insight into the meaning of the text. My initial observations were that the song appeared convincingly catchy despite the dark undertones of the text. Thomas (Tad) Doyle, singer/guitarist, provides some surprisingly semi-lyrical vocal lines over a text that could mean a number of things. On the surface the song seems to be about a person who worries about a loved one who is causing pain to themselves. Doyle’s repetitive chorus alludes to hiding away from reality embodied by the use of 3D
Shut out red and blue
Shut out red and blue
Shut out red and blue
As with any song with indefinite lyric meaning the listener can easily associate personal experience to a song’s lyrics. If I put myself into this situation, “Santa” (from the album title “8-Way Santa”) could be an uncouth reference to Satan. It could also be a song of struggle that Doyle wrote to himself about struggles with drugs or even his distorted reality.
Luminol was from TAD’s fourth album “Inhaler”. The “grungy” sound in this song is more developed compared with their third album “8-Way Santa”. Understanding the lyrics themselves, let alone the meaning, was an effort because of the way Doyle slurred his words. The meaning is definitely not straightforward due to the obscure words that don’t tell any distinct story. Luminol is a chemical used in crime scenes to make ‘invisible’ stains show up when combined with a special light (often seen in crime and cop shows). Once finding out what luminol was, to me the words to the song almost tell a story, however obscure, about perhaps a death, a loss or murder. However, the chorus makes it more of a concept song with a hidden metaphor, telling the listener to spray luminol over their life making everything visible and out in the open.Luminol your life.
Luminol your life.
A development of grunge music is the guitar solo, which also appears in Luminol just before the last verse. The solo mainly follows the main melody which ends up being a common trait in grunge. The guitar solo in Ulcer also follows the main melody and occurs just before the last repetition of the chorus.
Drop bombs inside of me!
The fuse you’ll never see!
Drop bombs inside of me!
Watch your head!
[Solo]
Drop bombs inside of me!
The fuse you’ll never see!
Drop bombs inside of me!
Watch your head!
There seems to be a common trend in the lyrics and music to most of, if not all of, TAD’s songs; a suffering of the human condition at the time. The 80s and 90s seemed to be a very mixed and strange era where people didn’t know what/who they were and what they wanted. This theme of trouble seems to carry into our current life, especially in the teens.