Twenty Years - Something for Kate.

Something for Kate - believe it or not - have reached a milestone in their career as one of Australia's finest rock bands. Yes, that's right, they've been around for twenty years. What better way to celebrate this than to provide a run down of twenty of the best Something for Kate songs. It's mighty hard to pare down such a grand career to twenty simple songs, but it's worth trying. (Note: Twenty Years unfortunately didn't make the cut, although I tried.) 

There is also a distinct lack of Hallways or You Only Hide. I've seen Something for Kate live enough in my life to never have to hear some drunk buffoon at the back of the crowd shout out prior to the last song... HALLWAYS. HAAALLLLLWAYS. 

Keep in mind as well, I got lazy and didn't write reasons for half the songs, but if that upsets you, then I'm sorry, have some cheese and onion chips. Always helps me.

20. Miracle Cure - Leave Your Soul to Science

I'm not a fan of Leave Your Soul to Science. Call me old fashioned, but I feel this album strays too far away from the Something for Kate I know and love. Yes, a band can evolve, and especially when there's six years between albums evolving is what will happen. However, jammed between the average songs and absolute corkers (I refuse to accept Star Crossed Citizens is a Something for Kate song, it's just too obnoxious to be a Something for Kate song) is Miracle Cure. Bordering on Paul Dempsey solo mode and The Official Fiction territory, Miracle Cure is a great song. 'All I want is a cure for miraces, but all she's got is a miracle cure.' 

19. Moving Right Along - The Official Fiction

The Official Fiction is a companion album to Echolalia. Tonally, they are very similar. Moving Right Along could be the most optimistic sounding song that Something for Kate have produced. Echolalia isn't exactly the happiest album around. Listening to The Official Fiction after Echolalia you're given this optimistic view - more musically than lyrically though.   

18. Happy Endings - Echolalia

Echolalia is an album about the city and its pressure on people. Happy Endings - just like Faster and Seasick - builds to a wonderful crescendo about escaping the mundane daily movements which the city presses onto people. 

17. Working Against Me - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes

16. Transparanoia - Desert Lights

15. Hawaiian Robots - Phantom Limbs

14. Jerry - Stand Up - Echolalia

I was late to getting into Something for Kate. They were already onto their fourth album by the time I got around to picking up Echolalia. The constant TV ads for the album had gotten to me - just like the ads got to me for Powderfinger's Odyssey Number 5 - and I bought Echolalia. Jerry - Stand Up was the first song on the album that really grabbed my attention - and it still does. The almost mantra like chanting 'fresh air, a nice new suit, a walk in the park every day or two' is like every self help book yelling at you to go out and do something. It's about growing up and going through the grind. And boy, it's still great. 

13. A Fool's History Pt. 1 - Desert Lights

12. Pinstripe - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes

11. Faster - Phantom Limbs

10. Seasick - Echolalia

9. The Futurist - The Murmur Years

The Futurist hit at a point when new Something for Kate music was not looking like it was near. The Futurist 

8. Kaplan/Thornhill - The Official Fiction

7. Truly - Phantom Limbs

A random song which was released on a random and rare EP is also one of the best kept secrets from Something for Kate. It's disappointing that it's not played live because it's simply chilling how good this track is. Maybe there's something more to it, but everything on this track works so well together. And there's a different kind of anger in Dempsey's singing here which is something else altogether. 

6. Electricity - Beautiful Sharks

There's no explaining necessary for this song. Just listen to that guitar.

5. Captain (Million Miles an Hour) - Elsewhere for Eight Minutes

I'll get this out there straight away, the lyrics in this song make little sense. But then again, so do a bunch of other successful songs. Captain is - just like Electricity - one of the more recognisable Something for Kate songs. It doesn't disappoint with its naivety and basic chord progression. Plus whatever kind of person would encourage one to build a plane just to fly away from someone must be a pretty terrible person.

4. Private Rain - Leave Your Soul to Science

As mentioned earlier, I do not like Leave Your Soul to Science all that much. But just like Miracle Cure, nestled in the messy album is one of the most perfect Something for Kate songs produced. Private Rain makes Leave Your Soul to Science worthwhile. The key change midway through the song is something else entirely. I remember the first time I listened to this song and exactly where I was. I remember pulling over to listen to it again. It's a song which I've listened to on repeat many times over and each time feels like I'm listening to it for the first time.

3. Deja-Vu - The Official Fiction

Something for Kate's singles are usually some of the weaker songs on the album. Just like Gomez though, they also manage to turn a truly weak song into an epic live version that transforms the song from what it originally was. Deja-Vu on The Official Fiction is a good song, it's serviceable, it helped sell the album. Deja-Vu as a live song on the other hand is a completely different beast. The inflection in the live version where the song usually fades off saves Deja-Vu and changes it into a powerful ballad. And when you see this live, it's hard not to smile watching Stephanie with no shoes on swinging her hair around just loving the bass lines in this. 

2. Back to You - Beautiful Sharks

The crescendo is what makes this song. The drop at the end, the 'back to you' is a heart breaking moment created by Dempsey. Lyrically, this is Paul Dempsey at his finest. Back to You performed live is just something else. Clint on the drums at the beginning building the song up through a drummer boy like progression to the first strum of the guitar, it's hard not to be swept up in this beauty of a song. 

1. Feeding the Birds and Hoping for Something in Return - Echolalia

As Paul recently said, this is the perfect song about an anxiety attack. Or rather, a city full of an anxiety attack. The lyrics in this song kill me every time. One of Australia's great songs.