Seaweed - Kid Candy
“Kid Candy,” the first single from Four, might be the best moment of Seaweed’s career. It captures them at a transitional moment, a point where they’d mastered their pop-punk songwriting style and begun to think bigger, but not yet taken their ultimately ill-fated attempt at mainstream success on a major label. Both the songwriting and production of “Kid Candy” contain subtle indications of a yearning in that direction, though, and we can see that in the ringing chord that begins the song, as if it is announcing itself. This flourish sounds a bit unusual in a punk song, and while the intro is a pretty standard revved-up distorted punk riff, it moves quickly into a quieter verse, in which the guitars drop off and singer Aaron Stauffer more speaks than sings the first two lines. This use of quiet-loud dynamics in the verses of the song actually speak more to the influence their grunge surroundings had on Seaweed than any mainstream leanings, though, as it’s the exact same sort of dynamic that Nirvana often used in their heaviest songs, giving the choruses more punch by playing more quietly than usual during the verses.
Sure enough, the guitars come back and the sound gets louder as the band moves from verse to chorus, and when the chorus finally arrives, it’s a huge payoff, even after only one verse. Aaron Stauffer was different from a lot of pop-punk singers of the time in that he actually sang instead of using the more common postpunk yell. His voice steadily rises higher as he sings the first two lines of the chorus. “Don’t feel hazed off. The sequel is lame!” When he arrives at the word “is,” his voice has reached the upper limit of its register, and you can hear him strain to hit the note. I often think about how technical perfection in a vocalist is not necessarily the best way to go, and Stauffer illustrates why that is on this and several other lines of “Kid Candy.” When his voice strains to reach that high note, it creates an engaging intensity that just wouldn’t be there if he’d hit it perfectly. There’s passion and emotion there that wouldn’t be present without Stauffer having to struggle a bit to sing the lines he’s written.
“Kid Candy” has the sort of abstract lyrics common to many pop songs, which tend to sound better when you’re only hearing standout snatches of them while listening to the song than they do when you see them all written down in one place. ”Respect is key—it’s all that matters” is the final line of the chorus, and it’s the only line in the song that works as well written down as it does when sung. Considering that the moment when Stauffer sings it is also the climactic moment of an excellent chorus, you can imagine that this is the sort of line that kids pile frantically over the lip of the stage in order to sing along during Seaweed shows. Admittedly, “the sequel is lame” is also a fun line to sing, but I always pretend I’m singing about Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 or something with that one. “Respect is key—it’s all that matters,” though, is a line that makes Seaweed’s punk-rock roots just as clear as the double-time punk drumbeat on the chorus. It sounds like something Youth Of Today or Chain Of Strength might write into a song about straight edge. “Kid Candy” isn’t about any such thing, though, and in fact, it’s hard to say what it is about. As best as I can tell, the lyrics discuss someone tearing up a pristine patch of forest in order to build a house, and take a negative stance on such action. Maybe it’s the environment that Seaweed feels deserves respect.
A lot of songs that I write about on this blog are constructed according to conventions of pop songwriting that have been around since long before I was born. They are commendable for inspired performances or particularly catchy riffing or both, but they are probably not taking many liberties with the standard power-pop songwriting formula. (There are, of course, exceptions.) If all “Kid Candy” had to offer was its excellent chorus, it would still be worth including here. However, it does have one interesting detour from standard pop composition that occurs about two-thirds of the way through the song. At the end of the second chorus, at a time when most bands would flow right into a solo or a bridge, Seaweed repeats the chorus riff an extra time, but with drummer Jesse Fox switching from his double-time punkbeat to repeated in-unison hits on the snare and floor tom, leaving a bit more space between each hit, and in so doing, slowing the entire song down, as if he were pumping the brakes on an out-of-control sports car. Stauffer repeats the chorus’s final line, “it’s all that matters,” and as he does so, the band finally comes to a halt, playing that same ringing chord that began the song and letting it ring once again. At first, it sounds like the song is ending, but as Fox taps his ride cymbal to keep time, and the entire band plays that ringing chord over and over again at the top of each measure, it becomes clear that this is something else. After four repetitions of the chord, one of the guitarists starts playing a melodic counterpoint that snakes through each measure as the rest of the band continues to play that same chord over and over. Finally, after eight or so repetitions, the band sticks with the chord and builds it back up, right into the beginning of the chorus, which they play with even more ferocity than they’ve given it in previous repetitions. The break between the two choruses, which mostly consists of notes not played, adds power to this final chorus through contrast, which might count as another strategic use of grunge-ish quiet-loud dynamics. Regardless, this ringing space in the middle of the song, which is most accurately termed an anti-solo, is quite unusual in the world of pop-punk. At the end of the final chorus, they reprise the drum-driven gradual slowdown of the chorus that led into that anti-solo, leading the listener to question whether or not they’re in for another false ending. But no, this time it’s just the end of the song.
