mp3 : Semisonic – Closing Time
I’m posing the question as a number of you were happy enough to come out in admiration for Just Like Fred Astaire when it featured and this, from 1998, is another of my guilty pleasures.
I only own one Semisonic album and it was bought on the back of hearing Closing Time on the radio. It just struck me as one of those great alt rock love songs that don’t come along all that often and it was one of those occasions where the choice of buying a single for £4 or an album for £12 was a no-brainer (and typing that is also an awful reminder of just how much the music industry was prepared to rip us off back in those CD crazy years).
The album was called Feeling Strangely Fine but it didn’t do all that much for me and indeed it has been many years since I’ve played any Semisonic songs other than the featured track. But I’ll throw in the two other songs lifted from it and released as singles:-
mp3 : Semisonic – Singing In My Sleep
mp3 : Semisonic – Secret Smile
Enjoy
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
I love this. Mainly as when me and my future wife had a 3 week holiday driving around California this was on the radio along with lullaby by Shaun Mullins. Wouldn’t have given a listen to either in the UK, but they both fitted the sunshine and the freeway. Closing time still takes my right back to Carmel , Santa Barbara and all.
I also own just one Semisonic record, and it’s this album. I rate quite a bit of it though, and featured Made To Last from it in my occasional Clandestine Classic series http://newamusements.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/clandestine-classic-xxxvi-made-to-last.html
Seem to recall Semisonic being endorsed by one M. Stipe too.
Closing Time, I think, is atypical of them though, and only got as much airplay as it did because of the easy pub/drinking theme which dovetailed serendipitously with the post-Britpop laddism on the late 90s. Which is quite a mouthful. Basically, what I’m saying is I think it’s one of the weaker songs on the album. But what do I know?
I had this Semisonic album too. Loved it, for a while; but I’ve just checked the tracklisting and with the exception of the three songs already mentioned I can’t remember a thing about it!
Oh yes. This was out around the time that I and around 100 colleagues were made redundant, so the title was certainly appropriate. I still have the album, but only these 3 tracks have made it to the iTunes world along with the title track of the follow-up album…which…er…I also…er…bought….
I like this album quite a lot. It’s one of those albums that grows on you when you play it a couple of times while you’re doing other things. Or maybe I just listened to it when I was young and impressionable.
I wrote about it here…http://appetitefordistraction.blogspot.com/2014/03/one-year-100-albums-32-semisonic.html
Stuff from other albums I’ve heard by them hasn’t ever really done anything for me.
The follow up album, Chemistry, is one of my favourite albums, not just a guilty pleasure, much advanced on feeling strangely fine, but of course sold less as no single to market. If you like Neill Finn, the Blue
Nile, Butcher Boy and XTC this will fit right in.
Always remember the follow up got 5 stars in Q, never listened to it.
Secret Smile remains a great single.
Yup. Gozo. Holiday. Got the album. Never got round to buying the second.
Very much dig these guys…I actually became a fan of their lead singer/songwriter, Dan Wilson, in his earlier band, Trip Shakespeare. Check them out if you haven’t.
Before this album, I saw Semisonic open for Aimee Mann. I didn’t recognize Wilson, but I did immediately think their sound reminded me of Trip Shakespeare. I also said to the friend I went to the show with that I could easily see them having one big hit single. One of my better predictions. B^)