Breaking: Broken Bells

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Who: The Shins' singer-guitarist James Mercer and producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse (a.k.a. Brian Burton), who've taken time off from their usual gigs to team for a new self-titled disc of left-field psych-pop. (Read the RS review here.)

Sounds Like: Spooky psychedelia with a British Invasion flavor. Burton outfits Mercer's beautiful melodies and with analog-synth swooshes, slo-mo kick drums and horn breaks. The mellow punch of "Vaporize" features zippy organ and rolling snare, and Mercer goes for a T-Pained falsetto on the catchy, electro-kicky "The Ghost Inside."

Vital Stats:
• Recording sessions for Broken Bells resembled a budding bromance. Mercer moved into Burton's L.A. bachelor pad, and they'd go to the movies, listen to records (Love, the Zombies), drink at dive bars and talk about relationships and life. "We definitely had separate rooms," Burton tells RS.
• One of the main reasons the two musicians linked up was a search for fun. Mercer says he wondered, " 'Do I still have the curiosity and enthusiasm' " to be the sole songwriter and frontman for the Shins. Burton felt less like a collaborator than a hired gun on projects with Gorillaz and Beck. With Broken Bells, "I was free to express any idea I had," the producer says.
• Both Mercer and Burton say they're focusing on Broken Bells right now, but the status of their day jobs seems a little up in the air. "There's been no discussion" of another Gnarls Barkley LP, Burton says, and Mercer notes, "I'll probably, you know, find the time at some point" to make another Shins record.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
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  MOVIES 'This Is the End' Brings the Goods
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  TV The Women of 'Mad Men'
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  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

More Song Stories entries »

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