Video: Beat Happening- Pine Box Derby

There's something sublimely off-kilter, lackadaisical, and brilliant about Beat Happening. Calvin Johnson has one of those voices that you'll probably hate until you've heard it enough, at which point you love it. It fits the music so perfectly too, the way the song barely holds together and stumbles along as if the band can't be bothered to keep on the same time wave length. To put it another way, it's so loose it wraps back around to tight.

As Johnson sings about witches and vampires we get some masterful images of the band knowingly dancing in a bad way. Which reminds me of how Calvin Johnson might've become the American Morrissey if he had had a 'better' voice and gave enough of a damn to try to make Beat Happening into a huge success. Whatever, man, Beat Happening are just as excellent as The Smiths but on their own terms.