THE THRILLS – Not For All The Love In The World
Theh AWL SOWNDID THUH SAY-EEEEEEMMM… yes, last year The Thrills really were the runts of the litter, weren’t they? Incessantly pushed by Radio 1’s New Sound Of Not Quite Able To Reach The ‘Off’ Switch posse as The Next Big Thing In This Wonderful Wonderful Music Industry Of Ours, they produced a couple of half decent singles, then a couple of somewhat duffer singles that sounded exactly the same, then they re-released their first single again. An indistinct mass of lank, greasy hair and subdued sha-la-la, the archetypal band that were just sort of… there.We didn’t get wet, we didn’t care.
Anyway – they’re back, releasing something called ‘Whatever Happened To Corey Haim’ at the end of next month. I’ve not heard that, but I’ve heard this, and, well… maybe I’m just talking shit, but if every dog has its day, then this feels like an entire fortnight. Someday in the future, you and I both will doubtless be heartily fucking sick of this record, Collnanayditt etc. repeatedly describing it as beautiful or lovely or stunning or fahntahhstick before a competition to win tickets to see The Red Hot Chilli Peppers on an oilrig or whatever, giving the kneejerk reaction to whenever some boys in jackets do a ballad. For that reason, they don’t deserve to be right, and this doesn’t deserve to be great, but it is.
Conor Deasey is the singer, and he would appear not to have a girl, but he’s seen one, he’s “seen past (her) laughter lines,” he wants to show her how beautiful the world is – “we could drive for miles and miles…”
But She Said No.
Conor isn’t heartbroken though, far from it: “Then you said, “not for all the love in the world”; but she didn’t realise, now that’s a lot of love…” He’s sure, y’know, she’d love him if she could only see him, if she’d only let him have a chance (“People aren’t puzzles to be figured out”), so he keeps on trying. We aren’t told how it ends. If it ends. But there’s this noise, this beautiful sound like four rainddrops landing in succession in the chorus, after every repetition of her saying “Not for all the love in the world”, the sound of another heartstring breaking, then another, then another – and throughout it all Conor doesn’t get downbeat, cos he’s so stupidly sure he’s gonna be right, even when everything else in the song is absolutely dead set on telling him otherwise.
In the middle comes your stereotypical Modern Indie Ballad Bit, the guitar that tries that getting a bit epic as the singer gets his proper singing chops out and tries holding a high note, having built up to it with a succession of oh’s rammed into the end of the chorus. It lasts for all of five seconds. Then Conor concedes “I guess that everybody went to better parties,” and it all starts to fall away again, then Conor starts to repeat “Not for all the love in the world… not for all the love in the world…”, almost to himself, then for the last time – “but she didn’t realise, now that’s a lot of love… ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh…” as the guitar slowly plucks its final notes, like it was at the start, except this time it’s like the sound of something unravelling…
A fortnight of heartbreak.