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120 REASONS TO LIVE

120 Reasons To Live: The Jesus And Mary Chain

Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten videos from the show’s classic era.

#113: The Jesus And Mary Chain “Darklands”

The weird thing about Darklands is that it’s so much better than Psychocandy. The latter gets all the respect and praise, but much of that debut is just noise. The Jesus And Mary Chain’s 1987 sophomore album is a fulcrum: It releases much of the childish, annoying feedback of Psychocandy and hasn’t yet completely tipped over into the drum-machine dystopia of 1989’s Automatic. On the title track, Jim and William Reid combine their love for the Velvet Underground and girl groups and blanket it with slow, shuddering chords. Darklands—it’s the new black.