Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa (2004)


 Betchadupa was a band from New Zealand comprised of childhood friends and led by guitarist/singer Liam Finn (the son of Neil Finn, and Crowded House's lead guitarist since 2019.)

Betchadupa was a sort of post-grunge band, highly influenced by early 90s alternative rock, especially Nirvana, Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer but with a strong strain of of more hardcore punk; and sat comfortalbly amidst other pop/punk retro-bands of the 00s. What set Betchadupa apart was a penchant for writing very challenging riff-rock with tricky, odd rhythms and Liam Finn's undeniable pop smarts as a songwriter. 

While their earlier EPs and first album are a little too jagged and angular and tricky for me to fully endorse, with Aiming For Your Head, produced by famed Australian producer Nick Launay really works. This is curious: Launay's work with both Tim Finn and Neil Finn has left me cold: overproduced, kitchen sink arrangement, too busy....but it works wonders here. Launay and Liam have real chemistry and I wish they'd work together more.

Whether it's Launay's doing or just Liam maturing as an artist, Aiming For Your Head  marks a significant leap up in songcraft for Liam (who was only about 20 when it was recorded) and marks the beginning of a four-album string of successful albums (artistically, not commercially.)

The main thing Launay and Betchadupa have done here is they've kerbed most of LIam's predilection towards hard, fast, ultra-abrasive noise rock and emphasized his vaguely folkish  gift for pop melody  that I think is Liam's greatest strength, and couched them in recognizable pop structures, while not entirely abandoning the energetic noise, which rears its head on about a third of the album. This balance between the commercial pop/rock and the noise  is just right.

Liam's very high pitched vocals soar  and deliver the meloides well and the lyrics are mostly good (albeit with a still-juvenile line here and there -- the whimsical and beautiful "My Army of Birds and Doves" ends with a joke about eating chicken, for example.)I'll also single out  Matt Eccles' drumming, which is excellent;  as adroit at the tradional songs as it is on the complex jagged hardcore riffs. Liam himself is a drummer, so maybe that's why he hasn't worked with Eccles since the band's break up in 2006 or so.

The result is a very strong album that has a number of Liam's best, most enjoyable songs on them. 

4.4/5


I just have an iTunes version of this album. I imagin the CD sounds these same: compressed and ultra-loud, but this is the kind of music that that kind of mastering actually seems made for.


Aiming for Your Head is not available on Spotify in Europe: there is a good chance it's available in the US or other territories: here's the link to the artist page:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4aLLn6nFXCjLNJPkFJjX3d?si=JbRTz3RRQt-3_w3RsLQD4w


And here's a link to a video of "My Army of Birds and Gulls" one of six or seven songs that I think are should-be classics on this album:





Coming Up:

A.M. Wilco

A.T.O.M. - Carbon Silicon

ABBA - ABBA 

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Abbey Road - The Beatles

Achtung, Baby! U2

Actually - Pet Shop Boys

Adult/Child- The Beach Boys

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits

After The Gold Rush - Neil Young

Afterglow - Crowded House

Aftermath (UK Version) - The Rolling Stones

Against The Odds: 1974-1982 Blondie (three disc version)

Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse

Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa

The Album -- ABBA

The Album That Never Was - The Kinks

All Four One - The Motels

All Over the Place - The Bangles

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

All the Great Hits -- Diana Ross

All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison

All This Useless Beauty -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions

All-Time Greatest Hits - Neil Diamond

Alluvium -- Eddie Rayner

Almost Blue -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Almost Summer - Celebration

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco

The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa

Altitude - ALT

American Idiot Green Day

American Prayer -- The Doors

Amnesiac Radiohead

And I Feel Fine...The Best of the IRS years (1982-1987) - R.E.M.

Animals - Pink Floyd

Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo

Another Life - Another Life

Another Music in Another Kitchen: The Buzzcocks

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Anthology: Diana Ross & The Supremes

Anthology: Smokey Robinson & The Beatles

Anthology 1: The Beatles

Anthology 2: The Beatles

Anthology 3 The Beatles

Anthology: North South, East West - Tim Finn

Apple Venus: Volume One -- XTC

Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants

The ArchAndroid: Janelle Monae

Are Well-Respected Men - The Kinks

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Around the World in a Day - Prince

Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) - The Kinks

At My Piano - Brian Wilson

Autoamerican - Blondie

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.


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