Daily Jam - Stars

Some days I wish I was still as enthusiastic and starry eyed as I used to be. I wish I hadn’t become so jaded with age. I wish I still had that same feeling of exhilaration I experienced when I heard the guitar riff in the bridge to “Stars” by Hum for the first time. Yeah. That was good stuff.

Hum’s 1995 album You’d Prefer an Astronaut is 45 minutes of metallic space rock interwoven with 90’s alt-rock genetics and some shades of punk and prog. First single “Stars” opens softly, a gently strummed guitar and repeated lyric, and then things begin to swirl and coalesce, and then, a minute in, a drum roll to rattle you to your bones, and the song lifts off. The guitar tones are sharp and driving, the baseline and beat propulsive and bombastic, and the melody feels like it’s pushing you into the farthest reaches of the galaxy, all the lights blurring and flying by in your periphery vision, a brick in your stomach, the flesh on your face pushing against the contours of your skull. The lyrics are wistful and softly sung, adding a dreamy otherworldliness to the affair. And then the bridge. And then that riff.

It makes my heart beat.

Listen below…or just listen to that guitar riff over and over again. I know I will be.