Why is Plumtree’s Predicts the Future on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
My entry point to Plumtree is the movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and indeed it’s one of my favorite movies of all time.
I can’t recall offhand if you hear Plumtree during the movie itself, but Michael Cera, playing the titular role, wears a Plumtree shirt in at least one scene. More importantly, Plumtree has a song called “Scott Pilgrim” that’s both on the film soundtrack but dates back to Predicts the Future.
And lo and behold it’s arguably the bands best song. That song and many others from the band are a fantastic blend of garage, poppy punk, and indie rock that are addictively ear pleasing.
What does Plumtree’s Predicts the Future mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
As I mention above, “Scott Pilgrim” is the big draw here, but a warning: after you listen to it, you’re likely to have the lyrics, “I’ve liked you for a thousand years, a thousand years…” locked into your head for… well, a while. I’m into it, myself.
But I’m really impressed with a bunch of other songs and the range they display as well. “Go!” is a power poppy gem.
And then songs like “I Love You When You’re Walking Away” wonderfully slow things down and display some rather pretty vocals.
This album also sounds like
I got pretty nerd level-fired up when I realized that one of the reasons that I dig Plumtree is that they sound a little bit like the Fastbacks, a band from Seattle that I adore (spoiler: you might be seeing some Fastbacks entries during this best albums ever project). Both bands have great female vocals and a kinda poppy punk, kinda indie rock feel without really being nailed down cleanly into a particular genre. Fastbacks certainly lean into the punk and power pop side a little more, but there’s a nice connection point there.
Pop culture stuff that’s somehow related to Plumtree’s Predict the Future
As I mentioned, the movie Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is amazing. What I didn’t mention is that it’s based on a popular graphic novel called Scott Pilgrim… which would explain how and why Plumtree decided to name a song “Scott Pilgrim” years before the movie was a thing.
While I’m not a huge graphic novel person, the black-and-white art is really cool and its style is creatively used in the movie. Interestingly, the graphic novel’s author, Bryan Lee O’Malley, hails from Canada, as does Plumtree. And the movie is set in Toronto, so that all ties together rather nicely.
Here’s a really fun fan-made “Scott Pilgrim” video that uses footage from the movie.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Plumtree’s Predict the Future
As you might have guessed by now, I’ve listened to the song “Scott Pilgrim” a ton. And over time I realized there’s something about the insistent, declarative mantra of “I’ve liked you for a thousand years, a thousand years,” that reminds me of the feeling of crushing hard on someone as a teenager.
As a relatively older lad who has been happily married for many years (if not a thousand), I think of this teenage crushing as being in love with the idea of love and, typically, with the idea of the person you’re crushing on rather than a deeper level of knowing the person of your desires as a multi-dimensional person that has flaws as we all do.
And that’s just how we feel when you’re young and relatively naïve and inexperienced. And there’s that insistence about “I’ve liked you for a thousand years” that speaks to shouting that mantra out to the universe, with an implied additional question of: “So just like me back already, okay!?”
Anyway, great songs make you feel stuff and that’s a go at explaining my stuff with this one.
Some stats & info about Plumtree – Predicts the Future:
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Indie Rock, Pop Punk, Alternative Rock, Garage Rock, Power Pop, Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 2 of 5 stars (they’re out of their minds with this one, says I!)
- When was Predicts the Future released? 1997
- My ranking of the best 1,000 albums ever, the one you’re reading right now – #998 out of 1,000
Plumtree’s Predicts the Future on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.