(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Singles: #07: Interpol - Obstacle 1 (2002)

I love Interpol. I love their debut, Turn On The Bright Lights. But I’m going to tell you a little secret. I didn’t really like it the first few times I heard it. The first song I heard from them was “NYC” from a compilation album I barely remember the name of, and I thought it was a steady plod. The ringing intro “Untitled” was great, but there was nothing to write home about for the most part. “Obstacle 1”, however, grabbed a hold of me from the get-go, instantly titillating the tiny hairs in my ear canal the first time I heard it.

It’s probably the main cause of me having a hard time appreciating other Interpol offerings. I found it difficult to proceed to the rest of the album after hearing this, track 2 of their recording career. For me, it was the zenith of their existence and, as terrific as the songs in Turn On The Bright Lights eventually became, no other Interpol song surpassed the brilliance of this single. Hell, very few indie rock songs can match it. Next to “Obstacle 1”, every other song seems ordinary. It’s like a freak statistic throwing off the curve; the only way you can accurately gauge the sample it belongs to is if you exempt it from the calculation.

The splendor of “Obstacle 1” mostly owes it to the rhythm section. Bassist Carlos Dengler and drummer Sam Fogarino went to town on this track. It’s unfortunate that sack-of-sorrow lead singer, Paul Banks gets all the popularity when the bass and the beat is the main attraction. Carlos D was incapable of staying put in one octave, determined to showcase the amount of frets in his bass guitar. My favorite bass line of this millennium’s indie rock is this intro, redefining the word “bass” by producing alto tones with his four string before going down to the bouncy pulse of the verses. Fogarino was equally menacing with his instrument. I’m pretty sure I’ve bruished my hands on a desk somewhere because of me mimicking the energetic percussions of “Obstacle 1”.

Other than the remarkable drum and bass combo, there is a whole other throng of factors to love in “Obstacle 1”. For one, there are the stabbing guitars, amalgamating and alternating. Paul Banks and Daniel Kessler plays them so economically. It unyieldingly rides the 4/4 count that it’s mainly why the rhythm section is free to scamper around. Then there’s Paul Banks’s voice, which verified that it deserves all the Ian Curtis comparisons that it receives. Even the lyrics, which is terrible on its own, is pardonable in “Obstacle 1” thanks to Paul Bank’s baritone and its anthemic qualities. If you don’t enjoy singing the lyric line “well, she can read. She can read. She can read. She can read. She’s bad!”—even if you have no idea how it depicts “obstacles”—then you’re probably a human being that is very hard to please.

Two more follow-up albums came (2004’s Antics and 2007’s Our Love To Admire) and each had their share of praiseworthy songs. However, Interpol never surpassed the supremacy of their first hit. It all went downhill from this give-it-all wonder. But understandably so, if you start your career off with a bang like Interpol did with “Obstacle 1”, you can’t avoid a downhill slope. How exactly do you exceed perfection?