Day After Day #172: Which Way to America?

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Which Way to America? (1988)

The downside of being a band that's primarily known for one song is it tends to overshadow everything else they've done. Living Colour has dealt with that for decades after rising to fame with the song "Cult of Personality" off their debut album Vivid. 

Formed in 1984 in New York City by guitarist Vernon Reid, the band had several lineups from 1984-1986 until Reid teamed up with singer Corey Glover, bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer Will Calhoun. Reid came from a jazz background, but the band also incorporated influences including Bad Brains, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Chic and many others into their sound. They eventually caught the attention of Mick Jagger, who helped them get a deal with Epic Records. 

Vivid came out in May 1988, but it took a while for it get some momentum. There was the novelty of four black men playing hard rock, but the success didn't come right away. I actually remember seeing the video for the album's first single "Middle Man" late night on MTV not long after it came out and being impressed and bought the album soon afterward. Then they did a show at TT the Bear's in Cambridge that was simulcast on WBCN; I had to work at Market Basket that night, so I had my brother record it for me. That bootleg was a mindblower; the sheer power and virtuosity exploding off the tape. I was a fan for life.

Then "Cult of Personality" was released as the second single and it totally blew up. The video got heavy airplay, thanks to Glover's dynamic stage presence and Reid's monster Zeppelinesque riff and screaming solos. The song went to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #9 on the Album Rock Tracks chart. It also won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance and the video won a few MTV Video Music awards. 

The great thing about Living Colour was they weren't just a hard rock band. They could play any style. Vivid has the band playing funk, pop, gospel, country, funk and hip hop (with Chuck D and Flavor Flav of Public Enemy guesting on "Funny Vibe"). They also didn't shy away from social issues. The band's look at politics and celebrity in "Cult of Personality" has never been more insightful than right now. And of course, Reid and company wrote about the realities of being black in America on a few songs on the album, including "Funny Vibe" and "Which Way to America?"

The latter song closes the album with furious energy as Glover examines the two Americas he sees.

"I look at the TV/Your America's doing well/I look out the window/My America's catching hell/I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?/I just want to know which way do I go to get to your America?/I change the channel/Your American's doing fine/I read the headlines/My America's doing time."

The song was one of two that Jagger produced (along with "Funny Vibe") for a demo the band sent to the labels when looking for a deal. It became one of the staples of the group's live show.

"Where's my picket fence?/My long, tall glass of lemonade?/Where's my VCR, my stereo, my TV show? I look at the TV/I don't see your America/I look out the window/I don't see your America/I want to know how to get to your America/I want to know how to get to your America."

Glover screeches those last lines as the band careens towards the end of the song, raging against the seemingly ideal life on television that is out of reach.

In a 2019 Kerrang interview, Reid explained his rationale behind the song. "It's about the distance between the idealized America of home and hearth and the reality of life on the streets. It's a song about the schism and the idea of where does that highway go to? Where's the Yellow Brick Road for me? Where are these totemic symbols that we've arrived that are wrapped up in products and consumption? Certain references in the song have dated, like stereos and VCRs, but the materialism that those objects represent is more ferocious and consumptive than ever before. It's the haves and have-nots, it's divisions on racial lines and the difference between aspiration and reality is wider than it's ever been."

The band was able to follow up Vivid with 1990's Time's Up, which was equally successful and even more diverse musically, with thrash metal, Afro-pop, jazz fusion and Delta blues represented. Living Colour played on the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991 and released an outtakes EP called Biscuits. Skillings left the band in 1992 and was replaced by Doug Wimbish; the new lineup released Stain in 1993, which introduced an angrier, more industrial sound that went over the heads of much of the fan base. It didn't sell as well as the previous two releases and the band split up in 1995 over musical differences. 

Living Colour reunited in 2000 to play a surprise show at CBGB. A new album was released in 2003 and another in 2009. The band caught a new wave of popularity with WWE wrestler CM Punk started using "Cult of Personality" as his entrance song. The band's most recent album, Shade, was released in 2017, featuring an amazing cover of the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Who Shot Ya?" 

I saw the band three time in the early '90s, twice on the Time's Up tour and once on the Stain tour, and then saw them 20 years later at the Paradise during a 25th anniversary tour for Vivid. And then I caught them in a tiny club in Hampton Beach last summer and they absolutely tore the place up. They were opening on a tour for Extreme, but I was happy to see them headline and kick total arse.