Released: 1985

While Script of the Bridge is certainly a good album, there is no question for me both what is my favorite album by The Chameleons and what I regard as their crowning achievement. Of course, I’m talking about What Does Anything Mean? Basically. Lame title, but this is an ’80s post-punk group so they probably thought it was cool as hell. Whatever; doesn’t matter.

I’ll be the first to admit that the slow, brooding kind of post-punk that was Script of the Bridge is not my preferred brand of post-punk. The faster paced WDAM?B (…) is more up my alley. It’s an album that both rocks and soothes, with clashing dual guitar riffs that sew a lush bed gleaming at its surface for Mark Burgess’s vocals to lay, writhe, and mourn in. Indeed, the man is much more “alive” on this album than he was on Script of the Bridge, but it’s a damned existence. The typical depressing lyrics almost devoid of hope or self-respect return as usual for a Chameleons album, but Burgess shouts and wails them this time around, giving them a sense of true desperation and hints of anger towards the whole world.

I would recommend all of The Chameleons’s albums to anyone interested in post-punk, but this album, with its seamless blend of dreamy textures and reckless emotional distress is at the top of the list. Script of the Bridge was a very well-done and competent album, but it wasn’t that much different tonally from what a lot of The Chameleons’s post-punk contemporaries were also doing around the time.

I regard What Does Anything Mean? Basically as The Chameleon’s greatest contribution to the post-punk scene, and on that note, music in general. It’s just a fantastic album, and is a very comfortable 40 minutes as opposed to Script of the Bridge‘s one-hour length. Any rock fan owes it to themselves to give this a spin, and certainly not leave out the other Chameleons albums. I would also recommend The Church’s Heyday to anyone who enjoys this album. In my opinion, it’s practically What Does Anything Mean? Basically‘s brighter, more optimistic brother (in terms of aural tone).