Friday, December 30, 2011

The End of the Year Recap 2011 Spectacular



December is a very special time for critics of all types. The end of the year means it's time to start rounding up all the best albums of the year and rank them based on arbitrary criteria, creating the narrative of what 2011 "was" in music. It's actually very exciting, so long as you don't get knee-deep in the hooplah. My colleague, professional character assassin James Leask wrote a very insightful article about the nature of year-end lists. When I was starting this site, I used some of the 2010 year-end lists as a shopping guide for what I'd cover for this blog.

I won't, obviously, be compiling a year-end list. There's a lot of great stuff I simply did not hear this year. All the albums from 2011 that I loved can be found here, and that list is sure to keep growing. And for a more expansive list of albums that I heard for the first time in 2011, you can click here. I wrote a top four countdown for 2010 because it was a very short list. The reason I started this blog was because I had indulged in so little music enjoyment that year, so it was easy to sort. Then I wrote about them because I wanted to start off with a bit of content for the site.

I can't rank the albums I've listened to this year, just like I can't ascribe them star-ratings. Every single album I talk about on this blog is a recommendation from me, so it's useless to put those on a scale. That's sort of the point. Every album is a new challenge. Sometimes what you already know helps you approach it, sometimes you need to take it as something utterly unknown. To me, they don't compete, there's no reason to try making them.

I spent 2011 listening to music. As a result, I've got about 50 new albums etched in my memory, which invoke feelings and thoughts, that take me back to a time of the year, whether it's shoveling my driveway to Tokyo Police Club, baking in the sun to Foster the People, sitting at work with the Sheepdogs or at the end of a 12-hour bus ride from New York City with the Hold Steady. I spend a lot of time in my head arguing with other critics, and the thing I hate most is when music is not treated as something you listen to: its important qualities are all there in your headphones.

I try to understand and appreciate every album I write about as completely as possible. Usually I fail. I don't want to insult too many of my old reviews, but sometimes I just feel like I didn't quite get it right;... and sometimes I revisit an album after the review is done and something new will occur to me.

I read a fair bit of criticism, as you must. A lot of the albums I've covered this year are acknowledged classics. Some are hidden gems, some true obscurities. Some have been actively dismissed or derided. I think the albums I have the most fun reviewing are the ones that didn't get great notices, because that means all the things that excite me about them haven't been explored by better writers. One of the strangest moments I had was when I realized all the negative things people were saying about White Lies (and later Viva Brother) were true... but I couldn't stop listening to either album anyway, and I needed to talk about them.

I set myself up with a set of loose guidelines at the beginning of the year, and thankfully I haven't found myself constrained by them. They act as a buzzer that goes off in my head whenever I realize I'm writing something I would not like to read, that my review is wandering into territory I'd rather not explore. I'm free to ignore them, but I'm always happier with the results when I keep with them. I never bothered to write them out, and I feel like explaining them might ruin my mojo, but if you go back and read my reviews (and maybe read other critics' takes on the same albums) you might be able to tell what some of them are.

It begins and ends with positivity. I realized, not long after starting (but later than I should have) that there's a difference between some asshole on the internet and a critic, and it isn't intelligence. Leave negativity to every other dickhead. Let them be the ones to tear things down. Let the critic's role be defined by how good we are at building things up. I realize this isn't a reality for critics who don't get to pick and choose their subject matter, but it can't be healthy to decide to go after things you won't like. In general, I'm pleased with myself for keeping the positivity, and never feeling like I have to fake it because I genuinely like everything I write about. Also, the commitment to positivity extends to a certain amount of amnesty to things I don't like: I try not to take cheap shots because I don't believe you do something you like any favours by insulting something you don't. It sounds maybe a bit sanctimonious when I write it out at length, but I want you all to know there are reasons why I do things the way I do, and hopefully you come here because you get it.

I spent the year listening to music, but more importantly, I spent the year enjoying music. I didn't take the music and wrestle with it, try to disarm it and figure out a reason it wasn't as good as my gut felt. I went with that gut feeling and tried to lay it all out on the table, to open it up, pull out the guts and dance around merrily in the blood of the music. And to write metaphors that get off track quickly. And to have fun.

I like what I do here, and I hope to get better at it in the coming year. I want to keep bringing people music they might not have found otherwise, or encouraging them on albums they weren't sure they'd like. I get a fairly decent number of hits every month (for a site that is advertised nowhere but Twitter and Google, reviewing albums that aren't generally up-to-the-minute,) so I hope that I've gotten one or two of you to listen to an album you otherwise wouldn't. And never feel bad for liking something. Anyone who tries to do that to you is being an asshole.

In 2012, I just want to keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Serious Contenders: Electric Six, "Danger! High Voltage"



It's important to commit to a bit, and I think Electric Six knows that perfectly well. Every song I've ever heard from them, they throw themselves heedlessly into, including this early gem, where you really believe that the passion can be responsible for a power overload of some kind. The song is helped along by a pulsing disco bass, a shockwave guitar, and a manic guest vocal by an uncredited Jack White. You can't help wanting to move when you hear this song. It puts all its energy right through you, at your peril.

Serious Contenders: Big Star, "In The Street"



It just happens to be the theme song to That 70's Show, which makes sense. Like The Wonder Years (and in some ways, Happy Days,) it was a song from the show's era, which sums up its attitude perfectly. "Not a thing to do / But talk to you" says a lot about being young in any era, not to mention "Wish we had / A joint so bad." Alex Chilton's voice drawls out in a whiny, bored way that nonetheless seems to revel in the nothingness of youth. The original here still outdoes the TV version by Cheap Trick for me.

The line on Big Star goes that their jangly-poppy sound was not appreciated (or at least, not properly heard) in its own time, but was taken up by more notable college rock acts like REM, who eclipsed the earlier act and made their qualities sound less impressive. But I think these things come in cycles, and now that history has marched on some, Big Star sounds different enough from the bands they influenced that it sounds fresher than ever. I myself don't quite have another frame of reference for the funk-meets-folk sound they often embody, and I don't hear them too much in the bands they influenced. In any case, I don't believe the question of "influence" properly indicates a band's quality. What they've got on their own is that mixture of innocence and experience that permeates any great music, but the flavour remains their own.

How incredible is life... when this album was released, they couldn't even get it in stores due to a shipping catastrophe. Now, you can download it, like, right now, on iTunes. Music is yours to discover.

Serious Contenders: Aerosmith, "Dream On"



Fantasy and reality collide in Aerosmith's first big song, and in general whenever Steven Tyler is involved. It's in his vocal style, his lyrics, his whole presentation, this blend of the unreal and the down-to-Earth: the haunted past and the hope for the future. The song begins with that mesmerizing piano.guitar harmony, then climbs hand-over-fist as Steven's voice goes from a spaced-out rumination to a yowl of release. After all this time I'm not sure I've heard anything like it.

As anyone who's been paying attention knows, Aerosmith is my favourite band. Sometimes it feels like I have to actively suppress this fact, and I always feel like people confuse what they actually sound like with some of their more generic, less interesting contemporaries. "Dream On" isn't a power ballad: it isn't "Here I Go Again" or "I Can't Fight This Feeling." There's nothing smoothed over or evened-out about it. It's "Stairway To Heaven" in microcosm. It's a trip up and down the spectrum, from the intimate to the gigantic, in pianos and sweeping gutitars. Bitch, this is rock and roll!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Cover: Dexys Midnight Runners, "Respect"



As evidence of Dexy's poetential, I submit this blistering take on Aretha Franklin's (definitive version of Otis Redding's) "Respect." Aside from some slight cheese in the spoken-word portion, they really burn it down and, if not topping the originals, sitting comfortable along with them.

Serious Contenders: Dexys Midnight Runners, "Come On Eileen"



Kevin Rowland was a man with a vision. A very specific, almost incomprehensible vision. And that vision involved horns, country fiddles, banjos and hurdy-gurdys, denim overalls, armpit hair, and hats with poofy balls on top. It all resulted in something where, you're really not sure how anyone would come up with the idea, let alone why they'd think it would work, but the truth is "Come On Eileen" is a completely irresistible song. While even some of the best 80's songs sound dated due to the inevitable aging of their then-new techniques and equipment, Rowland bet the house on the timeless qualities of bluegrass, Celtic folk, and soul, all wrapped around an ultimate pop song with its barely-understandable lyrics and impossible-to-ignore singalong chorus. On paper the band's premise sounds dumb (this was after all during a time when it was impossible to be cool without having a keytarist in your band) but in execution it sounds incredibly obvious.

Of course, lightning of that kind rarely strikes twice. "Come On Eileen" being such a potent song due to its uniqueness meant that it was also something of a novelty (not a rare commodity in the early 80s) meaning the public attention span had room for exactly one song by them. They had other songs, but none of them had that star quality that this one did.

Monday, December 26, 2011

Sloan: The Double Cross

I have a soft-spot for power pop. I'm a sucker for a good, bouncy yet forceful guitar. It's not a type of music that is going to be lauded often for its artistic potential, but it's the sort of thing I keep going back for more of, as you might note when taking a glance at this blog. There's a lot of guitar rock here, and a lot of it isn't the ornate, extreme kind, nor the straightforward, macho kind. Sloan blends sensitive prettiness with an action-packed excitability. This is the kind of record that might slip through the cracks, but is very rewarding for those who listen.

There's a lot of joy in the making of music on this record, from the motor-mouthed, foot-stompers like "Follow the Leader," and "Shadow of Love," to precious beauties like "The Answer Was You" and "Green Gardens, Cold Montreal." "Unkind" is the archetypal stadium rocker. It's very much like a Canadian band, not to mention the clever lyrics of Sloan, to hook a blockbuster like that, with its purely archetypal riff, around the ambivalent phrase "Don't know why you've got to cross that line ... You can be so kind sometimes / And you can be unkind sometimes."

A number of true highlights like that one are buffered by ear candy. "The Answer Way You" has a sincerity that offsets the sarcasm of the opening track, with its cooing vocals (all the members take the mic at some point, but I sadly don't know who's who) and majestic instrument work. "Green Gardens, Cold Montreal" is built on a warm acoustic guitar and a shivering vocal. It comes across like warm breath on an icy day. "Your Daddy Will Do" is even impressive amongst this company, with its clevery story-and-message setting a twangy guitar against a pitch-perfect funk-rock backbeat, including a strangely dreamy Beach Boys like middle eight.

"Beverly Terrace" is a song with a lot going on it, from great lyrics like "She wears sunscreen in the middle of winter / To remind herself of summers that were kind" to its quote/repurposing of "Shadow of Love," redoing it as a duel between vocalists: "I know, I know / But knowing doesn't make it untrue," one of those wonderful contradictions Sloan's lyrics often touch on. In general, the album is concerned with the way one feeling or situation transforms into another, whjether through betrayal, redemption, or realization. "Traces" revs up like a hot rod, and gets liftoff on those fucking organs, I love it, with a "Life goes on and on / Appreciate it" chorus that's hard not to dig. It sets the stage for the delicate closer, "Laying So Low," which staggers into bed and says goodnight. Love it.

Even less notable tracks are goosed up with gorgeous harmonies, instrumental skills, clever lyrics, and/or any of a dozen tools in the band's kit. Like the Sheepdogs' album I reviewed last week, it's meant to be listened to from front to back, and makes for a rewarding listen without playing any unfair tricks. More or less the tracks stand on their own, but are sequenced so terrifically, especially at transitional points, you can't help but want to keep going. Dan Mangan, in response to my post about his song "Post-War Blues," (#humblebrag) told me I should keep paying attention to whole albums, so that the format doesn't die. It's always great to see a whole piece laid out and put together with care.

I keep coming back to guitar rock, a format that is sometimes considered passe and dumb, because the most popular acts in the genre tend to be lame. But it's what I grew up on, and it'll never go away, because without even rewriting the rules there are always rewarding possibilities. It's an extremely rich, expressive way of making music, and it is a language that is not hard for a listener to understand and appreciate. If there's one thing the guys in Sloan probably hate, it's a cliche: it's the one thing I don't think they're good at doing.

The guys in Sloan have been hanging around as a band for twenty years now, and have proven themselves masters of their craft ever since "Underwhelmed" many years ago. Their love for their craft shines through, and you can sense that they're still, at heart, teenage music nerds. You see from these 12 tracks what eight capable hands, with a working knowledge of the ins and outs of pop music history, can do with the basic elements. It's a no frills album that is secretly pretty showy.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Sunday, December 25, 2011

Serious Contenders: Darlene Love, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"



Phil Spector fired his own wife Ronnie from the session for this gem, because she was supposedly unable to convey the same depth of emotion that Darlene Love brings here. It's hard to argue with the result. This is possibly the only Christmas song you can listen to any time of year without being some kind of Christmas nut. It doesn't sentimentalize Christmas too much, but uses it as a backdrop, calling up the emotional connections we have to the Holidays without dipping too deep into cliche. In the end, like any Phil Spector song, it's about an innocent enough type of love and longing. Terrific.

Merry Christmas, kids. Keep on rockin'.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sheepdogs: Learn & Burn

The thing I like about my generation, and its attitude toward music, is that the music of decades past is no longer "our parents' music," the stuff they make us listen to when we're young until we come into our own and embrace the current. Thanks to the internet and Classic Rock radio, we're free to explore at our own pace and keep going. That's why so many of my classmates in high school had Zeppelin fixations, and why the winners of Rolling Stone's first-ever "Choose the Cover" contest wasn't a quirky indie rock band making a stab for the groundbreaking (and there were a few good ones in the lot,) but the Sheepdogs, on the strength of "I Don't Know," which stands as a pinnacle, but hardly the lone peak, of this set. I've spent a lot of time on this blog trying to figure out why we (I) love throwback music so much. It can't simply be because music from the 60's was empirically "better." What I've figured is that at the least, it represents a choice: a conscious effort not to "go with the flow," to pick out the best of the past and breathe life into it. What the discourse of classic rock does is sift through the everything of the past, pick out what still resonates, and allows us to pick it up and go again. To hone and refine the past for the present.

I don't think its enough, though, to merely be a good Zeppelin/Creedence/Skynyrd/Allmans/Guess Who cover group. Learn & Burn is the southern rock counterpoint to Raphael Saadiq's triumphant R&B pastiche Stone Rollin', in that it mixes and matches in ways that wouldn't have been done in the day. You can see the lines of reference, but only as shadows in the present. So we get rollicking guitars, easygoing lap steels, fiery solos, foggy organs, even a splash of horns, on an album that covers an impressive range of moods and moments, all while being consistently skillful, inventive, and awesome-sounding.

Exhibit A for their extreme listenability is, of course, "I Don't Know," the song that won them the hearts of the contest voters. That easy-breezy see-saw riff just wraps you up and holds you tight like so many riffs of old. It lays out their sonic blueprint, easygoing, intuitive rock laid out over a solid, propulsive rhythm. They do a great job playing in this sandbox. The first two tracks and "I Don't Get By" are just awesome. "Southern Dreaming" is pure relaxation, a sunny day on the porch. In a lot of tracks, they really cut loose, like "Soldier Boy" and "Catfish 2 Boogaloo," where they really reach critical mass on sheer rockitude. Other times, they clamp down their focus, like the grinding funk of "Right On."

Impressively, they don't just get by on charm and talent, any more than they're good because they sound "just like" Classic Rock Band-X. This is a band with a good sense of composition and direction. They dabble a bit in acoustic-picking segments ("You Discover") and the soulful "Rollo Tomasi," which rolls in on militaristic drums, a blast of horns and tense pianos, but settles into a dreamy slow jam ("Givin' my love away to you / Is hard for me to do...") There's also the title track, which blends the southern rock stylings with a sixties-type call-and-answer lyric, and a lounge act delivery. At that point, they're really showing off.

Consider the titanic, staggering opener, "The One You Belong To," with sweeping riffs and wistful lyrics, and how it cuts, absolutely fucking seamlessly into the more nimble, sheepish "Please Don't Lead Me On," with its tapping ivory piano. Someone in the band must really like the Abbey Road medley, because the album both begins and ends with one. The last four tracks brings us from the cool, breezy "Suddenly," up through the ramped-up rhythm-rock of "Baby, I Won't Do You No Harm," the soaring "We'll Get There" and the epic conclusion, "I Should Know" (which brings the album more or less full circle, given the earlier track.) They lay out the parameters, and then explore them to their utmost.

They do a good job coming up with lyrical matter that suits their style: they don't know, and they need help, but it's all very casual and shrugging in its way. Like they have confidence they'll find their way somehow. Ewan Currie's vocals are as easygoing as the guitar-playing, as rhythmic as the drums. The harmonies lend the whole affair the feeling of unity and togetherness that rock often brings at its best. Some of the best albums in the classic rock canon don't seem like they had to be created, but simply happened, and this set definitely has that quality.

I don't look at is as having a gimmick or a niche appeal. I look at it as being very good at what you do, as bringing something unique to the table: it isn't a tribute to old music, something you need to be a music lover to appreciate, but a resurrection of that type (as if it needed it) by virtue of quality. I don't think any band playing the throwback card would have won a contest, but a band that does anything this well deserves attention, for sure.

Buy this album now! iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Serious Contenders: Monkees, "Pleasant Valley Sunday"



If you were casting for a fake TV rock band, you should be so lucky as to cast four guys who were as entertaining as The Monkees. If you were selecting music for a marketable product, you should be so lucky as you find material as great as the stuff that was presented to them/recorded under their name. The Monkees were a real band in every sense except one: the technical sense.

I love the Monkees. Around 2000, their show was on every weekend and I'd watch it anytime I could, and I had their two-disc Anthology best-of, which I listened to constantly over the winter that year. The set came with a booklet that, in tiny print, detailed the story of their transition from manufactured boyband to genuine(-ish) artists. The fact of the matter was that their way of doing things was ridiculously common in pre-Beatles America (and even post-Beatles. Go count how many Beach Boys play on "Good Vibrations.") But I'm not here to give a primer on notions of authenticity. I'm here talk about music.

The Monkees were more nakedly a product for consumption than even the Beatles, whose consumer appeal was by chance rather than design. The Monkees was a project designed to sell records. And a lot of their music sounds just like that: The kind of songs you'd write if you were a pop songwriter hired to write "American Beatles" music. But of course, these were top sognwriters writing great songs: "Last Train to Clarksville," "Not Your Steppin' Stone," "I'm a Believer" are all that. Remember, Elvis' "Hound Dog" (originally Big Mama Thornton) was written by the same types of people. When a song grabs you, as it's designed to do, you don't need to think about its origins.

What I like about "Pleasant Valley Sunday," why it, and not one of those other tunes, is the "Serious Contender," is that it shows the freedom to play around that the songwriters had. Gerry Goffin and Carole King wrote this song, seemingly as an American version of Paul McCartney's "Penny Lane," but while that is a dreamy fantasy that celebrates suburban comforts, "Pleasant Valley" is sarcastic and critical. Micky Dolenz is underrated as a vocalist, and I think possibly his acting chops helped him express the meanings of lyrics better than other singers of the time did. Mike Nesmith does indeed play that insane, tangled lead guitar (double-tracked and linked with Chip Douglas' bass, which Davy Jones enthusiastically pretends to play.) Peter Tork is indeed banging on that piano and "Fast" Eddie Hoh handled the drums. At the end, it explodes indo a wonderful psychedelic flourish, injecting some unreality, some escapism, under the skin of the dull suburbanite scene.

This is a great song, the type of which the Monkee catalogue was surprisingly full. The songwriters (occasionally the Monkees themselves) often used their pleasant, plastic boyband appeal to present much more complex, interesting, music than they were required, which I feel holds up very strongly today. It doesn't matter where it comes from or who is behind it: when you've got something that works, it lasts.

Cover: Nirvana, "Lithium"



Not to be missed is this dreamlike cover of Nirvana's "Lithium" as performed by the British psychedelia group of the same name. It's appropriately heavenly and deranged, a really great look at the material that stands on its own while enhancing the original.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Serious Contenders: Led Zeppelin, "Fool in the Rain"



Like previous examples of classic rock on this site, "Fool in the Rain" isn't the song you probably think of when someone says Led Zeppelin. No, it's not an epic, medieval hymn to Tolkien, nor is it an explosive psychedelic blues crunch. It's just a simple story set against a neat little looped riff, which curves up then laps down on itself. If it's not the greatest song they did, then it's certainly an excellent example of what they could do with their time. It's one of the bigger ear-worms they ever created (probably a lot easier and more fun to hum than "Stairway to Heaven" or "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.") It's a really slick jam.

It also features some rad lyrics, a story about standing in the rain waiting for your dream girl, feeling utterly defeated and hopeless, until you realize you were waiting on the wrong damn block. That's what I like about this song's place in the Zeppelin canon. They often took their music to strange places, whether the desert sands of Kashmir, the pastoral past, into hippie fantasies and the inner workings of the mind... and the street corner. This isn't the song you think of when you think Led Zeppelin, but who else could have done it?

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Viva Brother: Famous First Words

The last album I reviewed was Radiohead's very highly regarded OK Computer. I would like very much for every album I review to be a masterwork of that order. It would be nice if every album was as affecting as most people (including myself) find that one. But of course, not everything is on the same level, and so as music critics we have to face the facts that you're going to get a lot more Viva Brothers than Radioheads.

So what is Viva Brother? A very clear throwback to Britpop. It's very un-selfconscious about it, too, dropping away the meaning and depth (or appearance of meaning and depth) and seriousness of Oasis and Blur. That sorta-familiar sound is cleansed of mannerisms unique to either band and boiled down to hooks and rhythms, a twangy accent and some clever lyrics rather than soul-searching or socially-critical ones. There's a lot of soaring choruses and refrains, handclaps and backing vocals, chants, "oooh", "ohs" and "ows," that sort of thing.

It may not be terrifically revolutionary, but it's certainly fun, light-hearted and catchy. This is music that will put a spring in your step, and never drags. The 34-minute running time is just about enough time to enjoy hearing the same song in 11 variations. It's really visceral, and you get the feeling that it was really fun for these guys to work out their riffs and hooks. There's a lot of spirit here. I bet the crowd at a Viva Brother show has more fun than a lot of bands.

Here, they're not aiming for high art. They want to bring a strong, kinetic energy to their record, and they do. It's damned consistent, none of the tracks stands out as better than the others (although the closer, "Time Machine" might boast the best chorus, and "Darling Buds of May" may be the very most fun,) and none of them sounds worse. If you hear one song by them, you can imagine whether you'd like a whole album of it. And that decision will probably say a fair bit about you as a listener and what you expect out of music. Admittedly, it'll be more for the younger set, who haven't had their fill of fun, active power pop yet, and need a reason to move around. It's also perfectly acceptable not to like the album, for those of us who've already had their Britpop, as well as their Weezer, their Sloan, their Arctic Monkeys, or even more recent (and yeah, probably better) acts like Locksley and Hollerado. But still, it's in fused with enthusiasm and excitement, and there's not a moment on this album that doesn't hit the spot for me.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Saturday, December 3, 2011

Serious Contenders: Doors, "People Are Strange"



"You really seem more like a crooner, working in the rock milieu, which I like." - Rip Taylor, on Jim Morrison, in Wayne's World 2.

"He's a drunken buffoon, posing as a poet!" - Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs, on Jim Morrison, in Almost Famous.

The Doors have a lot of appeal. They combine this level of mysticism with a level of raw street sensibility that, aside from their experimental indulgences, could be considered prototypical punk. They're known for long, drawn out compositions like "Light My Fire," "The End" and "LA Woman," but amongst their Greatest Hits are a lot of nifty, regular-sized, lean, mean tracks like this. I like it because it's sleek and bluesy, and the lyrics retain that Morrisony-spacey level of unreality. This song used to spook me as a child. "Faces come out of the rain / When you're strange / No-one remembers your name."

Morrison obviously thought of himself as strange, and spoke from experience. But instead of "I'm so strange," he wrote "When you're strange," which was a uniting lyric for young people in 1967, and is today. A lot of music lovers would consider themselves strange, and it's that strangeness that drives us to seek out the unseemly cracks in the world where we live, and to make music like that of the Doors.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Radiohead: OK Computer

You could think of it as a failure for every single music critic in the media that it took me until 2011 to finally sit down with this album. Part of it was my own willful resistance, but it's a review's job to bridge potential listeners to music they might enjoy. And for whatever reason, it never occurred to me until recently, well after I started a music blog, that I might enjoy OK Computer.

I've read about it. It's impossible not to. You sit down with an article about "X Best Albums of X Decades" and you can expect only a little bit of variation as to what's on top, and OK Computer has that impenetrable aura of greatness about it, a dense cloud of high praise. But I could never get a sense of what the album might sound like or why I might enjoy it. You can say that it's great and groundbreaking and important, but I don't know... what do those words sound like? It's intimidating. So you stay away, because not knowing is better than being disappointed. TVTropes calls it Hype Aversion. Overpraising an album is a good way to get people to turn against it. In the past I've been as susceptible to it as anyone, but over the last year I've worked, and worked hard, to keep it straight, exactly how to figure out what I think of an album, and to hopefully never push to hard so as to turn others off something I think they'll like.

Years ago, I heard "Paranoid Android." I probably wasn't ready for it, and my thought was likely "I don't think I could stand a whole album of this." It was too deliberately weird, and I wasn't into it at the time because I didn't see it as being as good as other deliberately weird songs. If I was trying to get someone to buy OK Computer, I don't think I'd play them "Paranoid Android" first. I'd probably play them "Airbag," the opening track. It blurs into focus, the themes and sonic territory of the album, with guitars both distorted and crystal clear, ragged strings and that late-90's beat. Thom Yorke's vocals soar with pure amazement at being alive: amazement at the simple wonder of technology that has saved his life, and at the world in which he finds himself... it's a wonderfully uncertain lyric, with a nice, tense instrumental backing that sets the atmosphere quite beautifully. The album shows a commitment to its whole aesthetic, rock without trying too hard to rock. At times transcendent, at times low. A sort of roundabout attempt to capture the extremes of humanity on record. There's such tension here.

With "Paranoid Android," the album might be showing its hand too early. It's probably the most ambitious composition, as I said, willfully weird, and not most people's idea of pleasure listening. That may be the point, but much of what follows actually is my idea of pleasure listening. I love the spacey yearning of "Subterranean Homesick Alien," that desire for something bigger than yourself, and for escape from day-to-day mundanity. It drifts wonderfully into its "Uptight, uptight" refrain, a word and delivery that seems to say so much about what the album is calling your attention to. Much of the album is spacey and soft-focus, like "Exit Music (For a Film)" a gradually-sharpening postmodernish Romeo & Juliet story (the Baz Luhrmann version being the film in question.) "Let Down" may be one of the most pleasurable songs on the album, using a delightfully somber twinkling instrumentation to lament tiny disappointments that become a big huge thing. That delicate guitar picking really sells it.

Two of my favourite tracks are separated by the anomalous "Fitter Happier." If OK Computer is a new generation's Dark Side of the Moon, then "Fitter Happier" is the disturbing inverse of "Great Gig In The Sky." It chills me: spoken-word piece read by one of those awful computer voices you'd get in the late 90's, with no intonation, deep in the Uncanny Valley (none of the words are unrecognizeable.) It seems at once to be polite encouragement, dictatorial demands, and an expression of disappointment, disapproval. And it's a fucking robot voice.

On one side of it is the probably showpiece of the album, "Karma Police." If "Paranoid Android" is an exhibition of how far they can go, "Karma Police" is a great example of what they can do with it, with a song that sounds like a song. Like most of the time, Yorke's voice seems thin, like it could be knocked over in a stiff breeze, but that's the strength, as the music builds around it and drops away as he declares, "This is what you get." So much of the album can be left to interpretation, but the band knows how to send a signal, like with the distant, melty-sounding "Climbing Up The Walls," which sounds like it was recorded from the next room.

After "Fitter Happier," we get the downright disruptive "Electioneering," one of the few songs on the album that can be said to cut loose. I love that it's this breakneck moment on this otherwise very nervy, restrained album, that it has this pure squealing rock pissed-offness to it and yet doesn't sound out of place. I learn from reading fan opinions that it's not thought of as being one of the better tracks, which is a good explanation why I don't generally concern myself with the opinions of others these days.

"No Surprises" is in its way, as chilling as "Fitter Happier," so serene but so cold, taking us back to the monotony of everyday life, about the horrors of stability. I was thinking today about songs like Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Mellancamp's "Our Country," and how they're often misinterpreted by marketers. I don't think there's any doing that with this album. Sure, the lyrics "No alarms and no surprises" read very pleasant on the page, but in delivery are just unsettling and dark. Well on second thought, the words don't seem that pleasant written out. But they convey their meaning without saying them, but also without hiding that they're saying them.

"Lucky" could be the end of the album for me. It's suitably climactic, and "The Tourist" is a nice coda. Both are very much great exercises in the album's style. "Lucky," with its utter helplessness, "The Tourist," like the last one left in a lonely room. I'd say that's probably what I like about the album -- and why, after repeated listens, I find "Paranoid Android" is now a rather vital part of the experience. I don't like the album because of what it says to me, but I love it for the way it goes about saying it. You need a really clear view of your music, and of the world around you, to come up with a set of songs like this. It's a real package. I even love the title: A "Computer" seeming like a foreign, monolithic thing that sits in your office and commands you, without ever really understanding what you are, nor you it; and "OK" both being a statement of quality ("good enough") and consent ("go ahead") which seems to relate very directly to the content and themes of the album, its ambivalent attitude. It's a whole thing, and I like it that way. But you can't just love an album because it seems to talk about the world around you, it has to sound good. The album deserves its reputation, but it doesn't need to hide behind it.

What I'm getting at, in an "Oh God Why Is He Still Talking" way, is that there's nothing special or sacred about this album. It's not something you need to keep on your shelf and only listen to on special occasions like Easter and Christmas. Good music should be part of your life always, and the many enjoyable facets of OK Computer are ones shared with other great albums. It's not wrong at all simply to enjoy these songs because they're good songs that happen to tap into my head, about some insecurities I have about the time and place I live, and mold it into musical form. Whatever they're up to on this seems to work. It's an engaging listen, and certainly not an impenetrable one. I didn't need to be afraid to listen to this album. It doesn't sound like the dense work of art the reviews make it out to be. But it's not surprising that this album, with all its character and strangeness, might also appeal to the types of people who can talk about great art (and make "greatest albums" lists) with a straight face, and of course become major music critics. Thankfully, it works for much of the rest of us too.

Then the album ends with a ding, as if awakening you from the trance, and back to the world for better or worse.

Buy this album now! iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Tuesday Special: NSync, "Pop"



"Hey now, cut that out, Scotto. Quit posting lame old '90s boy band songs. You love rock, you love Arcade Fire and Nirvana!"

Yes. Absolutely, and I wouldn't be caught dead holding an NSync CD, but y'know, I was not in their market so they probably would've been okay with that. If you had told 14-year-old me in 2001 that in ten years' time I would think Justin Timberlake was a pretty all right guy, that I would look forward to his appearances on Saturday Night Live or that he could go on TV and perform Eminem and Jay Z (and the Digital Underground!!) with utter impunity I would be shocked. Shocked, I tells ya! But here we are, it's 2011, I write about music, and Justin Timberlake seems like a really cool dude.

I don't have to like old Boyband songs, but they were exactly what they needed to be: groups of dudes singing and dancing in unison, to make girls between the ages of ten and 17 scream. And sometimes, it was better than it needed to be.

"Pop" is exactly what it claims: three-odd minutes of undiluted musical candy (plus a tag of weird beat-boxing thing.) But "Did you ever wonder why this music gets you high?" Sometimes, yes. I know now that Timberlake has a sense of humour about himself. What I couldn't have figured was that the whole NSync project had a vague air of self-awareness about itself, that they knew what they were doing was maybe not a stab at great art, but it was effective and fun. They took not taking themselves seriously pretty seriously, and it resulted in, yes, fairly disposable dance pop, but nothing you would look back at ten years later and recoil in disgust.

This type of music will always make up a certain segment of the musical tapestry. At times bigger than others. At the time I was very much of the opinion that none of it could ever be good. That's wrong. As with anything, it absolutely can be good, when you take care over it.

Tuesday Special: Bran Van 3000, "Astounded"



In 2001, when Bran Van 3000 released their sophomore album, disco hadn't yet enjoyed its brief early-2000's revival under Kylie Minogue, the Mamma Mia stage show, and later Madonna. So Bran Van couldn't be accused of jumping on the bandwagon, but they also weren't in a place to influence anyone else, so it was just an oddity.

There has always been dance pop, of course. It's not usually a subject music critics broach with much enthusiasm. Generally, it's made to order, according to specifications, rhythmic and repetitive. But ten years after this album we have Foster the People, among a host of others, applying rock philosophy to danceable music. So it's not like the entire concept is un-salvageable. Music like this has the capacity to be really fun, and at its best, get away with some weird stuff.

Legend has it, Curtis Mayfield's final recording session was for his part in this song. He had been paralyzed for most of a decade, but still wrote and recorded music, painstakingly line-by-line from his bed. Imagine being unable to move yourself, but still having the power to make others. I dare you to keep your head and feet still during this song.

Monday, November 28, 2011

The xx: XX

Talk about exploring a sound: this band does it very thoroughly on their stark debut album. In the darkness, there could be anything. Love, desire, longing, heartache, wistfulness. Loneliness, togetherness. There are two voices, those of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim. They mutter and hum, moaning and stumbling a little over lyrics. There's nervousness and resignation. Sometimes they are intertwined, sometimes they are separated by a thick, thick barrier.

There's no hiding, and the sound is reduced to mere elements of percussion, a bit of humming, droning instrumentation (usually guitar, but sometimes keyboard,) and those voices in the darkness. Modest, but honest. Two figures trying desperately to find each other blindly. It's remarkable how much is suggested by the music, which is what makes it so effective. They play moods as much as notes. Hypnotic, but knowing and ear-catching all the same.

The few elements split and recombine throughout the 11 tracks, all of which are good and some of which stand out, but which mainly exist as part of a whole. I love albums that work as complete projects. You can't pick this album apart and look at its elements. It's a solid slab. It's a brick. You crack it open, inside is only more brick.

I think what I like about is that it isn't a put on. It's melodic, it's real music, and yet, it isn't showy. It's like a real person, guarded, with a tone matching its contemplative, simple lyrics. It's relaxing and meditative. I like that it's a very artistic statement that remains obscure, capturing that moment where you're still struggling to express something, and ultimately being the best expression of that something, that ineffable something. Half of it is built in your head and the other half was already there waiting to be uncovered. You get out of it what you bring.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Cover: Gorillaz, "Crystalised"



A good cover reveals the compositional strength of one artist and the performance strength of another. Already fairly minimalistic, "Crystalised" by the XX becomes under Damon Albarn's touch an even lonelier, more haunting plea, like something Danny Elfman would write for a suicide scene. Albarn's instruments are lighter than the XX's, but his vocals are also weightier, so he pushes further it in both directions.

Serious Contenders: Rolling Stones, "Miss You"



You could call it a Disco song, if you need to, but the Rolling Stones have a good enough sense of the veins of musical history that they know where the common root is between rock and Disco. It's pretty funky, but it's also lascivious and worn-out, very urban and dark, in its way bluesy. Like Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust," (another Serious Contender) it creates a context for itself outside of trends and genres. It's more like Michael Jackson than it is ABBA. Mick sounds like a slithering sexual predator, and that bass riff, that harmonica, the whole deal all backs him up. I love songs that seem to come from the fringes, and this one is definitely out there. It's a pretty popular song, and yet, I don't think anyone would call it one of the Stones' very best. But if reminded, they would.

Serious Contenders: Third Eye Blind, "Semi Charmed Life"



As you might have noticed, I'm in the business of lifting the music of the 90's up amongst the rest of music history, and not just for Nirvana and Radiohead. Half the future installments of "Serious Contenders" are from the 90's, simply because it's been long enough that my relatively impartial memory -- around but unaware during the time -- feels suited to the task of sussing out what should survive, what should be remembered and enshrined.

You never know what's going to sum up a time or place. I thought, when I was a kid, it was just some dumb pop song, but it's actually pretty bang-on for that 90's feeling of sunshine on the outside, turmoil on the inside. It's this feeling of seeming happy but knowing inside something's wrong. So Third Eye Blind married the sunniest goddamn hook you could think of (Doot-doot-doot, doot-do-doot-doot) to wry, lamenting lyrics about addiction and emotional instability, delivered at a pace that indicates how in-touch with hip hop "alt-rock" was or felt at the time (one of many examples, most of which will probably end up here before long.) It even has that eye-of-the-storm middle eight, "I believe in the sand beneath my toes," etc, that seem to indicate the late 90's were just a big ole beach party, but one everyone was ready to leave.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Arcade Fire: Funeral

Music can be, and in this day and age frequently is, anything. There are no limits to what can be put on a record, not by genre, lyric, or instrument. You're not beholden to any standard or expectation, not in any important way. You've got nothing holding you back except your imagination, and since you've made it that far, that attribute must be particularly strong. See, that's something music reviews seem to disregard. The most amazing thing about some albums is that they happen at all. Someone made this. They made it to say something, they made it to show themselves, they made it to sound this way. Forget what it could be or isn't. Here we are.

The first half of Arcade Fire's debut album, Funeral, seems to be bursting at the seams with anythingness. Of these five tracks, four are numbered "Neighborhoods." #1, #2 and #3 are all manic, tied together by Win Butler's excitable vocal delivery, more expressive than it is melodic. Like there's simply too much going on in his head and heart than can be rationally related. "Tunnels" is accompanied by a twinkling, swelling piano. "Laika" pulses, setting street-accordion and strings against a clanging guitar. "Power Out" is the most agitated, thundering and percussive, but set against sweet baroque strings. Here, Butler screams himself hoarse, seeming to be against the wall and running out of time (or faith in humanity.) The first respite comes between #2 and 3, a much dreamier and romantic power outage, "Une Annee Sans Lumiere," a bilingual duet between Win and wife Regine, delicate and twinkling like a streetlight on newly-fallen snow, warm like an embrace. "Kettles" provides the closing note for the first half of the album, a campfire strumming ballad of patience and timing, with some of the best lyrics to this point of the album. "Power Out" gets all the glory, but "Kettles" and "Crown of Love" get credit from me for their "eyelids" imagery (My eyes are covered by my unborn kids / But my heard keeps watching through the skin of my eyelids in this one.) The piano and guitar click along like pacing footsteps, while the strings swell up like whistling kettles (as do actual kettles.)

The eyelid imagery carries to "Crown of Love" with one of the best lyrics on the whole record: "I carved your name across my eyelids / You pray for rain, I pray for blindness." "Crown of Love" is a work of staggering beauty, climbing directionally, instead of sprawling like three of the neighbourhoods, or settling into itself like "Kettles" or "Une Annee." The second half of Funeral engages in a lot of building up and breaking down, journeys in certain directions. Both the Arcade Fire albums I've tackled here seem, appropriately, like locations as much as sounds. Places you can visit, explore and leave.

While the first half of the album is good-to-great, "Crown of Love" kicks off an excellent streak that may encompass that entire run of five tracks (depending on your opinion of a few of them.) I love the revving guitars and towering choral refrain of "Wake Up," Win Butler as preacher to the youth ("If we don't grow up / Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up... I guess they just have to adjust...") In these five, whether you like them more or less than the first five, certainly seem more planned out and steady in their direction, even as they too chart odd directions. There's the Disco segment at the end of "Crown" and "Wake Up" has a Bo Diddley-like segment. "Haiti" is an area of isolation, like an island of its own, as the strumming guitars create an almost unnaturally calm tide, under which danger lurks in Regine's distant, drowning vocals. Waves lap calmly, but the waters are full of blood.

This drifts into the titanic "Rebellion (Lies,)" the arguable centerpiece of the album, probably both the best song, and biggest showpiece for what the band is capable of when it focuses its energies. I don't mean to belittle the earlier half of the album, I wouldn't have changed a note, but there's simply no touching "Rebellion." I often find that the songs I like best are the ones I can describe least, because my appreciation for them goes beyond my ability to verbalize. And for me, that's saying something. The last track, "In the Backseat" ends the album on a suitably operatic note, going from the quietest moment of the album to, if not the loudest, then certainly among the most intense, climbing slowly and unpeeling Regine's emotional vocal.

Looking back, Funeral is an amazing opening gambit. Arcade Fire introduces themselves by roughly defining their sound, and showing what it can really do. The sound is constantly mutating, depending on what needs to be said and how. Importantly, it always sounds like itself. I think there's a definite validity to liking an album that seems to create a language of its own, especially like this one, that doesn't lose its audience along the way. Great music works off what you've already heard, then shows you something you couldn't have dreamed up. That's probably what I love about this album. Somebody had to dream it up, and I can't even imagine how you would do that, and make it work so well.

I once observed that, if you're meeting new people, just mention that you like Arcade Fire. Either they'll agree, and you'll have a new friend, or they'll disagree and you probably won't want to talk to them anymore. (This also works for the TV show Arrested Development.) In its grand design, it has a very unifying feeling to it, something that brings people together.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Sunday, November 20, 2011

The Strokes: Angles

It is, I think, physically impossible to review the latest Strokes album without mentioning how awesome Is This It was. I would love to be reviewing that album, as I think even ten years later it stands as a shining example of rock in the 21st century. But time has passed, the Strokes have released a few albums of varying quality, and returned with their fourth effort, which forges in a different direction. It is different from Is This It, that's for sure. And I, personally, would never see "not being that album" as a flaw that would keep me from enjoying it. While that's a valid approach, it's one that has been done every way possible. I'm too interested in talking about this particular album to drag that one back up.

There are a lot of criteria you can consider when judging an album. Some have a particular statement they want to make in songwriting form. Some have a sound to explore across various tracks. Some just have a few bona fide hits/highlights and the filler is merely not bad. The latter approach, I think, is an underrated way of scoring an album, and it has been the case with a lot of albums I've loved this year. I know where my favourites are, and I'm happy to listen to the tracks in between to get to them. Among Angles' ten tracks, we have four, five, maybe six real highlights, and the in-between tracks never feel tacked on, boring, bland, rote, phoned-in or weak. This is an album of definite craft, which manifests even when a real catchy hook is absent.

It begins as strongly as anything I've heard all year, with "Machu Picchu," crystalline rhythm establish the album's dark dancefloor aesthetic. It builds to one of many great Casablancas choruses on the album, where he shows off he's not just a garage punk screamer, he can do a good Jim Morrison croon, showing a cocky swagger with a poetic distance. This is followed by a crashing guitar echo that reminds me of running lines on the school gym floor. It gets your pulse going. "Under Cover of Darkness" has the band at real top form, with a spiky opening riff unlike anything I can recall (truly "angular,") and swinging like the bigger brother of the earlier "Someday," with its soaring chorus, those scribbling choked-up riffs, and that solo which does as any good solo should, takes the driver's seat and seems to sing the song in microcosm without words. I can't praise the guitars on this album enough, nor the drums, which crash and bang and cut loose when they need to, but also restrain and keep a tight funk beat when called upon.

Speaking of funk, there's "Taken for a Fool," which is an otherworldly, shadowy bass workout, one of the most focused and driving individual tracks on the set. All the pieces seem to come together, and it's a really gripping tune that can easily get people worked into a frenzy. It sits between the buzzing, muttering "You're So Right" and the moaning "Games." There's a definite sound on the album, with the band sounding almost inhuman, disaffected, beaten down, defeated and robotic. It's played out through these tracks between the "highlights," and sometimes within them, since music is often a balance between the two (read: rhythm and melody, doy.) Then sometimes, they switch back to too-human versions of themselves, bristling with life, rage and romance. "Two Kinds of Happiness" is a highlight in this regard, which I could see some disagreeing on. It starts out bouncy, but with a weary vocal, until Julian's voice seems to get completely overtaken by his bandmates sending out a soaring, anthemic, almost U2-like (but in a good way) score. It also has some of the most thoughtful lyrics ("One's devotion, one's just a ring,") even for a band known for being clever and observational.

There's also "Gratisfaction," with its "Never gonna get my love" riff, which is among the more pop moments for a band that has always delighted in blurring the lines between songwriting and pure rock. It's a groove you can take home with you. It's glitzy, and as with many Strokes songs, it seems to be about the darkness lurking beneath. This is preceded by the shimmering, passive aggressive quiet of "Call Me Back" (opening lyric: "Wait time is the worst / I can hardly sit.") which never builds the way you'd hope, but has a really nice moment in its "I don't know why I came down ... I hear a voice..." refrain, in a way romanticizing impatience. It's a fair bit more experimental than even the rest of the album. It's another track that indicates the band's interest in creating moods beyond merely making barnstorming rockers... an interest that was indicated, frankly, by the opening track of their first album. Its gentle conclusion leads perfectly to the crash-and-bang of "Gratisfaction," showing just how key sequencing can be.

The band then lays it all on the table with the ruthless, ominous "Metabolism," whose backing track reminds me of a Bowser battle from a Mario game, and a mean vocal. The song itself is not as great as other tracks as a composition, but like "Call Me Back," and others is a triumph of performance, shows the breadth and strength of their abilities. "Life Is Simple In The Moonlight" ends it on a high note (although even the albums "low notes" are pretty damn good,) playing an damn effective "quit-loud" dynamic for all it's worth, between vulnerability and toughness, freedom and restraint. Most of these songs don't sound like Is This It, but most of them manage to be quite awesome. They go for a setting and mood, and explore the appeal within them: then come the hooks and solos.

The more I listen to it, and the more I think and write about it, the more I like it. The Strokes are magicians, distracting you with songs that seem normal, but hit you in ways similar, lesser ones on the radio don't. They not only know their craft, their strengths and their scope, they're interested in expanding outward. They're a bit like 1970's David Bowie now: you feel like you know what they're up to, but they have hidden reserves, tricks up their sleeves. The point, which I always appreciate in my rock & roll, is that there is a point: they're reaching for something, rather than resting on what's expected, and they do it marvelously.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Saturday, November 19, 2011

Cover: Patti Smith, "Gloria"



One of the most famous cases of a cover ever. The Patti Smith version of "Gloria" contains enough new lyrics that it arguably could have been considered a different song from Them's original. But it's important that not only was the basic guitar kept the same, it also included the distinctive chorus. While it takes forever for that big final moment, the preceding minutes are all build and tease, truly seductive and even mystical, from the assertion that "My sins, they belong to me," to her manci chanting of "And her name is! / And her name is! / And her name is! / And her name is!" that, to me, always sounds like "And the nightmares! / And the nightmares!" Which shows you the power of delivery, maybe.

And then at long last, the name is said, the song explodes. Patti seems to take such delight in drawing out the spelling, relishing every moment of that release. This version of the song is truly a piece of work, one that propels itself on intensity and desire.

Serious Contenders: Weezer, "Perfect Situation"



I have said, repeatedly and obnoxiously, that "Perfect Situation" may in fact be the best song Rivers Cuomo ever wrote. Even above the fun quirk of "Buddy Holly" or the raw confessionality of the Pinkerton tunes, I think this is the one that hits it best. It's specific, yet intimately relatable. The lyrical content is just spot on, from the first verse's baseball metaphor, to the straightforward bitterness in "Can't ya see that she belongs to me? / And I don't appreciate this excess company," it nails that "so close yet so far" romantic-longing that Weezer does so well, not at all undercut by the bouncy piano and wailing guitars, which help emphasize the song's points.

The real star, though, is the "Ohh, ho" chorus. I've long admitted my fondness for non-lexical expressions in songs. Well placed and well delivered, they say more than real words ever can, and this sigh, this cry of resignation, this "What can I do?" feeling is so spot-on it hurts, and yet it sounds so warm. Such is the gift of great pop music.

In championing this as one of the best Weezer songs, I'm fighting what I call (for lack of a snappier name) the "Pinkerton Effect." That time after a career-defining work when releasing music that is merely very good or great is not enough for the fans. The album from which this song comes, Make Believe, is not as good as Pinkerton or The Blue Album, but several of its songs were good enough that it shouldn't matter a whit. Instead, a lot of people hold it against Weezer that something they did was so excellent, they fail to realize they're still releasing music that's better than most of their contemporaries. Even Hurley, which I reviewed early this year, had a lot going for it.

Maybe you really don't like this song, or any other post-Pinkerton releases. That may be fine. My frustration is that oftentimes, backlash prevents people from really giving the songs a listen and appreciating them on their own terms. As time goes by, I grow less and less fond of the idea that every artist's work should be measured strictly against their earlier stuff. I always prefer to listen to a song or album in its own context first, and not holding against it that "it's no Pinkerton."

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Foo Fighters: Wasting Light

I don't expect this to be one of my deeper, more thoughtful reviews. Good hard guitar rock isn't meant to be examined, but felt. It either grabs you or it doesn't, and while there are obvious traits a great rock album should exhibit, it's ultimately that ineffable, visceral feeling that determines whether it has done its job properly. It's funny. Biased as I am, bad rock is as painful to me as a bad example of any genre, and every generation goes through its uninspired radio hits. But a good rock album like this feels like a real achievement. Not because it's groundbreaking -- in fact, there's a surplus of precedent for an album like Wasting Light -- but because it manages to work its influence into something that is both new and classic-sounding. The miracle of Wasting Light isn't that there's a rock album that sounds like this in 2011. It's that just two years ago, Foo Fighters released their greatest hits covering a decade and a half of recording. That seemed like a pretty concise summing up of their career and underlined how consistent they've been, how nicely "I'll Stick Around" (actually omitted from the Greatest Hits) or "Monkey Wrench" sits next to "Best Of You." The miracle is that two years later they release an album of original material that creates an equally enjoyable listening experience in and of itself -- that takes all the best parts of the Foo Fighters sound and works them for all they're worth.

It's perfectly conventional and that's perfectly all right. Awesome, in fact, because when all the gears are in place, the rock machine is an incredible one to behold. Kurt Cobain mused (bluntly and not wrongly) that every song was just "verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, bad solo, chorus." Grohl is a fair bit more nuanced about it, knowing exactly what riffs best introduce each songs, how to use a prechorus as a teaser to the chorus, and occasionally, write a really good lyric. The dude seems, on this album to be a veritable fountain of hooks, and they're damn sharp. They hit that center of your brain that makes you want to absorb the song, and keep listening to the album. And then the album performs the enviable feat of never letting up, over 11 songs that never cause the listener's interest to wane, from the opening chunk of "Bridge Burning" to the last note of "Walk." I'm often wary of songwriting that seems to obviously hooky, but to be fair, Grohl & Co. seem to come by it honestly. the stretch of "You got a lotta neee-eeee-eeee-eee-eeeerve" in "Back & Forth" uses the kind of descent (or some musical theory term) you would avoid if you were trying to write a hit, but it grabs exactly how it's supposed to. In fact, I find it interesting that for radio singles, they led with a couple of the less obvious hits. "Rope" is pretty manic, with its skittering guitars, droning verse and panicked chorus. "Walk," the second single, starts off seeming like it might be either a ballad or a rewrite of "Learn to Fly," but instead of rising and falling, it just keeps rising, until everything seems to collapse in on itself due to excessive rockitude, and Grohl's voice becomes a wail to rival Steven Tyler or Axl Rose as the needle gets buried in the red. They were both unlikely commercial singles, but have real character, and in the context of the album, stand out even further than the more hooky, catchy, ones.

The scream, of course, had previously been on display on the breakneck "White Limo," itself sounding largely like an earlier Queens of the Stone Age track. These, with the bluesy "I Should Have Known," provide alternative reference points for the character of the band and the album, beyond "able to produce catchy-as-fuck hard rock songs at the drop of a hat." When these moments come out, they overpower the surrounding tracks, but wind up as accessories to the real story of the album which is, as I've previously mentioned, all those fucking hooks!

Grohl's voice has become one of the great rock vocals. He can sing just enough, he can grumble and scream. He's got both the badass swagger and the vulnerability, and he sounds wiser with age but not jaded or exhausted. Many, maybe even all of the songs, deal with the passage of time, letting go of the past, forgiving, forgetting, regretting, lamenting, and looking toward the future. It's mature, but not stodgy, and would be a great album for a teenager to get his hands on, but an older listener will find it just right too. It carries a weight, and works as a great example of how good rock can sound when you take care over it, when you have a good intuition with your instruments. Grohl the former drummer can structure a song according to its rhythm, and has a great bunch of bandmates carrying it out; Taylor Hawkins may in fact be the best drummer in rock. But I don't know much about drumming. Or guitarring, for that matter. All I know is that certain flourishes in "Dear Rosemary" and "Arlandria" (perhaps the most masterful track on the piece) could probably be traced to that, and as a result give the album a lot of heart and soul to back up the world-beating riffage.

So... why does it work? Or how? How do they escape the morass of post-grunge radio rock lameness, without swerving too hard in the other direction (even on "White Limo")? If you had played me the greatest hits, and said "Sure, this band is good, but what is it they are missing?" I probably would not have said "Another guitarist." And yet, on Wasting Light, you have Grohl, Chris Shiflett, and a returning Pat Smear, all credited with "lead and rhythm guitars." And that definitely seems to make a difference, fleshing out and defining the sound without making it seem crowded, somehow. You can hear three guitars (along with the bass and drums!) at various points on the album, sometimes in harmony, sometimes doing their own thing. It could be a mess. Instead, every guitar knows where to go to keep the song from getting pedestrian, keeping the rock alive and breathing by adding that extra element, creating that unstoppable force of rock.

The thing is, these are all exceptionally talented musicians working on the same page. Smear was in punk bands a decade before his brief tenure in Nirvana. Shiflett also plays in the greatest cover band in the world, Me First & The Gimme Gimmes. They know the steps and they haven't grown tired of playing them. Between the five of them, they've lived the lifetimes of approximately seventeen musicians, and are, in 2011, among the most invigorated bands out there. There are a lot of traps inherent in creating an album like this, and they avoid them all. Each track is a gem and fits perfectly with the next. By the time you get to "A Matter of Time" and "Miss the Misery" you might be too thoroughly absorbed to even notice how long you've been listening.

This is the beauty of a great rock album. All the pieces seem familiar enough, but when you get them all together in the right way, in just unique enough a way to sound fresh, it's a thing of beauty. Guys, this album is pretty much the reason people still learn guitar.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Monday, October 31, 2011

Cover: "One Week"



I don't usually take it on myself to post random YouTube acoustic covers, but my brother and I were musing on whether anyone on YouTube covered this song this song "But, like, did the rap more like a song." I felt it was certain, and found this video among others. Later that same day, on How I Met Your Mother, Katie Holmes performed a comically "seductive" version for Ted, so I felt compelled to send this out there to you as proof of this odd synchronicity.

Keep on rockin'!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Does It Rock? Dan Mangan, "Post War Blues"



It's been about a year since the germ of an idea started forming in my head, exactly what my "philosophy" would be when I started reviewing music. I hadn't even come up with the idea for this blog yet, but when I did, the approach I ended up taking was rooted in something that happened on the way home from a Halloween party in 2010.

I was on my way home the next morning, and I picked up one of Toronto's free hip indie newspapers. NOW, probably. In it, there was an article on Mangan, whose song "Robots," I was really digging. I hadn't had a chance to pick up the album yet. The article's thrust was that Mangan was an up and comer on the indie scene, with a growing fanbase and a couple of award notices: notably, his album Nice Nice Very Nice was a dark horse candidate for that year's Polaris prize. The article wondered whether this attention was warranted, referencing a review by Alan Cross calling the album "Bland, bland, very bland." This... this irked me.

Alan Cross is an extremely noteworthy Canadian music journalist, a self-described "professional music geek." His work with Corus stations like Edge 102 in Toronto makes him pretty much the lead tastemaker. He seems like a nice guy. But he's also got a gig with the chain of stores I work for, regular segments on the official radio station we listen to, introducing current hits with background information or trivia. He never voices his critical opinion there, or if he does, it's only vaguely, non-committally, and always supportive, even when describing generic radio pop, stuff critics don't usually fawn over, like the Black Eyed Peas or Britney Spears.

It seemed so disingenuous to me, that this titan of music journalism should make it his business to kick an up and comer back down the ladder. That he plays the critic card for someone doing his best to create his own sound and carve out his niche, while giving his tacit stamp of approval to the usual ubiquitous pop you hear everywhere anyway.

I mean, I get it: Britney, the Peas, Rihanna, Coldplay, they're all critic-proof. They're going to get radio play and they're going to sell records no matter what I think about them and no matter what Alan Cross thinks about them. That's fine, in fact it's great. I've often said Justin Bieber and Michael Buble are keeping us in business, even though I'd never buy one of their records for myself. Nothing wrong with that. But why discourage Mangan, especially when people, as the article pointed out, are responding to it? As I said with my Oasis write-up, no matter your own thoughts as a critic, if an act provokes a response from its intended audience, it works, and it's part of your job to figure out why, not merely to tell people they're wrong. Maybe to some ears, that first Mangan album was bland. But to a lot, it wasn't. And that write-up scared me away from buying the first album, since I was a lot more skittish about committing to buying music before this blog, and never came back to it since.

Aaaaaanyway, a year has passed and Mangan has a new album, and this is the single off it, which I personally have been enjoying. It begins with that pulsing verse and builds, much like "Robots," below, but with a bit more muscle, and those trilling U2 guitars. I know there are a lot of people who would like this song and probably the whole album, who wouldn't hear about it otherwise. Until I can get around to hearing the whole set, I'll let you decide for yourself whether it rocks. I think it really does, though.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Belle & Sebastian: Write About Love

Write about love, they do, but it's strange. If all you wanted was goopy Tin Pan Alley tracks or pop music, there are more conventional routes, more obvious lyrics one could write. A lot of this so-called Write About Love album seems not to be about love at all. At least 5 tracks don't seem to broach the topic directly at all. But the title doesn't seem ill-chosen. It's that sound, that manic-depressiveness, in love with the world one minute, shunning all for the safety of bed the next, it bounces between stripped down and wall of sound, but doesn't seem at odds with each other. It's all a thing, you see. And that thing is the same language we use in love. It's very much multi-sided, but all of a piece, various the angles from the same viewer: nostalgic, quietly optimistic, boisterously enthusiastic and regretful all in turns. It hits you clearly with its intended meaning while being subtle in its exact approach.

After a too-hesitant opening, the wonderfully wistful "I Didn't See It Coming" rolls in on a drumbeat and piano combo that makes me think 90's, but whose "girl, guy and guitar" call & answer vocals are very much of today, at least, today's model of nostalgia. It beats a path right to the heart, with the warm instrumentation of the past and quietly harmonized sighs that "We don't have the money / Money makes the wheels and the world go round / Forget about it honey / Trouble's never far away when you're around." The invocation to "Make me dance, I want to remember" ought to be enough of a thought to send anybody away with. Echoing back to this mood is the sweet balled "The Ghost of Rock School," one of many songs Stuart Murdoch handles solo on vocals, turning in one of his finer moments, and aided easily by a backing of horns and winds that sound like the lifting of dawn after a still night, especially as the song reaches its crescendo. It's fittingly spiritual for a lyric about seeing God.

The best two tracks feature guest vocalists, who bring a different tone from that of usual female vocalist Sarah Martin. "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John" is led primarily by Norah Jones, who might send a chill up your back with this "long summer's dreaming." The song lays out its theme in perhaps the finest lyric of the album: "What a waste, I could have been your lover / What a waste, I could have been your friend," which hits like a hammer in its second iteration. Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan appears for the refrains of the title track, a howling beaut of Spectorian celebration. Murdoch seems just a little sinister as he insists "I know a spell that will make you well: write about love, it can be in any form, hand it to me in the morning," prompting Mulligan to sigh in her buoyant vocal that she hates her job, all while the tune is floated along on electric piano, lightening the mood from the tedious routine into fantastic escapism.

The album is dotted with moments of earnest sweetness, like the overstimulated "I'm Not Living In The Real World," or the twist-worthy "Come On Sister." The real treats, though, are in the shadows. The darkened "I Want The World To Stop," which whirs ominously. Again, there's call and response, but it sounds like someone airing grievances to an unsympathetic reflection, tearing itself apart in its climactic outro. Then there's the sorrowful "Calculating Bimbo," and the gentle, world-weary "Read the Blessed Pages," resting ambivalently on a gentle guitar and recorder.

Stuart Murdoch's vocals have that certain uncertainty, that suspicion that he really ought not to be singing what he's singing, but he's often bolstered by a terrific female vocal, whether it be Martin, Jones, or Mulligan. The interplay and harmony is always great, lifting the material in every instance, but his solo outings have a character of their own,. This is a band that knows where everything goes. Just listen to the sheer number of instruments on the record, and not a one of them seems out of place or ill-used. They thoroughly explore the terrain of every aspect they can use, and they come up with a complete trip. Dig "I Can See Your Future," which begins with mariachi-like horns, and uses a Motown-like beat. And "Sunday's Pretty Icons" rockets home by pulling together many of the album's best aspects in one song: top notch vocals and lyrics, a hummable tune and a jangly beat, all delivered by aplomb.

I referred to the album as "manic-depressive." Love certainly does that to you, and you certainly couldn't take that to mean the album is unfocused. The opposite is true, in fact: the album is single-minded in its pursuit of a complete view of that feeling, if not a narrative than certainly that ineffable experience of love, loss, and love renewed. Every new feeling as an expansion rather than a twist. It's really sincere and direct, which I like. Here we have another album with a debt to the past -- like She & Him, The Coral or Raphael Saddiq, it has many obvious touchpoints in 60's pop -- but this isn't a case of recreation or reference. It takes up the strategies of those records in order to take the same path to the heart as they did: swimming with sweet sounds, but in the way a modern record does, written with knowing smarts. Open and honest, yet guarded and unsure.

Buy this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com // Amazon.ca



Monday, October 24, 2011

Serious Contenders: Oasis, "Wonderwall"



I didn't like Oasis when they were big. I wasn't much for this song's nonsensical lyrics and watery, strummy sound. But in the months since I began this blog, I've radically altered my perspective on why music might be good. Everything I thought about "Wonderwall" is still true, as it remains true for a lot of the Oasis songs I know. But just as not everyone is going to love the music I do (although they should,) people are also going to love music I don't. I don't necessarily have a personal love for Oasis, but as a commentator, as an amateur critic, I give them props.

There's power in this song, a strange, wonderful, otherworldly power. You get it without really knowing why, and the clues aren't in the lyrics but the delivery. There's a reason any twentysomething a-hole can pick up a gutiar at a house party and start strumming this and the girls will flock to him. I see it now that I know it's there, that power to compel listeners. And that's as good a reason as any to acknowledge a song's greatness. Music is a form of communication, so as long as someone receives the message, it's validated, especially if the signal still comes through intact a decade and a half later. A simple pop hit will excite for a while then fade away, but we now know in 2011 the strength of a song like this is evergreen. I don't need to worry too much about how they did it or why they did it that way; they did it and they did it right, so good for them.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Cover: Neil Young, "Mr. Soul"



"Mr. Soul" was initially a ripper recorded by Young with Buffalo Springfield in the 60's, featuring a riff not totally dissimilar to the Stones' "Satisfaction." By the early 1980's, Young was with Geffen Records and indulging his mercurial side by recording a synth/New Wave/Kraftwerk album, Trans. He processed his vocals through a vocoder until they were utterly unhuman and in many case incomprehensible. He included a cover of "Mr. Soul" with this package, taming and moderating it with the plastic technology at his disposal. The result is so 80's it hurts, and the album was lambasted by critics but... listen.

At the time, Young was very concerned with caring for his son Ben, who was afflicted with cerebral palsy, and having difficulties communicating. The impossibility of communication must be fascinating for any performer, an intriguing and inspiring dilemma. In his own words: "At that time [Ben] was simply trying to find a way to talk, to communicate with other people. That's what Trans is all about. And that's why, on that record, you know I'm saying something but you can't understand what it is. Well, that's exactly the same feeling I was getting from my son."

I'm never one to say you should have to know the backstory of a song in order to enjoy it, but as often as not it doesn't hurt to get that added context. This version of "Mr. Soul," or anything else off Trans, doesn't necessarily stand on its own, but thinking of it in that way, it's quite sweet, and rather poetic.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Care Bears on Fire: Girls Like It Loud

Raise your expectations. When a band of girls still in their teens - a demographic normally associated with chasing Justin Bieber and drooling over Robert Pattinson than with NOFX concerts -- releases a punk EP that garners serious attention from audiences and critics, you can feel fairly certain this is not a novelty. They are not being humoured. They are proving themselves. These girls know their craft. They play more sophisticated, menacing riffs than many pop punks bands I grew up with. They've got the punk sneer and stance down. And most importantly -- this will be valuable when they're older and still making records, which I hope is the case -- they have a great ear for material. They're writing righteous, ticked off, but also clever and observational songs, with memorable, effective hooks that really highlight the skill and talent in this band. This isn't some cute, precious novelty act. It's a real deal.

The downloadable 5-track EP (retailing for $4.99 -- I could think of worse uses for 5 bucks) comes with three bonus music videos, bringing the track listing to 8 with one repeat. The music videos "Barbie Eat a Sandwich" and "Everybody Else" are straightforward, blunt, and fun pop punk tunes. Odes to non-conformism you'd expect from teenage punk rockers, especially girls who feel the pressure to meet stereotypical beauty standards. The sentiment isn't new. Hell, the idea of underage punk rock girls harkens back to the Runaways (and who could forget Cherie Currie's menacing "Hello Daddy, Hello Mom!"? Or Dakota Fanning's re-enactment, even.) But nothing about these songs seems imitative of that. Just like Punk has moved on from the 70's heyday, CBOF don't need to be compared to the Runaways. This song is also a little less subtle than the similarly-themed "Barbie Girl" by Aqua, which is saying something for its bluntness. It doesn't mince words, and it's effective, spiced up with a new wave buzz. "Everybody Else" has a brief solo that makes me think of the Strokes doing the Clash doing the Bobby Fuller Four. The squeak in Sophie's voice when she sings "Good girl" is an incredible vocal tool, roughing up the prettiness of her vocals in the opposite direction of her raggedy guitar-playing, emphasizing the meaning of the song, which comes along with enough "na-na-na's" to get thep oint across. (I've always been a big fan of well-used nonsense words.)

Those two tracks seem to predate the other five. The production on the new ones is a lot cleaner, the instrumentation a bit more ornate, the vocals more mature. There's still that sarcastic girlishness to them, but it's a difference. These songs also showcase an incredible gift for songwriting, which, if they're that much newer, indicates a crapload of artistic growth. The blistering "What I Could Be," which sets the tone for the set, is about seeking yourself and standing apart from others. The hook in that chorus is strong, and it has that edge of realness... that ineffable "authenticity" sought by most punk acts, and with effortlessness and grace. Again, Sophie's vocals are the key, along with the steady pounding beat and growling guitars, which sound just clean enough for radio but not so clean as to lose their edge.

"Red Lights" gives us a steadier beat, and Sophie delivers the vocals with a note of admiration for the subject, leading to a lovely dreamlike chorus (that again, does not sacrifice a punk stance) making this song a standout here. "ATM" is a cleverly-phrased bitter relationship pissoff, backed by a charging verse and another great hooky chorus. Then "Ask Me How I Am" wonderfully hits the ambivalence of its shrugging "Satisfied and okay" chorus. Best of all may be the cover of Tears for Fears' "Everybody Wants To Rule The World," which shows (as Me First & The Gimme Gimmes have often proved) how any song can be made into a punk song with the right attitude. They bust this one out with such gusto, yet such casualness, it feels completely natural. And the song is of course strong enough that its sentiment is still relevant, even still a little startling from the mouths of young girls.

It could've been even easier and poppier and still been good, like the music from the 2000's Josie & The Pussycats movie (underrated.) Instead, we get reminders that they are not as innocent as they appear: they're punk prodigies with real fire. The concept of these Care Bears on Fire as young girls still learning the world is subverted constantly throughout the album as they prove they've got their eyes open to the world and their fingers on the fretboard. A good punk album is as thrilling as anything you can name, as the past decade has sadly seen the genre tamed on the radio and pushed past extremes in the underground. This EP finds the sweet spot, the same area occupied by another great punk album I reviewed this year, the Exploding Hearts: smart and sweet, with fire and soul. It gives me hope for the future to think these girls are just getting started. Hell, it excites me.

Download this album now: iTunes // Amazon.com