Sunday, January 30, 2011

Stars: The Five Ghosts

What do you think is going to happen when you have a mopey, melancholy lot of Canadian indie-popsters like Stars, and direct them toward a concept album linking romance, loss, and loneliness with death and the afterlife? Hm? Eh? It's called he Five Ghosts and it is about ghosts. Ghosts for your retro-80's dance pop.

It's a lonely, haunted, quiet, cold album, made all the more lonesome because there's actually a lot going on amidst the mourning. Ever walked down a busy city street on a cold dreary fall day? Everyone just drifts onward with no regard for others in the world, but there are so many of you. This music is like that. Synths and beats sparkly as quiet, lamenting vocals waft over them. "Thousands of ghosts in the daylight," sings co-lead vocalist Torquil Campbell on "I Died So I Could Haunt You," "One day we all disappear / We walk till we get to the harbor / They'll never know we were there." The contrast between the lively instrumentation and the dead vocalization is pretty substantial.

It's hard to get ahold of, what the music is supposed to be like. The band tries, sometimes too hard and sometimes unsuccessfully, to reach a kind of profound moment that underlies their music. Here and there it strengthens it, and elsewhere it makes it sound a bit silly. I don't like the opening track, "Dead Hearts," much for its verses, a silly little call and response thing played utterly straight. Though the chorus contains one of the better lyrics on the album, "It's hard to know they're out there / It's hard to know that you still care," which is the first indication of the depth of the ghost metaphor, about the intangible nature of love and human feeling. But they push the seriousness and strain it a fair bit on the album. I'm troubled by "We Don't Want Your Body," whose verses are too deliberate to be funky and loose, and whose chorus uses the line "You sold your soul to ecstasy / So you could have some sex with me," which just such a silly goddamn thing to say. "Some sex." It's otherwise a good song, but that stiffness does them in whenever the album starts to catch fire, and takes me out of the experience.

Amy Millan carries most of her parts beautifully. Her voice has a modest yet sultry quality to it, that could go from being utterly bemused by the world to being supremely seductive. It runs that spectrum in her first solo go, "Wasted Daylight," and while "Fixed" isn't much of a vocal showcase, it's a great piece of songcraft that bounces along so energetically it seems to have been important from another album and band. That "You / You hold my heart" hook is a winner, though, and "How Much More" toward the end of the album lifts the spirit up higher than I would've expected. And "Changes" gives us a modern Peggy Lee or Patsy Cline, both in tune and attitude. Off-kilter though it may be, I can see "The Passenger" having a life outside this album: it's where their cinematic (character and storytelling) tendencies mesh best with the music itself.

But yeah, the album takes chances that often don't pan out or are just hard to listen to. "The Last Song Ever Written" and "He Dreams He's Awake" gradually build toward their point, but there's something so fundamentally-unbalanced about their construction that leaves a bad taste with me. The former is more clever than I initially gave it credit for, and the latter has its place in setting the mood and building the aura of the album. But generally speaking Torquil's voice is my least favourite aspect of Stars' sound, as it represents that strain for meaning.

This isn't a lovable album. It won't wrap its arms around you, it doesn't aim to please, that much is clear. It's serious, sad-ass music, and you have to be in a particular mood to even appreciate it, which is not an ideal condition for good music. I know Stars mainly by two previous singles, "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead," and "Reunion." Those two songs are not exactly "I'm a Believer," when it comes to pop sunshine. They're dreary, storytelling break-up songs. And here's an album that breaks up with life, with the world around you. At its warmest, it's ice cold, and at its most joyful it's still numb.

They definitely wrote and recorded the album the album they meant to, although they didn't probably hit all the points they aimed for. The real question is whether that works for you. Because it's not going to be easy to get into, and if you do, it may not even be that rewarding. I think it's underrated because of that, and because of its tendency (due to its construction and goals) to strain for meaning and reach into pretension. But on every listen, I found more and more to recommend it until I found more tracks I liked than did not.

Whether it succeeds or not, it's music that tries for something, and in fact winds up with something, something I haven't heard before. Feelings stir up in this album that you may not be willing to face. But you might be surprised by what you find when you listen to this one.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Broken Social Scene: Forgiveness Rock Record

Say what you will about me as a reviewer, but I have a different perspective than most practiced music journalists. I can tell you that right now because most of the reviews for Broken Social Scene's Forgiveness Rock Record were really about their previous work, the generally-considered-masterpiece You Forgot It In People. Me? I haven't even heard You Forgot It In People. It predates my interest in current music and I haven't gotten around to it (although it's on the list.) So my opinion about Forgiveness Rock Record is just my opinion about Forgiveness Rock Record. And besides, I make it a policy to keep my remarks limited to the thing I'm actually reviewing, as much as possible. This wasn't even going to be a review, since the CD isn't new to me. But I'm also trying to get into filling this site out with retrospective reviews going forward, so I don't strain for content.

It's actually hard to know what to make of this record. It's difficult music, but it's definitely music to my ears. It seems to be about everything: that is, it does not merely contain songs about everything (heartbreak, world-weariness, bitter parent-child relationships, primadonna actresses, oil spills, masturbation and yes, maybe even forgiveness,) but it is about everything. It's like a quilt made of patches: you can see all the little pieces strung together, but you can still pull it all over you.

The music itself is great because it just has this arresting "what next" quality that always seems to pay off. Sometimes it's buzzy and fussy and charging, like the aptly-named "Chase Scene" and the frantic "Forced to Love." Sometimes it's a shimmering dance ballad (such a thing is possible: just give a listen to Robyn's awesome "Dancing On My Own") like "All to All" or the reflective "Sentimental X's." Sometimes it's delicate yet powerful, like the horn-blasting "Art House Director" or the whirring drum-based "Ungrateful Little Father," which seems to take forever (in reality, a 3-minute ambient coda) to spin to its ultimate end, leaving issues unresolved (hey, just like real relationships.) And three times on the album, the group reaches for the epic and succeeds.

The first is the opening track, "World Sick." The second is "Meet Me In The Basement," an instrumental that says more with a few flourishes of guitars and strings than most lyrics do. The last is the climactic "Water in Hell," which does indeed flow like rapids through the underworld, and treats us to an amazing refrain (From what I can tell/ There's water in hell!) that somehow seems to sum the album up nicely, offering sweet release from otherwise eternal pain. It's joyous in its way, and the album seems to bridge between pleasure and suffering.

"World Sick," though: what an opener. At nearly 7 minutes, it's the longest thing here; even with its coda, "Ungrateful Little Father" doesn't sustain itself as long. And yet it never feels like it's going into "Hey Jude" territory (and I love "Hey Jude.") It rises and falls like any great rock song of its type, but it does so at a natural, leisurely pace: the writers of a song like this aren't desperate for pop simplicity, but more on that later.

I've heard it described as a reach for the stadium, but I think that's an oversimplification. The sound here is too nuanced to have been designed for that stage, despite the fact that it would fill it as well as any Kurt Cobain quiet-loud experiment. There's a meticulousness to the verses, the way it seems to plink along and bubble just under the vocals, rising just in time for the (yes) anthemic chorus. And those instrumental breaks are nothing to sneeze at. But listen again when he sings "I get world sick / every time I take a stand" and the audio track seems to fall like the embers of fireworks. That's not merely stadium rock. That's music that sounds like itself. It evokes something in me: that weariness but need to keep moving. I get world sick, everything's falling down, I want to give up but I can't let myself.

I don't talk a lot about lyrics lately. Albums like these tend to push vocals down in the mix and they become so underprivileged as to be unimportant to my enjoyment of the record. I mean, I can't understand half of what Joe Strummer sings on London Calling, but it's still one of my favourite records of all time. So I don't "know" what half or more of the songs on this one are about. I know what they make me feel. Well, I don't "know," since it's music and I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like I feel it.

Several of the reviews I read also tried to frame the content of the album in terms of its title. "Forgiveness, what could it mean?" Titles are important -- EVERYTHING ABOUT AN ALBUM IS IMPORTANT -- but I'm more interested in those other words. "Rock Record." Here's an album that needs to tell us in definite terms that it is rock, and that it is a record (that is, a definite whole, archaic as that term seems to people, I still call them records because they're recorded.) Calling this piece "rock" seems about as simplistic as calling London Calling "punk," but both cases are an exercise in mind expansion for those of us obsessed with labels. It's so hard to put your finger on this album, so why not just call it rock? Here's a statement about what "rock" can be in the 21st century.

If I have a problem with the album, it's that I find myself looking at the edges of the quilt too much during songs (to resurrect a lame metaphor from earlier in the review,) thinking about how it is made and fits together. But even though I mostly listen to it in bits an pieces on random, the sequencing is terrific: in those moments when I let myself drift away, it's absolutely absorbing.

I slotted it in at #4 on my "Favourites of 2010" list. I'll be talking about some of the others in coming weeks. I just wanted a case to say: here's an album I liked, here's what I feel like when I listen to it.

Buy this album on iTunes now!



Thursday, January 20, 2011

Broken Bells: Broken Bells

I feel like, in a lot of my recent reviews, I've chucked around a lot of adjectives. And while it's very difficult to describe something without using, you know, descriptive words, I'm running out of options, having a hard time keeping myself from repeating, and just generally working harder to come up with elaborate turns of phrase that are both clever and accurate. So I'm resolving to chill out on the over-description for the time being, until I find an album that is truly worth it. This is fair enough, because I think the only word needed to describe Broken Bells by Broken Bells (aiiee, my first self-titled!) is "atmospheric." Now I'm gonna spend like 700 words trying to explore what that means.

To me, it means that there's room to get up in between the sounds on this record. There's not a ton going on, but the slight instrumentation melds into a powerful serving. Unlike, say, Sleigh Bells, which uses a very limited number of elements and disorients, Broken Bells aims to hypnotize. Keyboards and acoustic guitars take turns softly humming in tracks and between them. The percussion is slight enough to fall into the background, but funky enough to keep the music going.

A lot of the time it's effective. "The High Road," which kicks off the album, is an instant winner with its humalong chorus. "Trap Doors" carries you away with great ease and swells underneath you.

"The Ghost Inside" would be another great tune with its really neat groove if it weren't for its Achilles heel: falsetto male vocals. Oy! If you've got a set of testes your name isn't "Prince" (or "Formerly-Known-As"/unpronounceable symbol/whatever) it's un-advisable to make a go at them. It's not a good expressive mode and tends to say "I'm trying too hard." Even though it's a good song. And while "October" takes a bit of a while to go from its twinkling piano introduction to its moment of release, it's mostly worth the trip.

So that's the double-edged sword of being "atmospheric." It's music that gives the listener time to move through and really take it all in, but if the listener is ready to move on before the music does, it gets irritating. When a song spends too much time contemplating itself without offering its listener something in return, it gets boring, as this CD sometimes does. Sometimes even in good tracks. Broken Bells plays catch and release with its listener at bit too much, if that makes any sense. The back end of the CD gets like that, and it might take you until halfway through "Mongrel Heart" to really notice the song you're listening to. By then it's on to "The Mall and Misery," which brings you back down to Earth by flirting with riffs and a few charging drum beats.

So that's "atmospheric." It's soft and subtle, but sometimes dull, especially if they try too hard to sustain it too long. What's more, it's a little too self-serious, so when James Mercer asks "What amounts to a dream anymore? / A crude device; A veil on our eyes" I find myself asking him to lighten up a bit. This song has a nice but overly-measured wigout moment in the chorus, which uses the falsetto better than "Ghost Inside."

But if you really want to know what I'm talking about, it's the bossa nova-tinged "Your Head Is On Fire," with its whispering chorus and subtle strings. In it, Mercer sounds vocally like Rivers Cuomo, but more relaxed than Cuomo's ever sounded in his career (and I like Cuomo,) but the song doesn't quite get there, which happens a lot here.

It was tough, getting older and learning that not all music had to rock hard to be good. I can even kinda hear the 15-year-old Scotto screaming at me across the decade for digging this CD as much as I do, but in the years since I've been him I've learned a bit more to value the nicer, lighter touches. I'm not all about it, but it has its place. This reminds me of The Beta Band, but I can't listen to the Beta Band for too long.

This album has a lot of charms but it doesn't seem to know how it wants to spent 10 tracks. Maybe it's just electrified elevator jazz, maybe it's this year's The XX, maybe it's just good soft tones for twentysomethings to have dispassionate, anonymous makeouts to. If any of this sounds good to you, check out at least a few tracks.

One snappy line to conclude the review: "The high road is hard to find," and they find it at least once in that song, but have trouble getting back to it. Zing.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Dire Straits: Money for Nothing

As the Canadian proprietor of a music blog, I feel I have to comment on this. Last week, the Canadian Radio & Television Council finally listened to the lyrics to Dire Straits' hit "Money For Nothing" and realized it contains rather prodigious use of the word "faggot" and banned it, since, you know, you're not actually allowed to use that word on the radio. In fact, I don't think you ever were, which made it puzzling that I've heard it countless times on the only radio station I listen to, Q107 (Toronto's Classic Rock.)

Fittingly, it comes not long after the media sensation caused by the censored version of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. What's weird, however, is the fact that I fall on opposite sides in both cases. I'm against the censoring of Huck Finn, but I totally get the censoring of Mark Knopfler. And I like Dire Straits.

Don't get me wrong: the usage of the respective slurs is similar. Twain uses the n-word to reinforce the plight of the African-American in pre-war Missouri. It would've been common usage back then, and a common notion that blacks were not people. The word has come to symbolize everything ugly about racism, and even generally makes people uncomfortable in it's "We're taking it back" context. I remember a really anvilicious episode of African-American comic Robert Townsend's lameass sitcom "The Parent 'Hood" where his son asked, innocently, why some black kids were willing to use this word, and he got a thousand-yard stare as he sighed "I don't know, son... I just don't know." Omitting it from the text scrubs a pretty vital part of the meaning of the book.

In the song, Knopfler takes the voice of a laborer in an appliance store, slacking off while watching MTV. He's got to move the refrigerators and colour TV's, while some dumbass guitar player gets his "Money for nothing" and his chicks for free. The offending verse goes like this:

That little faggot with the earring and the make-up
Yeah buddy, that's his own hair
That little faggot's got his own jet airplane
That little faggot, he's a millionaire.


The (justifiably envious) blue collar workersees the prissy, effeminate rock stars that were on the scene in the mid-80's (I'm not sure whether it refers to Motley Crue, David Bowie, Sting, Elton John, the Pet Shop Boys or Knopfler himself) as, in Knopfler's words, running a "good scam." He has a grudging respect for them. And it's completely realistic that the character would use that slur (and apparently he wrote it based on the real situation from which it arose.) But there's a huge difference between writing a word in a book that gets taught in an English Lit class, and using a word in a Top 40 hit.

In an English class, you have a teacher guiding you through the text, explaining the context and meaning of the word and how it relates to the theme of the book. On the radio, in your car, you just hear a catchy lyric that goes "faggot" and think "Did he just say faggot? That's fucked up." Context isn't something people consider.

Really, the entire verse is redundant. The unedited version of the song runs 8:26. The label issued the radio-edited 4:07 version on the last Dire Straits compilation, Private Investigations: Te Best of Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler. I've got it on my iPod and there's no measurable effect on the song except that I don't get uncomfortable listening to it near my family members. As much as I dislike censorship, the slur is kinda unnecessary.

Still, classic rock stations feel the need to get indignant. (Surprisingly, classic rock radio stations are resistant to change.) Q107 in particular has been really snarky about it. And I get it, they have a loyal fanbase, they can whip people up into a frenzy, but it's not terribly productive to get pissy about the right to broadcast what is generally considered hatespeech. You can teach it in a classroom, that's fine in my books: but not for free over the airwaves -- there are sponsors to think about.

I'm not usually pro-censorship, I just think it would've been better if Knopfler had gone with a less controversial alternative, like "That little fucker."

In general, I like the song. Even with the slur, the lyrics are intelligent and catchy, and it's all hooked around a bitchin' riff that easily brings to mind the kind of MTV shenanigans Knopfler's writing about. Here's the edited version: As you can tell, without the word "faggot" it clearly makes no sense whatsoever:

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Tokyo Police Club: Champ

What a welcoming sound is Tokyo Police Club's Champ. Good, simple rock seems increasingly hard to come by lately, and all too easily dismissed by the critics. It seems like a minor moment in music, and to a certain degree it is, but not because it's not a grandiose, profound statement. It's just hard to escape the stigma of being merely good rock. It feels like it's been about a year since the last time I heard a rock record that didn't desperately want to be something bigger. Those records sometimes succeed and sometimes get overblown and obnoxious. An album like this is fated to be seen as an underachiever, all-too-familiar and not overly ambitious. Whether you think it's important to be ambitious or not, this works for me: I've listened to it about eight times since I opened the package yesterday.

This is probably not because it's an intensely life-changing listen. It's just so immediate and in-the-moment that it seems to rush by unexpectedly, so when it's done, I want to start again. "Favourite Food" (hurray for Canadian bands using Canadian spelling) is an ideal opening track, easing the listener in with a few abstract keyboard flourishes (the album isn't utterly devoid of ambition and thoughtfulness, after all, they use their keyboards deftly throughout) and slowly unpeeling a downtempo strumming tune into an anthem. Acoustic guitars and soft keyboard tones give way to drum fills and jangly REM type riffs and away we go.

Sometimes they're a little punky, like on the blistering "Wait Up (Shoes of Danger)," or on "Big Difference," which has the relateable chorus of "That's why I can't send you Christmas cards / It's why I have to keep you in the dark / Less big words and more exclamation marks." Sometimes they sound like irresistible pop, like on "End of a Spark," or on "Not Sick," which is led by a great drum beat while the keyboards deploy the main rhythm to match it. And "Gone" echoes The Coral, which is a sentence I never thought I'd write, since not even The Coral echo The Coral. It's fun and a little drizzly.

I don't want to go the "sound of a generation" route with this: it's really just a nice record. Even so, I know my generation does disaffection the way Lennon's did rebellion and Cobain's did angst. But we still like to rock, so I'm all for the chorus of "Favourite Colour," which manages to hook an anthemic riff around what is essentially first-date small talk. This album is sorta the sound of many small moments collected over time, little observations preserved, deliberately recalling a time when staying up late was key. I think it's something my generation picked up by listening to Pinkerton over and over and watching Wes Anderson films and Garden State too many times, but it could just be me. Not that this sounds like the soundtrack to Garden State: it's too lively for that. And "Breakneck Speed" wraps all of that detachment and resignation up in a Coldplay or Kings of Leon-sized riff, shines it up real good, and shoves it in your culture hole, reaching for the epic while knowing they're stuck on Earth. In those moments where the band creates a sound that could fill a stadium, they never fail to provide a solid percussive base for their rock that many MOR arena-size groups neglect.

"I remember when our voices used to sound the same / Now we just translate." Dave Monks' voice has that detached sigh, wistful on one hand, optimistic and sincere on the other. All this uncertainty comes out on the final track, "Frankenstein" which brings the chorus of that song back by asking "Tell me it's good to be back" and tying the request to a watery synth riff worthy of Phoenix. It all comes together so smoothly, you'd think it was too easy to be so good, but I doubt it.

Now all of this is well and good, but like I said, this album is not some grand statement, it's just a good rock record. All of this generational business is put in the service of some deft hooks and cool choruses. It's interesting, but it's straightforward enough that the sound will particularly appeal to high schoolers learning there's such a thing as good rock, but aren't yet looking for Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire. For some kid born in 1995 or 97, he might pick Champ up today and come back to it in 5 or 10 years and think, "This was the first really good CD I ever got," the same way I think of Green Day's Dookie or Offspring's Smash (note: I had older brothers, so this age is shifted way down for me.) It's good music to be a teenager to, or to feel a bit more like one. You could just lie on your bed with your girlfriend and listen to a song like "Hands Reversed," and wonder where you're headed.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Friday, January 14, 2011

Cover: Cee Lo, "No One's Gonna Love You"

Amidst all the hype of a hit single like "Fuck You," the fact disappears that Cee Lo Green is a talented-ass guy with a good ear for composition and a great voice. Years after Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" has stopped appearing on the radio (and nobody thinks much about it anymore) you might remember he also covered Violent Femmes' "Gone Daddy Gone," a tune which itself owed to blues of yore (quoting Willie Dixon.) "Fuck You" is a great genre experiment, a revived motown sound that took on a life of its own as a 2010 smash. No matter what my opinion of his cuss-laden hit single and its radio-friendly censored version (which I hear every three to four hours at work) I'm more interested in the fact that this exists:



The Band of Horses original is very good, but a strong cover can turn a great tune into a classic. It works by ensuring that all the feel of the original is retained even in its altered form. Whereas the BOH version is contemplative, Cee Lo's is demanding and pleading, sung with conviction rather than resignation. The result is a slightly different but significant take on the song. This sort of thing used to happen all the time, when artists like Joe Cocker could make great careers out of interpreting. It doesn't happen as much anymore, because we tend to put "interpreters" down. But this dude, whether you like him or not, is no copycat. This is legit.

I don't think I'll be buying the album. I've got too many CD's lined up and there's sure to be more, so I doubt I'll get around to it. But this is very reassuring.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Sleigh Bells: Treats

There's a controversial song on The White Stripes' White Blood Cells album called "Aluminum," where Jack White uses the drums and guitar to replicate the sound of an aluminum processing plant. It's an abrasive, mechanical, repetitive, feedback-laden piece of avant-garde music that I admire, yet I leave off my iPod because I don't need it disrupting my day when I've got my playlist on random.

Treats is like an entire album of that song if the machine broke down, gained a sentience, repaired itself, and went on a killing spree. This is a hostile record. It is coming to get you. After my first listen, I just wanted the emergency personnel to drape a blanket over my shoulders, hand me a cup of cocoa, and tell me things were going to be okay. But they're not going to be okay, are they?

If this sounds like a wholly negative review, I assure you it's not. It's not a glowing endorsement, but I'm just trying to give you a good idea of where my head is at. The album begins with "Tell 'Em," a blitzkrieg of shotgun-blasting guitars and drums, sometimes working against each other to instill a deep sense of panic in the listener. At times, the album is downright Brechtian. The guitars range from merely loud to ear-rapingly noisy. The drums seem somehow wrong. Singer Alexis Krauss has an unearthly high voice, singing at the top of her register for a lot of the songs, clashing with the chaos below and only making the elements seem to fight harder against each other. "Rachel" begins with her panting heavily and ends with cooing while synths climb up to meet her. Frequently, she just grunts and I can't tell whether it's the kind of grunting done in the bedroom or at the gym.

Occasionally, it's tuneful, and I think the chaotic approach makes their "songier" songs that much more effective. "Rill Rill" is downright near-danceable and "Infinity Guitars" is rather awesome in its chanting, stomping, crunching, squealing glory. Other times, it just fucking hurts, like on "Crown on the Ground" which stabs you repeatedly then dances in your blood as it reaches it breathless climax.

The most effective part of the album is the way all the varying elements refuse to meld. The guitars and the drums and the voice -- and the occasional synth, production tricks and yes, so it seems, actual sleigh bells -- all stand distant and isolated so that they can work against one another to wrap their talons around the listener and pull him this way and that. It's a masterwork of disharmony. At its best it seems like an immensely rewarding work of experimentation. At its worst, it sounds like something an rather talented teenager might've accidentally cobbled together on Garage Band.

I don't sleep well on nights when I listen to "Treats." It's intimidating, relentless, and utterly irrational. This is not fun music. This is not a good time. This is panic distilled. The ominous final track offers the threat or promise that there are more "Treats" to come with its staggering riff and pulsing keyboards and utterly arrhythmic percussion. It may not be my ideal record, but it's extremely effective and affecting: it stirs something up in me, which all good music must, it's just that it puts this ability toward fearful rather than helpful ends. But that feeling alone is worthy of revisiting, and on my subsequent re-listens, I was more and more accustomed to the chaos. I got a bit more immunized and I started hearing songs where I'd previously only heard the noise. I'm just afraid now of what might happen if I delve too deep into the parts of the mind capable of creating such noise.

Just don't play it near your dog, and don't try to whistle it on the elevator.

Buy this album on iTunes now!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

If there's a lyric sheet enclosed with my copy of this CD, I don't wanna look at it. Vocalist Thomas (no relation to Bruno) Mars, wails squeaky, tense, yet curiously laid back vocals obscured by the hammering backbeat and buzzing overtones and jangling guitars. Every so often I hear a stray lyric or a clearly audible refrain, but for the most part it's just there as a sonic ingredient. Maybe it's bloody great poetry, or maybe it's just stupid filler words that sound pretty when strung together. I wouldn't know and I don't think it's important.

Because if they're going to invoke Wolfgang Amadeus, I'm going to hold them to it. And since I wouldn't know the meaning of the words to the Magic Flute's Queen of the Night area if they were written out for me, I'm choosing willful ignorance here too. Like an opera or some such, I'm thinking more about the way the vocals sound set against the landscape of the instrument, as well as the way the songs fit together (well, I always think bout that) rather than what they're probably about.

This all occurred to me when I noticed the backing synth beginning to soar when Mars sings "Fallin', fallin', fallin'" on "1901," rather than following him down. "Falling," I proclaimed on Twitter, is the easiest word to hook a song around. It can be a joyful or mournful exclamation, and you can emulate the feeling with your voice. You can drag it out (as Steven Page did on "Over Joy" the song I was actually listening to at the time) or you can chant it breathlessly as Mars does here to make it urgent. Thinking less about the lyrics also allows me to forgive the Barry Gibb tone he cops on the third track, "Fences."

It's when the vocals drop away that you start to sense how little they truly matter. Few (non-Electronica) artists are doing instrumentals these days, so when something like "Love Like a Sunset" (part 1 unvocalized, and part 2 the conclusion) happens, you pay attention. I thought it was boring until I realized it was kinda beautiful. It's hard to sound grandiose without pushing yourself into overt pretension -- well, any moreso than name-checking Mozart and Liszt was going to anyway. Those tracks work because they're clean and focused. And really, no matter how much the album buzzes and hums and spirals, it never really loses control.

Which might actually be kind of a shame. The album's thrilling at times, but a moderated form of excitement, perhaps due to those layers upon layers of sounds weighing each track down. Aside from the crescendo of "Sunset," this is an album without much highs and lows, just frantic searching around the middle tones, whether with the tumbling drums of "Lasso" or the shimmering melancholy of "Rome." Every so often on the album you get a small moment that really hits you, but it moves on. Were it not for its preference to let the soundscape overwhelm, as opposed to reaching for pop simplicity, I'd be tempted to put it in the same class as Coldplay. But it's far from that.

Like a symphony, it feels distant and difficult to perceive for its individual parts. At least to me, it's obscure in meaning and open to interpretation in tone. But that doesn't stop it from being an interesting, mostly enjoyable construct of music. A lot of the time, it lets you crawl inside and feel it surround you and make whatever you like of it. Sometimes, like the charging "Lisztomania," it sounds like pop, but a lot of the time it doesn't. Sometimes the ambition pays off, sometimes it's just distracting.

I could've done with more "Love Like a Sunset" moments, however, and less of the disco rehab of "Fences" or the harpsichord on "Armistice," which ends the album just a tad abruptly. But that's on me. If they could've crafted something that sounded like "Sunset" along the same structural lines as "Lisztomania" or "1901," they really would've gotten me. All in all, it's good music to drift off to in any case.

ADDENDUM: Let it never be said I don't get around to doing my research eventually. Apparently the hook to "1901" goes "Folded, folded, folded," rather than "Falling." Which is a shame; I liked my version better, and it proves my point about the lyrics not being particularly important.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Serious Contenders: Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"



By 2011, there's so much fog surrounding Elvis Presley. So much gets lost in the stories about his rise, decline, return and death, his movies and his jumpsuit-wearing comeback, and worst of all, his place in the origins of Rock n' Roll and the complicated nature of his music's relationship to earlier black performers, and with all the imitations and put-ons, that people forget exactly what he sounded like.

"Heartbreak Hotel" was a pretty singular fucking song. Rock & Roll in the 50's was largely characterized by charging bass lines or rolling pianos or strumming guitars. This is where rock stops rolling for a minute. It puts the accent on "blues" in rhythm and blues. But even as Elvis' voice sounds miserable and dejected, it still sounds dangerous and sexy. And that short staccato guitar break, courtesy of Scotty Moore, cuts everything else shreds, despite not being the fastest or the showiest.

The recorded version mistakenly drenches the song in echo to make it sound even lonelier. The result is hollow and a bit unassuming. On his next single, Elvis (producing himself!) wisely ditched the effect. Performing the song live, you hear the rawness, the "fuck you" of the song that underlies most great rock.

So keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Friday, January 7, 2011

The Syndrome

Every so often I'll be at the store and pick up a copy of Kanye West's "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," and wonder if I should buy it and listen to it for this website.

There are times when I spend way too much time worrying about the critical estimation of that album, which is apparently the greatest thing since sliced bread. I'll defer to others here. I have no critical ear for hip hop, although I can tell from what I've heard ("Power," "Runaway," and "Monster") that this is some major league stuff. In fact, it appears to transcend the league altogether. But that doesn't mean I have to love it.

If you want my opinion on those three songs, it's this: "Power" is a great tune that I love to listen to at the beginning but exhausts me by the end. "Runaway" grates on me, at least in censored, radio-friendly form. "Monster" has a good hook but every second of it is overshadowed by Nicki Minaj (and good for her, because I don't dig her solo single, "Right Thru Me.") So there's me being a contrarian dickhole.

And I'd presume a full review of MBDTF (or "Mabudatuff" as I will now be calling it around the store,) would either be more of that, or a complete turnaround and a realization that Kanye's album is in fact the greatest disc of the millennium. This is possible -- I would dedicate myself to listening to it with an open mind -- but the urge to be the asshole that tries (and fails) to take this juggernaut of an album down a peg would be difficult to resist. I'd be like the guy saying the Beatles weren't that great and that Nirvana was all hype. And nobody should want to be that guy. That guy's got the Syndrome.

The Syndrome is something I've noticed for years on the internet. It's an extreme form of hype backlash so severe I felt I needed to go and make up a new phrase for it (and all I could come up with, so far, was "The Syndrome.") It's that frustrated, resentful bitterness that sets in when everyone loves something you don't. Not just when you dislike something popular, or something that sells well but is acknowledged to be shit, but something everyone, everyone, everyone seems to think is good but you. It's what motivates people to write bitter-ass reviews of Inception, or explain away Nevermind's success as "right place right time." Or -- although this has probably never happened -- someone saying Arrested Development wasn't all that great. Whatever it is, the professional critics like it. Your friends, including the ones whose opinions you actually respect like it. Everyone in the world seems to be buying into it, but you stand outside it, because it didn't grab you the way it grabbed them. And it fucking burns you up inside.

So instead of fading into the background during discussions, or quietly admitting, "Ah, I don't really get it but whatever," you need to rant, you need to express yourself, you need to get pissed. Most often this involves telling these people they're idiots for thinking this thing is great. Trying to launch an attack from any available front: "You like it because it's popular," "You like it because you're dumb" "(X) is way better," "(artist) is a hack," etc, etc, and you'll fight tooth and claw with anyone who disagrees with you, which is pretty much everyone.

And there's nothing wrong with diverging from the majority, and there's nothing wrong with holding to your own opinions. It's about choosing your battles, and there comes a time when you've got to realize how obnoxious you are for wearing your hatred of this beloved work, whatever it is, so proudly. You're a hater, man.

So I don't wanna be that, I don't wanna do that. In the words of Philip J. Fry, "I'll be whatever I wanna do." You probably don't care that I won't be reviewing Kanye's album, but there's something that occurs to me every time I do listen to one of the songs off it: it's definitely special. It's not your standard issue bullshit-hits Black Eyed Peas release, or a where's-the-hook-Pitbull-guest-spot deal. This is a man who thinks very seriously about the music he puts out there, and probably nothing else.

And I have absolutely no problem living in a world where Kanye West is good at what he does. It doesn't have to be for me. He might be a cognitively-challenged manchild, but so was Raymond Babbit.

So there you have it, gang. I've spent about as much time thinking about why I won't be reviewing this album as I have spent thinking about the next one I will be reviewing, which hasn't sold nearly as much. Kanye doesn't need the extra attention, and I don't need to try to change anyone's mind about him (since I'd fail.) You might see the Syndrome crop up on this blog someday, but I'm trying my best to beat it back and let people like what they like.

It isn't important that people agree with me. Only that they think seriously about what they want to hear.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto

Thursday, January 6, 2011

On Albums pt 1 of a million

If you haven't yet, read this intriguing interview with one of the most happenin' voices of music criticism on the web, Discographies. His (her?) twitter feed is always insightful and very exact and always incredibly clever. I don't always necessarily agree, but I can always get what he's trying to say, and he says it so concisely.

He makes a good point about what separates "what separates this batch of material from that batch of material." Despite the free-for-all availability of music on the internet, we still take our music input in the albums-and-singles format prescribed way back in the 60's, when they'd fold in the two hit .45's with (in Phil Spector's words) "ten pieces of junk" (which aren't junk in capable hands) to make an LP. Maybe because we're used to it, or maybe because it's useful. Not everything can be a greatest hits, and commercially, it makes sense to keep this form of output up. As much sense as anything else.

But I'm not here to philosophize about why albums are, but how I take them. Specifically, what makes a good album versus a "great one."

A good album, I thought to myself earlier today, is a collection of songs you like hearing. Maybe, like anything else, it has some bad cuts, but generally, it's full of enjoyable material you'd re-listen to.

A great album -- very important in this day and age where we're far beyond spinning vinyl, in the world of CDs and iPod shuffles -- is one where you can't bear to listen to the songs apart. You probably do, but you'd much, much rather hear them together.

They belong that way. And not just because there's a crossfade.

That's my somewhat idealistic take on it anyhow.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Steven Page: Page One


I've already gone on at length about the difference between this album's first single, "Indecision," and what I've heard from Page's former band the Barenaked Ladies, so as such I'll try really, really hard to focus more on the actual sound of this album rather than the circumstances of its creation. Also, as it contains a number of songs of varying style and quality, I'll be attempting to avoid using the words "Scattershot," "uneven" and "mixed bag."

Speaking of BNL, Page One begins with Page's statement on the matter, much like BNL released theirs as the lead single, ("You Run Away.") Page one-ups his ex-cohorts by writing a cleverer, catchier tune about the matter that also generally relates to getting on with a new phase in your life. This would be "New Shore," which begins with the rapid fire declaration, "As captain of this merry band of sailors / I'm a black mark, I'm a failure / but before you watch me drown: / I'm relinquishing command / for something I don't understand / This man's about to turn his whole life upside down." and concludes all talk on the matter by saying: "I settled here on a new shore / My lips were blue and my legs were sore / And I forgot if I was pushed or I jumped overboard / And after all this time, what's the difference?" What I like about this song is that it acknowledges the split (and in particular, the complicated nature of it,) gets something somewhat meaningful out of it, and urges us to move on. In fact, that song was the only point during the album I was really made to think about the former band, although my mind keeps coming back to them in retrospect, so I'll leave it for the end of the review.

"Indecision" sets the tone for the rest of the album. That's not to say every song sounds like it, in fact the opposite is true: every song sounds only like itself. Steven's tendency or ability to dabble in this style and that, to pledge sincere devotion and sarcastically keep everyone else at arm's length, his use of lyrical and stylistic contradiction flavour this album. So, he warns not only to his potential date but also to his listener to "Be prepared for indecision, it might make me disappear, but then again, my addiction to indecision is the thing that keeps me here." That's what the album's about, in essence.

Lyrically, the album is focused on difficult relationships. The biting "Marry Me" ("I could stand to be your man, I could stand to be your man") sits next to the sincere yearning of "All the Young Monogamists" which begins by looking down then ends by looking up. It all culminates with one of my favourite tracks from this piece, "If You Love Me," which cops a poppy, almost J. Geilsy synth riff, around a hook that seems so amazingly naive you've gotta believe Page is being funny: "Iiiiiiiiif you love me / everything will be all right tonight." I have to interpret it more as something he (narrator-Page, not writer-Page) hopes will work than something he sincerely believes. It works on levels, like much of the album.

Between this synth pop and the New Wave jag of "Queen America" is a song I'm just flat-out glad exists, a horn-fueled Paul Anka pastiche called "Leave Her Alone" that also incorporates pedally-guitars and some of Page's best vocals. I have absolutely no idea the last time I heard an album that wanted to sound as different from itself as this one. Here and there it's 90's pop, there's a waltzy ballad in "Clifton Springs," the cellos on "Monogamists," the beat of "She's Trying To Save Me," or the soul outpouring of "The Chorus Girl" (and it's a neat trick when you have three or four ballads on an album and they all sound distinct.) The album's frankly relentless and there's a lot to like, although it's no guarantee every track will hit you, and in fact every listener might take a liking to completely different ones than me. Or none of it.

Now is when I come back to BNL. There's a real tangible difference between their latest and this. Whether you like All in Good Time or not, it has its appeal. It's a mature, late-career album from a band that was rambunctious but has settled down and wants to take it easy. There's a real audience for that, especially around here, and I can't swipe at them for wanting to make that album. But you can see where the creative differences between Page and his ex-bandmates comes in. This is not an easygoing late-career album. This is a fussy, exuberant, mid-career album from someone who's still interested in changing his style. And whether it works for you or it doesn't, I can't help but respect the effort. Page and his collaborators (chiefly Stephen Duffy, who co-wrote a number of BNL tracks and more than half this album) are well-versed in pop styles and turn out a great bunch of songs, which sounds a little less polished and put-together than a BNL album but less ragged than a different artist's solo effort might. There's a sense that Steven Page got to the studio, looked around at the instruments, and realized, "My God... I can do anything!"

I appreciate it. In this day and age when it's easier than ever to be avant-garde, it's rewarding to hear an album that sounds pattered after Paul McCartney or Brian Wilson, which makes the framework work for it. I just keep coming back to wondering who the album's for: too poppy for rock fans, too cool for the middle-aged, too wise for the young, too sarcastic for the old, not ironic enough for the hipsters. But leave that for the marketing department, I like the way the album sounds. There are forgettable tracks, but they have their charms too. It falters here and there but the best part is that when the album doesn't work, something completely different comes from around the corner.

Above all else, it feels like Page hasn't settled down, he's still thriving on indecision. Not every track will win you over, but there's enough on here to keep interested listeners coming back. If you accuse Page of not caring about putting out good music, I'll give you a scattershot right to your uneven mixed bag.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Monday, January 3, 2011

Steven Page, "Indecision"

Before I buy an album, I'll check out a track or two online, and if I feel like there's something to be said, I'll do one of these.



As a young Canadian, I'm pretty well acquainted with the hits of the Barenaked Ladies. Their huge albums Stunt and Maroon were released when I was late in Grade school (effectively, Junior High) and their songs were inescapable on CanCon dominated current-hit stations. Even moreso than "One Week," songs like "Call and Answer," "Get in Line," "It's All Been Done," "Alcohol" (criminally omitted from their Greatest Hits) "Too Little Too Late" "Falling for the First Time" and "Pinch Me," as well as their earlier hits, were a guarantee in any car ride that lasted more than a half hour. Maybe my appreciation for these tunes is largely nostalgia, but I think they mostly hold up as good tunes.

But to me, the band began to stumble in this decade and it felt like they couldn't decide what made them funny and likable, or how to mature along the path that they were taking. Their post-2000 output sounds like an attempt at re-enactment than of moving forward. I couldn't name you a single song off the three albums they released between Maroon and the departure of Steven Page in 2009, other than "Another Postcard," which is kind of a lame tune. They released their first album after Page in early 2010, which showed a pretty precise direction: decent, folksy, old-person music. There's nothing wrong with a sappy reach-out broken-brother ballad like "You Run Away" but it's not for me. We put it on in the store one time and I had to turn it off because it was so much of the same. And if Page isn't the "You" in the title lyric, Ed Robertson needs to step back and see what he's writing. Also, it sounds pretty exactly like like Five for Fighting. But at least it looks like BNL has found its direction. And I can take "Every Subway Car." That's a standout.

I'm more interested in Page's solo output. Whether it's a good thing or not, for the three minutes of song I've embedded above, it sounds like 1999 or 2000 again, with a classic pop sound that doesn't go out of style. Page, visually and kinda-sonically, recalls Elvis Costello, probably not by accident. While his voice seems to waver a bit in the crooner parts (and that may be the point) the chorus is gold and the lyrics are tremendously clever: both funny and pointed, which BNL was at its best.

I guess my impression -- having not heard either of these albums in their entirety -- is that Page's output is a bit more natural, comes easier, and is just more fun without having to filter the work through the other members of the band. Moreso than his ex-bandmates, he knows what he wants to say. I can see glossy pop-rock like this not being for everyone, but those people weren't listening to BNL anyway (if they could avoid it.) For me, this is a song that brings me back to a great place in my mind, which is one thing music should sometimes do (another is to take you someplace you've never been before, which is rare.)

One last memory, re: BNL, as the battle rages on YouTube comments between BNL's "All in Good Time and Page's Page One. When my play was being done back in 2009 (oh God so long ago by now) I went out to drink with the cast and crew and we all spontaneously burst out in singing "Alcohol," toasting each other and laughing at our ability to collectively recall the lyrics. Like I said, any young Canadian of our upbringings would.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Black Keys: Brothers

I think it would be hilarious if I started this project up by pissing everyone off up front by insulting this (generally beloved) album. It's the kind of production that seems destined for critical doubletalk: "Oh, it's good, it has its charms, but you know... it's imperfect." "Imperfect" is a stupid thing to say in the context of a music review because it implies perfection is possible, or that imperfection doesn't lead to some really interesting sounds occasionally.

Besides, how could you really hate on an album that includes at least one song as great as "Tighten Up?"

What it does, and provides for its listener, is a safe bet. The duo of Auerbach and the other guy (I'm kidding... as any quick Wikipedia search could tell you, it's Patrick Carney, so I have no excuse for not knowing... or at least looking it up) find a good pace and work with it for 15 tracks. There's not a lot, aesthetically, different between "I'm Not The One" and "Next Girl" and "Sinister Kid." This isn't a bad thing, I guess I should say: being that none of the tracks is individually bad, you can easily use this CD on long drives or at parties where people need to mingle. Music as social function. The drums thump and the guitar jangles in that cool, fuzzy, bluesy way. I've described it as a kind of modern blues funk, but Auerbach's voice, as good as it is, sounds a step or two removed from the actual blues. Like real sorrow or sexual arousal actually eludes him, even though it's pretty well represented in the music. I mean, right now I'm listening to "She's Long Gone," and it ends with a pretty intense, swaggering solo. But at times in the 15 tracks, it feels a bit like it was made, very well but still, from a blues construction kit. You wanna hear this album in microcosm, listen to Buddy Guy's "She Suits Me To a Tee." There's a lot more horns on that song, but then again it was considerably hornier.

Oy. Master of the backhanded compliment. If I like the album so much, why am I talking so much smack about it?

Here I am slagging the album for not being a boundless burst of creativity, when I can't help but admit that it's a damn good listen. As distant as Auerbach's blues may be, there's something affecting in his melancholy, something really effective about his and Carney's fuzz funk and his affected, darkened vocals. The sound fucking works, there's just a whole lot of it and nothing but. But it's never bad.

At worst, the repetition dilutes the quality of songs that could stand on their own. At best, it ensures every song is at least this good, and forms a pretty considerable listening experience, like I said: a safe bet. The sound is good, and consistently so, even when they change it up just a tad with falsettos ("Everlasting Light") or unconventional flourishes like "The Go Getter." Whether with the thundering desire of "Howlin' For You" or the sinister slink of "Ten Cent Pistol," it's all part of a whole and it never betrays its hardcore blues devotion by indulging in overt experimentation that might taint their clarity of sound. This is blues rock that works, works hard, works well, and works on its own merit.

It might wear on you by the time you get to "The Go Getter," or you might just feel the whole album without tiring. In any case, it's still an easy recommendation from me. It's especially pointed in this day and age, when you can select nine or 10 of your favourite tracks and keep them on your iPod and not worry too much about the ones you've left off. I recommend tracks 1-6 and "Never Gonna Give You Up," which I'm sure we were all dismayed to find is not a Rick Astley cover. If you don't dig instrumentals, you can swap out "Black Mud" for "Unknown Brother" or "Sinister Kid." But the cover, "Never Gonna Give You Up," is essential, as is aforementioned potential song-of-the-year "Tighten Up."

The former is the most meaningful statement on the album, with some of the best vocals. The latter is the distillation of the entire album: it's got the best pounding drums, the coolest riffs, and the easiest tune to hum. It culminates in a pretty wicked breakdown and its the best example of song construction on the album. If you don't like this song, you won't like the album. If you like that song, you'll like the rest just fine.

The last song, "These Days," is the one that can be taken or left, depending on how one feels about ballads. I like it, if only because it's the one truly unusual piece on the album. It takes some Otis Redding and filters it through some Jeff Buckley to arrive at a truly uncharacteristic, unexpectedly sweet, sad finale for an otherwise easy, laid back, funky tough album. It pushes it a bit over the edge and makes me want to go back to the start, even though I know getting there is a bit of a walk around the block.

So that's how it's going to be sometimes. I'd love to just outright praise everything, but every so often, probably more than I'd even expect, I'll have to break something down before I can build it up. Maybe it's hard to convince people I like something if I'm willing to say anything bad about it. But look at it this way:

This album is called Brothers. I don't know if you out there have siblings, but as for me and mine, we fight. A lot. We get irritated, we bicker, we get sick of each other, we have disagreements and there are times I'd rather cut myself in the genitals than face another day of conversation with one of my brothers. But they're my brothers, and I love them, and there will always be times I can come back to them and appreciate them for who they are. And I'll stand by them and help them whenever I can. I mean, don't tell them I said so, but they're family, so they probably sense it on some level.

That's what it's like with this album, and what it's like with criticism sometimes. It's that weird delicate balance between love and hate, praise and detraction, that helps you understand what exactly you're looking at.

I like it.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

The Statement

To begin with, criticism sucks.

I guess that's my critique of the criticism game. Either you're telling people something they already know, or you're feeding them an opinion they don't care to hear. Either you like what they like or you don't. There's a lot of crappy pop music that people buy despite what the critics are saying about it. There's a lot of great music that doesn't get heard despite (sometimes even because of) critical praise. Worst is when a nice little indie act pours their heart and soul into a record only to get brushed off as derivative or bland or uninspired or a hundred other useless stock critical phrases. A lot of critics don't seem to like any music, or seem to like it for the wrong reasons.

Personally, I find music-writing a bit of an absurd proposal. Mostly you just have to listen and make up your own mind, then get people to do the same. So I want to make it absolutely clear a the top of this blog that I am no objective voice of critical response. I am not the cut-and-dried arbiter of cool. I'm just a guy who knows what he likes.

But what keeps us talking about music is the challenge: to be able to put into words a feeling evoked by the music. To share it with another through your own filter. That's why I insist on keeping up the musical discourse, and why I keep reading the music review websites I hate, because yeah, sometimes they get it right. Most often they get up their ass in pretension (and I can't promise I won't either) and lose sight of why people are supposed to dig tunes. Just to pop your headphones on and say "Fuck, that's a good song," feels like the ultimate distillation of the experience.

So let me tell you exactly, hopefully in less words than I've already used, what I'm doing here. I'm writing about music.

I work in a CD store -- that is, a well-known (outside the States) seller of CDs, DVDs, books, video games, keychains, etc, etc, but mostly held together by a common love for music, particularly amongst the staff. I've been here for over a year and yet in 2010 I bought fewer than a dozen CDs. I'm discerning as all hell, but fuck, I ought to really dig in! I don't know how much longer I'm gonna be here!

So my plan for 2011 is to buy a shitload of music: at least one CD per week, hopefully more. And to keep true to this plan, I decided I was going to write about it. Online, for six or seven people to see. And hopefully you'll read this blog, and I'll say something great about a CD you like, or inspire you to pick up something you'd never heard of. It's not always going to be new stuff, but the key is I have to hear the CD in its entirety for the first time in preparation for writing about it.

I can't promise I will always be positive. Sometimes I'll have to be snarky and dismissive and yeah, pretentious like all music critics. Sometimes I'll be snobby, and sometimes I'll probably do something I hate, which is use a positive review to put down something I dislike. But since this is the stuff I'm choosing to hear, I'll always be starting from the position that this was something I stood a chance of liking.

They won't always be real reviews: I'll try to offer my perspective and tell you what the CD makes me think, and most often but maybe not always, it'll involve a recommendation, but sometimes it'll be helpful to think of them as little essays or blurbs or ramblings as the case may be, rather than reviews. In between my weekly posts, I might post a quick link to a song I've just discovered, or some thoughts on an old favourite, but they won't count toward my weekly post goal.

Sometimes I might get behind schedule with the writing, but as long as I stay on top with the listening, it should even out.

And the last thing, the biggest thing: requests and recommendations. I'm entering into this adventure with my own tastes in mind, but I can't know everything. If there's something you think I'd like (you'll get more of an idea later) don't be shy to ask about it. I'll probably have to check it out on the internet to be sure I would want to spend my money and time on it (my first music review gig, they only sent me stuff I would never have bought myself) but I'm very, very encouraging of suggestions.

My first post will be up soonish. Hopefully I can keep this up as long as I intend to.

Keep on rockin'
-Scotto