Sunday, May 29, 2011

Robyn: Body Talk

Is it me, or is there a hidden undertone of sadness in a lot of dance music? The music designed to get people to move their bodies can't quite tear them away from the pain that plagues their very souls or end the turmoil in which they live their lives, numbing themselves to the burdens of life and trying to forget for a stolen instant on a dark, crowded dancefloor, to escape and pretend they are just a glorious carefree being among many submitting to the groove before finally crashing back down to reality at the end of the night? It's not just me, is it?

If I'm hearing sadness and loneliness where I'm not meant to in other dance songs, it's clear that I'm meant to hear it here. This is Robyn, she of late-90's "Show Me Love" fame, who had been relegated to the discount bin alongside Savage Garden and Sky. Incidentally, I find all of these songs to be rather chilling, but this is all harmless fun from the era that brought us Vitamin C. "Show Me Love" was 90's kitsch, lightweight nostalgia, it was a memory, it was gone, and Robyn had presumably left the music biz to become a waitress or something.

Not so. In fact, she spent the ensuing decade destroying whatever career path she had laid out for her in 1998, resurfacing with this album. The strange thing is how it sounds not-that-distant from her late-90's work in many places (the innocence of "In My Eyes" and "Stars 4-Ever") but with the key difference that there's a 3rd dimension of sound and character that brings that sadness I can't help but imagine and works with it. This is a thinking, feeling, breathing album, not that far off from fellow Swede Lykke Li, in some ways. (Very far off, of course, in many ways.) It is, in many places, sad (or angry) music to dance to, a contradiction I wouldn't think anyone would indulge deliberately. But go Robyn. The album's called "Body Talk," and there's a lot your body says without knowing it... most of which is addressed here.

"Dancing On My Own" is the most brilliant composed confessional, emotionally direct and powerfully danceable, that could still qualify as a dance track. While Britney Spears sings about "Dancing 'til the world ends", Robyn can't help it that she's "In the corner, watching you kiss her," wishing she was "Indestructible" and warning that "Love Kills," laying her issues out bare over synth riffs and pounding kick drums.

I'm not sure if this confessional version of dance music works for actual fans of this type of music, but it does it for me. Maybe it's because on the regret-flavoured reflection "Time Machine," Robyn pines for a DeLorean. Maybe it's because it's easier for me to get into the music because the singer is addressing the fact that she is a real person with real problems, rather than an invincible dance machine here to get everybody's body moving. I don't know, maybe I'm nuts. Despite the rushing artificial electro-pop sound of the whole album (and the lampshade-hanging "Fembot") it just feels so much more human than other singers.

I love, for example, the simplicity of "Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do," which consists of a very poetic litany of "(x) is killing me" and of course the title phrase. Or the badassery of "U Should Know Better" where Robyn proves her chops as an MC and also does more for Snoop Dogg's cred than anything else he's done in years (because fuck Far East Movement and Big Time Rush.)

A couple of other songs in the middle of the album are at the same level as "Dancing On My Own," the gentle letdown of "Hang With Me" (whose lyrical content is just being friends) and "Call Your Girlfriend." There's a sweet honesty in both of them and they make a good pair, both in that area I mentioned earlier of being weirdly honest lyrical matter for a dance tune. Both of those songs pack huge hooks that draw attention to, rather than obscure, their emotional content.

The album was honestly a very odd pick for me, but it works. It does a great job blending those "ignore everything and move your body" tendencies with that reality that we all have to face every now and again, making it an impressive artistic statement in addition for effective background noise to club orgies.

Plus, the video for "Dancing On My Own" has the best angry dancing since Kevin Bacon in Footloose. Or at least Flight of the Conchords.

Buy this album from iTunes now

Friday, May 27, 2011

Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes

Some music is good because you don't even realize you're listening to it. It becomes sort of a background mood of your life when you're listening to it, and although it doesn't work to pull you into its world, it grafts itself organically onto yours. By the end of Lykke Li's Wounded Rhymes, I think I've tuned out, but I've been bopping and nodding my head and snapping my fingers.

It's rhythmic. It's propulsive, but not explosive, if that makes any sense (I generally assume little of what I say does.) The album sets its strategy out with its stirring opener, "Youth Knows No Pain," easily one of the best tracks on a great album. It has a catchy, fiery chorus that builds to the evocative statement of the title, which can be interpreted a few different ways: either youth is invincible, or thinks it is, or that despite its complaints, youth is oblivious to the real pain it will someday know when it grows. I'm not of the lyrical-interpretation school of criticism, though: what a song is actually saying means less to me than the feeling that something's been stirred up. And with that thundering percussion and those distant vocals, and that snakelike organ, the song hits a real dark spot, head on.

There's an insistence in the rhythm of the album, an awareness of it. Sometimes it progresses easily, but just as often it draws attention to a jagged, rough tempo, like on "I Follow Rivers," whose chorus stutters and doubles back on itself. Like most of the album it features thunderous drums and nifty counterpoints. Something about this song seems wonderfully cracked or broken. All throughout the work, it invokes what white people like me think of as being primal or tribal... the idea that whatever pain and anguish being expressed is more legitimate or direct than what you might find on, say, a modern soul album. "Rivers" bleeds well into the sweet, windswept "Love Out of Lust."

A couple of the songs work in a classic wall-of-sound pop. I had to double-check the liner notes for "Unrequited Love" to make sure Zooey Deschanel was not drafted to do backing vocals. She wasn't, but the the backup singers on that one (Zhala Rifat and Mariam Wallentin) add a certain early-60's feel, intentionally invoked with a refrain of "Shoo-wop-shoo-waaaaaa". It's also at a country waltz tempo, and is probably the best vocal showcase for Li herself, as she handles longer stretches of that song than others, I believe, a capella. I like those passages, because her voice seems so fragile, like she could just flat out break down in the middle of a note, singing "Once again it's happeninnnnnnnnnnnn / Alllllllll my love is un-re-qui-ted...." Here and on "I Know Places," she just lets herself go out there. Other times, she puts up her guard, and it works equally well. That song swells into a nearly-separate track of ambient music. Another great classic-pastiche is "Sadness is a Blessing," one of the moments where Li's vocals soar best, not as vulnerably as in "Unrequited," but opening for a more defiant, anthemic stance, when she sings, "Sadness I'm your girl," embracing a feeling we've all had and fought, but where would we be without it? I love songs like this because as much as lyrics have grown since the days of the Brill Building and hits like "He's a Rebel" or "Then He Kissed Me," song composition rarely approaches the kind of beauty -- not the "level" but certainly the flavour -- those ones were capable of. That said, "Da Do Ron Ron" is still an excellent tune.

She shields herself with echoey vocals and those amazing drums. I call them not amazing because they're so technically good (I wouldn't know "technically good" if you showed me a formula,) but because they're used excellently to get that atmosphere of driving force, pulling through loneliness and despair, on the run in a track like "Get Some," where Li disappears into the background of the wall of sound, the voice merely being one of the many instruments. Great.

The album ends strongly, with the arresting "Jerome" and "Silent My Song," which seems to drag you slowly across the floor with its long, languid chorus, and sweet harmonies that show why lyrics don't always need to be words. As I mentioned, you can zone out while listening to this album, and then this song might jolt you back to it, and cause a bit of realization of what you've spent the last 40 minute hearing. It sounds huge.

How do we express sadness? Is it in the quiet, like a Nick Drake album, or is it by piling every conceivable sound in there and drawing it out? There's no set path, of course, and I think the great thing about this album is that it plays with different ways of getting to similar ideas. Shields up, shields down, sarcasm, directness, sincerity, thundering drums, slithering organs, show everything, show nothing, acapella, harmonies... Li tries all these tihngs and never sounds different from herself, which of course is the mark of a great album. Actually, I take that back, the mark of a great album is that it sounds great. It does. And it makes you feel like you're feeling something.

Now... how would you pronounce her first name?

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Lissie: Catching a Tiger

"Record Collector" clinks and clangs into being modestly as Lissie's voice creeps into the speakers, bobbing rhythmically with a strange peppiness. For a second I think I've been tricked, that I've bought the wrong CD. Make no mistake, though... this is the same woman who recorded stripped-down cover versions of "Bad Romance" and "Pursuit of Happiness," wails 'til she's blue in the face, and swigs tequila freely onstage. She crops up here and there on the record... notably on that first track, when she reaches the bridge and asks of God, "Won't you, won't you fill me up with it, won't you fill me up with it, why don't you fill me up with it?" Building, building until her voice breaks under its own pressure. It's the same woman, but playing a very different tune.

Most of the songs on the album don't reflect the dangerous image of Lissie, which I had inferred from her the videos I've already posted, but they don't conceal her completely, and the way it's worked into these songs, laced subtly with coy desire and a more positive version of rebelliousness ("Hands on the wheel, fuck that" from "Pursuit" gives way to "When you're with us you don't have to be quiet no more," on "Cuckoo.") So here we get a more lush, more nuanced sound, achieved through very pop-oriented instruments and catchy choruses. Well, let's not say that like it's a bad thing.

Take "When I'm Alone," which hits that perfect spot of evocative lyrical vagueness "You make me feel, you make me feel, you are the one you are the one..." wrapped in this ominously pulsing guitar-led wall of sound. There is pure desire, pure longing in this song, and her voice has that quality where when she cuts loose on the lyrics, you know she means them. More subdued and slightly darker is "In Sleep," which seems to me like a very haunted version of the Roy Orbison/Cyndi Lauper/Definitely not Celine Dion song "I Drove All Night," but in this one, the girl can't bring herself, or is unable to, make the drive. Its chorus swings effortlessly, directly, single-mindedly. It builds to a thrilling minute-long guitar attack that reminds of some of the greats of the classic rock era.

"Loosen the Knot," appropriately, is more the breakneck-speed rock, but as far as the poppier compositions go I'll take "Worried About" as the favourite. It bops on at a jilting kilter, creating an almost-unnatural rhythm between the verses and choruses, swaggers breathlessly, near-panicked and certainly frustrated, busy, like anyone with a lot on the mind. It boasts a great refrain of "For the last four years of my life I've thought about you pretty much every 15 seconds." The whole album is loaded with awesomely odd lyrics, including "Stranger," where she reminds a guy she "Asked nicely, please get out of my face."

"Stranger," yes. Sitting in the middle of the album, it's an oddity, because it deliberately invokes a Phil Spector vibe much more than other songs (not in the homicidal sense, you know what I mean,) in lo-fi, seeming like a She & Him song with attitude. It's a treat for the ears, with the early-60's pastiche production brimming with energy.

On iTunes, the album is classified "Country & Folk," which is deceptive. It definitely has a rustic/badass appeal, but to call it "Country & Folk" is to conjure up the image of something corny and nostalgic. Carrie Underwood or Shania Twain, she ain't. The countryness crops up noticeably only on two tracks, "Little Lovin'," with its steel guitar, but it's still far too explosive to be reduced to merely "country" (can you tell I have a hang-up about that genre? Ask me about it sometime.) Her brand of "country" reaches back to the time when Hank Williams I was figuring out how to incorporate the blues into his music despite not being black.

The other major "country" moment is the anthemic "Cuckoo," an ode to individualism, especially in repressive rural places. It's a bit like a Dodge commercial for my taste... especially given the chorus goes "I fell in love with bein' defiant / In a pickup truck that roared like a lion." But take it for what it is, a breezy, hooky tune on an album full of them, loaded with fire and spirit.

There are also ballads, the reflective parental-love tune "Bully," and hymns spiritual ("Everywhere I Go") and secular, ("Oh Mississippi.") These ones are handled more delicately, kept quite a bit raw and direct rather than smoothed over, which helps them reach their intended expressiveness.

In my reviews, I try not to pass judgment based on aspect unrelated to the album itself, so while I came in with a vision of Lissie that was not really explored on this record, it shows a great deal of depth (or at least, multi-facetedness) that she's able to be the "Bad Romance" cover Lissie and the "When I'm Alone" Lissie, and the "Stranger" Lissie and the "Bully" Lissie. The album stands excellently on its own merits, and those are different merits from those videos. Here, her rough edges are very much sanded down and layered with a bit more complexity. The songs showcase her voice very, very well, showing her power and ability to convey honesty and need as well as playing with the listener. Whatever contributions collaborators brought, whichever direction she was pointed, she never sounds like she's compromising to get a hit. She just wants to come up with some awesome songs.

Buy this album from iTunes now!



BONUS VIDEO! I usually only post one video per album, but I'm such a fan of Lissie's live videos that I thought I'd post this live rendition of the already-great "In Sleep."

Friday, May 20, 2011

Ironic Rap Friday: Macho Man / Blondie

Welcome to our first -- and probably last -- Ironic Rap Friday. I've acknowledged before that while I'm perfectly cool with hip hop music, I haven't really got an ear for it, so until I hear something that really, really demands comment, you probably won't be seeing much hip hop on this site.

That said, I have a soft spot in my heart for old school rap, as well as rap that many would consider "not very good." Recent event have inspired this post, which marks the passing of one of the foremost entertainers of my youth, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, and also... the world?!?!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!





I realize these are trying times, but hopefully, Ironic Rap Friday(TM) has reminded us that there is love in the world still. Randy had recent come back to my life via the truly excellent Where Is Randy Savage Tumblr.

Never Forget.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Does It Rock? Foster the People, "Pumped Up Kicks"




In ten years or so, there might be a Dazed & Confused-type teen comedy set in 2011. The trailer, or opening credits, or pivotal scene will feature this debut single from Foster the People, and it will transform the song from "kind of a hit that people remember" into "definitive song of the year."

Okay, none of that might literally happen, but I think it's plausible. My retail schmo job enables me to get some insight into people's buying and listening habits, at least to the extent that people still buy CDs. I've heard every variation... who's buying the Foo Fighters, Fleet Foxes, Bieber, Beastie Boys, Buble, some obscure European Tenor, Britney, Arcade Fire... very little surprises me anymore... except for Foster the People. A couple of times a day, someone will ask about them, and their first CD doesn't even come out until this Tuesday, May 23. The only thing most people know of this band is this tune, and it seems to be doing something for them.

Listening to the song, I'm not entirely sure where its power comes from. It's very nice but I wouldn't imagine it as the sort of thing that would grab such a large, diverse group of people. Some come in seeking it, some happen to be in the store when it comes on the radio and ask "What is this?" And I have to tell them it's not out yet.

"I bet they're millionaires already," said one customer, with a blissfully, tragically, utopian idea about how the music industry works. What does this song do for these people? What is it doing for me? It's indescribable.

It's not, like I said, an obviously great piece of work, not one that announces itself, but it's good and fresh and charming. What rocks about it is its undeniable appeal, its ineffable quality that creates this effect in a people who seemed to have given up on ever being excited by music again.

And that, that's what rocks.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Does it Rock? Steven Tyler, "(It) Feels So Good"



Ignore for a second that the music video looks like some kind of leathery bi-curious psychotropic nightmare.

I was initially very pleased with this solo single from Steven Tyler. I've been attacked by middle-of-the-road rock singles for a few years now via work, both from acts who have aged into MOR-ness and acts that were born into it. There seems to be an exact formula to creating what "the man" thinks is the ideal rock track, which always comes across as lame, uninspired, and forgettable background music. You know the ones I'm talking about.

"(It) Feels So Good" manages to avoid this sound, built on a shuffling boogie guitar riff and filled with the sort of vaguely-nonsensical yet obviously sexual lyrics that has always made Aerosmith strangely awesome. Few vocalists can sing ridiculousness the way Steven does and imbue it with such soul. Especially old white dudes. But as we know, Steven Tyler is no ordinary old white dude. He is pretty goddamn insane. I just read the first page of his book. There's some pretty brilliant madness in there.

So yes, happily, it does sound like Steven Tyler, without necessarily sounding like Aerosmith. It's not got the same musical muscle as a band-effort would have, which makes it breezy and also softens it up safely for Steven's new audience. This allows them to feel like they're hearing something edgy without necessarily getting "Love in an Elevator." "(It)" apparently, feels very good, and you can use your imagination as to what "(It)" is, although if I had to guess, I'd say it's blowjobs.

The song, I'm told, hails from the same songwriting period that begot the Just Push Play album, which I have some very particular thoughts on indeed. Remarkably, it still sounds fresh due to nothing in Top 40 pop ever having sounded like JPP anyway. So if nothing else, it's distinct, catchy, and enjoyable enough to inhabit the airwaves in 2011.

I'm not entirely sold on Steven Tyler's solo career yet. The tune is amicable enough, but I'm wondering if he cuts a whole album, whether I'll be missing the other four. But here on this site, we don't spend too much time worrying about what something isn't. The only thing that's of concern to me is whether it rocks. And this song, from a a performer coming up on 113 years in music? Yeah, it rocks.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Adele: 19

Adele's stardom is pretty well-deserved. Of all the songs you hear 5000 times a week, you could do a lot worse than "Rolling in the Deep." It's the ideal pop vocal showcase, and anytime I get tired of it, I just hum it to myself as "Rolling in the Derp," and chuckle at my stupid internet jokes. The rest of that album -- to the extent we've had it on as background music -- is enjoyable enough that I don't feel like a sell-out for recommending it to all the moms and grandmas that come by asking for it.

For my tastes, however, I prefer her debut album, which relies less on slick, super-sized production and more on her vocal ability. Most of the album places her rich, soulful vocals in front of a minimal background, like the shuffling bass on "Best for Last" or the glockenspiel(?) on "First Love." She carries the load very well on tracks like these, emoting clearly and expressing herself with simplicity. It was fitting that I first listened to it on a drizzly spring afternoon. It's good and laid back, and good for sitting back with.

You can't mistake simplicity with shallowness, of course. When she hurts, she hurts openly, and when she pines, it seems most honest. And when it really kicks into high gear, it provides a good hint as to the direction she's recently taken her music. "Chasing Pavements," one of the main singles off this album, is as massive a ballad as I might be apt to want. It swells from a minimalistic intro to an orchestral chorus whose lyrics I don't really get, but don't need to, from the way she sings them. It's even stronger because the verses have, instead of a pretty MOR fillerness, a solid R&B swagger, suggesting a confidence that magnifies whatever pain Adele feels, for having gotten through to her. This is also true for the album's other key ballads, like "Melt My Heart to Stone," where she creates a vocal effect similar to guitar distortion when she wails, "You say my name like there could be an us." I once read that distortion was an audio shorthand for authenticity: it must sound real to the listener because it's not being cleaned up. Adele uses it extremely well in her vocal technique. The Bob Dylan cover, "Make You Feel My Love" is ace.

I mentioned swagger, and yes, the album's got some solid beat on it. Take the vintage-sounding booty-shaker "Cold Shoulder," (with Motown-esque strings keeping the proceedings strangely light.) Only the "Time and time again" bridge reveals it as a modern composition. See also the slinky cafe-tinged "My Same," the first recorded instance of "Pfft" I've ever heard. As the track goes on, the backing track rises up to meet her, thickening but never becoming too strong for her vocals.

A couple of tracks get into me more than others. One is "Right as Rain," whose keyboarded-up funk gets a bit like Stevie Wonder, but you know, with lady bits, and sight. The groove is so natural it manages to stay put through the verses, the transition and the chorus, and stay effective in all cases. The other is the swirling "Tired," which has a nimble synth back and dark undertones. It sounds like the only art project on the album, but it has enough of a hook to keep it firmly, definitively as a pop tune, which makes it a bit jagged. It's breezy, yet weighted down, an unlikely yet apt summing up of the rest of the album.

As good as "Hometown Glory," the album closer is, it's the one that does the least for Adele herself, a piano ballad that foregrounds the lush production rather than the vocals, which you probably wouldn't think much of if it appeared in an ad for next week's Grey's Anatomy, and which points the most to the sound of her next album (ie "Turning Tables.") This isn't a bad thing, but it takes it a peg down from the rest of the album in my own opinion, since I've been championing the "less is more" approach taken elsewhere on the album, where the music has to stand behind her, rather than the opposite.

Still, the album is a strong argument as to why she deserves whatever success she's gotten. The material on this album is strong and extremely well-delivered, taking care in most cases to keep the focus on the vocalist herself rather than the supporting sounds in the songs. Best is how many of the songs are so minmal and so off-kilter that she manages to challenge pop expectations will delivering on them. Earth-shattering maybe not, but for the staid and steady world of radio singles, it's streets ahead.

Buy this album from iTunes now!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Cover: Little Eye, "Hold It Against Me"



Strangely enough, I'm not a huge fan of the recent Britney Spears release.

I know, weird, right? It doesn't do anything for me, whereas I actually go get some enjoyment out of the more ridiculous Ke$ha and Gaga tracks, and even Katy Perry managed to movie me with the brain-busting "kuh-kuh-kiss-mee" hook on "ET" (minus Kanye's rap, which totally bites from Blondie's "Rapture," without any of the brilliance.) So while I wouldn't call myself a huge dance music fan, I feel like I can recognize a tune's merits.

So here we have a bland, buzzy dance track pushed into acoustic pop territory, and well-revitalized for it. It has a note of being pleading, yearning, shy, and goofy. The middle eight's still a little out of place, but at least the awkward-ass lyrics about needing a vacation flourish more in this stripped-down approach.