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


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Serious Contenders: Wilson Pickett, "In The Midnight Hour"



Hey, did you notice there are instruments on this track? Good ones too, huge swaggering horns and a wicked beat. No, no, none of it really matters. That voice. That fucking voice. Dirty-awesome soul R&B on that. So gritty, no-nonsense, letting you know it's business time. Everything else up in there rolls underneath that vocal, that blend of expression, gruffness and sweetness. You know what's happening "in the midnight hour," and it ain't just someone "love tumbling down."

Friday, October 14, 2011

Sam Roberts Band: Collider

I first heard Sam Roberts on the radio nearly 10 years ago. When I first heard his debut single, "Brother Down," I thought he was more of a hip hop crossover artist. Chalk that up to my young mind's confusion but there was also not as much frame of reference for Roberts' brand of rhythmic delivery. Rhythm, whether an insistent boogie or a laid-back groove, is the backbone of this album, the vehicle from which Roberts delivers his sermonlike tunes. Few of the songs are hooky in a conventional way -- a quality that initially kept me from wanting to revisit it -- but while it's playing you'll find yourself tapping along, and then finally uncovering the wit and poetry of the lyrics. By now of course there wouldn't be any confusing Roberts for an MC, but this is definitely the sound of a singer-songwriter in a post-hiphop world.

Roberts has an old soul, and writes ably about unity and brotherhood, about commonality and understanding, about problems that plague all of us and the search for solutions. But he's observational, not preachy. Ultimately, it's also important to seek solutions for yourself: ("Don't forget where you came from / Don't forget who you are / They're all beating the same drum / You've been playin' guitar," from "Streets of Heaven (Promises Promises)") Community and individuality are of a whole in Robert's nuanced lyrical universe. And there is darkness, but there is also hope (the uncertain point of the great album-closer, "Tractor Beam Blues:" "Is love enough? Yes it is / Is hope enough? / I hope it is.")

Along the way he colours and shifts focus on the strange quirks of the world. It opens with some really great tracks. "The Last Crusade" is tense, feeling like a back against the wall. "Without a Map" is weary from running. "Let it In" is down and dirty, and "Graveyard Shift" is that moment when your exhaustion breaks and you get a second wind, when that mental block that kept you from solving that problem suddenly lifts and it all hits you, what you need to do. I love the end-of-the-rope lyrics of "No Arrows:" "Some days it's hard to give her / What she needs I can't deliver / Got no answers on my tongue, I / Got no arrows in my quiver."

Roberts could've been excused for taking all the credit for this album, but this is his first release credited to "Sam Roberts Band." He's very clearly the star, the leader, the preacher. Everything is in the service of his lyrics, and his lazy-lidded, world-weary vocal delivery is front and center. He's got a folkie's voice and a rocker's tool kit, a bit like Springsteen. The guitars are lush, helping the universalist sound achieve that warm-yet-cool feeling of floating free and occasionally being blinded by bright lights. It takes a stern-yet-spacey tone for the most part that is very enjoyable but not "accessible," so casual listeners might be put off; but put it on your shelf and come back when you have a moment to sit down with it, it'll impress. Sam is generous but right to credit the group as part of the process, they definitely make their contributions. Given what I said earlier about the album's rhythmic quality, the drums are the key ingredient beneath those space-borne guitars and horns.

Toward the end of the set comes the album's triumph, "I Feel You," which towers over all the other very-good-to-great songs, casting a shadow of awesomeness and acting as Roberts' most recent career highlight, with its squinching, fuzz-blasted, churning guitars, poetically obscure lyrics and dramatic chorus, Roberts outdoes any other song I've heard from him on this one, to the point where he namedrops Leonard Cohen and it feels totally deserved. In all it's a great summation of the difficult yet necessary act of understanding and being known -- of "Feeling" someone, or being felt.

I wouldn't say an album is great because the lyrics or the ideas behind them are great They need to be served by an enjoyable sense of musicianship, and that's Robert's strength. He's a songwriter above all else, and he has created some great ones on this piece. It's all material to work into lyrics, into metaphor and turn of phrase and some good choruses, backed by positively liquid instrumentation. He's astute enough to sense the troubles of the world and to put them down in words, but not arrogant enough to presume he knows the answers. And the music flows freely beneath all this, carrying it along on that wave of solidarity yet uncertainty.

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



Thursday, October 13, 2011

Cover: Julia Nunes, "Runaround Sue"



Man, having forgotten why I dug ukelele-playing YouTube singer Julia Nunes, she goes and reminds me by posting this cover of the Serious Contender by Dion & The Belmonts, doing some bitchin' self-backed vocals and even hitting the "YEAH!" pretty great the second time.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Serious Contenders: Beatles, "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"



In slightly belated honor of John Lennon's birthday, but also because Fall always brings me back to this song.

As I've said before, when you're dealing with the Beatles, a very special definition has to be applied to "underrated." Pretty much every crumb of the Beatles' discography has been lauded by someone or other, and the few bits that are overlooked are deservedly so. The Rubber Soul period is generally considered a high point, but also as the border between the early pop songs and the later art-psychedelia, sometimes falls behind a bit. Nobody is going to forget it was a great album, but it's also easy to forget in light of what came after. The Beatles were constantly, rapidly mutating, especially after Help, so this is both a creative highwater mark (at the time) and a transitional period. Not a lot of bands have such moments combined as one. There's a lot going on on that record.

I personally have a soft spot for Rubber Soul-era Beatles. Abbey Road may be my favourite album but Rubber Soul is the one I feel can take me back to a specific time and place. There was one fall in high school, grade 10, where I listened to these tracks incessantly. I was just getting my legs as someone who had opinions about music, and these songs really opened my taste up a bit. Especially this one. There's something so warm and welcoming about that acoustic strum and that twanging sitar. And it melds so perfectly with Lennon's lyrical story, where he seems just to be lying back and unloading, pontificating, extemporizing: "I once had a girl / Or should I say she once had me?" Great opening line and the rest of the song doesn't let down. Lennon apes Dylan, admittedly, shoving off choruses for refrains, and it works, because he's got a narrative to tell, and it's a damn good one. The song is as warm yet off-kilter as a song about attempted seduction and arson ought to be.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Raphael Saadiq: Stone Rollin'

At first I was interested in it as a matter of retro. The twinkling piano and twanging guitar of "Day Dreams" sounds awesomely anachronistic in 2011, and Stone Rollin' as a whole seems like a textbook case study for retro music. The call-and-answer guitar of "Radio" sounds very jukebox, and there's something so 70's about the oozing sex appeal of the title track (an ode to Boo-tay.)

But of course, there is no textbook, no standard method, and Saadiq borrows and rearranges and takes and leaves elements of the past like any artist of today: here and there is Chuck Berry or Ben E. King or Marvin Gaye or Prince, but of course it's really all Raphael. Is retro an acknowledgment that the old ideas are better than the newer ones? An attempt to strip music down to basics? Or just dusting off a few tricks and techniques that never lost their effectiveness? Maybe it's an assertion of individuality: there's such a wealth of influence in the past, that you can stand out in the present by mining it. If you're as good as Raphael, buddy, you can work it.

The groove is the thing. I love the break neck opener "Heart Attack," where the man throws himself headlong into the song sparks fly from the guitars. On songs like "Go To Hell" and "Over You," Saadiq sings with pure urgency and immediacy. He's got that rhythm & blues intuition and spirit that makes superstars out of plenty talented singers, (Cee-Lo comes to mind) but his hook is his ability to push his vocals right to the brink, matched thunder-rolling drums, funked-up guitars and, of all damn things, pipes and winds airing the sound out.

It's no wonder to me that so much music has at least some retro aspect to it. Though Stone Rollin' doesn't harken to a specific time, it calls back to a lot of familiar song styles and binds them together excellently based on their common ground, that R&B soul funk that flows in the veins of much music, African-American or otherwise. IT sets something off in the mind: familiar but fresh, inviting and exciting at once. It's got a good hard groove, and it rolls.


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



Serious Contenders: Sam Cooke, "Another Saturday Night"



Relevant??????

Well, okay. It's certainly no stretch to observe the awesomeness of this breezy anthem. Early rock/R&B was often about the confidence of the singer's delivery, standing his ground against the rhythm and the lyrics. Cooke exhibits this exceptionally, offhandedly sighing "If I could meet 'em I could get 'em / But as yet I haven't met 'em." and positively owning the fact that he "Ain't got nobody." Way more sprightly than a lyric sheet might convey, and even the lyrics themselves are a touch more upbeat than a similarly-themed blues song might be, yet it's that combo of joy and sadness that often makes music from this era work.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Cover: Foo Fighters, "Band on the Run"



Pretty much a perfect cover: it highlights what's so awesome about the original while also making it comfortably a product of the cover band. A great workout for the Foos' style. Not much more can be said. Well done.

Serious Contenders: Queen, "Another One Bites the Dust"



The under-appreciated overachiever of Queen's catalogue. It isn't bombastic like "Bohemian Rhapsody," the hard rockitude of "We Will Rock You" or operatic beauty of "We Are The Champions." It doesn't even have David Bowie singing on it! But propelled with little more than an irresistible bass and Freddie Mercury's razor-tinged delivery, it works awesomely. When listening to this song you can't help but feel the groove. John Deacon and Roger Taylor, I salute you.

Freddy, for his part, owns the shit out of this song. It's a testament to his ability as a vocalist: This is the Queen song you figure you could probably do at Karaoke, but you'll still just embarrass yourself. It takes a lot of confidence, an inherent ineffable ballsiness to really nail those verses.

It's too often derided as "the disco song," which is a lame detraction since mixing hard rock with disco pretty much always yields positive results (see above, KISS' "I Was Made For Loving You" and Rolling Stones' "Miss You.") Something about rocking out to a solid beat just makes sense.