Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Serious Contenders: New Radicals, "You Get What You Give"



Part of the reason for the recent absence of the "Serious Contenders" series was that all the songs I wanted to post were from the 90's and I wanted to make sure there was a good mix of eras. My colleague James Leask is fond of saying the 90's were "objectively" the best decade. Musically, it's hard to argue against that. There was an explosion in creativity, even in the radio pop we took for granted. It's funny how life works, a song that annoys you at 12 becomes one of your favourite songs ever in your 20's.

Gregg Alexander's legacy to the world, before retiring as a performer (and working mainly as a songwriter and producer) was this oddly philosophical pop gem. It's picture perfect radio pop, with a great hook and singalong lyrics, with a simple message: "Don't let go / You've got the music in you / One dance left / This world is gonna pull through / Don't give up / You've got a reason to live / Can't forget we only get what we give." That lyric, found in an ostensibly harmless pop song, has actually helped me through some bad moods and troubled times. It speaks to the ability of music to always be there for us, something that works and remains constant. "You've got the music in you" is such a fucking brilliant sliver of a lyric. It's very encouraging.

In the late 90's, when the song came out, I feel like there was already a sense of impending doom. Things had been pretty good for a while, on a geo-political scale and I think artists were uncomfortable with it. In a lot of songs from that era, from the likes of New Radicals, Third Eye Blind and Smashmouth, you have outwardly sunny music with a dark tinge around the edges. People didn't know what they had to be worried about.

Obviously, this changed a few years later. Music in the 2000's was defined by an almost-exact knowledge of what there was to be worried about, and continues to be. I look back to those times as being almost quaint. I'm not saying that ruins the song's meaning. If anything it strengthens it for me. It's just that a song like this probably wouldn't get written nowadays. Music gives you that consistency, that window back to old feelings, that basis to look at the world.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Liz Phair, "HWC" & Jewel, "Intuition"



I was in the drug store the other day, and Liz Phair's early-2000's hit "Why Can't I" was on the radio. I remember at the time, the album was pretty well savaged for being a hyper-commercial sell-out effort. I think Pitchfork gave it a 0.0, which (smug bastard alert) signifies they actually don't care what music sounds like. No, "Why Can't I" (a pretty decent pop song) didn't seem like it belonged in the same catalog as the caustic angry college girl rock of "Fuck and Run." But that same album, the 2003 self-titled release that saw Liz collaborating with the people behind Avril Lavigne, also had Liz penning probably the catchiest tune ever written about getting jizz all over someone's face. Tell me again how she lost her edge?



Likewise, a strongly negative reaction met Jewel, whose dulcet songwriting style largely defined the 90's, when she came around the same year with 0304 and the single "Intuition," which was slammed as being an overt attempt at pop stardom, a sell-out effort. Except not only does "Intuition" work as a damn good pop song (and of course, razor jingle,) its lyrics are a pretty cutting takedown of the image-obsessed music industry. I was 16 years old at the time and I knew there was at least some irony to the woman who sang "Who Will Save Your Soul?" shaking her ass in a sexy firefighter outfit. The lyric goes "Follow your heart / Your intuition / It will lead you in the right direction" (eg: appearances are deceptive.)

Unfortunately, there's a saying that goes: "Satire doesn't fill the audience on a Saturday night." There's a tricky element of playing with the audience at work here. If you appeal to much to the people you're making fun of, the people who are supposed to "get it" will think you've gone dumb. Give artists a bit more credit. And more hot white cum.

Friday, May 18, 2012

The Coral: Nightfreak & The Sons of Becker

In spite of its origin as an album of filler - studio creations cobbled together on the spot between albums - the Coral's 2004 rag-and-bone set is probably the album of theirs I have spent the most time with. Without the constraints of sounding commercial or poppy, the coral turned out a set that was remarkably, invitingly dark and lonely. Most of the best songs are alienating in their weirdness, like the eerie "Song of the Corn" or the echoing, shadowy funk of "Grey Harpoon." The latter song pleads "Please don't let the light through my window / Keep the curtain shut, it brings me good luck." "Keep Me Company" is one that drags you over the coals, with its plodding pace and quivering vocal. There's such a sweet contrast between the defeated verse and the hopeful chorus: "But you could keep my company / Like an old memory..."

Elsewhere, the band cuts loose on a few speedy jams, like "I Forgot My Name," "Auntie's Operation" or "Migraine," where they sound ragged and ready to collapse. The opening tracks, "Precious Eyes" and "Venom Cable" are the slickest, most "complete" or conventionally good, and even they're pretty odd. And the album ends with what sounds like an old Victrola recording from the interwar years, "Lover's Paradise," painting an almost psychedelic ideal to leave off with.

This is a brooding, sullen, not-very-inviting album. It's not the first call when you want great songcraft or impressive musicianship, but for mood it almost can't be beat. I love to walk around listening to this album on rainy nights, because this album is very much what loneliness sounds like to me. And that's what music ultimately should be, an attempt to evoke moods and feelings and memories, through all the means available. This album wasn't intended to be much, but probably because of that it succeeds in offering a lot to anyone who's ready to put up with some weirdness.

Buy this album! iTunes Canada // iTunes USA

Friday, May 11, 2012

Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys!

I first heard this album about a year ago, when it had just been released. Because I had just reviewed Seldom-Seen Kid, I thought it was wise to wait a while before really digging into it, but also it wasn't as immediately gripping as that album. The opening song, "The Birds" is a methodical, cerebral 8-minute build that sets the tone for the album: one of reflection and rehabilitation of the past. It's much lighter and friendlier than its predecessor, and there's nothing as immediately pleasurable as "Grounds For Divorce," but Build a Rocket Boys has a few secrets of its own. In listening to, and preparing to review, this album, I reaffirmed a few things:

1) Reviewing a follow-up album is always a crappy assignment because your opinion is going to be informed by that earlier one, and as I preached in my Arctic Monkeys/Strokes review way back, that is both useful and not. I now know what I like about Elbow, and I have to try not to be upset that this isn't literally Seldom-Seen Kid Part II.
2) I'm so glad I don't work on a deadline.

It may be useful to this review to note that that earlier album was bittersweet. Vocalist Guy Garvey sounded like a poet self-destructing with grief: the lyrics are loaded with pointed, critical observations about the narrator himself and the world around him, referring to himself as "a horse that's good for glue" on "Starlings," drinking himself to death on the Earth-shattering "Grounds For Divorce," and generally being wary of the world's promises. The album's key scheme of beauty was the disappointment after the death of a loved one, as made chillingly clear on the album closer "Friend of Ours," a last toast, a sobering walk home.

There are no such hard feelings on Build a Rocket Boys. It's all enthusiasm and hope, sometimes bordering on syrupy and sentimental, but I think never going over the edge with it. Positivity isn't a feeling I usually associate with great music, but Garvey & Co know they don't need to wallow in misery for their art. When they memorialize youth in "Lippy Kids" you can buy into the delicate piano and soft harmonies because of lyrics like "Stealing booze and hourlong hungry kisses / And nobody knows me at home anymore." The soft, strummy "Jesus is a Rochdale Girl" sounds like Nick Drake on lithium, buoyed by electric piano. Even when he howls "I miss your stupid face / I miss your bad advice" on "The Night Will Always Win" it feels goodhearted and earnest. The previous album found faults to be angry about even in good things, this album is finding the better nature of the bad. "The River," a somber tune that seems to draw the album toward its close (despite three tracks following it) sounds like last call at a jazz joint, with the pianist wearily pecking away at the keys and Garvey relating a story of grief and release.

The music itself is affable, suited to the mood. Dig the stomps, claps and singalongs on "With Love," between chipper strings. "High Ideals" falls into a colonial groove, reminiscent of some of those off-kilter tunes on the earlier album, like "Starlings" or "The Bones Of You." The album teases its finale with the teeming, overflowing "Open Arms," haunts with a reprise of "The Birds," then soothes you at last with "Dear Friends" ("You are angels and drunks ... You are the stars I navigate home by.")

If the album doesn't have a "Grounds For Divorce," it at least has a "Neat Little Rows." Something has to be said for a band's capacity to rock out once in a while, and if all Elbow ever did was create modest little crafts, I might not think so highly of this album. No, headbanging isn't the top order of business, but "Neat Little Rows" is one you can really bob along to, while retaining a weighty vibe. The song combines insightful lyrics with a powerful musical mode.

The album feels whole, perhaps even moreso than its predecessor. It hits those big, bombastic moments (on "Neat Little Rows" and a few others) and those quiet intimate ones. Its songs are all complete thoughts, usually with clever lyrics that invoke a great deal of good feeling, nostalgia, wistfulness, insight, and subtlety. The band is both skilled and talented working in this mode, and Garvey's vocals can hit the epic and the personal, all with charm and affability. And this isn't an album likely to upset anyone, so why does it feel like a dangerous career move, after the comparatively-upsetting Seldom-Seen Kid?

I'll tell you why, and it's what impresses me most. I don't love to make assumptions, but the audience for this kind of soft, good-feeling music, generally doesn't deal with off-kilter rhythms or obscure lyricism well. There's a market for simple, non-challenging positivity, but Elbow isn't a safe bet for them because there's probably too much going on on this album, too much to think about. They probably can't handle the nuance in Garvey's words or Elbow's music, in spite of "Lippy Kids" appearing in trailers for movies like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. This isn't easy music. But the market for such difficult music isn't looking for mature, reflective comfort, and the market that can handle it might find it too precious. I don't know what the sales figures on this album were, but the only demographic I think really looking for this is looking for a specific level of quality without any specific notions about what music is supposed to sound like. There's a conflict on this album between the easy feelings it hints at and the conflicted music that it presents. And again, as good as "Neat Little Rows" is, it won't hook you like "Grounds For Divorce" did me.

As I'm fond of saying, I don't have to talk about this album if I don't like it. I do. I fought with it for nearly a year before really opening my heart to it and realizing it hit the sweet spot for me. They have a specific sound on this album, even if and especially because every song doesn't sound the same.

I think of Paul McCartney in 1967-68. Here we have the summer of love, the revolutionary Sgt. Pepper/White Album era, a time when late-60's youth is finally asserting its voice and identity, and the Beatles were nominally the vanguard of that... but Paul was already looking backward, writing songs like "When I'm 64" and "She's Leaving Home," sympathizing with his elders, and "Your Mother Should Know" and "Honey Pie," looking back at bygone years at a time when he should have been raucous and iconoclastic. It was somehow even more subversive to combine the two rather than set them in opposition, and it worked. Guy Garvey does things the way he wants them, not the way he is told he ought to, and is probably creating a lasting body of work because of it.

I love music, and I love changing my mind about music, learning to love something I hadn't been thrilled by the first time around. I love searching for that hook and learning to take something on its own terms. Whether I truly "get" where this album is coming from, or someday will, is less important to me than the fact that now, a year after I first heard it, I love to listen to it.


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


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Big Star: #1 Record

Something I don't like to talk about very often is the very real social aspect of listening to music. There are a lot of thorny sociological issues that go along with any album, stuff that I'm aware of, but not as comfortable or competent in talking about. My policy has always been to look at an album stripped of its baggage and determine, based on my subjective (but critical) tastes, what's valuable about it and if people should hear it. That said, there will always be that aspect of what your music says about you, and who you are able to talk about it with. There's the case of Big Star. I was going to say "There are two types of music geek, those who've heard Big Star and those who haven't" but the thing is, I'm not even sure I can recognize you as a true music geek if you're not familiar with this record.

That's not a statement that has anything to do with Big Star's music, what it sounds like, or what it means to me. You could hear this album, dislike it, and still call yourself a music geek. Big Star as a band and a musical entity has two lives: Its content and its reputation. It has a marginal place in mainstream music history, but has been taken up by music writers like myself with great passion. Finding it, and making the decision to listen to it (not even liking it, just hearing it at all) means you have done some serious digging, and are trusting tried-and-true devotees in their opinion, and have the right frame of mind to judge. Basically, to me, the moment you decide Big Star is something you need to hear even once, is the moment you truly dive into the great depths of popular music. There's a lot of dialogue about this band and shockingly little of it has to do with what they actually sound like. When I first got the disc, I was worried that nothing it contained could justify that reputation. But if you take that leap, you will be rewarded.

At the time this CD, which comprises Big Star's first two vinyl releases (#1 Record and Radio City,) found its way into my hands, I was a more guarded listener than I am now. I had seen it listen on numerous lists of greatest, favourite, and most influential albums, and I was afraid to peel back the curtain. I wasn't sure, based on what I knew about music history and music of that era, what could have been so revolutionary and yet remain so obscure. And the truth is, when I first heard it, I didn't quite get it. It was so unassuming, so in-line with what else was being done at the time, and so overshadowed in my mind by what came later. I had a hard time believing the album I listened to had the reputation it did. I realized later that it was simply that good at being what it was. Albums aren't generally recorded with the intention of revolutionizing pop music or being mind-expandingly brilliant (albums that are usually end up as a chore to listen to.) Sometime later, I realized that an album can be that great merely because it is so enjoyable to listen to.

The standout track for any new listener will be "In The Street," which is familiar as the theme song to That 70's Show. At first I thought the cover improved on the original. Where Cheap Trick were one of the great late-70's stadium fillers, who knew how to build an anthem, Big Star sounded stuck in the garage, much smaller and quainter. But of course, it is small and quaint and garage-sized. It's about being a bored teenager, and Alex Chilton's voice reflects that so well: how else are you supposed to sing, "Wish we had / A joint so bad?" but in the frustrated whine of youth?

All through the album, lead vocals (by either Chilton or Bell depending on the track) are spot-on for rock and roll. It's not that they're technically accomplished, but that they're "in character" for the song. When theyneeds to sound young and exuberant, they do, and then when they needs to sound aged and wizened, they do that too. By 1971, he was already an old pro from his time in the Box Tops, now playing his own material for the first time. The songwriting is acutely aware of what it's like to grow up listening to music, and to find yourself in a world where it's possible to make those records for yourself. The style of a blend of post-hippie early 70's folk and pre-arena hard rock: a blend we'd now call power-pop, but was at the time not recognizable as anything but "music."

It immediately announces itself with the first track, "Feel," a blend of post-psychedelia and garage rock, with the vocals seeming to melt all over the song while the guitars (and saxophones and other instruments) claw their way up from a deep chasm. This is, I think, one of the album's most inventive songs, while also having somewhat rudimentary musical theory. A great show of bombastic rock misery. You can also see a different sort of late-psychedelia in the mellotron-led "India Song," a Lennonesque bit of escapism, idealizing British colonialism, hopefully sarcastically. It's a good example of how Big Star was taking what their heroes did and remade it with their own quirks intact. They were, again, that first post-Beatles generation, who had learned to play because of them.

That exuberance is on full display on tracks like the shout-along "Don't Lie To Me" and the stomping "When My Baby's Beside Me." If this were a fair world, we'd be hearing these tracks on the classic rock radio every weekend between Bad Company and Rush. The guitar break on the former is pure rock, and the latter is one of the last vestiges of a time when writing a "rock song" meant aiming for Chuck Berry: the missing link between Lieber/Stoller and Free. "My Life Is Right" is a hard one to pin down. In fact, it closely resembles an extremely epic version of the theme song to Cheers, with its earnest, melodic verses and its humongous, drum-led chorus, and more gorgeous harmonies. It seems like a roadmap for a lot of power-ballads, although it isn't one, again you can see Big Star bridging the gap between the styles of eras. They could be the common denominator between Whitesnake and the Replacements, and isn't that just totally fucked up?

There is a run of ballads leading up to the end of the album. "Give Me Another Chance" is yet another perfect deployment of harmonies. Chilton starts on his own, then the rest join in on the chorus, deepening and strengthening his longing, "Don't give up on me so fast / I see it's me who's wrong at last / Give me another chance..." what you see here is a spot-on understanding of what background vocals are for, what they add to a song. By comparison, "Try Again" is stark and haunted, simply worn out but determined, pushed forward by those steady-beating guitar strums. "Watch the Sunrise" comes as a relief after it, ebullient and sweet, like Chilton and Bell's own "Here Comes The Sun," especially that little giddy-up riff.

The real superstar ballad on this is the beautifully earnest hymn to childhood music love, "Thirteen." With a gently-picked guitar and a trembling voice, Chilton recounts the timid movements of a preteen during the British Invasion, crystallizing a moment when music suddenly becomes important as a means of expression, reflecting on the very reason for this album's existence. The modest songwriting includes a brief guitar break that says more than words could, although the heart still lies in lyrics like "Won't you tell your dad, get off my back? / Tell him what we said 'bout Paint It Black." Suddenly, you speak a language your parents don't, and everything starts falling into place.

As you can tell, I certainly believe in the greatness of this album. It's all over the place, infusing every track with musical love and a blueprint for the future. I can still remember the exact moment I realized this was an excellent, singular piece of work, not just a collection of songs I thought were pretty good. It was in that moment when Chilton's voice hiccups just a little bit on "The Ballad of El Goodo," when he sings "At my side is God", and you can feel he's getting just a little twinge of barely-suppressed excitement in anticipation of jumping into that chorus, that indelible, unforgettable round: "And there ain't no one going to turn me 'round." This album is absolutely teeming with love for its craft, the desire to match its influence in greatness, to be to the future what those old records were for them.

But wait: There's more. As I mentioned, #1 Record is now only available on CD as a package deal with Big Star's second record, Radio City. It is absolutely loaded with great moments, and is in many ways an even more interesting piece of work than its predecessor. It also was recorded amidst frustrating conditions (always a plus for great art) and without guitarist Chris Bell, who brought much of the mellow, folk sensibility, leading to something a bit more raw. But it's definitely a different record, one that I feel deserves more attention than a tacked-on summary in this review.

For people like me, it feels fresh an exciting because it's an excellent, new version of music we already liked. What's more, it's a window into an alternate dimension, because it was created at a time before "how to sound like The Beatles" became codified in our minds. Big Star wanted to make music that would appeal to a lot of people, but we'll never know exactly how it could have been, because a bad business deal basically ruined anyone's chances of hearing this album. They were making music very few people were destined to hear, falling through the cracks of history. But since picking it up, the music journalist community has protected it fiercely, examined it, lauded it, and rediscovered it every time a young curious soul reads an article like, well, this one, I hope. If nothing else, it feels excellent because it was made by people with the same level of love for music as the people now most likely to discover it.


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


Friday, May 4, 2012

Serious Contenders: The Band, "Chest Fever"



If I'm being perfectly honest, my personal favourite Band song is not "The Weight," nor is it "Up on Cripple Creek" or "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." It's probably the radio single in which they sound the least like The Band, the ragged bunch of border-crossing Civil War buffs, "Chest Fever." This song is so insane that for a long time I didn't not know what it was called or who it was. But that Garth Hudson organ, a staggering thing, lingers in you like a virus, makes you sweat it out, while the lyrics are distant and incomprehensible, vaguely related to feeling ill after a break-up.

There's not a lot about this song that speaks to what "The Band" was, except its all-together jamminess, but without the central hold of down-home rustic, it flies off into psychedelic Vanilla Fudge territory, and lives there comfortably.

Serious Contenders: Beastie Boys, "Intergalactic"



Beastie Boys were always around when I was growing up. This song was a mainstay at grade schools dances, pretty much tailor made for it, with its beats that made young white kids wanna pretend they knew how to break dance and those ebullient voices of the Beasties. Later, the group was a constant presence on the VH1 "nostalgia" shows I used to watch obsessively in high school, whether for "Fight For Your Right" or "Sabotage." This one was always the one that distilled their essence for me. Maybe even a bit basic by their standards, ti was still a lean mean radio-ready rap hit with a ton of clever lyrics and a sick flow. These three guys interplay off each other like nothing else. Their voices, their energy, belongs together.

The utterly invaluable folks at Rap Genius note the thread of humility and pacifism in MCA's lyrics: "Too sweet to be sour / Too nice to be mean / With the tough guy style I'm not too keen / I'm trying to change the world, gonna plot and scheme." Amidst all the boasting and references, (culminating in comparing himself to Spock) there's an undercurrent of social awareness, one the audience might be forgiven for missing, but these are guys, especially Adam Yauch, who cared what message they put out.