Tuesday, November 26, 2013

And... we're done!

Rather abruptly, perhaps, but I'm laying SOTW to rest to see if maybe expanding my focus will be a good idea. I do plan on continuing to focus on music as much as I can, but you can read my writing on this and plenty of other stuff now at scottowilliams.com



See ya real soon!

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Does it Rock: Lorde, "Royals"



While Lorde's debut hit single may not, strictly speaking, be my thing, I respect it. It's a concerted effort to do and be different, and to make something good and distinct. It follows along the thread of recent years that saw Florence and Lana del Rey emerge, proving the market for female singers who succeed purely on vocal talent and songcraft, without as much fidelity to traditional instrumentation as an Amy Winehouse or Adele. (The threads are related but different.)

The song was just on the brink of being done for me, when something odd happened. I heard it out in the world. I was sitting in a waiting room, with the muffled sound of a Top 40 radio station playing elsewhere in the building. I was hearing some pop song or other - I think it was the one Ellie Goulding did with Calvin Harris but I'm not sure. I think Ellie's got a fine voice, but that song is not much for me. And then this one came on after it and I felt myself nodding my head... yes. It had gotten into my skin to where I could go without hearing it again ever and be very happy, but to hear it out there in the world (as opposed to at work, where it plays every 6 hours on schedule) was so palate-cleansing.

That's when I realized the value of songs like these, songs that are clearly different from run-of-the-mill pop songs, but become grating after a while anyway. At the very least, they break that monotony, and they sound way better because of it. I will never reach for Lorde over the new Arcade Fire album, but waiting to go into an office, amongst a string of otherwise undistinguished tunes, it's a welcome respite.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

R.E.M.: Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage (1982-2011)




We can take as a given that there are a lot of great songs on R.E.M’s two-disc retrospective, which has seen considerable airplay on my iPod since I picked up a copy late last year. They were around for 29 years, frequently touted as one of the best and most popular alt-rock bands for no less than a decade of that, and cranked out a series of singles from 1987 through the mid-90’s that reads like a murderer’s row: “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine.)” “The One I Love.” “Stand.” “Orange Crush.” “Losing My Religion.” “Everybody Hurts.” “Man on the Moon.” I don’t have to sell these songs to you, or expound about their qualities. If you know them, you know whether you like them. They comprise an amazing, individualistic, diverse discography of singles in and of themselves. Their fifth album, Document, came out the same year I was born; these songs have literally been in the background of my entire life. I have a strange affection for “Shiny Happy People,” as much as certain parties hate it (even within the group, I hear.) This goes back to when I was in grade 5, and I heard it on an episode of “Beavis & Butt-head,” and I then taught it to my friends as simply going “Shiny happy people / Shiny happy people, baby / Shiny happy people / Shiny happy people, baby...” endlessly. I wasn’t even that far off. My version might be better. My point is that R.E.M., when the spotlight was on them for that certain period, between Document and the departure of Bill Berry due to health issues in 1997, took the opportunity to lob some of the most incredible singles to hit the Top 40, which endure today. So for that reason alone, getting all these songs gathered together in one place, this album is probably already worth your time and money. (Hint: You can buy it for only ten bucks at the store where I work.)

The set is also a great opportunity for casual listeners like me to delve deeper into the back catalogue, with a significant portion of Disc 1 devoted to the pre-Document years, where the band first became college darlings. What I kind of expected was a slow ramp-up in quality, an attempt to find the template that netted them success, a band emerging from obscurity to distinguish themselves. But really, it’s pretty damn great from the word “Go.” Sure, the early ones carry a different weight to them. Michael Stipe’s vocals are shyly mumbled and obscured, awash in jangling, cascading guitars and propulsive pop rhythm, with a shadowy, nervy mood cast over the whole thing... but right from “Gardening at Night,” they are a great band, and a damn unique one whose songs don’t seem to have lost any lustre in age. Hearing them pretty much all for the first time in the 2010s, I hadn’t quite heard anything like them before. It was a “Holy shit, they sure don’t make ‘em like this anymore” moment for me. They didn’t need to come of age: they were maybe even just a little ahead of their time. They have a great measure of “down to earth” and “sweeping grandeur” that just marks them in their early form as a great thing apart from other things. My particular favourites are “Radio Free Europe,” “Driver 8” and “Life and How to Live It.” A lot of what made those later singles great is present here, but it’s in embryonic, uncultivated form. Undiluted, even. If there’s only subtle developments between tracks at this early stage, it sets off a great deal of diversity in those later songs, where they made sure to pursue some new idea or angle with each major song.

The part of the set that examines their major label hit years also treats us to a great few tracks I had not had the fortune to encounter before. The wry “Pop Song 89,” the fun “Get Up” and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” and the deadly yearning of “Country Feedback.” Hell, this era is so prolific for the band that they had to leave out a few notable charting singles, like “Drive” and “Bang & Blame,” which I think is fair game. The particular ones I know to be left out have not been worn by time as well as most of what’s included.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The “hits” peter out somewhat early on the second disc (I would say the last bona fide was “What’s The Frequency Kenneth?” also the last representation of the band as hard-rocking for a while.) This allots a great deal of real estate to a period that the band might be tempted to disregard altogether. Instead of merely concentrating hard on the boom years, the set goes an extra mile and cherry picks fairly evenly from the band’s later years, doing a good deal of rehabilitation on a series of albums that never had much public traction. “New Test Leper” and “Electrolite,” both from the last Bill Berry album, are both mature, contemplative, downtempo tracks. They may not be there to get the party started, but it sees R.E.M. leaning into their reputation for sensitivity and intelligence, and coming up with winning results. “The Great Beyond,” from the Man on the Moon soundtrack, is a mini-masterpiece of wonderment at the universe, and “Imitation of Life” nearly rivals it. The band shows off their gift for inventive sonic textures and poetic lyrics. On “Leaving New York,” their particular brand of shy, self-effacing, circular atmospherics proves useful in evoking the tragedy of 9/11 without ever explicitly memorializing it. Considering the album that contains it, Around the Sun, is considered the band’s worst, this is a shockingly great song. Disc 2 also treats us to “Bad Day,” a fleshing-out of an 80’s outtake that later became, in a roundabout way, “End of the World.” Just like that, the juice is back: the venomous "Living Well Is The Best Revenge," the playful "Supernatural Superserious," the utterly airborne "Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter." The latter is one of three tracks bestowed from their final full album, Collapse into Now, which seems to indicate a partiality. Also included are the melancholic "Oh My Heart" and the tense "Uberlin," all latter-day highlights. Three previously unreleased songs round out the set. "A Month of Saturdays," I think, shows their dry sense of humour again, and you would be hard pressed to engineer a better closing bookend than the mesmerizing "Hallelujah" or the absolutely 100% stunning "We All Go Back To Where We Belong."


Fans will like it for the way it captures the narrative of the band's beginning, middle and end. New or casual fans will be attracted to the depth and breadth of songwriting quality that rings throughout. People who are, for whatever reason, opposed to the willfully difficult nature of the band, will probably just have to go on with their lives, although I have to believe there is something on this album that will resonate with them. They are that good.

I don't have any great insight as to what this band really was, or what spurred them to create all these amazing songs. I'm just as baffled by what they were capable of now as when I only knew 9 or 10 of them. They just seem like a restlessly creative band of smart, sensitive dreamers who loved music and wanted to make the best possible versions of it that they were capable. They were exceptional when they were underground, they were working on their own level when they were pop icons, and they continued to push themselves when they had faded. That last era is of the most interest to me, because it seems like they struggle, sometimes, with understanding who they were supposed to be, as a lot of great bands do. Surely there were missteps, and if the wide net cast over their final 15 years is an indication, a lot of them, but there are those diamonds in the rough, especially at the end of the set. From beginning to end, they were onto something, something all their own. I can't understand the mindset that creates "Gardening at Night," "Orange Crush" or "Uberlin," all these songs when I examine them seem to have come from another universe. But they've been so deeply ingrained in ours, just by lasting this long, that we take for granted that this is just what music sounds like sometimes. Sometimes we know the songs, but we forget to listen to them. Putting it all together, you really see what a body of work it is. "Definitive" is really the word for this one.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Metric, "Wanderlust" (feat. Lou Reed) & Gorillaz, "Some Kind of Nature" (feat. Lou Reed)



I think one of the interesting things about Lou Reed is that, in recent years, he just seemed to turn up wherever he felt like. His list of guest appearances includes Gorillaz, Killers, Bruce Hornsby, Kevin Hearn (of BNL) and this neat track with Metric. I like to think he just wandered the countryside, visiting recording studios, popping in to see if anyone wanted to collaborate. And while this may have led to the much-disdained Lulu album with Metallica, it was still an interesting way to close out one's career.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Bonus Content: Paul McCartney & Bruce Springsteen Live



I don't really have much to say about this, and I don't really have to. Sometimes when I look up videos for the site YouTube serves me things that don't really go anywhere, but I would like to give the thumbs up to anyway, so this video of Paul McCartney onstage with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band is gonna sit here anyway just radiating awesomeness.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Paul McCartney: New

This doesn't exactly sound like a veteran's album, although there aren't many who have been around the pop game longer than McCartney so I guess he's setting the pace about how good you can be 50 years into your career. You expect sappy old man music, but this isn't it by a long shot. The litmus test I have applied to New is, "What if this were the debut album from some other artist?" Discounting the defensive-reflective "Early Days," you could almost buy into it. And this hypothetical artist would be onto something. He would be lauded for getting to a Paul McCartney-like sound while also adding something new into the mix: as someone with an advanced knowledge of pop songcraft and the way things used to be/ought to be, but with their own spin and atmosphere. That's what gets me. There is a safe way to "do Paul McCartney," a certain way we expect our rock vets to comport themselves. And maybe there's some of that here: a good-natured safeness creeps in at times...but by and large it's almost daring how nakedly poppy it is. We're talking full-bodied, all-rhythm, hooky wall-of-sound classic pop. Not in a cloying way, either, but a real brassy one.

Paul McCartney has not reinvented himself by any stretch. When you've been around this long, and have done that much that is so varied, it's really just a question of which aspects of your style are you going to present at any given time? What you don't really expect, at least not right out of the gate, is an opening track like "Save Us," a buzzy, bracing, breakneck rocker that reminds us that yeah, "Cut Me Some Slack" happened. He's well aware of his toolkit, and he's not afraid to mix and match that kind of growling guitar with his quirky self-harmonizing on "Alligator." There are tracks like the Brian Wilson-like title track or "Early Days" that celebrate and acknowledge the past, and then there are ones like "Queenie Eye," which are just fun. There's an abundance of songs that sound like a way forward, like the thumping electronic "Appreciate," the grooving "I Can Bet" or "Road," which sounds lightly Arcade Fiery. Whether your enjoy this album or not, you can't accuse it of trying too hard to rehash past successes. It wins or loses on its own merits, here and now. The win column, though, for me goes on and on. "Everybody Out There," sounds like a mid-era Beatles tune covered by a modern band. "Looking At Her" is just nuts.

It announces right up front that Paul McCartney is not just interested in putting us through the paces of "being Paul McCartney." He wants you to remember that he is Paul fucking McCartney, and he has forgotten more about writing awesome music than most people ever learn. Every single type of song conceivable, he's already done. Even amidst today's diverse and experimental crop of indie popsters, one of the biggest compliments you could level is still "Hey, that sounds like something Paul McCartney did." So presented here, to take or leave, is what Paul McCartney is doing. Writing Paul McCartney music for 2013. He manages to avoid being stuck in his ways, while showing the virtues of the first principles. There are flaws if you look hard enough for them, and sometimes it feels like the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, for the most part it works within his strengths, and it's nothing I wouldn't forgive when I'm having a good time. Believe me, I'm no blind devotee: I wasn't going to like this album just because it existed and applaud Paul for just getting up in the morning. I had no intention of even checking it out until I started reading the reviews.

Albums like these are fascinating cases to write about. It's won't win new fans, and it's not designed to appeal to old ones per se, just to wake them up, to test them and see if there's room in their hearts to grow along with him. Maybe, in fact, it's for me, the 26-year-old avowed lifelong Beatlemaniac and music nerd, who wants to see what the old fella has left in him. I return to my original premise. As a Paul McCartney album in his overall discography, it's somewhere in the middle, sure. As a Paul McCartney album in 2013, it's great. If it were the same album by a new 26-year-old artist, you'd think he was a damn genius. So there's that.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Cover: Charles Bradley, "Stay Away"



Charles Bradley spent years as a James Brown impersonator ("Black Velvet,") toiling in obscurity before being discovered in Brooklyn and signed to the Daptone label, who are bringing the Stax sound into the 21st century. He released his first album in 2011 at age 63. Dude's got some pipes. But the last thing I would have expected to see included on his debut album was a cover of a comparatively obscure Nirvana song.

I mean, look at the clash of styles. The other cover he chose for this set was the lyrically straightforward and directly sentimental "Heart of Gold" by Neil Young. Great tune, and the combo makes a ton of sense. But by imbuing Kurt's free-associated, oblique and angsty lyrics with a blaxploitation groove lends it an added level of danger, a certain mystique -- not that Nirvana's music is lacking danger and mystery. Her, it drones and echoes out: Stay / Stay away! Instead of a petulant "get back," is becomes a real serious warning. I don't know where the idea for this came from, but it is right.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Sonic Sandwich: The Icy Poetry of Phoenix and the Stuffiness of White Lies



This is just to remark on the difference between Phoenix's 2008 album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and their 2013 effort, Bankrupt. I was slow to come around on Wolfgang Amadeus... it was one of my first reviews and I was still sussing out my voice as a critic, so I was more reticent to give it praise, and more keen to take it down for minor flaws. It's one of many pieces of writing I've done that I consider embarrassing to have written. My current opinion of that album is that there's a real beauty to it, a humanity that evades a lot of synth-based music (usually by design,) a certain nuance and icy poetry. Every little bit has its place, and there's a soft touch to it. When I was younger I thought they were maybe aiming too high and missing, but as I've gotten more experienced I've learned that they were right on target. I like just about every track on that album very much.

The follow-up, Bankrupt!, is a different creation. It's much bolder and brasher, noisier, in the mold of Foster the People or Passion Pit. They've filed all those fine points down, and filled in the gaps with, well, whatever sounds. I object to it, in the sense that I liked the earlier product much better, but it's clear they're trying something different. And sometimes it works. Not enough to get a thumbs up from me, but I can adjust my head, I think, to say "Okay, they did this, and assuming it came out like they wanted, it is what it is." There are moments on Bankrupt that really do think are great, like "Oblique City," the closing track, which feels like a good midpoint between the two modes. They are good enough at being a big, hooky band, as on "Entertainment," and "Trying To Be Cool," that they deserve continued success, and they still have ideas as on "S.O.S. In Bel Air" and "Bourgeois," that make the album into a fairly consistent product. I just think they excelled on the previous album.

Another album that I reviewed early on was White Lies' second album, Ritual. I found it such a serious, stiff affair, a bit silly and oversized. But there's a charm to that, the deadly melodrama of the musical backdrop and the severity of the delivery, the way the singer just can't seem to loosen up, like your college roommate who's really into New Order. Unlike with Phoenix, who made a conscious alteration to their sound, White Lies appear to have merely ironed out some of the kinks in theirs for 2013's Big TV. They've found a balance of all the attributes in their sound that appeals to people. Everything about this album seems to have leveled up, in conception and execution. It just clicks more.

And I think, objectively, it's a better album, but I miss that weird stilted stuffiness of the earlier one. It's one of those quirks of personal taste, that I prefer the one that is a bit gangly and lumpy, compared to the slick post-success affair. There was a life to it, if a neurotic, utterly mannered one. It was nakedly itself. I would recommend Big TV first, to a new listener, but I'll listen to Ritual more often on my own.

These cases reminded me of each other, so I sandwiched them together in this article. In both cases, I liked the predecessors more, but that doesn't invalidate the later album. There are always questions in situations like this: Is it a response to success, an attempt to paly to the audience, or merely what happens sometimes after you've recorded one album: you want to record something that sounds a bit different? I can't say authoritatively in any direction, and I'm wary of people who presume to. Mine isn't to suggest why Bankrupt! or Big TV sound the way they do, after Wolfgang Amadeus and Rituals. Mine is just to listen, if I like them, and see if I can bring them to others who might.

So here's the bottom line: Phoenix and White Lies are both bands that use a synth-heavy approach rooted in 80s pop music. Whereas Phoenix's is hooky and intended for the dancefloor, White Lies' is contemplative and in its way, romantic. Both albums feature some solid hooks and really well-done tracks, although both bands have recorded albums I like better. Sometimes, you've just got to lay your stance bare.

One of my little pet peeves in other reviews is when the critic simply cannot get over their opinion of the earlier CD enough to judge the new one on its own merits. And that may in fact be the case here, but I'm willing to cop to it. I like Wolfgang Amadeus a lot, and this is a different thing that I don't like so much. But hey, I didn't always like Wolfgang Amadeus that much, so maybe in time I'll come around.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Movie Night: High Fidelity

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

So begins High Fidelity, one of the greatest movies ever made about being a lover of music as well as a sexually frustrated young man. It's based on Nick Hornby's book, from whence I assume most of this amazing dialogue came -- although the movie has the advantage of being able to actually use music. Just look at that quote there. That's my life, and the lives of thousands of young men and women who go through life with their headphones clamped on, miserably longing for each other. You could write an essay about that quote. John Cusack's character, Record Shop owner Rob Gordon, muses to the audience as his girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle) walks out. The song he picks to console himself is The 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me," a particularly venomous piece of garage rock from the psychedelic era. This immediately stablishes two facts: That he is a connoisseur, and that he is lying to himself.



Rob immediately makes a list of his top 5 all-time greatest breakups (in chronological order) and deliberately leaves Laura off, though it becomes clear she deserves a spot. Rob makes a lot of lists. He and his employees have that obsessive need to rank and categorize everything, especially pop culture, to prove their expertise and their refined taste. Jack Black, as Barry, mocks Rob for including mostly old standbys on his list of Top 5 opening tracks (Nirvana, Marvin Gaye, Velvet Underground: "How about The Beatles? Or fucking Beethoven?") They're elitists, albeit not snobs per se -- Barry extols the virtues of Katrina and the Waves for his mix of Monday mornings songs, and that's as pop as it gets. It's just that you have to be well-versed and able to deploy that knowledge at a moment's notice. Sometimes I flatter myself that I'm okay at talking about music, but I'd make it about five minutes with these guys before we all realized they hated me and I hated them.

But this is an amazing film, which ties that punctilious itemization and exclusion to the need for personal growth. Their shells show signs of fracture early in the film when they see Marie de Salle (Lisa Bonet) performing "Baby, I Love Your Way." It's exactly the kind of well-worn popular tune that Rob, Barry and Dick would despise, but that really does have an emotional truth to it, and only requires a fresh take to remind you why it reached pop greatness. In this moment, music is not about the narratives we create, of reputation or cache value, but it's about the raw in-the-moment feeling that reminds us why we began to obsess over pop music in the first place.



That said, when not berating middle-aged square guys for seeking copies of "I Just Called To Say I Love You," they put their knowledge to good use, enlightening and guiding the masses. This movie contains one of my all-time favourite scenes in any movie, where the three are hard at work: in some ways obnoxiously, but effectively. What gets me is the sureness in Rob's voice when he says "I will now sell five copies of The The EP's by the Beta Band."

"Do it."



I have been lucky enough, in my time working music retail, to have a couple of moments like this. I have a few regular customers who will take my recommendations, but on the rare times when I've been able to select the music for my store, I have been able to catch someone's ear with something they maybe wouldn't have heard otherwise. And the Beta Band is such a great choice for this side, because their sound comes so far out of nowhere, yet seems to elementally pure, with that rhythm and vibe, you can't help but want to know more about this mysterious, powerful sound.



No great movie about music can end without a bit final performance, and in this case it comes courtesy of Barry's band Sonic Death Monkey/Kathleen Turner Overdrive/Barry and the Uptown Five who, despite Rob's fears,give a spirited and full-bodied performance of "Let's Get It On" (Marvin Gaye's name comes up numerous times throughout the film.)

This is at the record release party for the single Rob has produced, marking the point at which the "professional appreciator" finally adds something to the world, something we all secretly long to do. It goes hand in hand with his gradual growth as a person - the last we see from Rob, he's making a mixtape for Laura, featuring, get this, stuff she likes. There are more important things than pushing your particular canon of music on others: there is taste, there is preference, there is mood and temperament that other people have that you might not share, and that's... that's okay. Mostly, it's about learning to love, really love instead of judging and particularizing and obsessing over minutiae. D'aww.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

The Other One: Third Eye Blind, "Never Let You Go"



It wouldn't be fair to call Third Eye Blind a one-hit wonder. In the late 90's and early 2000s they had a commendable string of hits that included not only "Semi-Charmed Life," but also the similarly ubiquitous anti-suicide jingle "Jumper" and teen heartbreak classic "How's It Going To Be?" But a decade-plus on, "Semi-Charmed" far outshines those tunes that, at the time, reached a similar level of success.

The one song by TEB that I thought never got its due was "Never Let You Go." Having achieved popularity with their earlier singles, they had the task of maintaining that level of success without seeming like they had run out of ideas. "Never Let You Go" does this exceptionally. It starts with the fact that it is built on essentially the chord progression from "Sweet Jane," which is an instant recipe for an indelible hook, then add in some of the same late-90s sunny-gloom of "Semi-Charmed" and "Jumper," and you've got a winner. If it doesn't have the cache of "Semi-Charmed Life," it's still a worthy successor and a perfectly-crafted piece of 90s pop-rock.

Monday, September 30, 2013

Mazzy Star: Seasons of Your Day

Heck of a year for returning bands. My Bloody Valentine dropped their first in two decades on us, the Pixies have an EP, the Replacements are touring again, even David Bowie came out of semi-retirement. Mazzy Star's legacy may not be as bombastic as those heroes, but they have their place, their niche neatly carved out, with the gentle, soft-focus guitar of David Roback and the sweet, whispery vocals of Hope Sandoval. Their new album, Seasons of Your Day is just a really lovely 50 minutes of that. It'll sit nicely on my shelf with recent releases from the xx and Feist, and classics from the likes of Nick Drake and Richard & Linda Thompson. It's power might be the exact thing that people who like Lana Del Rey's music get from her. It's a thing of measured beauty, subtle and low-key, restful and relaxed. Sandoval's cooing voice carries a distant, enigmatic sweetness. The slight instrumentation - full of instruments, but with everything operating at the lower end of the power gauge - takes you in and wraps the whole affair around you. Dusky steel slide blues guitars add weight, a shamanistic feel here and there.

There's a real human spirit at work here. It suggests itself, rather than taking a concrete, knowable form, leaves us to ponder and interpret and to take from it what we can, depending on what we brought in. Personally, tonight, I needed something with this distant glow. This introspective comedown.

I was talking with an aunt tonight about meditation, and about "being present." For all the talk one might sling about putting on an album like this and "drifting away," the question remains where you drift to: deeper inside yourself, it seems. You listen to an album like this and you are forced to just sit there with yourself and take it all in. Think about yourself, think about the world around you, and the one inside.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Sonic Sandwich: Rival Sons and Queens of the Stone Age



Safe to say, 70s-flavoured retro-rock is an increasingly prominent part of the great musical tapestry. For a long time now, there's no shortage of bands in their 20s who grew up listening to music from before they were born and learning from that. I've expounded before on how good it is that these bands exist. They crystallize everything that holds up about Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Foghat, et al, and remove it from context. Meaning, I'm guessing bands didn't have much of a conception that they were doing "70s rock" at the time, they were just trying to find the way forward from what had been done in the 60s, and what was popular at the time. Now it becomes a conscious decision, a statement of identity. And we've seen enough of it that it's not enough for it to be a novelty or a gimmick. You have to live it.

Rival Sons are a band whose work I am always quick to steer people toward if they're looking for something fresh but familiar. I'm thinking of calling it "New Old," and it goes in a category with The Sheepdogs and Monster Truck. On Head Down, they hit all the major hallmarks of a classic rock album, to the point where no classic album might actually sound just like this. There are pummeling party anthems like "Until The Sun Comes" and "Wild Animal," soaring anthems like "Run From The Revelation," and George Thorogood-like bar rock like "All The Way." Beyond being competent imitators, they find their way to some of the more eccentric corners of their chosen era, like "The Heist," which has the most classic of choruses, the Led Zeppelin III style campfire psych jam "TRUE" or my personal favourite track on the album, "Jordan," which calls up the kind of spirituality not typically used in rock music anymore and almost on its own validates the whole deal. An album like this at first feels comfortable and recognizable, then it's impressive that they got it "so right," then at last it just has all the same pleasures as the actual old music. It strikes that balance between repetitive/consistent and wild/energetic.

There's a difference between, say, a 70s-influenced band like Queens of the Stone Age or Foo Fighters, and a real retro-rocker like Rival Sons. The former camp takes the old ways as a starting point and then moves forward, tracing rock back to a certain point and then taking off from there. QOTSA's new album is very much a 2013 affair, offering an alternative representation of rock from what is typically offered to the Top 40 (as if there's any rock on the Top 40.) Their music is loaded with stylistic decisions that are informed by both decades of nostalgia and a generation of experimentation. It has classic appeal and modern sheen. It takes chances that may in fact alienate fans of the old ways, simply by being modern. That's the downside. The upside is that you get the freshness, the inventiveness of a defined artistic voice. If it scares people off who are looking for comfort, so much the better, because the people who prefer it will like it more. For instance, "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" sounds like something that could have been recorded in the 70s, but doesn't sound exactly like something we know of that was recorded in the 70s. This is the rock that is dedicated to pushing the form forward, or at least keeping it alive in the now. They're not just paying tribute, they are taking up a cause. For shit sakes, Elton John appears ("You need an actual queen on the record!") on the awesomely proggy "Fairweather Friends."

The common denominator to both these albums is that they cut the bullshit that's piled up in rock over the last few decades: the accumulated cultural memory of hair metal, post-grunge, and rap-metal. They use pulverizing riffs and power-fantasy lyrics to assert a huge sound that is completely carefree and escapist. This is headbanger paradise.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Movie Night: Wayne's World

Wayne's World is probably one of the first movies I ever saw that was explicitly about music, and more importantly about people who enjoy it. It came out when I was 5 and theoretically too young to understand its humour, but as early as Grade 2 I remember walking around the playground trying to remember all the words to "Bohemian Rhapsody."

The movie was based around a popular skit from Saturday Night Live, so they didn't have to do a lot to establish the characters. It opens with a scene of Wayne and Garth doing their show, Rob Lowe's character hatching a plot to commercialize them, and then a monologue where Wayne turns to the camera to fill the audience in on the details of his life that might not be obvious from the setup. Then Wayne, Garth, and their two cameramen buddies go out for a drive and listen to "Bohemian Rhapsody," which is cued up to about halfway through.



They just drive around and sing along to "Bohemian Rhapsody." Early in a comedy movie, when most writers would be looking to cram in as many jokes as possible. And that is just the perfect song choice for this type of scene. In general, the usage of music, the way the characters think in terms of classic rock songs, is pretty great: Garth's sex fantasy is set to "Foxy Lady" by Jimi Hendrix, Wayne's pining for Cassandra is set to "Dream Weaver" by Gary Wright, and there's a scene where Wayne can't help but sing "Hey Mickey" by Toni Basil, because it was the last song he heard before he left the house that morning.

One of the movie's best scenes occurs when Wayne and Garth get backstage passes to an Alice Cooper show; Alice was enjoying a revival at the time and performed his then-recent cut, "Feed My Frankenstein." He also gets to show off his considerable knowledge of Native American peoples.





The musical crux of the movie, though, is Cassandra's band, whom Wayne helps win a record contract with their cover of Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz." The cover choice gets across exactly what kind of band they are, emphasizing Cassandra's glammy sex appeal. Notably, it's a song about music, about a party getting out of hand, with crazyass rock imagery. The version of this song that appears in a comedy movie is considerably less silly than the original take by Sweet, though.



Wayne's World is not only a really great movie based on a popular skit, it's a savvy movie about music, both the people that make it and listen to it. Wayne and Cassandra both struggle with the implications of success in their respective media, dealing with the compromises it entails. In the end, the movie isn't against success, but prefers it on one's own terms.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Does it Rock: Babyshambles, "Nothing Comes to Nothing"



I'll admit that I'm not overly familiar with the Pete Doherty songbook... The Libertines are one of those bands that I "get," and appeals to me, but I want to like a bit more than I do. That said, the songs I've heard off this Babyshambles album have really hit the spot for me. It's like Vampire Weekend's instruments being played by Cage the Elephant, or Joe Strummer covering the Gin Blossoms (or... Pete Doherty covering the Gin Blossoms.) It's not overly sophisticated stuff, power-pop chords and a real messy delivery. Absorbing stuff here. It rocks.

Monday, September 16, 2013

Tame Impala: Lonerism



Lonerism might actually be the platonic ideal of an indie record in the 2010s. The lyrics carry obscure meanings that are left to the listener to decipher. The music soars with synthy, loopy goodness. The structures of the songs seem to change abruptly, and tracks seem to flow directly outward from one another, only leaving a change in mood to determine that a new song has begun. It follows its own path, basically. It has that "Dude, you must have been so high when you made this" quality, but I suspect they weren't. It may be strange and warped, but you have to be pretty focused and clear-headed to get it all just right like they do here. The songs are grounded by a backbeat that sometimes invokes Motown or 70s funk. I definitely hear where people are comparing this to Revolver-era Beatles (the lyrics seem like an extrapolation of "She Said She Said") but that's only part of the equation, so I would say it's also got something to do with Curtis Mayfield. It has that basis, but it's way down there beneath the spaceyness. It's like a sunnier Dark Side of the Moon.

It can be hard to be patient with an album like this. I bought it on a whim and listened to it once and I really did not understand what I was hearing. It can be challenging to give the necessary due to a band that so fully follows its own whims. I bring a certain amount of baggage to every album, as I think most listeners do, and its up to us to be able to put it away and stop resisting, stop expecting to be impressed with yet another expected version of something we know. At first I thought, "shit, these guys are just noodling around with loops," but there's a real solidity to the construction of this album, a genuineness of purpose. It isn't just "One weird thing after another." If you let yourself be carried by it, it will take you someplace interesting.

That's not to say, at long last, there aren't tunes to go with it. "Elephant" is a standout, not the least because its gritty, pared-down, menacing psychedelia hardly sounds like the rest of the album's ostentatious attack, but it's a natural curb on the album's flightier tendancies, especially coming off "Keep on Lying," which is kind of the definitive track here, the way it builds to a trance-inducing coda. Kevin Parker's voice really comes out on "Why Won't They Talk to Me," and "Apocalypse Dreams" is the early standout to get you into the album. Check out the bass and drum groove of "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards," the way it sets against the leads and vocals.

The upside of an album like this is that though it puts up a difficult front, if you stick with it, multiple listens reveal a lot of greatness. And then, because there is so much scenery, that greatness feels fresh every time you listen to it.

Friday, September 13, 2013

The 5: The Who (Non-CSI)

When I was deciding how to do my second "The 5," the list of potential topics was topped by the Who. I love the Who's music, but more than that their discography is pretty pliable: do you love the rough-edged 60s post-mod club rock singles, the rock operas, the ambitious setpieces, the proto-punk, the ballads? The Who hail from a time when bands were obliged to try everything, and they did in their own style, with the unique skillsets each band member brought to the table. Compounding this were the frequent mental and emotional breakdowns suffered by chief songwriting voice Pete Townshend, who constantly doubted his own spiritual direction and the entire purpose of creating music to begin with.

Things get somewhat more frustrating when you realize that an objective list of their best songs starts to look like a list of TV theme songs, with their discography having been adopted by the CSI Franchise. And that's all well and good, but those songs, particularly "Won't Get Fooled Again," are so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness in that context that it becomes difficult to talk about them outside of it. Not impossible, mind you, but those three songs would be an easy shortcut to constructing this list, because nobody would argue. So right at the outset, I am ruling out "Who Are You," "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley" from this list... which is a shame, because as I said they are three of the band's best tunes, and the last one is my absolute favourite song of theirs. But crazy, arbitrary limitations are what The 5 is about, so let's look at what's left:



1: "My Generation"

Let's start with something simple. Basically the entire concept of punk can be traced back to this seminal single, which signalled the Who's rougher, more belligerent take on British Invasion-era rock. A lot of attention gets paid to Daltrey's stuttering delivery of Townshend's perfectly rebellious lyrics, but my ear always goes right to John Entwistle's bass and Keith Moon's drums, which are the more prominent part of the sound through most of the song, upending the traditional rock group dynamic we're used to. This is a song that puts its money where its mouth is.



2: "The Kids Are Alright"

This is almost the inverse of "My Generation." Where that was a song of brashness and self-assurance, this is one of modesty and self-erasure. It's a song about letting other guys dance with your girl. It's not as raucous or incendiary as "My Generation" by a longshot, it's all jangly and restrained. It's The Who as hep, too cool for school mod pop act. Yet it takes balls to be that modest, to send your girl off with other guys (because the kids are "alright.") The individual powers of the band don't really assert themselves as much in "Generation," but they're all here, from Moon's drums to Entwistle's fleet-fingered bass, and a tight, pummeling guitar break from Townshend, to a surprising amount of harmonies accompanying Daltrey's resigned everyman vocal.



3: "A Quick One While He's Away"

Either you get it or you don't and either way is fine by me. The Who's first stab and longform songwriting/storytelling in song is this cute little ditty about a housewife being seduced by a train driver while waiting for her husband to return from a yearlong absence. And while it's not essential enough to The Who's discography to make it onto any of their Greatest Hits compilations, it captures them basically at the moment between being the band that recorded "My Generation" and the one that recorded Tommy. It takes balls to attempt a gag like this, and for me it's an indication they could pull it off even bigger. "You are forgiven / You are forgiven / You are forgiven..."



4: "Behind Blue Eyes"

As the villain song for the abandoned Lifehouse project, "Behind Blue Eyes" carries a lot of weight to it. It grounds and humanizes the point-of-view character of the piece, now just a random moment on the Who's Next album. It's confessional and sincere, and yet its character remains frustrated and angry, succumbing to his baser nature. The build of the song, that moment when it kicks into higher gear, is spot-on, and all of the bandmembers are working at full tilt here (as if they ever weren't, but still.) A classic rock gem in the truest sense.



5: "Love Reign O'er Me"

The Who are a band that wore their spirituality (well, Townshend's spirituality) openly, while managing to weave it into their rock aesthetic. Ultimately it was about freedom and release through music. I could have put in "Join Together" or "This Song is Over," or perhaps even "Bargain," which is superficially about winning over a girl and yet very clearly about spiritual gain. But the hitch with "Love Reign O'er Me" is the simplicity. At this moment in the Quadrophenia project, Townshend's tendancy toward gangly, specific lyrics give way to a general sentiment that captures and enraptures, and Daltry knocks it out of the fucking park. This is my favourite part of any rock opera they did, because it was both among the rockiest and most operatic.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Cover: Kings of Leon, "Dancing On My Own"



The King of Leon are not really on my radar. I say that because they are a band that people get really upset about, for whatever reason, I guess because they have a bunch of hits, and those hits I guess don't sound a lot like their early stuff, and yadda yadda you know that same old song and dance. I never found them offensive enough to get upset about, and wasn't wowed by them enough to defend them.

But this. This.

It's a known fact that I happen to think Robyn's "Dancing On My Own" is one of the great beautiful dance anthems of our time, and I was hitting that drum way back at the beginning of this blog, and this cover does exactly what a great cover ought to do and wrenches every essential bit of goodness out of that original, and then filters it through the new band. This is some amazing shit. I wish they had gone a bit bigger, (they are an arena rock band, after all) but it's still rad as all hell.

If/Then: Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers

Nicki Bluhm and her band evoke plenty of rustic-polished acts from across the generations: Sheryl Crowe, the Eagles, the Band, Eva Cassidy, Fleetwood Mac, Dawes, Band of Horses... basically, if you are my dad, you'll probably like this album. In fact, I dig it myself, it's a thoroughly clean good time with just enough rock and soul, and they find enough routes into their sound to keep the album interesting track after track.



Monday, September 9, 2013

Franz Ferdinand: Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Actions

Franz Ferdinand's new album comes to me as a breath of fresh of air. It actively excites me. It carries a verve and spirit that sets it apart from the current crop of rock acts. I say this because this is my third draft of this review and in the previous two I was driven to tangents complaining breathlessly about things I don't like about other bands. But none of that's important because what I do like is this album.

Franz has concocted an effective new batch of their particularly dance-tinged, kinetic rock music. It feels right to me, like they didn't need to study up on how to sound like themselves, or work too hard to infuse their music with obvious hooks. Working too hard is the enemy of rock music. You can get bogged down. Instead, this music contains a lot, does a lot, has a lot of ideas, but is never overworked or overly tidy. It's messy and beautifully imperfect: Alex Kapranos' voice sounds a bit thinner and wavers more, almost like a karaoke singer who's had a few. I feel like if you isolated the vocal track to this album you would be mostly unimpressed with the efforts. But he's from the David Byrne school of histrionics, and its his energy that really sells it, definitely matching the overall calamitous musical atmosphere. Altogether, the band plays with an unstudied ease that would be at home in any era: they retain the timeless immediacy of their earlier singles. It takes balls to be this unpolished. It retains a character and humour about itself, while never getting tripped up and leaving the moment behind. "Right Action" is one of the bassiest, self-assured singles I've heard this year.

It all comes out thrillingly because they know the difference between "a fun pattern" and "mind-numbingly repetitive." There are enough change-ups, as in the melancholic "Stand on the Horizon," the easy-breezy croon of "Fresh Strawberries," and the motor-mouthed "Bullet," which all come one after another. Some of the intros kid the listener, but gradually unfold the song to reveal how it works with the rest of the album. It all adds up to a really consistent listen. You can put this whole album on a loop at your next party and never have the energy falter. I just love this energy. You can't teach this. You can't fake it. You can only hope it comes out the way it's meant to when you're done making it.

Friday, September 6, 2013

The 5: Nirvana

Let's have an argument.

I think, in the ~3 years I've run this site, I haven't said many controversial things. Generally, when you consider your job to be "point people at awesome music," there's very little room for dissent. It's true! Maybe I just have great taste, or maybe there's no point in going "No, that new David Bowie album isn't as amazing as you think it is" (because it is) or, most likely, because I'm just not doing this on a big enough scale to stir up any ill-will from anybody at all. This lame little site (amazing as it is) is mainly for me an my friends and nobody else sees it except when I happen to get retweeted by an artist I cover. (And their fans never stick around anyway.) My co-worker Stacie has said that she never even has to read the site, because as soon as I tweet a link, she just shrugs and goes "Okay, he liked that."

True enough.

The 5 is an idea I had a few weeks ago when I was having my bi-monthly internal struggle about whether to stop doing SOTW altogether. Except it wasn't internal because it was on Twitter. It kind of comes out of the same place as the Best Song Ever tourney, which I never did finish #2, which is that I'm interested in trying ways of praising or quantifying my enjoyment of music that don't get tried often. What I came up with this time was "The 5." That's 5 items in a category, not ranked, but five items that make up the core of that topic. The initial idea is to be songs by bands, but it could end up being bands, lyrics, bandmembers, albums, riffs, in categories like years, genres, geography, scenes, or some other selection. But let's start off slow.

I picked 5 because that is objectively too few to be complete. It is prohibitively restrictive, and nobody is going to be happy with the result. I don't think there is a single thing worth discussing that can be summed up with fewer than 5 examples, and I want to pay special attention to what makes the cut and what doesn't. Because there will be room for argument, room for error, room for complaint. Or maybe it will end up just being so succinct that 5 will be enough. And I'm starting with Nirvana because in their few active years they produced so much that is so diverse and so ardently defended by its fans, and I'm cocky enough to think I know enough to distill it perfectly. Even though you could fill this list up with 5 tracks from Nevermind and be done.



1: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Let's start with the obvious here. A few years ago I worked with a guy named Trevor, and we bonded over our love for Nirvana, but every time we would listen to Nevermind he would express his dislike for "Smells Like Teen Spirit." He liked every single other thing Nirvana ever recorded, but this tune was anathema to him. I called him out on hipster exclusionism, that he hated it because it was a "hit," and he denied it. He genuinely thought this song was in some way inferior to all of the rest of Nirvana's songs. Even, like, "Hairspray Queen."

So let's cut the bullshit and all acknowledge that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a genuinely amazing song in the context of being a pop single. It is the outsider breaking in. It is a nasty, skanky attitude dressed up with a shiny hook that melts and destroys everything else on the radio just by being next to it, it carries a sarcastic, revolutionary rhetoric, and is essentially poison, and yet by virtue of being catchy and memorable, is totally fit for public consumption. When you cut through the mythology of some kind of overnight rebellion in rock music, it holds up to the myth astonishingly well.



2: "Sliver"

A few years ago, Gaslight Anthem did a faithful cover of this song on their album Handwritten, and it came off about as well as Gus Van Sant's version of Psycho. They got all the notes right, and Brian Fallon's voice is kinda like Cobain's - he can even scram a bit! But it just felt like the cover your friend's band plays and highlights how badly Gaslight Anthem are not Nirvana. Even while being faithful, it lacks Cobain's childish impudence, sarcasm and charm, the idea of writing a punk song from the perspective of a bored whiny child. The nuance of the idea is just lost. If they had covered "In Bloom" or "Lithium," they could have done justice, but they picked something that was just beyond their grasp and really gives such a great insight as to why Nirvana is Nirvana.



3: "Polly (Unplugged)"

Their MTV Unplugged set will always be known as one of those amazing moments in rock history, and I could have selected any number of cuts, including several incredible covers and a number of amazing renditions of mostly lesser-known songs. It's up to you whether this version of "Polly" is better than the original, or whether it was one of the best songs of the night, but I think it bridges between the two at the place where Cobain was a writer and artist, and not just a noisemaker.



4: "Serve the Servants"

Here's the curveball. I think everyone's got their own favourite Nirvana deep cuts and there are a lot of options here. As the opening track for In Utero, "Serve" does a lot to displace the perceived notion of Nirvana as a glossy put-on, punk-metal imitators getting rich off fake angst. Or at least, it directly addresses it in the lyrics, "Teenage angst has paid off well / Now I'm bored and old." I think this is one of the most formidable songs Kurt wrote and sets the stage for the very challenging In Utero album as a whole. The strange thing about this choice, I guess is that in a weird grungey way, "Serve the Servants" is perfectly catchy and hooky, but that does nothing to dull its message or impact. It's still full of sour, discordant notes.



5: "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"

It really couldn't have been anything else, could it? For the last act on their Unplugged show, Kurt & Co aligned themselves with Depression-era bluesman Lead Belly and it sounded like the most natural thing in the world, invoking a kind of eternal misery that carries down from generation to generation and lingers with us still. But attempts at profundity aside, it's an amazing fucking performance. This cover is kind of exactly what you want from this band.

So there's my attempt to put Nirvana into five very different songs from five different stages of their career. I'm not saying this is definitive, I'm saying it's not. You could build an entirely different set of five, or even two or three, out of great songs I left off.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Dinosaur Jr.: I Bet on Sky



I'm not going to pretend like I'm the authority when I'm not. I'm the newcomer here, as I have the good fortune to be often. Like, that's the thing I actively do with this site: to find bands I haven't checked out yet, for whatever reason, and get into them if I can. Since I'm pretty selective in what I let get near me, it usually works out well (when it works at all.) So no, I'm not going to pretend I am the expert on Dinosaur Jr. and their multi-decade body of work, and how this album fits into that. I am just going to tell you that this is a fucking great album.

I named my site "Sound of the Week," basically to foreground the fact that I'm just really interested in the way things sound. The way it comes together. The sound of this album - the glamlike tone of the guitars, the hammering drums and the dried-out sound of J Mascis' voice, is just exactly what I want to hear. The highly charged opener, "Don't Pretend You Didn't Know," is a meal in and of itself. "Stick a Toe In" has a tense melancholy to it, with its tapped-out minor piano in the background and one of Mascis' most wizened, sorrowful vocals. "Watch the Corners" and "I Know It Oh So Well" are pretty breathtaking too, and then "See It On Your Side" puts it all together as an epic final exam. It's like a jam between Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars and Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

This is exactly the kind of album I always want to hear. On the one hand, the instruments, the music itself is grand, melodic, fiery, lively, passionate... but they're grounded by the vocals and lyrics, hitting the dimmer on their brightness, stifling their flame and adding a note of sour to the sweet. As observations about Dinosaur Jr. go, these may be pretty pedestrian, but they're also accurate, I think, and speak to what I believe is the simple pleasure of listening to truly great music. There are so many excellent, elegantly realized nooks and crannies on this album, you could just move right in and live in it, or at least rent it out for a while.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Does it Rock? Bad Things, "Anybody"



I'll confess, I'm not even sure I love this. There's not always certainty to the "Does it Rock" series, although I usually end up in the affirmative. I listened to the first 30 seconds of this thinking "Hm, this is a good start, I hope they don't squander it." I've been disappointed before. But no, they make all the right moves: it's mannered enough to hit the charts but rocky enough to please jaded folks like me. I grow more anhedonic and tough to please by the day, and yet it's also telling that anything that's just a little good seems laudable to me. It seems like it would be a "middle of the pack" late 90s rock single, but in the context of 2013 it just seems refreshing and fun to hear. It cheers me up.

Friday, August 16, 2013

Does it Rock? Haim, "The Wire"



Here we have a nice, crisp, clean and wholly addictive pop rock song. The sound is subtle and restrained, yet catchy and classic. The YouTube comments pitch endless comparisons, and I'd throw in my own as Huey Lewis and the News, or maybe Hall & Oates, some good workable pop. Here's some legit stuff: off the beaten path of what everyone else is doing, and yet familiar and instantly classic. Compulsively re-playable. Have a great weekend.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Big Star: Radio City

Big Star's second album finds them a lot less eager to sound pretty. There were some reasonably rough-sounding moments on #1 Record, sure, with "Feel" being an impressionistic simulation of the insanity of being in love (or something,) or the confrontational "Don't Lie To Me," but it was generally defined by tenderness, hope and sensitivity. It was mostly lush and clean and simple, and we loved it for that. And Radio City is a fucking wonderful mess. My best hypothesis is that without Chris Bell around, Alex Chilton's darker instincts were allowed to roam unchecked. That probably how the guy who penned "Thirteen," one of the sweetest and prettiest songs ever, was now hissing "You Get What You Deserve," on one of the album's many excellent tracks, not to mention the later "You're gonna die / You're gonna decease."

This album has a particular kind of craziness. Because the three remaining members seem to have such a perfect instinct for pop-rock songwriting and playing, they go absolutely crazy trying to break the sound of their first down into shattered pieces, knowing it will all still fit together in the end. I always think of the insane instrumentation on "Life is White," culminating in a hurricane of battling instruments that barely even seem to belong in the same song: jolly piano, raunchy guitar, whining harmonicas thrown in for good measure, all wrapped around a perfectly twisted hook ("I don't want to see you now / 'Cause I know what you're like / And I can't go back to that now.")

It's actually only 36 minutes long, but it's a lot of music in that 36 minutes. A very busy set of unrelenting pop chaos. It goes breathlessly from "O My Soul," every bit the arch 70s anthem that "In The Street" was, to the wild and wooly "Daisy Glaze," and beyond, pummeling you the whole time but always managing to fall back on the safety net of pop instinct. More like a crash pad, which they hit at terminal velocity. Even one of the cleanest-cut tunes here, "September Gurls," which never seems to stray too far off the beaten path, has a certain pumped up alchemy to it, and a skewed sensibility. Not every song can nail the simultaneous joy and sorrow of romance, and Big Star does it often.

Maybe that's really it. Radio City is an album of contradictions: of joy and sorrow, bitterness and hope, all the things we really want out of music, preferably all at once. Mixing it all together in this chaotic way produces something that feels genuine, something we can comprehend but still be utterly surprised and thrilled by. The best music seems to be easy and hard at once: rough and clean, sweet and sour. Even the sweet, tender, strummy ballad "I'm In Love With A Girl" seems to be loaded with doubt ("I'm in love with a girl / The finest girl in the world / I didn't know this could happen to me.") I may not personally think that Radio City has the tunes the way #1 Record does, but the way it exceeds in every possible facet gives it a character, a power of its own.

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





Thursday, July 25, 2013

Smashing Pumpkins: Oceania

I'm impressed. Really. I feel like this is an album, a piece of work, that Billy Corgan has known he had inside of him for years, and that he has tried to coax it to the surface in a lot of different ways, but for some reason it only just came out now. That he always saw his music as being huge and grandiose - even when trends dictated otherwise - with movements rather than verses and choruses, with symbols and ideas as much as emotions and actions. Maybe it doesn't have "the songs" the way Siamese Dream and Mellon Collie did, but I think it might be more the cohesive achievement, the fully realized vision. It's such a strange damn thing. It's recognizably Smashing Pumpkins: Corgan's voice is unmistakable (for better or worse) as is his ear for details, his particular placement of every loop and layer and drumbeat and instrument, and his vocals, (again for better or worse.) Yet it's fresh, not at all an attempt to retread or cash in on the cache that his band name carries. If you told me that in 2012, the Smashing Pumpkins could be a relevant musical force, I would have backed away slowly. Zeitgeist was more than a bit of a compromise between Corgan's vision and what it was believed they needed to provide. Here they are telling you what it is you really need from them. That might be the only condition under which art can be made.

Yeah, art. Corgan is that most arty of rockers, fussily putting everything where he feels it belongs, devouring each new toy, letting his work exist as a growing organism. As with most topics, I wouldn't consider myself to be the final word on the subject, but that seems to be a fair assessment. It was what set him apart in the 90s, when alt-rock either meant slashing and burning or being cutesy. I think that when Corgan has met his best success, he has found that narrow path between singular personal vision and crowd-pleasing populism. Go too far toward the former and the music becomes insufferable, the latter it becomes bland. Oceania walks that line for 60 minutes.

The sound of this album is big, wide-open and full. There is always something going on, usually a lot. Even the soft parts are kind of loud and heavy, and usually build to some huge climactic moment. This is an album loaded with musical instruments played like musical instruments, not as vehicles for hooks and solos. There is beauty in that, genuine sincere beauty. Here is an album by a 90s band in 2012 that doesn't sound like it belongs in either time period. What's more, it's a damn cohesive album: each track feels like it needs to be heard after the last. It's weighty, but never a slog to listen through. This is especially ironic given that Corgan has mulled over the idea of abandoning albums and releasing songs each on their own. As it turns out, he does one of the best justifications for the full album statement in the 2010s.

What's key about this album are the vocals and how they do not override the gorgeous symphonics of the music. If you let them, they become part of the sonic palette, his nasal voice a roughened counterpoint to the immaculate instrumentation. The music isn't there to back up the vocals, the vocals follow along, he seems to be singing along to the sounds in his head, and the actual lyrics in there are just to hit the right rhythm and inflection. On the printed page, the words might seem like clumsy spirituality, or overwordy new age ramblings (philosobabble?) but as delivered they become mantras and keys to another dimension, one that lives inside Corgan's head and far, far out in space. This is real heavy prog stuff, man. Such grandiose music demands such extreme subject matter. No "The world is a vampire" here.

Does it amount to anything? Is it deep or profound? Does it matter? Does it matter if it matter? Because Goddamnit, it sounds good. It sounds probably exactly the way Corgan envisioned it and I have enjoyed listening to it many times over since I acquired it last fall. It could have gone way, way off the rails, but it works too damn well to be ignored. It wants to be a very specific thing: a huge, outsized epic album that sounds like nothing else sharing shelf-space with it (only the recent Queens of the Stone Age album can compete, and that came out nearly a year later.) And it succeeds overwhelmingly at that. It's liberated from the idea that rock just needs to be rock: with titles like "The Celestials" (which I want to believe is a shoutout to Jack Kirby) and "Panopticon," this wasn't going to be a modest item. Its entire attack is on point, validating Corgan's instincts, his impulses, his dreams, his desires. Unlike Nirvana or Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins was never really a band, but a project, and that project was to build albums like this. This might even be a truer realization of that project than the earlier, arguably better SP albums. Back in those days, he was aiming for huge music at a time when it was not cool to do so. Now, with the internet and the splintering of audiences, the conditions have changed so that you can do anything you like, and people will be into it so long as it's good. For SP, this is the uber-album, the mother lode. If you think this is something that might interest you, don't waste any more time reading me talk about it.

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


Thursday, July 18, 2013

Does It Rock? Arctic Monkeys, "Do I Wanna Know?"



As this site will attest, I am a huge, huge admirer of the first two Arctic Monkeys albums. I still enjoy listening to their later stuff, but I get less crazy about it. Whether they lost their way or simply became something that interested me less, I can't say. (And the fact that I'm not willing to say explains why I am not yet being paid for my opinions.) But I believe, fundamentally, they are a good band, and can turn out a good song whenever called upon.

The debut single from their upcoming album hits the spot for me. Again, it's not a return to "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor." The motormouthed brattiness has aged into contemplative, unwinding statements that seem tempered by recreational pot rather than amphetamines (whether Alex Turner uses drugs, I don't know, but that's my metaphor.) The riff on this reminds me of Elbow's "Grounds For Divorce," which is fine because that song isn't really what Elbow sounds like anyway. This is a good slow groove, and instead of hitting you with a crash bang dynamite chorus, it works its way into your skin insidiously, begs repeat listens, tempts and teases.

Is the current permutation of the Arctic Monkeys, which has proven to be the band's lasting creative interest, more mature? More thoughtful, intelligent, savvy? Maybe but maybe not, maybe it's just slower and deeper and that gives it the illusion of learnedness. If so, it's an illusion I can buy into. Which is helpful, because even though this is not the Arctic Monkeys sound I fell for at first, it's one I can come to appreciate.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Case Study: Van Halen, "Dance the Night Away"



Fuck, Van Halen had a ton of good songs. Just looking at the hits, you've got the titanic "Jump," the rock solid "Running With the Devil," the gloriously sleazy "Hot For Teacher," cover versions of "Pretty Woman" and "You Really Got Me" that brought them to new frontiers, showy instrumentals like "Eruption"... this band was the glitzy, glamorous synthesis of everything rock was becoming in the late 70's.

But for me, the song that sums up all the pleasures of listening to Van Halen is "Dance the Night Away." Not a little-known song by any stretch, but one that seems to take a backseat to those gems. This song has it all, though, and to the fullest degree: it has one of Roth's best vocals, sexy but charming and playful, beckoning in the lyrics, "But don't skip romance 'cause ya old enough / to dance the night away." Those lyrics are terrifically simple-minded, but they're aptly effortless. They soar and infuse the soul to do just that. It's a perfectly fitted good-time rock and roll song that comes with a genuine sense of wellness.

And that guitar. Oh, boy, that guitar. EVH was a player of immense technical skill and discipline, and sometimes even his best work sounds overly clean and precise for my rock tastes, but that groove, the way it ebbs and flows beneath the vocal, especially the hook under the chorus, the way it walks and pings, oh yeah. That tone is so crisp, and that riff leading into the fadeout just completely sums up the entire mood and movement of the song. You could listen to it for ten more minutes, especially thanks to the fine rhythm work of Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony. This is the best possible combination of his pristine guitar and Diamond Dave's wild vocal, I tell you, and that's amongst many fine examples. The strange alchemy that was Van Halen (the real Van Halen) is in its best balance here. If it's not their "best song," the one that marks the highwater of their accomplishments, it's the one that shows exactly what this band is like.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Now Listening: The Mowgli's

One of the things that has happened, since I've opened this site up a bit, is that I feel free to write about things that I might not otherwise have targeted. I really like the Mowgli's, and I feel like they would be worthy of the site's full length review treatment (if I ever do that again) except there's half a chance that the charm of their frothy, high-energy pop rock approach might wear off this jaded old 20something by then.

This is probably going to appeal most to teens, people who have seen enough to know what they like but still able to be impressed by something novel. It's unrelentingly peppy and positive (even in the acoustic or intimate numbers) and a lot of the songs feel like giant communal singalongs. There are hooks, pounding drums, playful synths... this is music that hasn't been tainted by cynicism or irony. It's also not bland or shrill in its earnestness. It's easy to keep listening as they play through their tricks one at a time, then layer them over each other in different ways. It's sometimes grandiose, sometimes intimate, sometimes tightly assembled and sometimes loose. It's explorational.

This is just really fun to listen to, youthful and vibrant. I can see people who have been around longer than the intended audience, or me, being quite unimpressed, but I think that "been there done that" attitude is death for music criticism because every time is someone's first. There will be people who hear this CD - 15, 16 year olds - and it's the first "good" thing they heard. Nobody is born a Bowie fan, you know?

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


Friday, July 5, 2013

Now Listening: Yeezus

This review slash write-up slash random bullshit comes with a full disclaimer that you have absolutely no reason to take my opinion of any hip hop album seriously ever. Ever. It dominates so much of the musical landscape but it's a form that I have yet to truly adapt my head to. Left to my own devices I'd just listen to David Bowie and Hollerado all day every day, but Yeezy gets people in my store, despite having an audience that should be willing and able to download.

As for the album itself, well, I admire it a bit. I might never even listen to it again, but I like it more than what I heard of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's a hardass record and he does some daring shit on it, making abrasive clashing sounds on it, speaking hard truths and making no effort to contrive a hit out of it. It's the testament to his cult of personality that it is allowed to simply be, and to be whatever he wills it, because he wields that power. That cache. He's reached an artistic state of grace, where he wags the dog, and now he has the daunting task of keeping ahead of himself. Which is a good problem to have. The stunts he does attempt, like bringing in a sample of "Strange Fruit" for "Blood on the Leaves," manage to come off successfully. Kanye is many things, but not someone who reaches for the middle, and I respect that wherever it's found.

I mean, look. I'm not the authority. My blind spot for hip hop music is one of the dozens of reasons nobody will ever pay me to write about music for a living, I'm just trying to get better at it. Well, get better, or just get content, since Yeezus is dominating the dialog this week and Magna Carta will be dominating the dialog next week. It has my approval, for whatever that might be worth to you. It's a risky, almost dangerous thing, that really accounts for itself.

Monday, June 24, 2013

Sonic Sandwich: Outside Blurred Lines

There's an old line about the film critic, Pauline Kael. Famously, perhaps stereotypically New York left wing, she was stunned that Nixon won re-election in 1972, saying at the time, "I don't know anyone who voted for him." This may never have happened, but I think about it sometimes when I need to make sense out of something I don't like, or don't get. And this time, it's not about Vampire Weekend (or Vamp Wknd.) This is about a song by Robin Thicke, the soul singer and son-of-Alan, called "Blurred Lines," which is currently cutting a swath of destruction across mainstream radio.

It's a kinda-funky trifle of a song. It sounds like it was written in about 18 minutes, while a Casio Keyboard demo was playing and a room full of people pitched cheeky, cutesy lines like "What rhymes with 'hug me?'" It's kinda repetitive, and every time it seems like it's going somewhere, it foresakes a hook and goes on its way until it spins out. When I first heard it, I thought of it as a nuisance: not as objectionable as LMFAO or Bruno Mars, not quirky like Macklemore, not transcendent like Ke$ha or JT or Daft Punk.

But man, somebody must be hearing something in this song. Dunno if there was brainwash signals in those Casio loops, or that weird little Chimp squeal that it occasionally emits, or whatever. But people have been asking about it. As you may know, I work in retail, I sell (among other things) CDs, which are still a thing people sometimes buy, and I've been asked about this song many many times, with the CD not even slated for release until the end of July. There's fervent interest in this song, albeit mainly from middle-aged ladies, and I'm partly convinced that's because they're still pining for his dad. But no, this song has taken off. This is a legit thing, and not a trick, not a "Oh, they just used the same beats and hooks and tricks every other songs uses so of course they had a hit." That isn't what happened here.

This is why I am not making money off of music criticism. I couldn't have seen this one coming. I can't explain it, I can't account for it, I can't even really relate to the people who like it, unlike a lot of things. I can step back and scratch my head and go, "Well, I guess it's a hit," but I can't step far enough outside my narrow worldview to explain or discuss why. I write about a few things decently, and even fewer things very insightfully, and this is far, far outside that. We don't really talk about pop radio here, but even if we did, I still wouldn't have pegged this one as something special. Y'know? Wouldn't have seen it. But it's different, and it's kinda funky I guess, and people like it. Look forward to half the songs on the top 40 sounding exactly like it in 8 months.

I wish I was better. I want to keep getting better. I still don't want to spend a lot of my time thinking about music I don't love, though, so I'll probably still never make money off this site, and I'll still never understand how a song like "Blurred Lines" becomes a huge hit. But it resonates, and you can't fake that shit. It doesn't always last, but when it hits, it's true.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

If/Then: Vampire Weekend/King Charles



Speaking of Vampire Weekend, if they are your jam, check out King Charles: equally foppish and quirky, whilst being very mindful of its genre blending, and retaining the pop sensibility. It's the "pleasure listening" version of the Vamp Wknd (which, again, I hope doesn't catch on, yet will continue to use.)

Now Listening: Modern Vampires of the City

What even is Vampire Weekend's music? Whimsical, creative, cutesy, unpredictable... they can throw any trick or twist on any song and turn it instantly memorable. And yet that same quality, rightly, keeps a lot of people away from them. Sometimes I am just not in the mood for their shit. Sometimes excessive quirk is a turnoff. There are reasons music generally takes the forms it does, and while the Vamp Wknd (as nobody probably calls them) takes that for their backbone - at its core the music is eminent pop rock - they lay on so much extraneous chicanery that every few tracks I need to hit pause, rest my ears, maybe listen to something that I "get" more. At its worst, its best qualities are shrill, annoying, frustrating, confusing, distracting, irritating. Hipness is kind of a shell game in that way: keep it moving so they never figure you out, never label you. Stay ahead of your audience so they never get over you. Maybe, they'll think, they just don't get it. (By they, I mean me.)

Maybe you really love Vampire Weekend! Maybe you're never not in the mood for them. Good for you! I can totally see that. Personally I don't have the energy to keep pace with their relentlessly changing sound. Are they innovators, imitators, curators of the weird? I don't know. I'm actually kind of glad they do what they do, and can safely recommend this album to anyone who's of that mindset. Personally, I'm not, but I get it. Kind of. Maybe. What I do know is that very few things that have a chance of being great are for everybody.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Now Listening: Bleach

This is my attempt to reconcile my newfound powers of streaming, my desire to write about the music I listen to, and my need to listen to something about a squajillion times before I feel like I can put down my opinions on it. Maybe this format will take off, maybe it won't, but this will be where I write about something, more or less in the moments that I'm listening to it: transient thoughts, but not concrete or final enough to merit a "review."

I've been listening to Nirvana's Bleach all evening. I've always been a huge Nirvana fan, of course, and yet I'm still hesitant to move in beyond the edges of their music. First there's the hits and monumental cuts. Then there's the cuts I really like: "Drain You," "School," "On a Plain," "Been a Son," "Love Buzz," "Breed," "Dumb," "Serve the Servants" to a lesser extent. "Sliver," if it's not considered in the first category. That's more or less by design: the deeper you go, the more abrasive and deliberately unpleasant the music gets: harder, more raw, less pleasurable for its own sake. For the faithful only. There are bits like this on Nevermind, too, and In Utero is practically made of it. Some would probably say that's the BEST thing about Nirvana, and they're allowed to.

I like a lot of songs on Bleach, but it is justly dismissed compared to the other two real Nirvana albums: hell, it could even be the case that Incesticide has more juice on it. I think the distinction Bleach has is that it's the first one, the first piece of Nirvana on record, and it absolutely does not represent what's to come for that band. They sound very undistinguished: raw, and competent, and like they've got something but haven't quite figured out how to show it. Showing it was always the big issue with Nirvana: how, how much, to what end. Easier to make a big noise and scare off people. Coming at the beginning of the discography, even with the benefit of hindsight, you're still squinting a bit to see Nirvana in that mess: it's there, in "About a Girl," and even "Floyd the Barber" and "Mr. Moustache" and all over. But mostly it sounds loud and hard and fast-slow. It's too human to be metal, too sludgy and un-pointed to be punk, so without the context of the grudge revolution, I can see how it was dismissed even by a lot of the small audience it did have in 1989: there must've been more eyebrow-raising acts on the Subpop label at the time. It's a not-great album by a great band that isn't "there" yet.