Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Serious Contenders: Link Wray, "Rumble"



Music is a language, sometimes one that is more effective the more primal its message. And brother, it hardly gets more primal than Link Wray's "Rumble." Witnes the birth of the power chord, that loaded, chunky progression, "duhn, duhn, DAHHHN," that lewd bass and drums loping along beneath it. The mere two minutes, two thundering repetitious minutes, were capable of inspiring both Iggy Pop and Richard Thompson, two musicians whose body of work could hardly be more dissimilar. There's power in those chords indeed.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Eels: Hombre Lobo - 12 Songs of Desire

This album delivers very fully on the premise of its subtitle. It contains exactly 12 songs on the subject of desire. Not a novel concept, sure, since "desire" in its many forms, has been grist for the creative mill since the dawn of man, but to draw attention to it is. Mark Oliver "E" Everett takes the dozen songs to approach the notion, that classic backbone of pop music, from its many vantage points. There are times when E's narrator voice is cocky, self-assured, even predatory (as the title, derived from the song "Tremendous Dynamite," suggests.) Then there are times when he is envious, frustrated, put-upon, dejected, regretful, hopeful... smitten, innocent, and guilty. The album is split about halfway between upbeat numbers and downbeat ones. It begins with the somewhat oblique, rock-on-your-heels "Prizefighter," probably the least direct of the lot, but an effective curtain raiser.

At times, they come on strong. "Lilac Breeze" is a heady, strong-in-love thundering beat, with a dirty fuzz riff that brings to mind Death From Above 1979, but it's playful. Besides the pumped up kick of "Tremendous Dynamite" there's the lip-licking "Fresh Blood," which furthers the wolfman conceit with a dark prowling sound, highlighting the dangerous, sexy, seductive side of desire. There's a simple, straightforwardness in these songs that even manages to outdo other primativists like the Black Keys by saying as much as humanly possible with the simplest of guitar licks. E and his company aren't showoffs, they're communicators. "Tremendous" reminds me a bit of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk."

It became pretty immediately apparent that I was listening to something great during the second track, "That Look You Give That Guy," whose lyrics demonstrate the pinpoint accuracy shown all throughout the album, to show how you can look at the subject in many different ways. This one is so exact and so perfect. "That look you give that guy I wanna see / Looking right at me / If I could be that guy instead of me / I'll never let you down." The first of many heartbreaking moments, setting E's gruff, worn-thin vocals against a soft focus, lightly strummed idyllic fantasy scape. That feeling threads through "In My Dreams," which could be a forgotten British Invasion single breathed new life, a Herman's Hermits track or some such (even though yeah, E and Peter Noone have as little in common as two vocalists ever did.) Then there's the resigned, "My Timing is Off" and the heart-filling, distant "Alll the Beautiful Things" ("Birds come down from the sky so blue / See all the beautiful things you do / Why can't I just get with / You?") You really feel for this guy, and you feel it yourself, because everybody's been there. The sensitivity reaches its apex on "The Longing," a haunted waltz that sounds so put down, so rejected and depressed that E can barely manage to sigh the words. Some of these songs will really put you through the wringer, depending on your emotional state.

This is a no-bullshit record. They make no effort to transform the subject into an abstract artistic statement: the mere act of making it takes care of that, meaning the whole thing is elegant in its simplicity. There's not a lyric on there that I'd second guess, not an instrumental flourish I wonder why they did. It's terrifically balanced and constructed. The tension of the heavy material is eased by the more fun ones. The meaner ones are undercut by the sensitive ones, and manage to sit next to each other, with their lo-fi production and precise performance, with those specific instruments and that sledgehammer vocal. It's crisp yet perfectly distorted. They all belong as part of the whole. When it's on the hunt, it's fierce. When it's hurting, it's raw. "What's a Fella Gotta Do" blends the two, as the narrator frantically searches for the key to a woman's heart, but he's he's game for it. The two final tracks, "Beginner's Luck" and "Ordinary Man" serve as alternate endings: one together, one alone, sewing up the very thorough examination of the subject matter.

Pop music doesn't always have to be about desire, about love and loss and longing and the thrill of a new romance. But there's a reason we keep seeing writers of every stripe going back to it. Nobody is above it. Nobody is immune. And if you're a musician really worth your salt, you'll never stop trying to find a way to articulate it.

Surprise, surprise, guys: a very good band focusing in on a time-honoured and fertile subject matter results in a pretty incredible album. Eels are a skillful group, although their other albums have never quite grabbed me as much, at least as immediately, as this one did, but they are on point all the way through here. This one is worthy of its title: all twelve tracks come together to form a great 40 minute listen.

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


Best Song Ever: April 2013 (Finals)

Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out The Lights" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"

Part of the purpose of this tournament is to advertise these songs to you. Richard Thompson's work is highly touted by critics, with several of his albums landing on official "Best Of" compilation lists. But when would anyone hear his music, besides being a critic? If you haven't encountered his music in your day to day life, how can it possibly live up to the hype that surrounds it when it is brought up? I myself don't own any full RT albums. It can feel like, if you hear that level of hype before you hear the thing itself, you risk being underwhelmed when you finally do experience it. What music could ever truly live up to the dialogue that surrounds a song like this?

But it's beautiful in its simplicity, until it stops being simple. And I want you to know, if you didn't already, that this is a song that could go as far as the others in the semifinals here. It's a song that is within a hair's width of making it to the finals. It has everything I want from a rock song, a menacing riff. Vague, affecting, loaded lyrics delivered with a haunting weight. A solo that seems to exorcise demons. They should teach this one in the school of rock. It is a classic. If you don't know that yet, this is your chance. Losing in this competition doesn't make it go away.

Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"

Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

This being my first ever tournament of this kind, I'm trying to find out what I'm really looking for in a finalist. "Written All Over Me" is a great song by a great artist. But it's possible that I need something that stands out from the pack a bit more. True, on the radio, Plaskett is as striking and attention-getting as anything, but in the field of this competition, it's merely great in a sea of legends.

Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"

Bronze Medal: Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights"
Winner: "Shoot Out The Lights"

Finals: Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

Either you get it or you don't.

That's the name of the game when it comes to music. You can't study it. You can't learn it. You can't teach it. You can try to explain it, discuss it, dissect it. That's, after all, the purpose of this site. But in the end, pop music isn't something you know, it's something you feel.

"Behind Blue Eyes" is such a product of its time and place. That heady time of the early 70s, as prog was crawling out of the swamp of psychedelia and growing legs... as experiments in music were becoming more scientific and less psychological. "Behind Blue Eyes" was to be a centerpiece of Pete Townshend's Lifehouse project, explaining the villain's persona and his motivation. But it appeared instead on "Who's Next," with other Lifehouse castoffs like "Baba O'Riley" and proto-prog future CSI themes like "Won't Get Fooled Again." It's a pretty perfect song. The lyrical details are well chosen. It starts out mellow and folksy, and hits that hard and heavy spot at just the right point. It doesn't seem ashamed of being a rock song, albeit an ambitious one. Without any context, it manages to somehow thrive, leaving you to fill in the details for yourself.

I've never had much context for "Once in a Lifetime," either. None is provided. I've never wondered. It's such a perfect collection of phrases. "And you may ask yourself: How did I get here? ... / Letting the days go by / Water flowing underground / Into the blue again / After the money's gone / Once in a lifetime..." Is it a screed against the mundanity of everyday life, of settling down and losing opportunities? No.

Because it's not really about what it's about. It's not instructive. It's barely even food for thought. It just is. What great pop music does is create or enshrine phrases and feelings that had no form or voice before, and leaves them there to be taken up by audiences, hopefully year after year. It's the selling of a feeling. And of this entire list, no song, I think, embodies a feeling as well as "Once in a Lifetime."

There are other ways to judge which would have been the best. There might be a version of this tournament where this song didn't make it past the second round. I don't think anyone who thinks about music enough to stick with a series like this could deny that "Once in a Lifetime" is absolutely worthy of a victory like this. I don't know who exactly can put their finger on the real meaning of this song, why it says what it does the way that it does, with sound textures and African polyrhythms and David Byrne's David Byrniest delivery... watching it performed in the film Stop Making Sense feels like the Fantastic Four tapping into the Negative Zone.

I love all the songs in this competition. They all come from a place of appreciation and desire to hear over and over, that's why the picks all came from my iTunes library. "Once in a Lifetime" can then by considered a first among equals... my joyful and willing pick, for what to listen to next. Out of all of April 2013, it is the best song ever.



Friday, April 19, 2013

Best Song Ever: April 2013 (Round 3)

Tokyo Police Club, "Frankenstein" vs. Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights"
Winner: "Shoot Out the Lights"

Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime" vs. Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start"
Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"

The La's, "I Can't Sleep" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"
Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"

Props to all of our quarter-finalists. These three matches were easy and tough: easy because the winners were all bona fide classics with reputations and legacies to back them up, tough because the opponents are all recent favourites that have gained familiarity for me through this blog. After reading an article about the top albums of the past 25 years, near the beginning of my run writing this blog, I listened to the La's "I Can't Sleep" (and "Timeless Melody" and of course "There She Goes") over and over on YouTube for nights on end until my copy ofthe album finally arrived. Fittingly, the sound of that song related to my own enthusiasm to be listening to and enjoying music for the first time. But that joy is best shown, perhaps even made possible, by the Whos of the world, the "Behind Blue Eyes," the sometimes indulgent but ultimately epic and affecting versions of rock and roll that rip us out of reality and place us somewhere huge.

Tokyo Police Club's chilled over closing number put up a good fight, with its precision drumbeat and impeccable engineered sound, with every element just properly applied, those synths and guitars never fighting against each other but still moving in unison. And to Arcade Fire, of course. Both bands created modern classics that demonstrate exactly how good music can be in the 2010s, when made by people that care about what goes onto a record. Tokyo was a scrappy underdog here, known mainly in Canada as a fun band to see when they're in town. Arcade Fire is rightly hailed by most critics (and rightly disliked by people who don't like them because nothing's for everybody.) I love how "Ready to Start" captures the restlessness of youth, with its droning riff that seems to pace the floor like a nervous wreck, pondering questions that seem deep from the inside, like every teen and suburbanite.

Can a song that's been recorded in the last ten years stand up to decades of a legacy? I didn't hear "Shoot Out the Lights" very long before I started this blog and heard those songs, and while "Once In A Lifetime" seems always to have been around, it's not like I was there when it was first out. So it could be that I'm just bowing to the weight that the years have lent them. Or it could just be that all the pieces to fall into place in these great songs. The simple, vague, distant lyrics of "Shoot Out The Lights" tell you everything you need to know, but it's already been suggested by the opening two notes of that Link Wray like riff. I could swerve myself and everyone by putting AF over TH, but I don't even think Win Butler would. I could do it, if I didn't listen to "Once in a Lifetime" and went solely on what I think I remember about that song, but those sounds, those drums, that Tina Weymouth bass, that David Byrne delivery. There's not another song like it in existence and I hope someday a better writer than me pairs these two songs together and unpacks their true similarities: not only their moody sonic backdrops, but their alienated lyrics about growing mature and comfortable.

my bloody valentine, "only tomorrow" vs. Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me"

But then there was one really tough call. Both are songs I heard for the first time in the last year or so. You have to be of a certain perspective to even appreciate My Bloody Valentine, with its rough, hazy, unpredictable sound, but anyone can love Joel Plaskett, a master of pop songcraft who always manages to seem inventive anyway. He and his band are objectively great at what they do.

"Only Tomorrow" was a song I singled out on MBV, basically the moment I realized I was truly listening to another great work from this band, that their wild, freewheeling yet immaculately assembled music - every odd tangent and impulse is in fact worked over and carefully considered - is still alive and well.

And while I thought that was a done deal, that MBV's essence was so transcendent that they would be carried to the next round, I listened again, really listened to the relatively compact, uncomplicated pop rock song Plaskett had written, as it reached a transcendent quality of its own with a guitar solo that lets you know: This Is Joel Plaskett. And hearing him in those six strings, nonverbally pouring himself into your headphones, you just can't help but feel good. I'm calling this one an upset.

Winner: "Written All Over Me"

Monday, April 15, 2013

Hollerado: White Paint

If you're the type of person who is worried that excessive praise will turn them off from listening to an album, I will save you some time: White Paint by Hollerado is very good and you should buy it. You can skip the rest of the post. Have a great day. For the rest of us...

Well, between you and me, I have come to feel, in the three years since I first heard their debut, Record in a Bag, that Hollerado is one of the best things going. That's just a an unqualified fact. They rock harder than most contemporary rock acts and seem to have a lot more fun doing it. They are are as smart about their music as any art group to hit the scene, writing lyrics that are not only insanely catchy and memorable, but thought-provoking and original. The lyrics on this record take you from a scrap picker in Fresno to the Pinta Island home of the late Lonesome George, from the occupation of The Netherlands in World War II to the deepest chambers of the human heart, and it begins and ends, in a sense, in deep space. Not only do they have ideas about promotion and packaging (hand painting the entire pressing run so that each case is unique) they have a lot of ideas about their music, and they all work.

The music takes the form of sweet, raggedy garage power pop, putting Hollerado in the tradition of Weezer, Sloan, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü and Big Star. They sound like guys who just love music so much and want it to always be good: "Desire 126" sets a peppy, Cars-like riff against a lyric "Desire / Is just a chemical / It goes and it goes and it goes... / Desire, sometimes it's good enough..." acknowledging, dismissing or even celebrating the sad contradiction of that statement. Likewise, "Thanks for the Venom," declares "You were my friend, but you are a rattlesnake / Thanks for the venom!" The whole album seems to be gloriously built out of the contradictions inside us. "Too Much to Handle" is a great piece of hyperkinetic danceable rock that really shows off their skills in coming up with, then pulling off, musical tricks no other band would even dare attempt.

The band has also always shown a flair for the dramatic. The spacey first track, "Wonder, Velocity, Charlie and Me" blends into "Don't Think" to create a mini epic that includes phrases like "Levitation is made out of jet fuel and patience" and "I remember the time we went to the museum, slow, I said dinosaurs look said, you said just some thinking." The lyrics in the liner notes, unlineated, seem like the inspired ravings of a lunatic. 90% of the verbiage on here would never appear on another band's album. Then there's "Lonesome George," the tribute to the late Galapagos tortoise, in the way this band often writes, doesn't specifically refer to its subject but opens it up to make a grander statement, with its somber tone and great lyric: "You got no way to break my heart ... walk over me."

Everything in Holleradoland is a potential song. A while ago they posted the story behind "So It Goes" on their Facebook page, which is about uncommon kindness shown by a German soldier to one of the bandmember's grandfathers. It would be an exceptionally dynamic song even without that dimension. They also really flex their muscles on "Fresno Chunk," a spellbinding darkened funk rocker with bizarre, colourful lyrics, portraits of desperate people making due with what they can scrape together by picking through junk piles.

But probably the finest moment of the disc comes in the form of "I Want My Medicine," one of the finest odes to the devotion to music I have ever heard. In another band's hands, it simply would not have worked, but they sell it and imbue it with heart and pathos and grandiosity that is uncommon - seemingly impossible - from a guitar group in 2013, but here we are. You would hardly even know what the song was really about if you weren't following along, but when you start catching stray details in the lyrics, you put it together, and it becomes the most gorgeous, tragic thing. That phrase: "I want my medicine" is one of the heaviest, most honest things I have ever heard in my time reviewing for this site, because it's just such a concrete statement that emphasizes the gravity of the situation. I do not often get choked up when I listen to music, but I will freely admit when something gets to me and buddy, that hit hard. It's all in the execution. And then, before you collapse from the strain, the song comes to its end, and you get a little buffer in the form of the rollicking "Pure Emotion." Love it.

The album wraps up with "Pick Me Up," which is a wild power pop gem that sums up everything that is great about this band, not only their great music, but their worldview: We are young and in love / We are twirling through space / On the luckiest rock, in the loneliest place.

The sound of the album is polished, with clean bouncy hooks and grand production, but it still carries a "live off the floor" quality, a willingness to be imperfect or weird. It's exemplified by the often angular guitars and Menno Versteeg's unpolished rocker-next-door vocals. Some of the lead vox are handled by Nixon Boyd, whose deliveries are marked by reckless abandon compared to Versteeg's earnestness.

I love this band. They give so much value for your record-buying dollar. They convey, through their music, a curiosity and wonder at the universe and the people and things that fill it, the stories that every person, every animal, every item carries inside it, and the belief that people are good and things can get better, without seeming blindly optimistic about it.

More than that, they care about their music. They seem to put a lot of work and a lot of themselves into every lyric, every riff, every drumbeat. It resembles a lot of things but stands out as its own.

Hollerado has made two albums that belong up there with any two albums from any band ever. I really think that. Both Record in a Bag and White Paint bring such life and spirit to a listening experience that their quality simply cannot be denied. When I listen to music, all I want is to be taken out of my life, the world I think I know, for forty minutes or so, and shown something amazing. Hollerado does that with joy.

Buy This Album Now: iTunes Canada // iTunes Canada (Deluxe) // Amazon.ca // Hollerado.com Store

Friday, April 12, 2013

Sonic Sandwich: The House that Japandroids Built

I try not to re-read my reviews. Once I post them, I give them another once-over to make sure all the points I wanted to get in are in there, and sufficiently supported. Sometimes, when listening to-and-then-writing about music, I get very in my own head and it's hard to translate what I'm feeling. The blog has always been more or less an attempt to negotiate with that. I'm usually satisfied when I hit "publish," and then a few months down the line, if I happen to check back in, I'll inevitably wince. It's kind of the reason reviews have slowed to a trickle lately, I want all the time I can get to make sure I'm saying it right.

As time moves on after a review, I'll usually keep listening to the album, and I'll think "I wish that occurred to me at the time." Not only do I think of better ways to say what I said, I think of better ways to think of the album. Opinions change over time. I never post anything I think I might contradict down the line, and that holds true for every review I've written. But I inevitably hear new and better things in them.

This is what's been going through my head tonight as I've had a brief exchange with my friend and colleague James Leask about Japandroids' excellent 2012 album Celebration Rock. Apropos nothing, he tweeted me:



Looking back over my write-up, my praise of that album was pretty general. Enthusiastic, sure, but still general. I found it a viscerally thrilling album, praised that they were able to keep that energy up for the full 35 minutes, and didn't really ask anything more of it. And that's still somewhat true, I believe that's the best level to enjoy music on, but I don't want to short change this album any credit. Though it's blunt in its approach, it's still subtle in its construction: the exact placement of the ohs and yeahs, the very economical lyrics, which are basic but loaded and perfectly chosen. You don't have to have sophisticated tastes to appreciate it, but it's not simple music. I was listening to "Continuous Thunder" today and it really hit me hard, "If I had all the answers / and you had the body you wanted..."

This isn't about recanting my position on Celebration Rock. I loved it then and I love it now, and maybe I understand that love differently with six months between the two. My reviews are for a time and place, and I believe you can hear something 100 times and then suddenly on the 101st it hits you differently, for better or worse. If professional critics publish their reviews with more certainty in their words than I do, then I'm impressed, because in the back of my head I always know that in a few weeks I may see each piece of music a bit differently. I'm still learning, I'll probably never finish.

But this doesn't cast doubt on any of my reviews or recommendations. One thing I will always trust is my instincts, and I have never given my approval to an album that I wish I didn't. And every post on this site, every proper review is that stamp. But I can't just say "Scotto recommends this, so enjoy!" I need to say why. I need to navigate that dialogue, and that's something I've known is an issue since day one and will continue to try to get better at.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

The Beatles, "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields Forever"



Y'know, it's funny. One day you're a rebellious youth in a rock n' roll band singing Elvis and Little Richard covers for dancing teens in a basement club, or drunk businessmen in Germany, basically doing whatever you can to escape your dingy backwater hometown. Suddenly you're a success, wearing matching suits and bobbing your head and having to turn your guitars way way up to be heard over the legions of screaming, breathless girls who don't even care what your music sounds like because they just want to be near you.

Then suddenly that gets old; real old. You don't want to tour for the screaming girls anymore, and instead of playing loud guitar music, you're writing jaunty tunes on a piano and filling them with wistful flutes and little trumpets. And instead of singing about getting up the nerve to ask a girl to dance, or wishing she could be near you when you're away, you're singing about barbers and firemen in that backwater hometown you worked so hard to escape.

Starting with Revolver, the Beatles weren't playing for crowds anymore, which meant not only an open invitation to workshop and tinker in the studio, but carte blanche to create music they had no intention of ever performing again. I don't know if there was any pop artist in history prior to that, who had that luxury. The record could now be the thing, cobbled together on tape from endless takes and tracks (well not endless -- there were some technical and practical limitations) for the artist to put out into the world and forget. Indeed, the premise of the forthcoming Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was to create an album that would "tour" for them -- how that was meant and whether it was possible let alone accomplished who knows, but it was a damn good record. The Beatles now only existed in photographs on a record sleeve, and maybe a promotional video, the prototypical "music video." And of course, as sound: a now increasingly experimental, loosely defined sound.

"Penny Lane" doesn't sound horribly out of step with a lot of previous Paul McCartney songs, like "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" or "For No One" with its fantastic French Horn solo. But unlike those somber affairs, the orchestration here brings a happy time: pleasant, carefree memories of a time and place. The way John Lennon describes his original take on the earlier song "In My Life" sounds very much like what "Penny Lane" ended up as: a series of value-neutral descriptions of activities, places, and people in Liverpool (indeed, "Penny Lane" appears on that lyric sheet, so they say.) The final version was a meditation on love and loss, an amazing song. But is that to say the song Paul McCartney ended up writing was inferior too?

Nope. Paul had a knack, when he tried, for the understatement. The implication. It appears in its rawest form in "Yesterday" but he refined his sense for the loaded detail in "Eleanor Rigby" and "For No One," which are purely descriptions left to the listener's imagination, which add up to something very full. In the words and music of "Penny Lane," the listener is transported away from their own time and place and into the 1950s Liverpool suburbs.

There is a hidden dimension to this song that is not literally stated: it's not a description of a day on Penny Lane, it's a description of all the days in Penny Lane. The chorus makes reference to "The blue suburban skies" but also in the lyrics is "The pouring rain." My own personal take on this is that the memories all sort of blur together: you see all these people on different days, the memories blend together when you try to call them back up together, the past becomes this weird, blended, changing thing. The details stated create the place, and then the way they are related shows your removal from it. This could be Paul's intention, it could be my overreading, but it's at least in there, and enhances my enjoyment of the song whether it means to or not.



Lennon, meanwhile, couldn't just write something and not wring his version of the truth out of it. The lyrics to "Strawberry Fields Forever" are like absurdist poetry: what does the title phrase mean, why does it seem infused with such deep implications? Why does the singer keep doubling back and stammering over his statements? I could try very, very hard to catalogue all the different lyrical tricks Lennon plays in this song in an attempt to tease out the meaning, but even that would be far from authoritative. In the big picture, it's another mystical broadcast from the Lennonverse, the ongoing process of learning to scoop out his own brain and put it down on record for the people, to create music that was authentically not just his, but him. This song contains one of my all-time favourite lyrics, "No one, I think, is in my tree / I mean it must be high or low." He later explained it was a statement that he didn't know anyone who was like him, so he must be either crazy or a genius. Not only a great thought, but a terrific way of putting it.

Because the song is sutured together from two separate takes with wildly different instrumentations, it's hard to tell exactly what's in the song: melted down horns, tense strings, bellicose drums. It's like "Penny Lane"'s acid trip. It's like that video where you're too busy watching the basketball being passed around to see the dancing bear mascot. Revolver inaugurated the "anything goes" post-touring Beatles incarnation, and "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane," together each in their own way, showed exactly how far they could stretch out.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Best Song Ever: April 2013 (Round 2)

Tokyo Police Club, "Frankenstein" vs. The Exploding Hearts, "I'm a Pretender"
Winner: "Frankenstein"

Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights" vs. The Who, "Substitute"
Winner: "Shoot Out the Lights"

Jack White, "Blunderbuss" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"
Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"

Tokyo Police Club, "End of a Spark" vs. my bloody valentine, "Only Tomorrow"
Winner: "only tomorrow"

Deer Tick, "The Bump" vs. The La's "I Can't Sleep"
Winner: "I Can't Sleep"

Zeus, "Kindergarten" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"
Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"

Round one was a bit of a learning experience. For obvious reasons, I had to learn the decision-making process: how do you judge two songs, sometimes completely different, against each other? Is one form of song inherently better than another? Do old songs, with decades of weight and a lifetime of listening, take precedence over recent favourites? Are originals inherently better than covers? On that last point, I find it very regrettable that none of the covers in the competition made it to round two. Those were some very tough calls.

I was pretty sheepish about the message I wanted to send about the nature of this exercise. In one sense it's an idle musing, the equivalent of sitting around in your basement with your buddies and going, "Who or Zeppelin? Floyd or Queen?" I don't mean to insult any song by voting it out. These are all songs I listen to, that I choose to have with me at all time. This is all quality music and worthy of recognition. But in a real sense, they are competing against each other. They're competing for your dollars and your time. The question at the heart of each of these matchups is: Which song would I rather be listening to? Which song could I listen to all day, and which song would I eventually turn to something else? Yes, some of the get by on personal attachment, or legacy, or being more ambitious works (here's to you, "Behind Blue Eyes," which carries all three) but when we listen to music this are factors, they are called up in our heads time and again when we click on these songs. The nebulous qualities a song needs to be better or best, to one man's ears, are all fair game.

The other learning experience was of course that I set way too much of a pace when it came to the literal verbal content of the article. I can't expect myself to write up an entire summary for each matchup, simply because I will end up re-writing the same virtues about each song until they are gone. A lot of these weren't easy, but they were definitive in the end: Talking Heads beating Jack White was one I had to double and triple-check to make sure I felt. Putting "Frankenstein" ahead of "I'm a Pretender" looks, on paper, like I'm putting a somewhat arty, somewhat fancy indie pop composition over a really good ragged pop-punk/power pop song just because one is more serious. -- The Tokyo vs. MBV matchup only seems to confirm this. I don't want it to be true, but maybe it is. But those songs that won had a lot of heart and a lot of great scenery, instead of the raw muscle exhibited by their opponents.

At the end of the round there were only two matches I really agonized over, because in a way both songs in each combo were similar, neither really had the edge:

Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy" vs. Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me"

The Gin Blossoms bring their A-game to this gem, a frothy slacker anthem for the 90s. It's jokey and pleading, a great double-meaning, a song for all seasons. It's basically everything I love about 90s music, and I think that guitar break in the middle is rad. Oh, but Joel. This song has all the heart and humour you could want. His guitar slips from a muscular riff to a acrobatic, even playful, solo. A great example of his mastery of form.

Winner: "Written all Over Me"

Aerosmith, "Moving Out" vs. Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start"

I'm "biased" in the sense that Aerosmith is my on-the-record favourite band, so every song from them is going to get serious consideration. And this is a pretty good song, despite its early place in their discography. I've heard few riffs like it, and its lyrics abstractly amount to, if not philosophy, then certainly a certain kind of poetry. It's dusty, stoned gypsy rock, and it gets absolutely everything right.

That said, I'm not biased, in that I have no stake in the the competition. There's nothing to gain if I advance "Movin' Out" without convincing myself, properly, that it beats a key track from the great Suburbs album, Arcade Fire (or was it the other way around?) From the getgo, "Ready to Start" is a dynamic, gripping track that does a great job drilling directly into your chest. Neither's lyrics are totally straightforward. Once is a call to nature and isolation, one is a reflection on art vs. commerce.

It would be easy for me to pick Aerosmith just because I've been listening to it for decades. It would be easy for me to pick Arcade Fire just to satisfy the need to show that newer songs are on the same level as classics and personal faves. I'm moving Arcade Fire forward to let them fend for themselves against exceptional competition. I know they deserve it. This is a great song, and it's a very lucky thing it wasn't up against "Sweet Emotion."

Winner: "Ready to Start"

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Serious Contenders: Hanson, "MMMBop"



The 90s were a fertile time for seemingly upbeat pop songs with secretly dark, sophisticated meanings: "The Way" by Fastball is a tragic romance (in that a couple seeking to escape their day-to-day lives ends up missing and eventually in real life dead) "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind is about meth addiction, "You Get What You Give" by the New Radicals is a rallying cry against commercialism, and I'm pretty sure "Fly" by Sugar Ray is about the JFK assassination. Or maybe not, but those other three, yes. By far, I would say, the biggest contradiction of the lot is Hanson's "MMMBop." No, this is not a stupidly late April Fool's joke. It's a well-documented fact that the lyrics to "MMMBop" are about the fleeting nature of youth, and about the uncertainty that we can ever know for sure who is really with us: "So hold on to the ones who really care / In the end they'll be the only ones there / When you get old and start losing your hair / Can you tell me who will still care? / Mmm bop, da ba du bop..."

This song was written by teenagers. It very nearly resembles morose poetry scrawled in the margins of a history textbook, but the fact is, the Hanson Brothers were (still are!) pop-literate musicians and songwriters who could marry the unwarrantedly-profound musings to an insanely catchy pop hook, based around, I think, the same chord progression as the Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" (itself a forefather of the dark-light pop blend.) And they came up with this completely insane yet totally accurate chorus to sum it up, which you would absolutely never guess based on the sound of it, far from the first thing you would arrive at if you were writing this song: "In an mmmbop, they're gone." An "Mmmbop," apparently, is a brief instant in time: you have people for a short period, and then suddenly (mmmbop) they're gone. And it just sounds like babytalk.

It would be a great catchy old pop song even without a hidden meaning, and I'm not sure that being secretly mature and observational makes the song any better but it accounts for its existence that way. The song's meaning does get stronger, though, when sung in the ebullient voice of a youthful pop song, itself a fleeting thing. It's very "in the moment," so much so, for 1996, that it has those DJ scratches randomly in the mix, along with cowbells.

There will always be those who don't recognize the song's greatness. It's better than you think but it could still not be for you because it is, again, overwhelmingly poppy, even with the actual content, and still sung by a shrill-voiced trio of precocious then-teenagers who are the last people you'd expect to muse about "When you get old and start losing your hair." That contradiction is the inherent difficulty in these secretly dark pop songs is that the form they take somewhat squirrels up their message. For those with ears to hear it, though, this is a serious contender.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Best Song Ever: April 2013 (Round 1)


I've been going a little stir crazy lately. The little elves inside my brain that write my reviews have been fatigued since the new year: despite being flush with great new releases by the likes of Hollerado and David Bowie, not to mention finally getting into Husker Du, it's a little tough getting anything going, as far as writing for this site. I'm reluctant to return to the grind. Then an idea hit me. A really stupid idea, but maybe a fun one.

About a year ago, the entertainment site Vulture ran a series of articles designed to determine the best TV drama of the past 20 years. They used a tournament bracket setup and a panel of esteemed judges. It made for a really entertaining bunch of articles. Every now and again I have thought it might be interesting to find a way to incorporate something like that into SOTW.

So what has happened is that I had iTunes select 32 random tunes from my (active/checked) library: some are things I've covered on SOTW, some are my old personal favourites, some are objective classics and some are recent gems. And maybe some suck but I just happen to have them. Although the idea of pitting entertainments against each other is inherently an incorrect way of looking at it (I cannot stress that enough,) I am nakedly admitting that I'm just doing this for shits and giggles. The song that wins this tournament (be thankful I'm not doing full albums) can't possibly be the literal best song ever. By necessity, it's something that I listen to anyway, and I loves me some music so I'm not going to be too harsh on any of these songs. In doing this, hopefully, it will spotlight a lot of great tunes that haven't come up in regular conversation lately. Let's speed through the first half of our opening round:

Tokyo Police Club, "Frankenstein" vs. Japandroids, "Fire's Highway"

Tokyo was one of the first albums I truly, completely loved after starting this blog, and "Frankenstein" is a fantastic closer to that album, acting as a comedown from the jittery, hooky synth-power-pop, with its mellotronic tones and quivering guitars, and that staggering drumbeat. It's very odd that this competition begins with something that wraps up its original album so completely and satisfactorily.

It's an old favourite versus a new one, though, because Japandroids was one of the best albums of 2012, and "Fire's Highway," with its splashing riffs and thundering drums sums up its qualities succinctly. It's got those echoing, anthemic "oh's" and coarse vocals. "Fire's Highway" is definitely a great piece of an excellent whole, but "Frankenstein" is a complete listening experience on its own. It gets the nod.

Winner: "Frankenstein"

David Bowie, "Love is Lost" vs. The Exploding Hearts, "I'm a Pretender"

In one corner, a dense, pulsing, organ-fueled, moody track from David Bowie's great new album. In the other, a snotty, brash piece of mid-2000s pop punk. You might think you know the answer, but you don't. All things being equal, and the Bowie album being great, its newness works against it, and I haven't had enough time to become as attached to it, especially not this particular song, as I have to the perfectly raucous Exploding Hearts.

Winner: "I'm a Pretender"



Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Penny For Your Thoughts" vs. Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights"

Oof. This bracket is a killer. "Penny" is a key part of the terrific concept album that is Ashtray Rock, a cheeky, playful and catchy as hell ode to young love. And "Shoot Out The Lights" is a lumbering, towering freefall of depression and despair. It just hits that sweet spot. I've got to give it to RT, who bring one of my favourite guitar solos ever to this track. I feel like Joel would understand.

Winner: "Shoot Out The Lights"

The Who, "Substitute" vs. Japandroids, "For The Love of Ivy"

The BC Duo face tough competition for the second time tonight, going up against major-minor Who fave, "Substitute." Not the most beloved Who song, but also not my favourite track off Celebration Rock -- if it swapped places with "Fire's Highway" this would be a running battle. In the end, The Who's original takes it over Japandroid's cover. The best Who songs are quirky and weird and hard rocking all at once, and this is no exception.

Winner: The Who



Jack White, "Blunderbuss" vs. The Eels, "The Longing"

Not the closest matchup of the tournament so far, but definitely the most downbeat. The shimmering Nashville Skyline-esque beauty of White's solo debut title track goes up against a free verse poem set to a ghostly waltz by Mark Oliver "E" Everett. And make no mistake, as part of El Hombre Lobo: 12 Songs of Desire (which I'm totally gonna review soon) it's a key track, bringing a deep dimension of pain and despair in its refrain ("Surely there are other things to life / But I can't think of one single thing / That matters more than just to see her...") but "Blunderbuss" is one of the best tracks on one of the best albums of last year.

Winner: "Blunderbuss"

Arcade Fire, "Wasted Hours" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"

This seems to be a recurring theme: matching songs that are great as part of a complete package against songs that can be listened to at any time in any situation. The Neil Young-tinged "Wasted Hours" is a great part of the overarching sound of The Suburbs, with its dusky-lazily strummed twang. But "Once in a Lifetime" is fucking "Once in a Lifetime!" I don't even need to tell you why it wins.

Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"

Nirvana, "Sliver" vs. Aerosmith, "Movin' Out"

Holy shit, this is regrettable. I have actually said "Sliver" is my favourite Nirvana song. Not always, but I have. It just sums them up so perfectly, their power and poppiness, their angst and perverse humour, writing a punk-grunge song from the perspective of an angsty child forced to stay with his grandparents. "Grandma take me home" is maybe one of the most surprisingly awesome rock lyrics ever (up there with the Pixies' "it's educational!") But look who they're up against. Much to the chagrin of many of my bemused colleagues, I have professed my lifelong love for that band time and again. And "Movin' Out" is not minor Aerosmith, it's got that sinewy riff, those hippie hangover post-psychedelic philosophy class lyrics that are utter nonsense but work better because of it. Rip the heart right out of my chest why don't you.

Winner: "Movin' Out"



Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start" vs. Lit, "My Own Worst Enemy"

Arcade Fire makes its return appearance coming up against one of the biggest rock hits of the 90's. And I love me some 90s rock, but with one of the most dense, subtle-yet-rocking tracks off The Suburbs, the 2011 Best Album Grammy winners take it. That lyrics, "I would rather be alone than pretend I feel all right" just does it for me, man.



Talking Heads, "Take Me To The River" vs. Tokyo Police Club, "End of a Spark"

I think Talking Heads' reading of Al Green's sexual-angst-via-religion "Take Me To The River," as a tightly-wound plastic funk explosion is one of the greatest covers ever committed to tape. And "End of a Spark" happens to be one of my favourite tracks off Champ and a terrific piece of 2010 alt-power-pop. And with both bands already having a slot in Round 2, it's an interesting scenario. If the Heads didn't win, it would be because it's not the even-better Stop Making Sense version but the original recorded version. Or perhaps because there's an inherent push against covers in this contest.

Winner: "End of a Spark"

Aerosmith, "Lightning Strikes" vs. my bloody valentine, "only tomorrow"

Two more different tracks from my iPod, you could hardly find. On the one hand, sludgy early-80s hard rock from Aerosmith's redacted era. On the other hand, a track from My Bloody Valentine's 2013 comeback album, the gauzy, low-fi, moaning, squealing, sighing, shoegaze epic mbv. It's bad enough I gave 'Smith the nod over Nirvana, I know James Leask would flay me if I passed over mbv for this one. Or at the very least, he would cancel my scheduled appearance on his podcast next week. Luckily for him, and mbv, this is minor Aerosmith we're talking about: Joe Perry wasn't even with the band for this album, and while I think it happens to be underrated, it's still not in the same league as one of the best tunes from this terrific album, mbv: I love the way it builds and culminates in that staggering, beautiful riff.

Winner: "only tomorrow"

The Hives, "Hate To Say I Told You So" vs. Gin Blossoms, "Hey Jealousy"

Now here's a matchup: the razor sharp garage punk of early-2000s Hives and the warm fuzzy aw-shucks self deprecation of the Gin Blossoms. It's not an easy win for the Blossoms, but it's a clean one.

Winner: "Hey Jealousy"

Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. Arctic Monkeys, "Brianstorm"

Joel! So glad you're back. Here we see the opening track from his "Truthfully, Truthfully" album paired against the opening track of Arctic Monkeys' second disc. For me, Favourite Worst Nightmare takes a few tracks to really hit its stride, and "Brian" is an only-okay holdover from the Whatever People Say I Am era. "Written All Over Me," meanwhile, exudes all the charm and wit that permeates all of Plaskett's music, a mischievous, down home chunk of riffage that always gets me going. Great curtain raiser.

Winner: "Written All Over Me"

Deer Tick, "The Bump" vs. Deer Tick, "Chevy Express"

Now here's a wild card. I had never even listened to Deer Tick before a few weeks ago, when someone showed me A.V. Club's Undercover series, featuring a terrific take on one of my all-time favourite songs, Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta." I got the album, Divine Providence, and I liked it, and then moved on. Then my random playlist generator sat these two songs, neither of which I could recall from memory, right next to each other, the only instance in round one of a band going up against itself. So I left it in - and revised my proposed "only one song per band" rule, just to see how it played out. "The Bump" is them at their bar band best, and "Chevy Express" is a more intimate ballad. Both great and for different reasons, but I've gotta give it to the former.

Winner: "The Bump"



Matt Mays, "Indio" vs. The La's "I Can't Sleep"

Matt Mays released a great album in 2012, which I will review soon, and "Indio" is a terrific intro to it, with its dusty, mystic southwestern feel. Against weaker opposition, it might have won, but "I Can't Sleep" is The La's at their peak power, right up there with "There She Goes." Life's not fair sometimes.

Winner: "I Can't Sleep"

The Vaccines, "Wetsuit" vs. Zeus, "Kindergarten"

"Wetsuit" brings to mind tunes like "Favourite Food" from Tokyo Police Club, or Joshua Tree era U2, the way it builds modestly to ignite a towering inferno. It's maybe not as grandiose as all that, but it's a good listen. The first Zeus record was one of my favourite records of 2010, and here's some high spirited madness from them. They edge out the win.

Winner: "Kindergarten"

The Animals, "House of the Rising Sun" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

It could be the case that this entire tournament is a contest to see who gets to come in second to the winner of this match. Based on reputation alone, these might be the two heaviest hitters of the lot, and they are up against each other in round one. "House of the Rising Sun" was my favourite song as a kid: Eric Burdon's voice is so dour and enigmatic and gloomy, and that guitar is just so perfect, as the organ bubbles under the surface before overtaking it completely.

Both these songs have their mystical qualities. The Who has already advanced in this tournament, but not like this. That was early Who, this is mid-Who, Who's Next, post-Tommy, circa Pete Townshend completely losing his marbles in the Lifehouse debacle and coming back with one of the most phenomenal records of all time. "Behind Blue Eyes" is the hypothetical villain song, building to that great climax, this is that band at nearly their best (besides "Baba O'Riley," for sure.) This is the hardest call of the night. What's more, it comes back to that same dilemma: a great single, or a great album song.

Really listening, really thinking about it, hearing the individual strings of Pete Townshend's guitar, the crawling of John Entwhistle's bass, one of Roger Daltrey's best vocal performances, and then that moment when Keith Moon's drums come in. Songs like this are what you're really thinking of when you think of the Who. And it's not even 8 minutes long. It's actually shorter than its hit single opponent. If I could only hear one of these songs ever again, I don't know if I'd pick the same, but tonight, it has to be.

Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"



So maybe I do have a bias against covers (although "Rising Sun" may as well be an original.) It's quite a selection I have for myself in Round 2. Place your bets and get ready to get disproportionately mad... if you're not already.