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