It's a bit ironic that I didn't really get into Italian music until I left Italy. I looked around a little bit, already into Verdena by then as I was, and I listened to the radio of course, with a few things sticking out to me as memorable, but I never really found the pathway into good, exciting Italian indie (or underground as my friend terms it). I'd heard of bands like ...A Toys Orchestra and Jennifer Gentle, but I was really looking for something in Italian, since English music by Italians seemed kind of unnecessary to me. Finally I heard about Scisma and checked out a bunch of bands in the same vein, namely Bluvertigo and the band whose first album I'll be delving into today, Baustelle.
Baustelle is an interesting band. I get the sense that later in their career they got really into more natively Italian music like the singer-songwriter music popularized by the likes of Fabrizio de André and the more operatic style that still dominates much of Italian pop music (Fiorella Mannoia comes to mind in that regard, even if operatic isn't quite the right adjective). Their earlier work, however, had the same youthful lust and gusto, '80's electronic pulse, and carefree ease as Pulp in its '90's heyday, and Sussidiario illustrato della giovanezza shines as an Italian His 'n' Hers, with perhaps even more consistency (although any band would be hard pressed to match the individual perfection of "Do You Remember the First Time?") and with a self-deprecating wit and honesty that eclipses any other Italian song-writer in its humor and relatability (Scisma and Bluvertigo come close at times, while Verdena and Afterhours tend to a bit darker in content excel in different qualities, especially the former, whose lyrics tend to be impressionistic rather than illustrative)
The '80's pop shimmer and bounce leaps to the forefront from the very get-go with "Le vacanze dell'83," a poppy, nostalgia fueled pastiche that eases us into the album before bursting with an energetic hook. This is the Pulp-iest song on the album (save "Cinecittà, which channels the spoken word stylings of "This is Hardcore" or "David's Last Summer"), and is almost an anti-"Disco 2000," looking back to the past rather than forward to a hypothetical future encounter. The chemistry between Francesco Biaconi and Rachele Bistreghi charges to the forefront as the chorus brings this song from a relaxing daydream to an explosion of adolescent pop. Lyrics such as "lo scrivi o no il tuo romanzo erotico-me sei finito a Rimini?" ("Will you or won't you finish your erotic novel" with the last syllable of the word "erotico" serving as the first syllable of the ponderous line, "how did you end up in Rimini") merge images of sexual liberation together into one, the semi-intellectual pursuit fusing with the most scandalous of summer retreats (Rimini is the Atlantic City of Italy). All in all, this song checks all of the boxes in foreshadowing what is to come - Pulp-y expressions of sexual confusion? Check. Carefree pop with just a hint of aimlessness? Check. Wistful nostalgia expressed through personal anecdotes? Check.
"Martina" is a bit sadder and more pensive, sketching a loose portrait of a girl who hidden behind her "abitudine" (clothing and fashion accessories) - "mascara denso per nudità," "dietro lenti scure riderai" ("heavy makeup for nudity," as if that were her true identity; "behind dark sunglasses, you will laugh"). It's a compelling portrait that contrasts the otherwise carefree "la la la" of the bridge with revelations of "piccoli catastrofi per minuti intimi," as Bianconi exposes almost a sense of disbelief in his own vulnerability as he sings, "tutto ciò vuol dire che anche tu mi tradirai" ("Everything means that even you will betray me"), noting a comprehension of Martina's insecurity that is exceeded only by his own desperate need to know her. This is followed by "Sadik," a song that initially seems to channel the same carefree nostalgia of "Le vacanze dell'83," but expresses nonetheless a complex sense of angst mixed with sexual imagery. The line, "incatena colla seta, squillo platino" ("chain up in silk, platinum prostitute") makes no bones about the notion of sexual liberation, but lines like, "Antiomologata adolescenza torbida / meglio di dovere lavorare in fabbrica" (Anti-approval, disturbed adolescence; better than having to work in the factory") and the lines from a film (?) that run in between verses of the song, desperately asking questions such as, "adesso che farai?" "Now what will you do?" "Sadik" keeps us on our toes, between the drastic shifts in tone to the quickly changing snapshots of youth. Nonetheless, the pulsing rhythm of this song seems to tie it all together into one confused package, brilliantly reflecting the challenges of youth. Fortunately, "Noi bambine non abbiamo scelta" arrives and slows things down so that we finally have a change to consider everything. Much more straightforward in its message than its predecessors, this song expresses a troublesome sense of confusion and purposelessness, abandoning all agency for faith in some figure that "Mi telefona, promette che mi rapirà, mi porterà al cinema. È la mia droga: non mi può far male" (She calls me, promises that she'll kidnap me, take me to the movies. She's my drug: she can't hurt me). Even the title and chorus, "Non abbiamo altro, non abbiamo scelta noi bambine" (We have nothing else, we have no choice, we kids) clearly express this hopelessness, ironic considering the line "Mi scrive sulla bocca le parole che non posso dire quando piango in questo mondo stupido" (She writes on my lips the words that I can't say as I cry in this stupid world). The lyrics are certainly depressing, and the fact that they're delivered with such frankness, without any undue emotion, makes them all the more impactful once you put them together. The slow pace of this song brilliantly reflects the resignation of the lyrics, and seems to brilliantly capture the pains of youthful indirection.
This is followed, however, by the best song on an overall great album. "Gomma" fuses a pulsing beat and compelling love story to an earnestly emotional chorus, containing a trademark Baustelle honesty. Indeed, it doesn't get more honest than admitting, "Settembre spesso ad aspettarti" (September I was often waiting for you), unless you're flat out saying, "avrei bisogno di scopare con te" (I would need to fuck you), as this song does. This song does everything Baustelle excels at on another level, weaving a compelling narrative about adolescent angst with a catchy chorus and bouncy beat. Finally, the chorus, "tremavo un po' di doglie blu e d'esistenza inutile" (I shivered some from sadness and this useless existence), is perhaps the most powerful emotional moment on this album.
This song seems to be sandwiched by slightly slower songs, it appears, as "Gomma" is followed by "La canzone del parco," which dances slowly through minor keys, repeating anguish ridden lines like, "domani è lontano" (tomorrow is far away). Definitely the weakest song on the album, it nonetheless serves as a strong transition into the final four tracks of the album, which are not so much about youthful angst as about redemption. To me, this album is a bit like La dolce vita if it had a happy ending: we start with depictions of confused characters, stumbling blindly through life, but finally we arrive at stories of redemption. The most symbolic is "La canzone del riformatorio," the story of a man who went to prison after a drunken assault ("con il coltello nello stivale", though I'm not sure exactly what the context was) admitting his faults and his regrets - "Adesso mi manchi te lo giuro, ... tu chi sarai è chi saremo, fuori del riformatorio, la vita perduta come gioia" (Now I miss you, I swear... Who will you be, who will we be, out of prison, my life lost like my joy). It's a song that manages to be remarkably sweet despite the violent premise, and while it expresses the same sense of immobility that we see in "Noi bambine non abbiamo scelta," it also looks to the future instead of dwelling on the past. This is followed by "Cinecittà," an intentionally theatrical song, with sweeping piano chords and violins, split up by an interview for an erotic film. It's honestly a bit cheesy, but I'm admittedly a sucker for rom-coms, so, despite myself, I do honestly enjoy this song as something of a pure fantasy, as Bianconi gets caught up in his own words and seems to leave the interview behind. This is followed by "Io e te nell'appartamento," which is a different sort of romantic encounter written into song, but the imagery here is what really captures my imagination. There's a sense of loneliness in the repeating chords, perhaps accented by the fact that Bistreghi doesn't sing much, if at all, for the first half of this song. The self doubt here for Bianconi is palpable and totally relatable, however, as he asks, "Dimmi come ti chiami? Quanti ragazzi chiami? Io non so fare niente, volevo solamente..." (Tell me, what's your name? How many guys are you talking to? I don't know how to do anything, I just wanted to...). The description of the record spinning in an empty apartment is perhaps the ultimate image of angst and loneliness, as the rest of the song matches with even more serene and silent imagery, creating a void that can only be filled by imagination. The synthesizers that slowly bring this song to a conclusion only serve to heighten our sense of longing.
The last song, of the album, is the one that really drives home the theme of redemption. With it's message of "Build the modern chansoniere!" and its references to classic European singers like Serge Gainsbourg and Fabrizio de André, we see the roots of the Baustelle aesthetic that would become more and more pronounced as time went on, perhaps to their detriment, as beyond La moda del lento and the song "Gli spietati", most of the band's later output fails to capture my attention. Nonetheless, the opportunity to look forward toward art instead of back to lost lovers here serves as a perfect closer to this album, which clearly continues to speak to many people today (simply Google any song lyric from this album and you'll see plenty of photos and blog posts dedicated to them). What Baustelle provides here is a refreshing honesty. Yeah, we like to have fun, but underneath it all we're still trying to fill that void. That transparency and openness is something that will always be invaluable as people struggle to find a place in the world.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Personal Canon Review - The Power of Failing by Mineral
What does "emo" mean, really? It's a surprisingly contentious subject for a lot of people, and there's a lot of flexibility in the way in which people use the term that enables it to encompass a lot of very good music as well as a lot of very crappy music. When I tell people that I've been getting into a lot of emo stuff lately, and they ask, "You mean, like, Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance, right?", I usually take that as a queue to stop talking about emo music and to start talking about how Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco really did have some good moments, notwithstanding the fact that I really dislike Fall Out Boy's newer output. Regardless though, all those missed opportunities have really given me an itch to talk about the emo music that I like the most, which is the punkier '90's version of emo music. Let me admit that the boundaries are somewhat thin between this sort of music and the newer, scene-inspired emo of the 21st Century. I mean, every emo band is prone to oversensitivity at times - Mineral especially - and even the always cool Jawbreaker were prone to writing a sickeningly saccharine song like "Million" when it came down to it. In the end, what's the difference that makes it sound genuine and meaningful when Texas is the Reason's "A Jack with One Eye" includes a line like "your place is still at the heart of my everything" but makes a band like Boys Like Girls seem like such unaware poseurs? We'll try to answer these questions and more as we try to tackle Mineral's The Power of Failing, an album that, on the surface, would seem to have a lot of issues but that nevertheless pulls through with some compelling and stimulating material.
From the very first song, it's obvious what Mineral's drawing from. They've basically taken the sensitive, non-proggy bits from Sunny Day Real Estate and written a whole album around them, which is honestly just what I was looking for. "47" is a great song in its entirety, but the "swallowed whole / lose myself in you" part is the real highlight. But Mineral is really pushing things right off the bat. First there's the physical album itself. It's called The Power of Failing, goading the listener with its dubious grammatical correctness, and the title of the album is written in Comic Sans. Also, I should mention that there are definite religious undertones throughout this album, so I honestly don't know if its about romantic angst or religious piety, adding further stigma on top of the Comic Sans and the emo categorization (as much as I love emo, I always pretend I'm joking when I say that I listen to it because people always assume I listen to it ironically. Au contraire). Then we get right into "Five, Eight, and Ten," which starts with plenty of jangly emo goodness but goes and challenges us with the extremely sappy delivery of lines like "But I don't remember inviting them / to put me on this pedestal and make me feel so naked," almost asking us the question, "Are you sure this is what you're looking for?" But fear not, listener, for past lines like "And I want to know / the difference between / what sparkles and what is gold," intoned with an angst that is almost whiny in nature, we get into the meat of this album. "Five, Eight, and Ten" is definitely a rough gem, just like Mineral is in general, with a somewhat more lo-fi sound than on Sunny Day Real Estate's emo opus, Diary, but when they emerge at the end of this song, I'll be damned if I'm not pumped for more Mineral. You might say it "makes me want to try and start again," because good god, that line is delivered with some force - the same sort of force that I, completely unironically, I must shamefully admit (although, in fairness, I was pretty drunk), forced out of "Move Along" by All-American Rejects after the girl I had a crush on left a party I was at. Here, though, that desperation is right there for us to share, and it's that desperation that makes this a your-mileage-may-vary sort of album. If you want to jam out with something light and happy, Mineral's not the band for you, but if you want to hear someone sadder than you make angsty music, it's perfect. Mineral likes to live dangerously, but in this high risk-high reward game of hypersensitive emo, Mineral pulls through just at the end.
That spike at the end of "Five, Eight, and Ten" hardly lets up as we jump into the next song, probably Mineral's best known (if there is a best known Mineral song) and certainly their archetypal song - the anthemic "Gloria." The structure of this song is impeccable if predictable, and the delivery is perfect. It starts with a meek admission of failure (or failing, if you will) - "A gray morning. / Thoughts spread their wings and fly, / but I can still taste defeat on my lips" - setting the tone of this album of almost uninterrupted angst. Then everything is brought up a notch, with some frankly nonsensical lyrics delivered with just enough force to make us wonder what's next before everything bursts open with the line "I HAVE NOT YET ARRI-IVED." The rest of the lyrics in this song are so perfectly relatable, and express a welcome humility that can be hard to find in music at times. Lines like "How can I not admit? I need to know you" are just the beginning, as we get to the chorus of this song, the desperate and heartfelt line, "I just want to be something more than the mud in your eyes. / I want to be the clay in your hands." This song is like a terraced garden, building up to a brocaded peak, and what a peak it is! I sort of feel like one of the things that celebrates great emo from awful emo is the cleverness and/or sincerity of the lyrics, and with lines like "I NEED TO KNOW YOU" and that heart-breaking chorus, it doesn't get much more earnest than this. Once again, one gets the sense that Mineral really knows how to finish a song, as they pummel their way to the finish.
"Gloria" is a really powerful emotional moment, and I think following it with two somewhat more low-key songs in "Slower" and "Dolorosa" was just what this album needed. Not that these songs are necessarily low-key by objective standards - "Slower" emerges from a slower tempo into the a chorus with lines like "I spit into the wind and laugh as the words hit me in the face" - but the desperation is less overt here. I would say that these are more songs of acceptance and bargaining. "Slower" actually has quite a few compelling lines, including "people like you and me will never know the easy way" and "I swallow my pride and admit that it's not always best to understand the reasons why," and finishes with a ragged and forceful guitar solo before fading out again as we drift into the even less desperate "Dolorosa." "Dolorosa" doesn't beg for attention like the previous songs on this album. It more so glides with a sense of resignation onto the album, guitar riffs swelling and residing like the sea at high tide, always repeating the same verse before, like its predecessor, bursting into one of those urgent repeated verses that Mineral seems to be so good at. "Dolorosa" is also perhaps the most overtly religious song on the album, yet at the same time there's some sense of romantic discontent in it, which honestly makes it more relatable for me and probably for most other listeners as well. Warts and all, however, the sheer earnestness and honesty of this album pull it through. Even when they go wrong, they definitely mean well, which is good enough to keep us wanting more.
More is just what gets delivered with the nostalgia filled "80-37." I honestly have no idea what the title means, and I wish that I did. I guess 80-37=43? And Sunny Day Real Estate has songs called "47" and "48," so maybe emo bands are obsessed with numbers in the forties? I have no other ideas, but regardless this song is a bit schmaltzy but still packs enough of a punch to make it compelling. The sense of abandonment, and those lines at the end, "Things, they change, and people grow," followed by the conclusion, "They never really find the answers" is something we can all relate to on some level, and for me is the most compelling part of the song. Anecdotal imagery is similarly utilized to great effect on "If I Could," which is perhaps even more emotional than "80-37" was. The chiming guitar riff echos the imagery of that line, "I sat behind the wheel and watched the raindrops as they gathered on windshield / and raced down into the humming motor." For me, that line is so memorable, because it's something I've done whenever I'm bored during a car ride, but it's also a strangely potent metaphor for the random vicissitudes of fate.
Finally we get to perhaps the only happy song on this album, "July." Granted, it's not actually a happy song, but when compared to the rest of the songs on this album, the fact that it implies some sense of agency is quite refreshing. And hey, listen to that guitar intro! It's, like, kind of shimmery! I have no idea what the lyrics to this song mean, really, but the finale to this song is once again potent, the line "this is the last song that I should have been singing," unfortunately, sort of reminds us that this album is still the emo-est emo album that ever emo-ed, so don't get used to this mildly positive song. A shout out as well to the guitar solo at the end, which has a jolting speed to it, which goes well with the overall rawness of this album. "July" is followed by "Silver," perhaps the most forgettable song on this album, due to its somewhat slower pace. Despite the overall clichéd angst of the lyrics as well, the first line, "and happiness is just a dream, or so it seems," has a certain beauty to it. It almost sounds like something out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Overall, this is sort of a standard track for Mineral, slowed down and drawn out a bit in order to relax us a bit after the pace of "July," so "Silver" is hardly an unwelcome presence on this album, although I'm not sure it fairs as well out of context as the rest of the songs on this album do. Next up is "Take the Picture Now," which starts with some nice, wistful imagery and some sort of twinkling guitars to start. As the energy palpably builds up before boiling over. Here I should add that I was wrong about "Dolorosa," because this song definitely has the most overt religious imagery, even using the word "redeemer" at one point. Nonetheless, it's a nice, heartfelt little song that sounds emo enough to ignore as a religious composition, and has a nice smoothness to it.
"Parking Lot" is destined to be the closer of this album, and it's honestly brilliant and every bit as good as "Gloria." First we have the most depressing lines of the album, with the juxtaposition of "I wouldn't mind if you took me in my sleep tonight" and "I know, I've got to live my life," but then we have some of the most compelling lyrics of The Power of Failing: "And realize on the way that I'm nothing more than a grain of salt in the salt of the earth," followed by that beautiful guitar swell. At the end, we get back to where we started, with that same image of nakedness and the same acute sense of failure (er... failing). A lot of more emotionally heavy albums try to be redemptive - Dog Man Star, Fantastic Planet, or This is Hardcore, for instance. The Power of Failing isn't one of those albums, but it is the perfect album for when you just want to wrap yourself in someone else's angst or scream your lungs out to some emo goodness. This is an album without the sharp wit of other emo albums like Do You Know Who You Are? or 24-hour Revenge Therapy, but it makes up for it with pure emotion and with a rawness that's missing from a lot of more recent emo music. In the end, The Power of Failing is honest and it's real, take it or leave it for what it is, but sometimes it's just what you need.
From the very first song, it's obvious what Mineral's drawing from. They've basically taken the sensitive, non-proggy bits from Sunny Day Real Estate and written a whole album around them, which is honestly just what I was looking for. "47" is a great song in its entirety, but the "swallowed whole / lose myself in you" part is the real highlight. But Mineral is really pushing things right off the bat. First there's the physical album itself. It's called The Power of Failing, goading the listener with its dubious grammatical correctness, and the title of the album is written in Comic Sans. Also, I should mention that there are definite religious undertones throughout this album, so I honestly don't know if its about romantic angst or religious piety, adding further stigma on top of the Comic Sans and the emo categorization (as much as I love emo, I always pretend I'm joking when I say that I listen to it because people always assume I listen to it ironically. Au contraire). Then we get right into "Five, Eight, and Ten," which starts with plenty of jangly emo goodness but goes and challenges us with the extremely sappy delivery of lines like "But I don't remember inviting them / to put me on this pedestal and make me feel so naked," almost asking us the question, "Are you sure this is what you're looking for?" But fear not, listener, for past lines like "And I want to know / the difference between / what sparkles and what is gold," intoned with an angst that is almost whiny in nature, we get into the meat of this album. "Five, Eight, and Ten" is definitely a rough gem, just like Mineral is in general, with a somewhat more lo-fi sound than on Sunny Day Real Estate's emo opus, Diary, but when they emerge at the end of this song, I'll be damned if I'm not pumped for more Mineral. You might say it "makes me want to try and start again," because good god, that line is delivered with some force - the same sort of force that I, completely unironically, I must shamefully admit (although, in fairness, I was pretty drunk), forced out of "Move Along" by All-American Rejects after the girl I had a crush on left a party I was at. Here, though, that desperation is right there for us to share, and it's that desperation that makes this a your-mileage-may-vary sort of album. If you want to jam out with something light and happy, Mineral's not the band for you, but if you want to hear someone sadder than you make angsty music, it's perfect. Mineral likes to live dangerously, but in this high risk-high reward game of hypersensitive emo, Mineral pulls through just at the end.
That spike at the end of "Five, Eight, and Ten" hardly lets up as we jump into the next song, probably Mineral's best known (if there is a best known Mineral song) and certainly their archetypal song - the anthemic "Gloria." The structure of this song is impeccable if predictable, and the delivery is perfect. It starts with a meek admission of failure (or failing, if you will) - "A gray morning. / Thoughts spread their wings and fly, / but I can still taste defeat on my lips" - setting the tone of this album of almost uninterrupted angst. Then everything is brought up a notch, with some frankly nonsensical lyrics delivered with just enough force to make us wonder what's next before everything bursts open with the line "I HAVE NOT YET ARRI-IVED." The rest of the lyrics in this song are so perfectly relatable, and express a welcome humility that can be hard to find in music at times. Lines like "How can I not admit? I need to know you" are just the beginning, as we get to the chorus of this song, the desperate and heartfelt line, "I just want to be something more than the mud in your eyes. / I want to be the clay in your hands." This song is like a terraced garden, building up to a brocaded peak, and what a peak it is! I sort of feel like one of the things that celebrates great emo from awful emo is the cleverness and/or sincerity of the lyrics, and with lines like "I NEED TO KNOW YOU" and that heart-breaking chorus, it doesn't get much more earnest than this. Once again, one gets the sense that Mineral really knows how to finish a song, as they pummel their way to the finish.
"Gloria" is a really powerful emotional moment, and I think following it with two somewhat more low-key songs in "Slower" and "Dolorosa" was just what this album needed. Not that these songs are necessarily low-key by objective standards - "Slower" emerges from a slower tempo into the a chorus with lines like "I spit into the wind and laugh as the words hit me in the face" - but the desperation is less overt here. I would say that these are more songs of acceptance and bargaining. "Slower" actually has quite a few compelling lines, including "people like you and me will never know the easy way" and "I swallow my pride and admit that it's not always best to understand the reasons why," and finishes with a ragged and forceful guitar solo before fading out again as we drift into the even less desperate "Dolorosa." "Dolorosa" doesn't beg for attention like the previous songs on this album. It more so glides with a sense of resignation onto the album, guitar riffs swelling and residing like the sea at high tide, always repeating the same verse before, like its predecessor, bursting into one of those urgent repeated verses that Mineral seems to be so good at. "Dolorosa" is also perhaps the most overtly religious song on the album, yet at the same time there's some sense of romantic discontent in it, which honestly makes it more relatable for me and probably for most other listeners as well. Warts and all, however, the sheer earnestness and honesty of this album pull it through. Even when they go wrong, they definitely mean well, which is good enough to keep us wanting more.
More is just what gets delivered with the nostalgia filled "80-37." I honestly have no idea what the title means, and I wish that I did. I guess 80-37=43? And Sunny Day Real Estate has songs called "47" and "48," so maybe emo bands are obsessed with numbers in the forties? I have no other ideas, but regardless this song is a bit schmaltzy but still packs enough of a punch to make it compelling. The sense of abandonment, and those lines at the end, "Things, they change, and people grow," followed by the conclusion, "They never really find the answers" is something we can all relate to on some level, and for me is the most compelling part of the song. Anecdotal imagery is similarly utilized to great effect on "If I Could," which is perhaps even more emotional than "80-37" was. The chiming guitar riff echos the imagery of that line, "I sat behind the wheel and watched the raindrops as they gathered on windshield / and raced down into the humming motor." For me, that line is so memorable, because it's something I've done whenever I'm bored during a car ride, but it's also a strangely potent metaphor for the random vicissitudes of fate.
Finally we get to perhaps the only happy song on this album, "July." Granted, it's not actually a happy song, but when compared to the rest of the songs on this album, the fact that it implies some sense of agency is quite refreshing. And hey, listen to that guitar intro! It's, like, kind of shimmery! I have no idea what the lyrics to this song mean, really, but the finale to this song is once again potent, the line "this is the last song that I should have been singing," unfortunately, sort of reminds us that this album is still the emo-est emo album that ever emo-ed, so don't get used to this mildly positive song. A shout out as well to the guitar solo at the end, which has a jolting speed to it, which goes well with the overall rawness of this album. "July" is followed by "Silver," perhaps the most forgettable song on this album, due to its somewhat slower pace. Despite the overall clichéd angst of the lyrics as well, the first line, "and happiness is just a dream, or so it seems," has a certain beauty to it. It almost sounds like something out of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Overall, this is sort of a standard track for Mineral, slowed down and drawn out a bit in order to relax us a bit after the pace of "July," so "Silver" is hardly an unwelcome presence on this album, although I'm not sure it fairs as well out of context as the rest of the songs on this album do. Next up is "Take the Picture Now," which starts with some nice, wistful imagery and some sort of twinkling guitars to start. As the energy palpably builds up before boiling over. Here I should add that I was wrong about "Dolorosa," because this song definitely has the most overt religious imagery, even using the word "redeemer" at one point. Nonetheless, it's a nice, heartfelt little song that sounds emo enough to ignore as a religious composition, and has a nice smoothness to it.
"Parking Lot" is destined to be the closer of this album, and it's honestly brilliant and every bit as good as "Gloria." First we have the most depressing lines of the album, with the juxtaposition of "I wouldn't mind if you took me in my sleep tonight" and "I know, I've got to live my life," but then we have some of the most compelling lyrics of The Power of Failing: "And realize on the way that I'm nothing more than a grain of salt in the salt of the earth," followed by that beautiful guitar swell. At the end, we get back to where we started, with that same image of nakedness and the same acute sense of failure (er... failing). A lot of more emotionally heavy albums try to be redemptive - Dog Man Star, Fantastic Planet, or This is Hardcore, for instance. The Power of Failing isn't one of those albums, but it is the perfect album for when you just want to wrap yourself in someone else's angst or scream your lungs out to some emo goodness. This is an album without the sharp wit of other emo albums like Do You Know Who You Are? or 24-hour Revenge Therapy, but it makes up for it with pure emotion and with a rawness that's missing from a lot of more recent emo music. In the end, The Power of Failing is honest and it's real, take it or leave it for what it is, but sometimes it's just what you need.
Friday, August 14, 2015
Personal Canon Review: Sleep and Release by Aereogramme
So it's been awhile since I wrote anything on here, and I thought it might be fun to write some more reviews. One thing I noticed about some of the reviews that I wrote in the past is that reviewing something based on a week or two's worth of impressions isn't an especially good way to go about it. Sometimes it takes awhile for all of the strengths of an album to reveal themselves to you. As a result, you can end up, basically, being wrong, like I was about Suede's Dog Man Star, for instance, which I thought at first was just a less interesting successor to their debut. As a result, I'm going to review some albums that have had more of a chance to sink in, and in fact mean a lot to me on a personal level. For now I'm not going to rate these because I think that they're the sort of albums that, if you encounter them at the right time in your life, can be perfect tens, or may not appeal to you at all. Sometimes our tastes form at random depending on when we need a certain work of music - for me, albums like 100 Broken Windows, Dog Man Star, and Souvlaki are absolutely without question the best ever written, while the likes of OK Computer and The Suburbs don't especially appeal to me in the way they do to others. Anyway, I'm going to start with a bit of a challenge in Aereogramme's Sleep and Release. This is the band's second full album, after A Story in White, and while it abandons some elements that made A Story in White a great album, it also displays a true maturation in the band's craft.
Like their debut, Sleep and Release is an album built on shifts and contrasts. A Story in White found a lot of its impact in its juxtaposition of heavy, loud songs like "Zionist Timing" with hushed, sensitive songs like "Sunday 3:52" and "Motion." Sleep and Release follows this model to a certain extent, but in a much more ambitious that contrasts these disparate emotions within individuals songs, and with much more intense climaxes. Gone are the whispered intonations of old, as in "Sunday 3:52," where the repeated line "I demand your skin" expressed a vulnerability that was palpable to the listener. Herein continues to lie Aereogramme's greatest strength, however. The visceral qualities of their music continue to express raw emotion through sound just as much as through lyrics. This is nothing new - Aereogramme's more famous Scottish compatriots Mogwai have succeeded at this sort of thing for ages - yet Aereogramme's soundscapes impel shifts in emotion that are nearly unparalleled. This couples with lead singer Craig B's voice, at one moment a quivering falsetto, at others a rabid scream.
On Sleep and Release, the band seem to have honed the transitions between emotions, hopping from anguish to rage to confusion seamlessly and almost unnoticeably at times. This is an album that never sits still, and while this was the case with their debut - the first two minutes of "Zionist Timing" are so perfect that hearing them disappear without a trace is like heartbreak - this restlessness is perfected on their second album. "Indiscretion #243" cycles swiftly through four or five melodies before the song ends, transitioning from the compelling introductory line, "I'm listening like my father told me how to, I'm burning like my brother always knew I would," strangely echoing fellow angsty Scots The Twilight Sad's "Strong father figure with a heart of gold" and kids "on fire in the bedroom," into a hymnal chant that subsides just as swiftly. What comes next is the crushingly real "Black Path." Hardly ever has a song ever been so direct in its emotional impact, and while Aereogramme can be frustratingly grating at time, moments like these are what makes it possible to not only forgive them for these "indiscretions," but even hold them dear. I'm not sure what it is about this song that makes it cut so deep with me. Is it the melancholy, echoing bells that introduce the song? The imagery of mortality, "from green to red, black to gray"? The lyrics, all too real, that warn us about "when everyone becomes afraid of you" and to "see how pathless life can be," acknowledging just how random the events that shape our lives are, just how much it would do us good to allow ourselves to be vulnerable from time to time even if we feel compelled to put on our game-face day after day? This song hits it home in a way only Aereogramme can, somehow. I honestly don't think any music has ever been written with the emotional impact of "Black Path," "Sunday 3:52," and "Inkwell" (this last song from the band's album Seclusion). If any band could write music like this consistently, I'm not sure I could even debate about music anymore. That said, this is Aereogramme, so they move on, and so must we.
"A Simple Process of Elimination" brings one the core of the album, which is fraught with tension, confusion, and unease. Just as "Black Path" emerged from silence after the final riff of "Indiscretion #243," those sumptuous bells emerging from nothing, "A Simple Process of Elimination" is a stark diversion from its predecessor, its cold electronic clicks a shock after the decadent intimacy of "Black Path." This is a song that bring us slowly floating into the unrestrained anger of "Older," like the river in Heart of Darkness taking us ever so slowly to the horrors of the colonial Congo. The twinkling piano keys and floating plea to "erase us; erase this world" are followed by a desperate phone message, unambiguously taking a play from Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's playbooks, and the still mysterious but slightly more active pulse of "Older," which swiftly crashes into blind, incoherent anger.
From this climax, which is basically the reason I don't offer Aereogramme as a recommendation to my friends, who would likely be a bit unnerved that I listen to music like that, "Older" fades into "No Really, Everything's Fine." This is an archetype for Aereogramme songs, a companion to the constantly shifting "Indiscretion #243" (which brings to mind the completely irrelevant Idlewild lyric "the sea's never calm. It always blows and knows it too"), with equally an equally compelling introduction to angst and a search for identity ("the reason we're all disfigured...") and a similar offer of religious imagery ("I say, 'Kingdom come'") transforming into a sorrowful admission of the hard to swallow truth: "We are all defenseless now / On your own your left somehow / With these broken bones." The musical swell as Craig B acknowledges his broken bones touches at the same nerve hit by "Black Path" before dissolving into a whirlwind of piano, guitar, and white noise before going back to the first line of the song. Ending abruptly, "No Really, Everything's Fine" is followed by "Wood," a song that shifts from a catchy introductory melody into a rage just as intense as in "Older."
This is followed, however, by the first transition into consistency of this album. Aereogramme offers us another morsel of delicious, heartfelt melody with "Yes," a beautiful, frank, and impassioned gem of a song with all of the beauty of "Black Path," but while "Black Path" feels like a delicate flower waiting to crumble, "Yes," clocking in at an unfortunately meager two minutes, because Aereogramme never lets any melody outstay its welcome, is an honest-to-god work of sensitive indie rock. Thematically, "Yes" ties this album together, lines like "shit, now you're only one hour away / Not that that matters when I couldn't stay" drawing the themes of helplessness from "Indiscretion #243," "Black Path," and "No Really, Everything's Fine," into a clarity that this album, with its foreboding instrumental interludes, has no had in any great helping up to this point. From "Yes" onward, this album shows a blunt honesty that almost borders on saccharinity compared to the riddles and metaphors that this album started with. You can almost sense this final shift in "In Gratitude" as Craig sings, "It is dangerous to put this into words, but I miss you." Yes, the raw emotion was already present in this album, but not the straightforward manner of speaking. "In Gratitude" doesn't have the punch of "Yes" - it replaces a gutsy guitar solo with a sweeping strings section and expressive imagery with straightforward statements - but it is otherwise a fine song, and by shifting one more notch toward tranquility, it brings us comfortably to "A Winter's Discord." This is perhaps the most subtle song by a band with loads of subtle songs ("Motion," "The Art of Belief," "Egypt," "Will You Still Find Me?"), and it's blink-and-you-miss-it chorus is something you need to be watching out for, but "A Winter's Discord" has plenty to offer as it lays us softly into the album's untitled closing track, a song that starts off slowly, but wakes us up again, leaving us with a violin melody that would seem at home in Game of Thrones. At the end of the day, we're left with the same sense of disorientation that we began with; fitting, as Sleep and Release lulls us once again into a false sense of security before reminding us that this album isn't easy, and isn't predictable. Indeed, Sleep and Release is a lot like life: hard at times, unbelievably rewarding at others. In the end, I suppose we must accept how "pathless life can be," as painful as the brevity of its melodies may be and as unnervingly as change may wrest us from times of comfort.
Like their debut, Sleep and Release is an album built on shifts and contrasts. A Story in White found a lot of its impact in its juxtaposition of heavy, loud songs like "Zionist Timing" with hushed, sensitive songs like "Sunday 3:52" and "Motion." Sleep and Release follows this model to a certain extent, but in a much more ambitious that contrasts these disparate emotions within individuals songs, and with much more intense climaxes. Gone are the whispered intonations of old, as in "Sunday 3:52," where the repeated line "I demand your skin" expressed a vulnerability that was palpable to the listener. Herein continues to lie Aereogramme's greatest strength, however. The visceral qualities of their music continue to express raw emotion through sound just as much as through lyrics. This is nothing new - Aereogramme's more famous Scottish compatriots Mogwai have succeeded at this sort of thing for ages - yet Aereogramme's soundscapes impel shifts in emotion that are nearly unparalleled. This couples with lead singer Craig B's voice, at one moment a quivering falsetto, at others a rabid scream.
On Sleep and Release, the band seem to have honed the transitions between emotions, hopping from anguish to rage to confusion seamlessly and almost unnoticeably at times. This is an album that never sits still, and while this was the case with their debut - the first two minutes of "Zionist Timing" are so perfect that hearing them disappear without a trace is like heartbreak - this restlessness is perfected on their second album. "Indiscretion #243" cycles swiftly through four or five melodies before the song ends, transitioning from the compelling introductory line, "I'm listening like my father told me how to, I'm burning like my brother always knew I would," strangely echoing fellow angsty Scots The Twilight Sad's "Strong father figure with a heart of gold" and kids "on fire in the bedroom," into a hymnal chant that subsides just as swiftly. What comes next is the crushingly real "Black Path." Hardly ever has a song ever been so direct in its emotional impact, and while Aereogramme can be frustratingly grating at time, moments like these are what makes it possible to not only forgive them for these "indiscretions," but even hold them dear. I'm not sure what it is about this song that makes it cut so deep with me. Is it the melancholy, echoing bells that introduce the song? The imagery of mortality, "from green to red, black to gray"? The lyrics, all too real, that warn us about "when everyone becomes afraid of you" and to "see how pathless life can be," acknowledging just how random the events that shape our lives are, just how much it would do us good to allow ourselves to be vulnerable from time to time even if we feel compelled to put on our game-face day after day? This song hits it home in a way only Aereogramme can, somehow. I honestly don't think any music has ever been written with the emotional impact of "Black Path," "Sunday 3:52," and "Inkwell" (this last song from the band's album Seclusion). If any band could write music like this consistently, I'm not sure I could even debate about music anymore. That said, this is Aereogramme, so they move on, and so must we.
"A Simple Process of Elimination" brings one the core of the album, which is fraught with tension, confusion, and unease. Just as "Black Path" emerged from silence after the final riff of "Indiscretion #243," those sumptuous bells emerging from nothing, "A Simple Process of Elimination" is a stark diversion from its predecessor, its cold electronic clicks a shock after the decadent intimacy of "Black Path." This is a song that bring us slowly floating into the unrestrained anger of "Older," like the river in Heart of Darkness taking us ever so slowly to the horrors of the colonial Congo. The twinkling piano keys and floating plea to "erase us; erase this world" are followed by a desperate phone message, unambiguously taking a play from Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor's playbooks, and the still mysterious but slightly more active pulse of "Older," which swiftly crashes into blind, incoherent anger.
From this climax, which is basically the reason I don't offer Aereogramme as a recommendation to my friends, who would likely be a bit unnerved that I listen to music like that, "Older" fades into "No Really, Everything's Fine." This is an archetype for Aereogramme songs, a companion to the constantly shifting "Indiscretion #243" (which brings to mind the completely irrelevant Idlewild lyric "the sea's never calm. It always blows and knows it too"), with equally an equally compelling introduction to angst and a search for identity ("the reason we're all disfigured...") and a similar offer of religious imagery ("I say, 'Kingdom come'") transforming into a sorrowful admission of the hard to swallow truth: "We are all defenseless now / On your own your left somehow / With these broken bones." The musical swell as Craig B acknowledges his broken bones touches at the same nerve hit by "Black Path" before dissolving into a whirlwind of piano, guitar, and white noise before going back to the first line of the song. Ending abruptly, "No Really, Everything's Fine" is followed by "Wood," a song that shifts from a catchy introductory melody into a rage just as intense as in "Older."
This is followed, however, by the first transition into consistency of this album. Aereogramme offers us another morsel of delicious, heartfelt melody with "Yes," a beautiful, frank, and impassioned gem of a song with all of the beauty of "Black Path," but while "Black Path" feels like a delicate flower waiting to crumble, "Yes," clocking in at an unfortunately meager two minutes, because Aereogramme never lets any melody outstay its welcome, is an honest-to-god work of sensitive indie rock. Thematically, "Yes" ties this album together, lines like "shit, now you're only one hour away / Not that that matters when I couldn't stay" drawing the themes of helplessness from "Indiscretion #243," "Black Path," and "No Really, Everything's Fine," into a clarity that this album, with its foreboding instrumental interludes, has no had in any great helping up to this point. From "Yes" onward, this album shows a blunt honesty that almost borders on saccharinity compared to the riddles and metaphors that this album started with. You can almost sense this final shift in "In Gratitude" as Craig sings, "It is dangerous to put this into words, but I miss you." Yes, the raw emotion was already present in this album, but not the straightforward manner of speaking. "In Gratitude" doesn't have the punch of "Yes" - it replaces a gutsy guitar solo with a sweeping strings section and expressive imagery with straightforward statements - but it is otherwise a fine song, and by shifting one more notch toward tranquility, it brings us comfortably to "A Winter's Discord." This is perhaps the most subtle song by a band with loads of subtle songs ("Motion," "The Art of Belief," "Egypt," "Will You Still Find Me?"), and it's blink-and-you-miss-it chorus is something you need to be watching out for, but "A Winter's Discord" has plenty to offer as it lays us softly into the album's untitled closing track, a song that starts off slowly, but wakes us up again, leaving us with a violin melody that would seem at home in Game of Thrones. At the end of the day, we're left with the same sense of disorientation that we began with; fitting, as Sleep and Release lulls us once again into a false sense of security before reminding us that this album isn't easy, and isn't predictable. Indeed, Sleep and Release is a lot like life: hard at times, unbelievably rewarding at others. In the end, I suppose we must accept how "pathless life can be," as painful as the brevity of its melodies may be and as unnervingly as change may wrest us from times of comfort.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Required Reviews
Maybe this will be a thing I'll do again, but I thought I'd check out some albums that I've been otherwise disinclined to listen to and give review of them. This time around, I'll be reviewing Radiohead's OK Computer, Funeral by Arcade Fire, and Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement, since those three albums are generally held to be the best by those bands that are too indie mainstream for me (heh). I'll go song by song to start since these are first time listens, so I haven't had time to really understand the albums in their entirety.
RADIOHEAD -- OK COMPUTER -- 7/10
First song "Airbag" is actually kind of interesting. The apparent lack of a chorus, or at least the subtlety of that chorus is a really hit or miss idea, but here the song moves enough to keep from falling apart. If I listened to it more, maybe I'd understand the words or find memorable parts.
"Paranoid Android" seems to be the most popular song from this album, and I thought it was "Karma Police" at first for some reason because I'm bad at listening to words. It sounds a bit like if Blur listened to June of 44, and, probably intentionally, fails to have much emotional impact. Even the chord change 4 minutes in pales in comparison to the likes of Suede, JJ72, or Sunny Day Real Estate if you're looking for feelings from your music, and also doesn't quite compare to Slint or Rodan for really experimental music, but if you want the latter with some rhythm, I could see why you'd like Radiohead, or at least "Paranoid Android". The peppy guitar solo at the end enforces my assumption that the song is meant to be unemotional, perhaps a commentary on the emptiness of human emotion? I'm not sure. As an angsty fellow, to be honest I don't by into it, but the idea itself could have value for some listeners.
"Subterranean Homesick Alien" has a bit more atmospheric sound to it, fusing U2 to like Spiritualized. The part where Tom Yorke repeats the word "uptight" over and over again is pretty memorable, and the background effects give it a complex sound that fits right at home with the first two songs.
"Exit Music (For a Film)" is considerably less kinetic, and seems to be a transitional point in the album given the relatively complex structures of the previous two songs. It slowly builds up, adding additional sounds until Yorke raises his voice about 3:30 in, but for me it doesn't quite have the intended impact, if what they were going for was something like "Dagger" by Slowdive as sung by Tom Yorke. Different strokes, I suppose.
"Let Down" is my favorite song on this album so far. Unlike previous songs, it has good movement and momentum as well as some body, enabling the gradual build up to have a solid foundation, where in other songs the beginnings are a bit daintier. While the lyric "crushed down, like a bug in the ground" is not my cup of tea, I'm an admitted fan of a song with the words "slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball," so I'm clearly a bit biased here. The pause in the middle of this song in no way impedes its impact, which is quite the improvement over previous songs in this album. I might even go out of my way to listen to this song, though I feel like I want it to take off near the end and actually get loud, but beggars can't be choosers. Nonetheless, a lift-off like at the end of Suede's "Still Life," which maintains a persistent rhythm like "Let Down" but grows to a more powerful peak, would be an improvement, but in such a case I think "Let Down" would feel like more of a finishing song, so allowing the song to continue into "Karma Police" without it feeling like the latter is mundane in comparison is the right move.
"Karma Police" is, so far as I know, the most popular song on this album, though whether this is in the same sense that "Wonderwall" is the most popular song on What's the Story, Morning Glory? or in which "Cast No Shadow" might be (is there a consensus on this question? All the people I know hate Oasis :[ ). "Karma Police" has all the strengths of its predecessor, but it feels like this song has nothing to grow into besides adding more sound affects to the background, so I'd say "Let Down" is still the stronger song. Half-way through this album, here are my not in any way final thoughts on OK Computer, resisting the temptation to define Radiohead by it. Radiohead's sound is to be fragile and paranoid, but I think it really digs them into a hole at times. There's a potential for some of their songs to really explode into something bigger and more effective, but instead they stay contained in their shell with just more sound affects added. Does this maintain the desired aesthetic, i.e. would it be un-OK Computer to get louder? Maybe. Do I listen to too much Suede, Oasis, and Idlewild to appreciate subtlety? Probably, my shoegaze and post-rock listening notwithstanding. That's my critique of Radiohead though. I can't quite say they're the best band ever.
"Fitter Happier" is the "Bank Holiday" of this album.
"Electioneering" has the energy this album really needed, and it might actually be the true start of the second half, with "Fitter Happier" being the album divider. If so, it really explains Radiohead's purpose for this album, not to make a collection of good songs, because the songs are unremarkable on their own, but a cohesive album. Finally the paranoia is actually being expressed with some sense of urgency, which I think was what had to happen eventually.
"Climbing up the Walls" seems to be a return to timidity and lethargy, however, which is not what I was hoping for to be honest, but I think maybe fits better with the real identity of this album. That said, I'm not quite sure where the development of this album is coming from. While listening to "Electioneering" I was expecting a quiet-bold transition over time, a bit like a backwards 100 Broken Windows, or like Swervedriver's debut, Raise. "Climbing up the Walls" gets louder half-way through, but doesn't get any clearer
"No Surprises" seems from the beginning like it is the song meant to be the hit from this album. I quite like it actually, much "Let Down". It, unlike the other songs, seems frank and penetrable. It actually sticks out quite a bit from the rest of the album, somewhat like "Love Steals Us From Loneliness" on Idlewild's Warnings/Promises which I will review later, and seems like it probably made the best single. I can't see the rest of OK Computer following that model, because it really comes out of nowhere, but it wouldn't necessarily be unwelcome. Considering Diary, but Sunny Day Real Estate as a comparison, it's often good to have sensitive parts, like "47" or "48," to break up continuity of one emotion - angst there, paranoia here.
"Lucky" is clearly a return to the rest of the album's sound, however, and sounds a bit like a slower "Karma Police", with a very Dark Side of the Moon aspect to it. In fact, it's hitting me that OK Computer is much more a classic rock inspired album than an indie inspired one, which perhaps is why it's become so popular. It takes old methods and applies them in new ways, as it's undeniable that the paranoid aesthetic is a unique one. Aside from Parklife closer "This is a Low," it's a very trademark sound.
Finally, "The Tourist" slows the album down, helping it to cruise into its finale. How does it some up this album? It's a very cohesive album, maintaining a consistent sound all the way through, but to be honest it's an album with no surprises. I felt no urge to skip any of the songs, so the quality was very good throughout, but it was just not particularly interesting. Granted, perhaps it's a challenging album - the first time I played Dog Man Star and Alien Lanes they befuddled me, but now they're two of my all-time favorite albums. There were some very memorable moments on those albums though, and on this there are very few. The impression that I get is that it's sort of a background music album, or that maybe it's amazing when you listen to it high or something. My opinion, though, is that there are albums that would be good for that, like Souvlaki, Loveless, or Spiderland that are less boring. 8/10 for good but unremarkable, highlights include "Airbag", "Let Down", "No Surprises".
ARCADE FIRE -- FUNERAL -- 8/10
First things first, the titles are rather ambitious, which is definitely not a bad thing. It just says, "This is a work of art", rather than a fun album like anything by Guided by Voices, Oasis, or Superchunk. We'll see how it goes.
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnel)" already seems a lot more enjoyable than OK Computer's first run-through. It has pace as well as an apparent soul. While I'm not a huge fan of indie-vibrato, I'll take songs like these warts and all. It even gets louder over time without just adding more sound effects! I'm just going to say I don't really like Radiohead that much. This is a breath of fresh air in comparison. NOW THERE'S A CHORUS WITH REAL EMOTION!? I always found the hoopla around Arcade Fire a bit annoying, but based on this there's some basis for it. It reminds me a bit of Jeremy Enigk's The Return of the Frog Queen, with its quaint instrumentals and bittersweet verses.
"Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" sounds very Talking Heads to start, but also adds a bit of the minor key sensitivity of "Neighborhood #1". The album in general has what I might call a somewhat burlesque sound, like old impressionist paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec or Renoir that are set inside bars and clubs, with their shadowy and jagged faces obscuring some real soul beneath them. The song builds up eventually into a semi-passion that takes away from this effect a bit, but the point stands.
"Un Annee Sans Lumiere" seems a bit brighter and more conventional, until it builds up to the fast paced bit at the end, which is exactly what OK Computer was missing when I listened to it. Funeral has so far lulled me into complacency before upsetting it again, which makes it a more interesting listen.
"Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is much the same. The intro begins with a thick and dramatic series of chords, but it develops into a more rounded sound that is neither upbeat nor dirgeful. This movement that it accumulates throughout is also enjoyable. While I have a moment, I should note the presentation of the songs - it's like a washed out lo-fi that instead of being a whimsical effect as in early GBV, fuses the singing into the guitar distortion, giving it a bigger impact. This effect has also been used eventually in some of The Strokes' songs, as well as memorably in "Best of Friends" by Palma Violets.
"Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)" isn't quite as interesting to start, with relatively mundane lyrics and a folky but drab presentation. While it changes about halfway into the song, there's no real chorus to speak of. Then again, this is the last song of Side A of the LP, so it's presumably meant to conclude the first half so that the second is more effective.
"Crown of Love" is also slow to start, and builds into a ballad somewhat reminiscent of some of the more sensitive Built to Spill songs, like "Reasons" or "Velvet Waltz," but with a bit less movement. Rises and falls in dynamics add some interesting nuances, but both lyrically and musically it doesn't quite compare to the first and second "Neighborhoods".
"Haiti" I actually have on iTunes for some reason. It's a more lush song, with a more impassioned apex than "Crown of Love", which perhaps implies that the next song will be the apex in terms of energy and emotion. I'm not here to make predictions I suppose. I will say that "Haiti" is a pretty good song and definitely more interesting than the two songs that came before it.
"Rebellion (Lies)" is a more fast paced song, and by the time the female background singers come it, there's some real energy emerges, but it seems to dissipate almost immediately when I want it to keep building. My simplistic hook addicted brain can't handle this clever music. That said, it does eventually develop into something with some momentum behind it, with the chorus of "Every time you close your eyes," so there is some salvation for me.
"In the Backseat" is the album finale, beginning with a sparkly falsetto from the woman singer in the band, accompanying it with a dainty violin refrain and a tip-toing piano riff. A single guitar strum about 3 minutes in beckons a pretty noticeable crescendo that finally builds some real energy and a true climax, though I keep wanting it to get darker, louder, and deeper than it does, it still has its desired affect.
The only thing about this album, as well as with OK Computer, is that I can hardly understand any of the words, so they have basically no effect on me, which is somewhat sad. They also apparently have a somewhat empty and quiet sound compared to a lot of the music I listen to, also limiting their emotional appeal. Nonetheless, the composition at the start of Funeral is magnificent, and the crescendos in each song are pretty powerful as well. The album seems to lose some of its momentum over time, a bit like in Diary or His 'n' Hers, though a bit more consistent, with no individual track quite equalling the likes of "Song About an Angel" or "Do You Remember the First Time?" but with the less memorable songs still being pretty good. Even so, it's still a unique and moving musical work and the start really is remarkably strong. The quaint sound of the album is a bit timid at times, but often still imbued with heavy drama, especially in highlights like "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" and "In the Backseat". While I think it's still hard to beat The Twilight Sad's Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters if you're looking for emotional, folky indie music, Funeral's melodiousness may give it an edge for some listeners.
PAVEMENT -- SLANTED AND ENCHANTED -- 8/10
I'm listening to this album on recommendation of a friend whose musical tastes generally line up with my own, so I guess my expectations are a bit different.
"Summer Babe (Winter Version)" is a solid opener - your typical lo-fi intro. It seems to fuse Velvet Underground attitude with Archers of Loaf loudness and Built to Spill naïveté. It's a catchy tune that has a lot of that lo-fi, attic tape charm to it. I might not do this track by track because I realize that if I did that for other lo-fi albums, like Icky Mettle or most GBV albums, I'd be like "this song is kind of derivitive," for 3 or 4 tracks, which is actually part of the charm. "Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17" is even better, with it's bittersweet guitar bit in between the verses. Each song morphs over time into something else, with "No Life Singed Her" beginning with an edgy noise-rock sound akin to the likes of "Me and You" or "Sick File" from Icky Mettle, but mellows into a more typical lo-fi song by the time the chorus comes in. Similarly, "In the Mouth of a Desert" starts out slow and slowly gains energy. The album, much like Icky Mettle, alternates sensitivity and edge in a way that accentuates each. Overall, Slanted and Enchanted is a fun album with a bit of a heart to it as well. There are some nice soft moments like "Zurich is Stained", "Here", and "In the Mouth of a Desert". Lyrically, the content is random and nonsensical much like that of early GBV, but has a much more Americana feel to it. All in all, it's a fun listen, without any particularly terrible songs as you might find on Guided by Voices' Alien Lanes or Bee Thousand, but without the incredible and obvious moments of genius on those albums. That said, all through the album there's much to enjoy. Highlights include "In the Mouth of a Desert," "No Life Singed Her," "Zurich is Stained".
RADIOHEAD -- OK COMPUTER -- 7/10
First song "Airbag" is actually kind of interesting. The apparent lack of a chorus, or at least the subtlety of that chorus is a really hit or miss idea, but here the song moves enough to keep from falling apart. If I listened to it more, maybe I'd understand the words or find memorable parts.
"Paranoid Android" seems to be the most popular song from this album, and I thought it was "Karma Police" at first for some reason because I'm bad at listening to words. It sounds a bit like if Blur listened to June of 44, and, probably intentionally, fails to have much emotional impact. Even the chord change 4 minutes in pales in comparison to the likes of Suede, JJ72, or Sunny Day Real Estate if you're looking for feelings from your music, and also doesn't quite compare to Slint or Rodan for really experimental music, but if you want the latter with some rhythm, I could see why you'd like Radiohead, or at least "Paranoid Android". The peppy guitar solo at the end enforces my assumption that the song is meant to be unemotional, perhaps a commentary on the emptiness of human emotion? I'm not sure. As an angsty fellow, to be honest I don't by into it, but the idea itself could have value for some listeners.
"Subterranean Homesick Alien" has a bit more atmospheric sound to it, fusing U2 to like Spiritualized. The part where Tom Yorke repeats the word "uptight" over and over again is pretty memorable, and the background effects give it a complex sound that fits right at home with the first two songs.
"Exit Music (For a Film)" is considerably less kinetic, and seems to be a transitional point in the album given the relatively complex structures of the previous two songs. It slowly builds up, adding additional sounds until Yorke raises his voice about 3:30 in, but for me it doesn't quite have the intended impact, if what they were going for was something like "Dagger" by Slowdive as sung by Tom Yorke. Different strokes, I suppose.
"Let Down" is my favorite song on this album so far. Unlike previous songs, it has good movement and momentum as well as some body, enabling the gradual build up to have a solid foundation, where in other songs the beginnings are a bit daintier. While the lyric "crushed down, like a bug in the ground" is not my cup of tea, I'm an admitted fan of a song with the words "slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball," so I'm clearly a bit biased here. The pause in the middle of this song in no way impedes its impact, which is quite the improvement over previous songs in this album. I might even go out of my way to listen to this song, though I feel like I want it to take off near the end and actually get loud, but beggars can't be choosers. Nonetheless, a lift-off like at the end of Suede's "Still Life," which maintains a persistent rhythm like "Let Down" but grows to a more powerful peak, would be an improvement, but in such a case I think "Let Down" would feel like more of a finishing song, so allowing the song to continue into "Karma Police" without it feeling like the latter is mundane in comparison is the right move.
"Karma Police" is, so far as I know, the most popular song on this album, though whether this is in the same sense that "Wonderwall" is the most popular song on What's the Story, Morning Glory? or in which "Cast No Shadow" might be (is there a consensus on this question? All the people I know hate Oasis :[ ). "Karma Police" has all the strengths of its predecessor, but it feels like this song has nothing to grow into besides adding more sound affects to the background, so I'd say "Let Down" is still the stronger song. Half-way through this album, here are my not in any way final thoughts on OK Computer, resisting the temptation to define Radiohead by it. Radiohead's sound is to be fragile and paranoid, but I think it really digs them into a hole at times. There's a potential for some of their songs to really explode into something bigger and more effective, but instead they stay contained in their shell with just more sound affects added. Does this maintain the desired aesthetic, i.e. would it be un-OK Computer to get louder? Maybe. Do I listen to too much Suede, Oasis, and Idlewild to appreciate subtlety? Probably, my shoegaze and post-rock listening notwithstanding. That's my critique of Radiohead though. I can't quite say they're the best band ever.
"Fitter Happier" is the "Bank Holiday" of this album.
"Electioneering" has the energy this album really needed, and it might actually be the true start of the second half, with "Fitter Happier" being the album divider. If so, it really explains Radiohead's purpose for this album, not to make a collection of good songs, because the songs are unremarkable on their own, but a cohesive album. Finally the paranoia is actually being expressed with some sense of urgency, which I think was what had to happen eventually.
"Climbing up the Walls" seems to be a return to timidity and lethargy, however, which is not what I was hoping for to be honest, but I think maybe fits better with the real identity of this album. That said, I'm not quite sure where the development of this album is coming from. While listening to "Electioneering" I was expecting a quiet-bold transition over time, a bit like a backwards 100 Broken Windows, or like Swervedriver's debut, Raise. "Climbing up the Walls" gets louder half-way through, but doesn't get any clearer
"No Surprises" seems from the beginning like it is the song meant to be the hit from this album. I quite like it actually, much "Let Down". It, unlike the other songs, seems frank and penetrable. It actually sticks out quite a bit from the rest of the album, somewhat like "Love Steals Us From Loneliness" on Idlewild's Warnings/Promises which I will review later, and seems like it probably made the best single. I can't see the rest of OK Computer following that model, because it really comes out of nowhere, but it wouldn't necessarily be unwelcome. Considering Diary, but Sunny Day Real Estate as a comparison, it's often good to have sensitive parts, like "47" or "48," to break up continuity of one emotion - angst there, paranoia here.
"Lucky" is clearly a return to the rest of the album's sound, however, and sounds a bit like a slower "Karma Police", with a very Dark Side of the Moon aspect to it. In fact, it's hitting me that OK Computer is much more a classic rock inspired album than an indie inspired one, which perhaps is why it's become so popular. It takes old methods and applies them in new ways, as it's undeniable that the paranoid aesthetic is a unique one. Aside from Parklife closer "This is a Low," it's a very trademark sound.
Finally, "The Tourist" slows the album down, helping it to cruise into its finale. How does it some up this album? It's a very cohesive album, maintaining a consistent sound all the way through, but to be honest it's an album with no surprises. I felt no urge to skip any of the songs, so the quality was very good throughout, but it was just not particularly interesting. Granted, perhaps it's a challenging album - the first time I played Dog Man Star and Alien Lanes they befuddled me, but now they're two of my all-time favorite albums. There were some very memorable moments on those albums though, and on this there are very few. The impression that I get is that it's sort of a background music album, or that maybe it's amazing when you listen to it high or something. My opinion, though, is that there are albums that would be good for that, like Souvlaki, Loveless, or Spiderland that are less boring. 8/10 for good but unremarkable, highlights include "Airbag", "Let Down", "No Surprises".
ARCADE FIRE -- FUNERAL -- 8/10
First things first, the titles are rather ambitious, which is definitely not a bad thing. It just says, "This is a work of art", rather than a fun album like anything by Guided by Voices, Oasis, or Superchunk. We'll see how it goes.
"Neighborhood #1 (Tunnel)" already seems a lot more enjoyable than OK Computer's first run-through. It has pace as well as an apparent soul. While I'm not a huge fan of indie-vibrato, I'll take songs like these warts and all. It even gets louder over time without just adding more sound effects! I'm just going to say I don't really like Radiohead that much. This is a breath of fresh air in comparison. NOW THERE'S A CHORUS WITH REAL EMOTION!? I always found the hoopla around Arcade Fire a bit annoying, but based on this there's some basis for it. It reminds me a bit of Jeremy Enigk's The Return of the Frog Queen, with its quaint instrumentals and bittersweet verses.
"Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" sounds very Talking Heads to start, but also adds a bit of the minor key sensitivity of "Neighborhood #1". The album in general has what I might call a somewhat burlesque sound, like old impressionist paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec or Renoir that are set inside bars and clubs, with their shadowy and jagged faces obscuring some real soul beneath them. The song builds up eventually into a semi-passion that takes away from this effect a bit, but the point stands.
"Un Annee Sans Lumiere" seems a bit brighter and more conventional, until it builds up to the fast paced bit at the end, which is exactly what OK Computer was missing when I listened to it. Funeral has so far lulled me into complacency before upsetting it again, which makes it a more interesting listen.
"Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" is much the same. The intro begins with a thick and dramatic series of chords, but it develops into a more rounded sound that is neither upbeat nor dirgeful. This movement that it accumulates throughout is also enjoyable. While I have a moment, I should note the presentation of the songs - it's like a washed out lo-fi that instead of being a whimsical effect as in early GBV, fuses the singing into the guitar distortion, giving it a bigger impact. This effect has also been used eventually in some of The Strokes' songs, as well as memorably in "Best of Friends" by Palma Violets.
"Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)" isn't quite as interesting to start, with relatively mundane lyrics and a folky but drab presentation. While it changes about halfway into the song, there's no real chorus to speak of. Then again, this is the last song of Side A of the LP, so it's presumably meant to conclude the first half so that the second is more effective.
"Crown of Love" is also slow to start, and builds into a ballad somewhat reminiscent of some of the more sensitive Built to Spill songs, like "Reasons" or "Velvet Waltz," but with a bit less movement. Rises and falls in dynamics add some interesting nuances, but both lyrically and musically it doesn't quite compare to the first and second "Neighborhoods".
"Haiti" I actually have on iTunes for some reason. It's a more lush song, with a more impassioned apex than "Crown of Love", which perhaps implies that the next song will be the apex in terms of energy and emotion. I'm not here to make predictions I suppose. I will say that "Haiti" is a pretty good song and definitely more interesting than the two songs that came before it.
"Rebellion (Lies)" is a more fast paced song, and by the time the female background singers come it, there's some real energy emerges, but it seems to dissipate almost immediately when I want it to keep building. My simplistic hook addicted brain can't handle this clever music. That said, it does eventually develop into something with some momentum behind it, with the chorus of "Every time you close your eyes," so there is some salvation for me.
"In the Backseat" is the album finale, beginning with a sparkly falsetto from the woman singer in the band, accompanying it with a dainty violin refrain and a tip-toing piano riff. A single guitar strum about 3 minutes in beckons a pretty noticeable crescendo that finally builds some real energy and a true climax, though I keep wanting it to get darker, louder, and deeper than it does, it still has its desired affect.
The only thing about this album, as well as with OK Computer, is that I can hardly understand any of the words, so they have basically no effect on me, which is somewhat sad. They also apparently have a somewhat empty and quiet sound compared to a lot of the music I listen to, also limiting their emotional appeal. Nonetheless, the composition at the start of Funeral is magnificent, and the crescendos in each song are pretty powerful as well. The album seems to lose some of its momentum over time, a bit like in Diary or His 'n' Hers, though a bit more consistent, with no individual track quite equalling the likes of "Song About an Angel" or "Do You Remember the First Time?" but with the less memorable songs still being pretty good. Even so, it's still a unique and moving musical work and the start really is remarkably strong. The quaint sound of the album is a bit timid at times, but often still imbued with heavy drama, especially in highlights like "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" and "In the Backseat". While I think it's still hard to beat The Twilight Sad's Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters if you're looking for emotional, folky indie music, Funeral's melodiousness may give it an edge for some listeners.
PAVEMENT -- SLANTED AND ENCHANTED -- 8/10
I'm listening to this album on recommendation of a friend whose musical tastes generally line up with my own, so I guess my expectations are a bit different.
"Summer Babe (Winter Version)" is a solid opener - your typical lo-fi intro. It seems to fuse Velvet Underground attitude with Archers of Loaf loudness and Built to Spill naïveté. It's a catchy tune that has a lot of that lo-fi, attic tape charm to it. I might not do this track by track because I realize that if I did that for other lo-fi albums, like Icky Mettle or most GBV albums, I'd be like "this song is kind of derivitive," for 3 or 4 tracks, which is actually part of the charm. "Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17" is even better, with it's bittersweet guitar bit in between the verses. Each song morphs over time into something else, with "No Life Singed Her" beginning with an edgy noise-rock sound akin to the likes of "Me and You" or "Sick File" from Icky Mettle, but mellows into a more typical lo-fi song by the time the chorus comes in. Similarly, "In the Mouth of a Desert" starts out slow and slowly gains energy. The album, much like Icky Mettle, alternates sensitivity and edge in a way that accentuates each. Overall, Slanted and Enchanted is a fun album with a bit of a heart to it as well. There are some nice soft moments like "Zurich is Stained", "Here", and "In the Mouth of a Desert". Lyrically, the content is random and nonsensical much like that of early GBV, but has a much more Americana feel to it. All in all, it's a fun listen, without any particularly terrible songs as you might find on Guided by Voices' Alien Lanes or Bee Thousand, but without the incredible and obvious moments of genius on those albums. That said, all through the album there's much to enjoy. Highlights include "In the Mouth of a Desert," "No Life Singed Her," "Zurich is Stained".
Thursday, November 14, 2013
3 Britpop Classics
Hey all! I've expanded my music collection fairly significantly in the past 3 months, so there will be plenty to review. Today, I'll start with three of the most famous Britpop albums ever released, that sort of epitomize the genre warts and all. Coming up in hopefully the near future I'll have some music by bands I've never reviewed before as well as more music from some of my old favorites.
BLUR -- PARKLIFE -- 9/10
For some reason I decided to introduce myself to Blur with The Great Escape, an album with a couple terrific tracks but largely filled with music that could be described as generic Blur. While "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro," among others, deserve to be classics, the rest of the album didn't quite live up to their brilliance. Now knowing what Blur had preceded The Great Escape with, it looks a whole lot worse (though objectively I would not say it's terrible). One of my complaints with The Great Escape is that most of the songs sort of sound like the same, retro-sounding, punk inspired commentaries on middle class life. What is so astounding about Parklife is just how varied the songs on the album are. It's got a bunch of the same brash indie pop that you'll find on Blur's other releases, like "Girls & Boys", "Tracy Jacks", and the title track, but they're just better here. "Girls & Boys" is the perfect opener, energetic and spunky, it defines what will come to be a theme throughout the album, paranoia, in a nuanced way, superficially hidden by a bouncy and aggressive beat. "Tracy Jacks" follows up with a typical Blur sound, but with hints of sensitivity, as well as a line that for some reason strikes me as incredibly clever when Damon matter-of-factly sings "Tracy Jacks works in civil service: it's steady employment". "Tracy Jacks" covers the same "middle class malaise" subject that The Great Escape would, but does so with a bit more nuance I think. Even the slowed down bridge feels a bit more sensitive. The similarly upbeat "Parklife" is an anthem for middle-class drudgery, a song that seems to poke fun at the mundanity of life while also bringing together all of those who suffer helplessly through it, the chorus "All the people - so many people - and they all go hand in hand: hand in hand through their parklife". Parklife becomes a real concept here, with the spoken lines by the guy from Quadrophenia illustrating that utter pointlessness of the things that we all do just to get by in our own parklives, that we dress up with this and that decoration, while deep down it fails to satisfy us. This inner suffering is reflected beautifully in some of the other songs on this album. It seems to me no coincidence that "End of a Century" reflects a deep satisfaction, typical of fin de siecle malaise. The line "we all say we don't want to be alone. We wear the same clothes just to feel the same" brings us from the mundanity of everyday life to the existential crisis that we all face in failing to give our lives some satisfactory significance. This helplessness is repeated in the chorus of "Badhead" and in the paranoid confusion of "London Loves", "Trouble in the Message Centre", and "Clover over Dover", descend into a darkness I did not expect from this album and makes it a very complex collection of songs. Meanwhile, in "To the End" is a very interesting musical arrangement that is clearly "The Universal" in embryo (The Last Year at Marienbad inspired music video is rather amusing as well). While the chorus is weaker in "To the End" than in the latter, the verses are just as compelling, if not more so. "Magic America" and "Jubilee", while standard Blur fare, are enjoyable listens as well and evoke the bored suburban spirit of Parlife as a whole. "This is a Low" is a proto-Radiohead finale that encompasses all of the latent paranoia present in the album. All in all, the album has a great variety of musical aesthetics brought together that make it a very captivating and entertaining listen, good for a peppy feel-good listen or a more brooding sit and think for background music. There are a few tracks that are not worth listening to, but in the end it is clear why Parklife is one of the magnum opi of the Britpop movement. Highlights include "End of a Century", "Parklife", "Trouble in the Message Centre".
PULP -- DIFFERENT CLASS -- 8.5/10
Different Class is widely considered to be Pulp's best work, and it is no surprise that this is the case. It includes what is by far Pulp's most famous song, "Common People", an anthem for millions of working class Britons who had spent the '80's being trod upon by conservative governments that, as they did in the United States, saw the poor as lazy dirtbags. That the album was entitled Different Class is of course a reference to the economic elitism of the '80's that could never be challenged without plaints of "class warfare", a metaphorical class and clique war that is the subject of album opener "Mis-shapes". The album also features "Disco 2000", one of the catchiest and most nostalgic songs of all time. The dance club style of the album, as ironic as it is verisimilar (I don't doubt that "Common People" found its way into quite a few nightclubs), makes Different Class extremely catchy and listenable overall as well. For all of the happy-go-lucky image that Pulp has given off over the years, perhaps attributable to Jarvis Cocker's calm and cool demeanor, despite half of His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore being fairly dark, Different Class is not the sunshine and roses I expected. I had basically expected Pulp's most popular album to be like Blur's - an exhibition of their poppier side with a bit of irony thrown in for good measure. While the singles that I had heard backed up this expectation - "Common People", "Disco 2000", and even "Mis-shapes" have some bounce to them - there are some pretty gritty moments on Different Class. "I Spy", "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.", and "Underwear" counting among them. As a result, in Different Class is manifested the same happy veneer followed by a dark core that His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore exhibit. As a Pulp fan, the more the merrier, and with punchy yet desperately earnest choruses like those on the singles, as well as, most notably for me, "Underwear", "Bar Italia", and "Sorted for E's & Wizz", what's not to like? This is a solid album. The critic in me wants to say definitively, however, that I think that its successor, This is Hardcore, is just a bit better. Different Class has the most memorable singles, and I have read a number of opinions ranking "Help the Aged" and "I'm a Man" among Pulp's worst work, but, as someone who likes both songs for their energy and spunk, I think both albums are equally stocked with quality tunes. This is Hardcore, however, has a bit more variation in sound over the course of the album, so while some of the songs on Different Class tend to blend together until you listen to it enough to really know the album, the songs on This is Hardcore each stand out on their own. All in all, Different Class is still the sort of album that is essential for anyone, even, like, my mom, who generally hates my music. Highlights include "Disco 2000," "Sorted for E's & Wizz," "Underwear".
OASIS -- BE HERE NOW -- 8/10
Yeah, I'm rating this album. Sometimes it's tough being an Oasis fan. You sort of have to feel like a sell-out because everyone knows "Wonderwall" (never mind that "Live Forever" is objectively their best song) and anyone who listens to any non-Top 40 music, and that includes Coldplay and Radiohead fans, will be sure to tell you that they think Oasis sucks. Additionally, there's the fact that they're a bit hit or miss outside of their first two albums and B-side compilation. Even so, I just can't resist the brilliance that results when they do get it all right, and on Be Here Now, it does happen - just not on every single song as in (What's the Story?) Morning Glory. Also, when they get it wrong, it's not in the adorable "A for effort" way that they did with songs like "Shakermaker" and "Up in the Sky". On Be Here Now, they either do just as well as they did on Morning Glory, as in songs like "The Girl with the Dirty Shirt" and "Stand by Me", or just completely fail, both musically and lyrically, as in "Fade In-Out" and the title track, doing so in a way that sounds like every 2000's rock song that you hated on the radio, with cheesy guitar effects and silly lyrics that are only there to rhyme, like "So get on the helter-skelter" or every line from "Be Here Now". Additionally, a good 75% of the song titles on this album are uninspired. At other times, though, it's like they haven't lost a step. "Stand by Me" is like a latter day "Live Forever", and "All Around the World" and "Don't Go Away" have all the same innocent naïveté that a) most people would be loath to attribute to Oasis and b) is found on the likes of "Digsy's Dinner" and "Slide Away". Granted, it's not a matter of every song being either perfect or terrible. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" has a lot of great ideas in it, but seems a bit sloppily pinned together, though not enough to stop it from being an enjoyable and uplifting listen, and "D'You Know What I Mean?" is a bit too long - a problem they suffered from a tiny bit on Definitely Maybe in unnecessarily 6 minute "Columbia" and 5 minute "Shakermaker" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star". Looking at it objectively, this isn't an album I should enjoy as much as I do, but the unstoppable charisma of the Gallagher's when they're trying is too much to pass up. While the successor to (What's the Story?) Morning Glory maybe ideally wouldn't have been Be Here Now - their first two albums thrived on contrasts of melancholy and bliss, where the extremes of emotion aren't as large here - it's still a strong album that holds up with repeated listens, and like any Oasis album is always a great one to come back to when you remember that they actually did, often, live up to the hype. Highlights include "My Big Mouth", "Stand by Me", "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)".
BLUR -- PARKLIFE -- 9/10
For some reason I decided to introduce myself to Blur with The Great Escape, an album with a couple terrific tracks but largely filled with music that could be described as generic Blur. While "The Universal" and "Yuko and Hiro," among others, deserve to be classics, the rest of the album didn't quite live up to their brilliance. Now knowing what Blur had preceded The Great Escape with, it looks a whole lot worse (though objectively I would not say it's terrible). One of my complaints with The Great Escape is that most of the songs sort of sound like the same, retro-sounding, punk inspired commentaries on middle class life. What is so astounding about Parklife is just how varied the songs on the album are. It's got a bunch of the same brash indie pop that you'll find on Blur's other releases, like "Girls & Boys", "Tracy Jacks", and the title track, but they're just better here. "Girls & Boys" is the perfect opener, energetic and spunky, it defines what will come to be a theme throughout the album, paranoia, in a nuanced way, superficially hidden by a bouncy and aggressive beat. "Tracy Jacks" follows up with a typical Blur sound, but with hints of sensitivity, as well as a line that for some reason strikes me as incredibly clever when Damon matter-of-factly sings "Tracy Jacks works in civil service: it's steady employment". "Tracy Jacks" covers the same "middle class malaise" subject that The Great Escape would, but does so with a bit more nuance I think. Even the slowed down bridge feels a bit more sensitive. The similarly upbeat "Parklife" is an anthem for middle-class drudgery, a song that seems to poke fun at the mundanity of life while also bringing together all of those who suffer helplessly through it, the chorus "All the people - so many people - and they all go hand in hand: hand in hand through their parklife". Parklife becomes a real concept here, with the spoken lines by the guy from Quadrophenia illustrating that utter pointlessness of the things that we all do just to get by in our own parklives, that we dress up with this and that decoration, while deep down it fails to satisfy us. This inner suffering is reflected beautifully in some of the other songs on this album. It seems to me no coincidence that "End of a Century" reflects a deep satisfaction, typical of fin de siecle malaise. The line "we all say we don't want to be alone. We wear the same clothes just to feel the same" brings us from the mundanity of everyday life to the existential crisis that we all face in failing to give our lives some satisfactory significance. This helplessness is repeated in the chorus of "Badhead" and in the paranoid confusion of "London Loves", "Trouble in the Message Centre", and "Clover over Dover", descend into a darkness I did not expect from this album and makes it a very complex collection of songs. Meanwhile, in "To the End" is a very interesting musical arrangement that is clearly "The Universal" in embryo (The Last Year at Marienbad inspired music video is rather amusing as well). While the chorus is weaker in "To the End" than in the latter, the verses are just as compelling, if not more so. "Magic America" and "Jubilee", while standard Blur fare, are enjoyable listens as well and evoke the bored suburban spirit of Parlife as a whole. "This is a Low" is a proto-Radiohead finale that encompasses all of the latent paranoia present in the album. All in all, the album has a great variety of musical aesthetics brought together that make it a very captivating and entertaining listen, good for a peppy feel-good listen or a more brooding sit and think for background music. There are a few tracks that are not worth listening to, but in the end it is clear why Parklife is one of the magnum opi of the Britpop movement. Highlights include "End of a Century", "Parklife", "Trouble in the Message Centre".
PULP -- DIFFERENT CLASS -- 8.5/10
Different Class is widely considered to be Pulp's best work, and it is no surprise that this is the case. It includes what is by far Pulp's most famous song, "Common People", an anthem for millions of working class Britons who had spent the '80's being trod upon by conservative governments that, as they did in the United States, saw the poor as lazy dirtbags. That the album was entitled Different Class is of course a reference to the economic elitism of the '80's that could never be challenged without plaints of "class warfare", a metaphorical class and clique war that is the subject of album opener "Mis-shapes". The album also features "Disco 2000", one of the catchiest and most nostalgic songs of all time. The dance club style of the album, as ironic as it is verisimilar (I don't doubt that "Common People" found its way into quite a few nightclubs), makes Different Class extremely catchy and listenable overall as well. For all of the happy-go-lucky image that Pulp has given off over the years, perhaps attributable to Jarvis Cocker's calm and cool demeanor, despite half of His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore being fairly dark, Different Class is not the sunshine and roses I expected. I had basically expected Pulp's most popular album to be like Blur's - an exhibition of their poppier side with a bit of irony thrown in for good measure. While the singles that I had heard backed up this expectation - "Common People", "Disco 2000", and even "Mis-shapes" have some bounce to them - there are some pretty gritty moments on Different Class. "I Spy", "F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.", and "Underwear" counting among them. As a result, in Different Class is manifested the same happy veneer followed by a dark core that His 'n' Hers and This is Hardcore exhibit. As a Pulp fan, the more the merrier, and with punchy yet desperately earnest choruses like those on the singles, as well as, most notably for me, "Underwear", "Bar Italia", and "Sorted for E's & Wizz", what's not to like? This is a solid album. The critic in me wants to say definitively, however, that I think that its successor, This is Hardcore, is just a bit better. Different Class has the most memorable singles, and I have read a number of opinions ranking "Help the Aged" and "I'm a Man" among Pulp's worst work, but, as someone who likes both songs for their energy and spunk, I think both albums are equally stocked with quality tunes. This is Hardcore, however, has a bit more variation in sound over the course of the album, so while some of the songs on Different Class tend to blend together until you listen to it enough to really know the album, the songs on This is Hardcore each stand out on their own. All in all, Different Class is still the sort of album that is essential for anyone, even, like, my mom, who generally hates my music. Highlights include "Disco 2000," "Sorted for E's & Wizz," "Underwear".
OASIS -- BE HERE NOW -- 8/10
Yeah, I'm rating this album. Sometimes it's tough being an Oasis fan. You sort of have to feel like a sell-out because everyone knows "Wonderwall" (never mind that "Live Forever" is objectively their best song) and anyone who listens to any non-Top 40 music, and that includes Coldplay and Radiohead fans, will be sure to tell you that they think Oasis sucks. Additionally, there's the fact that they're a bit hit or miss outside of their first two albums and B-side compilation. Even so, I just can't resist the brilliance that results when they do get it all right, and on Be Here Now, it does happen - just not on every single song as in (What's the Story?) Morning Glory. Also, when they get it wrong, it's not in the adorable "A for effort" way that they did with songs like "Shakermaker" and "Up in the Sky". On Be Here Now, they either do just as well as they did on Morning Glory, as in songs like "The Girl with the Dirty Shirt" and "Stand by Me", or just completely fail, both musically and lyrically, as in "Fade In-Out" and the title track, doing so in a way that sounds like every 2000's rock song that you hated on the radio, with cheesy guitar effects and silly lyrics that are only there to rhyme, like "So get on the helter-skelter" or every line from "Be Here Now". Additionally, a good 75% of the song titles on this album are uninspired. At other times, though, it's like they haven't lost a step. "Stand by Me" is like a latter day "Live Forever", and "All Around the World" and "Don't Go Away" have all the same innocent naïveté that a) most people would be loath to attribute to Oasis and b) is found on the likes of "Digsy's Dinner" and "Slide Away". Granted, it's not a matter of every song being either perfect or terrible. "I Hope, I Think, I Know" has a lot of great ideas in it, but seems a bit sloppily pinned together, though not enough to stop it from being an enjoyable and uplifting listen, and "D'You Know What I Mean?" is a bit too long - a problem they suffered from a tiny bit on Definitely Maybe in unnecessarily 6 minute "Columbia" and 5 minute "Shakermaker" and "Rock 'n' Roll Star". Looking at it objectively, this isn't an album I should enjoy as much as I do, but the unstoppable charisma of the Gallagher's when they're trying is too much to pass up. While the successor to (What's the Story?) Morning Glory maybe ideally wouldn't have been Be Here Now - their first two albums thrived on contrasts of melancholy and bliss, where the extremes of emotion aren't as large here - it's still a strong album that holds up with repeated listens, and like any Oasis album is always a great one to come back to when you remember that they actually did, often, live up to the hype. Highlights include "My Big Mouth", "Stand by Me", "It's Gettin' Better (Man!!)".
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Album Reviews - il ritorno, pt. II
Allora, true story, I forgot what the next 3 albums were, but now I remember again, so I can review them now. Hopefully the impressions I've gotten so far are accurate. I've realized recently that my long term evaluations are often a bit distant from my initial impressions, if not regarding album quality, certainly regarding which individual songs are highlights. Here's hoping I've been sharp in my evaluations.
JAWBREAKER -- UNFUN -- 8/10
Reviewing this album is really pretty simple, as I see it. Here's how you tell if you will like Unfun: go to youtube and listen to any Jawbreaker song - if you liked it, you will like this album. Saying that makes it seem like Jawbreaker songs all sound this same, which is not true for the most part. 24-Hour Revenge Therapy, the album with which I'm most familiar, is extremely varied, ranging from poppy if ironic emo-punk tunes like "Boxcar" and "The Boat Dreams from the Hill" to emotionally heavy, almost flat-out angry songs like "Jinx Removal" and "Ashtray Monument", and is also varied in instrumental heaviness and tone. Unfun, to be honest, is less so. Aside from stand-out tracks like "Busy" and "Want" that belong in everyone's music collection, this album could be summed up with a couple of the less memorable tracks tacked onto those that leave a stronger impression. This leaves the second half feeling a bit flat. That said, Jawbreaker is a remarkably consistent band, so there are no duds on this album. They also have a tremendously unique sound, even scratchier and more abrasive with more attitude on this album than their later ones, so if you like 24-hour Revenge Therapy or Bivouac, you'll definitely want Unfun as well. I've enjoyed it, although it's an album that makes me feel lazy reviewing it. Highlights include "Want", "Down", "Busy".
SWERVEDRIVER -- MEZCAL HEAD -- 9/10
I said before, when I reviewed Raise, that Swervedriver are a quality band. Raise, like Unfun, was an album with no weaknesses, but that, aside from thrilling songs like "Feel So Real" and "Sandblasted", was just a bit flat. The complacency that snuck into Raise was completely eliminated in Mezcal Head. Swervedriver had shown that they could put together some emotionally heavy songs with their smooth but solid guitars interacted with vocals that take those same adjectives, and for Mezcal Head, they executed their strength consistently throughout the album. Album opener "For Seeking Heat" starts slowly but soon spirals out of control, with frontman Adam Franklin going into falsetto range near the end, and "Duel" continues this energy. Then it continues some more for another half dozen tracks. Like Raise, Mezcal Head tails off a bit at the end, sliding into more shoegazery territory in "Girl on a Motorbike" and "You Find it Everywhere", but elsewhere, the album has an impressive bite to it. "Last Train to Satansville" manages to escape the cliché one would expect from a song entitled "Last Train to Satansville" with a biting and sinister guitar riff, exemplifying the energy found in "For Seeking Heat", "Duel" and "Blowin' Cool". Songs like "MM Abduction" and "Harry and Maggie", meanwhile, see a different tone, as Swervedriver show a sort of sensitivity, noticeably in the former with a sing-song riff that hardly even sounds like guitar (and may not be). The last three songs are also solid, even if they serve to wind down the thrilling energy of this album. Once again, I recommend the extended version, if only for the magnificent "Never Lose that Feeling/Never Learn", the former being instantly memorable and the latter half counting among the best saxophone instrumentals I've heard. "The Hitcher" is equally strong. Mezcal Head was a step forward for a band that just needed to give their attitude a higher position in their music. Highlights include "Duel", "Blowin' Cool", "Last Train to Satansville".
MY BLOODY VALENTINE -- ISN'T ANYTHING -- 9/10
I was lucky enough to see the deservedly venerated My Bloody Valentine in Bologna, and tried to cram in Isn't Anything to my music listening so I wouldn't be surprised by anything in the concert, but, as it turns out, the entire set was from the incredible Loveless and the, from what I've heard, solid if not revolutionary m b v. Now that I've had a chance to download the album and give it a thorough listening, I regret not having gotten around to it earlier. Allow me to make a point that is the opposite of that which I made for Jawbreaker - this album does not sound like the rest of MBV's output. That is to say, it doesn't sound at all like Loveless, their magnum opus, an album that redefined popular music. Where Loveless was a thorough reinvention of the musical framework, a melting down and rebuilding of the alloys that composed rock music as we know it, Isn't Anything is nearly the opposite. Loveless makes sure to fill in any open space and create a new world for us, but Isn't Anything is very hollow. It removes all excess and gives that which remains a new sheen and purity. If Loveless is Versailles, Isn't Anything is the Eiffel Tower - and empty cage in comparison to sweeping luxury. To me, it sounds more like Pavement (or Lo-fi band X) than Slowdive (or shoegaze band X). It's a brilliant album, nonetheless. Much like in its better known successor, brilliant hooks and choruses are scattered throughout, except here their laid bare and surrounded by metallic jingling and jolting chords, not the sweeping ambience and echoes of the likes of "Come in Alone" and "When You Sleep". These songs have a strange insistence to them despite their basic structure. Beautiful and earnest sung lines are carried aloft on wiry insect legs, and scuttle about without regard for convention. Isn't Anything is thus a much more aggressive album than Loveless would turn out to be, drifting along in it's own natural way, and it carries an energy that pulses through it from beginning to end. Meanwhile, the seeds of future MBV can be seen here. The loud piercing guitars in "(When You Wake) You're Still in a Dream", "Feed Me With Your Kiss", and "Several Girls Galore" hearken to those first screeches in "Only Shallow", while "All I Need" would fit in just fine beside "Loomer" and "To Here Knows When". Still, the differences are noticeable. I think "I Can See It (But I Can't Feel It)" sounds like it belongs on Love Tara rather than anything My Bloody Valentine has put out since this album, the there are few differences in quality. Highlights include "Cupid Come", "Several Girls Galore", "Nothing Much to Lose".
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Summer Album Queue
On tap I've got 3 more reviews of albums I got in Italy (via download or otherwise), plus potential reviews of albums I don't think I'll like and more "in defense of" articles. This is looking to be a busy summer, but we'll see how it turns out.
1. Different Class - Pulp
2. Parklife - Blur
3. Warnings/Promises - Idlewild
4. Ejector Seat Reservation - Swervedriver
5. Dig Out Your Soul - Oasis
6. Sci-Fi Lullabies - Suede
7. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
8. Indoor Living - Superchunk
9. Going Blank Again - Ride
10. Rusty - Rodan
11. Blur - Blur
12. Here's to Shutting Up - Superchunk
13. Half Smiles of the Decomposed - Guided by Voices 14. A Northern Soul - The Verve
15. Earthquake Glue - Guided by Voices
16. Heaven or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
17. Future Perfect - Autolux
18. Four Great Points - June of 44
19. No P or D - Ms. John Soda
20. First Edition - The Fruit Tree Foundation
1. Different Class - Pulp
2. Parklife - Blur
3. Warnings/Promises - Idlewild
4. Ejector Seat Reservation - Swervedriver
5. Dig Out Your Soul - Oasis
6. Sci-Fi Lullabies - Suede
7. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses
8. Indoor Living - Superchunk
9. Going Blank Again - Ride
10. Rusty - Rodan
11. Blur - Blur
12. Here's to Shutting Up - Superchunk
13. Half Smiles of the Decomposed - Guided by Voices 14. A Northern Soul - The Verve
15. Earthquake Glue - Guided by Voices
16. Heaven or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
17. Future Perfect - Autolux
18. Four Great Points - June of 44
19. No P or D - Ms. John Soda
20. First Edition - The Fruit Tree Foundation
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