theApologist
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Further Proof that Even Metal Can Make Valid and Even "Good" Albums:
Tool "10,000 Days"
From the better-than usual "Vicarious" as a 'single' (that actually DID get airplay despite its' 7 minutes and 6 seconds) to the transcendent "Right In Two", Tool returned from a four-year hiatus to deliver an album that is the usual: reflective, insular, and absolutely beautifully crafted songs. Singer Maynard J. Keenan actually plays the backseat driver on this one. His croons and howls merely ride shotgun to the rest of the bands' expansive, instrumental qualities. For once it can be said with some accuracy that at least this band is getting better as they get older.
Further Proof That Being a Living Legend Doesn't Preclude you to the Rolling Stones Syndrome:
Morrissey "Ringleader of the Tormentors"
You've got to hand it to Steven Patrick Morrissey. Most artists in his shoes would either rest on their laurels by collecting royalties or crap out banal song after banal album despite their impressive catalogue. Not the Big M: "Ringleader of the Tormentors" is a 'big' album with a lot of breezy melodies and shell-cracking refrains. Of course there is still plenty of the requisite Morrissey-an self pity (see "You Have killed Me" and "Life is a Pigsty"), but that is well balanced by supporting players and solid songwriting. This is supposed to be a "singers'" record but as far as I can tell this is a stretching exercise for Morrissey. He deftly spins narratives and cautionary tales without putting himself in the protagonist's role too obviously. This, of course, has kind of been the problem in the past.
The "Welcome Back" Award, Part 1:
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Stadium Arcadium"
After sitting through a stinking brown log called "By the Way" in 2002 I had very low expectations for this years' double album "Stadium Arcadium". Clever name aside, the new album is easily a return to form (of sorts) for L.A.'s favorite sons. While this is no "Blood Sugar Sex Majik" (which could have been a double LP itself), this tome is mostly littered with good stuff from guitarist John Frusciante. We have the usual post-90's somber reflection of "Snow (Hey Oh)", the cock-swinging "Readymade" as well as the pensive "Especially in Michigan"; all three of which are representative of both discs' varying moods. But the highlight is a truly indulgent latter track called "Wet Sand". All at once "Wet Sand" sounds like a lament, a ditty, a sing-along, a free jam, a confession and a eulogy. If the Chilis keep doing things like this they're going to have to become their own religion.
Most Deserved Hype:
Arctic Monkeys "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not"
Thanks mostly to a firestorm of internet buzz, this Sheffield, England quartet sold an almost unprecedented amount of records for a debut. The buzz went something like
"We think this is the best thing since the Beatles!" to
"Well, it's definitely as good as Nirvana!" to
"Fuck this rubbish – it's obviously useless kid stuff."
The Brits really are funny like this.
All the buzz and hype aside, the Arctic Monkeys (good Christ, what an awful name) do deserve most of the positive feedback. Their music is a hyperkinetic, energetic mix that is amazingly lyrical. This is also quite astonishing considering that the average age of these blokes is 20. The Monkeys' are still very enamored with things most 21-year-olds are; that is, drinking, dancing and pubs, but the delivery of these narratives are unexpectedly sublime.
Case in point, "When the Sun Goes Down":
So who's that girl there? I wonder what went wrong So that she had to roam the streets She don't do major credit cards I doubt she does receipts It's all not quite legitimate
"Whatever People Say…" is a great first step by a great new band. I'll be very curious to hear what they bring us next.
Most Undeserved Hype:
Bob Dylan "Modern Times"
Look, I love Dylan. You probably love Dylan. My junior year English teacher loved Dylan. Hell, your mom probably loves Dylan. He made one of the best grow-a-beard-because-of-a-break-up album of all time ("Blood on the Tracks")! He has written anthems. He is a figurehead. He is an icon.
And perhaps that is the problem because he has stopped trying. This disc might work for a quiet dinner with your significant other or a sublime Sunday afternoon with yourself. But this is no work of a legend among mortals. The songwriting is overly simplistic and subdued. The singing is understated, even for the famously mush-mouthed Dylan. And the lyrics! Bob Dylan actually sang these words in 2006: "You've got the face that begs for love". Ew. Dylan is almost 65.
Sure, he gets cool points for name-checking Alicia Keys in "Thunder On the Mountain", but other than that, the critics who called this record "raucous", "unruly" and said that Dylan has "the piano pumping like Jerry Lee Lewis" are just tired and wrong. If the piano is pumping at all it sounds like it's pumped by a church lady.
Bob sings in 'Spirit on the Water': "You think I'm over the hill/you think I'm past my prime".
No Bob, you're just acting like it.
(Runner-Up to Most Undeserved Hype):
Tapes 'n Tapes "The Loon"
Buy Your Girlfriend This Album Before She Buys the Next Fucking James Blunt CD:
Cat Power "The Greatest"
Cat Power is one woman: Chan Marshall. And that one woman is crazier than any Fiona Apple you've ever known. But she also made a very smart decision and went to Tennessee last year to write a collection of songs that is intended as a kneeling homage to soul, which is pretty funny on the surface coming from a white girl from suburban Georgia. But Marshall also had the foresight to recruit veteran Motown players Steve Potts and the Hodges brothers. The result is an album full of a more accessible Cat Power as well as a deeper, more clarified, more meaningful record than we've seen from her before. Before "The Greatest" you could dismiss Chan Marshall as a whiny, high maintenance singer-songwriter.
Now you have to bow down.
The arrangements are lush, the vocals are smokey and the refrains range from haunting to heartbreaking.
Never Mind 'the Black Parade': Here's MUSE!:
MUSE "Black Holes & Revelations"
Finally England's Muse have shed the burden of "The Next Radiohead" and become, well, "The Next Queen".
Okay, maybe not Queen, but at the very least, Queen performing songs written by David Bowie with some help from Bono. This disc, the fourth from Muse, is a full-bodied collection of grandiose, empathetic and apocalyptic rock. Singer/Songwriter Matt Bellamy's vocals lend a combined effect of a forlorn Chris Martin with a frustrated Thom Yorke. Some of the songs own a U2-esque continuity, but Muse transforms their sound beyond this tired comparison, finally. Try the clandestine "Starlight", the angular "Supermassive Black Hole" or the epic, rattling "Knights of Cydonia". If the end of the world is indeed coming, in this album and the last, Muse has written the soundtrack.
Best New Artist:
Cold War Kids "Robbers & Cowards"
While the Cold War Kids have a good "indie" sound, the element that really makes this band a candidate for greatness is lead singer Nathan Willett. But what I hear is one strange thing: soul. And it is coming from Willett's writhing, deliberate lyrics. I've had this record for about 3 weeks, but I definitely didn't want it to go unmentioned because it shows the Fullerton, California band's potential to become a huge success. And by "success" I mean that they will write great songs and play engaging shows, not that they'll sell khakis. But they probably will anyway, despite lyrics about reformed-but-dead-on-the-inside alcoholics and burning hospital beds.
Welcome Back Award, Part 2:
Pearl Jam "Pearl Jam"
For the past 9 years Seattle's Pearl Jam (ever heard of 'em?) has flirted between relevance and obscurity. Sometimes they would rock your ass, sometimes they would let you sing along, sometimes they would invite Neil Young to jam.
Then again, sometimes they would play a subdued, quiet number like… "Sometimes", a track from 1996's "No Code" that should never have made it to an album, much less track 1.
Admittedly, I am a fan going way back. And I have followed them as far as any fan could. I eventually learned to love "No Code". I tried to understand "Yield". I appreciated "Riot Act". But all of these albums were a shadow of the PJ I knew in 1994. Gone was the immediacy, the tension, the angst, the teenage wasteland.
And then W. happened.
This record's theme comes from dissatisfaction with the current United States executive administration. The lead single, "World Wide Suicide" was written in direct reference to the war in Iraq. And apparently the momentum from that just kept on rolling.
This disc is rollicking, slow-burning, political, playful, earnest and a bit cathartic. It feels like this is PJ laying it all out there for us. Balls out. They already conquered the world in the 90's, now they want to have a say in how they are remembered by it.
Best Single of the Year:
Gnarls Barkley "Crazy":
Not a whole lot needs to be said about this. It is an infectious 3 minutes of hip-hop, soul, dance, psychedelia and some ominous lyrics. Cee-Lo Green and DJ Danger Mouse laid down an impressive collaboration on an unsuspecting world in 2006 and this single, along with the LP "St. Elsewhere", speak for itself.
VERY CLOSE Runner-Up for Best Single of the Year:
The Ark "One of Us is Going to Die Young"
Seriously, download this song now. You will not regret it.
Best Push:
Beck "The Information"
O! How the press loves Beck, as do I. A friend of mine said to me this year that Beck is the closest thing to Dylan our generation will ever come. And he may be right. But 2006 did not see the most compelling evidence from Beck. While "The Information" is chock full of the white-boy funk, electronic eccentricity, and a punk rock meets cowboy single ("Nausea), it is not the all-encompassing album I was hoping for. Beck didn't gain anything here and he didn't lose anything. He played a hand and pushed. This is kind of a shame because any album with "Strange Apparition" on it deserves to be a classic.
Welcome Back Award, Part 3:
Deftones "Saturday Night Wrist"
Sacramento's Deftones have always been a sort of embattled collective. They came of age in the industry when bands with a barely-similar aesthetic, like Korn and limp bizkit, were using Top 40 to remind teenagers to be alternately moody and aggressive. But the Deftones were always hinting that they had more value, somewhere, just under the surface. 2000's "White Pony" finally delivered that value with multiple, marauding, ominous tracks that were heavy but still surprisingly literate. In 2003 the band released a self-titled train wreck that left me just scratching my chin. It was loud and heavy and that was about it.
On the heels of that regrettable album comes this year's "Saturday Night Wrist", a more appropriate sequel to "White Pony". 'Wrist' brings back the Deftones that I once knew and more: a bit more sophistication to go with the visceral. Veteran producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper) mixes the album perfectly, layering those loud guitar tracks with enough space for Moreno's vocals to tear and glide through it.
Try the expansive "Hole in the Earth", the cathartic "Combat" or the theatrical "Kimdracula". Also, the Deftones score bonus points on this one for titling an instrumental track "U, U, D, D, L, R, L, R, A, B, Select, Start". If you don't get it, you're not old enough to remember Nintendo's "Contra".
Best Covers Album:
Bruce Springsteen "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions"
The Boss rounded up 13 musicians to record his only covers album to date. The songs are all folk standards penned by the legendary Pete Seeger. If that name doesn't ring a bell, some of the songs certainly will. Bruce does proper versions of all these American classics, but especially "John Henry", "Old Dan Tucker" and the poignant "O Mary Don't You Weep". Enough said.
Best Album of 2006:
Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Show Your Bones"
The Yeah Yeah Yeah's sophomore LP proved many things. The most important being that it revealed that singer Karen O is clearly in control of this band's direction. Each song sounds like it was crafted specifically for Karen's vocals and rhythms. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, the lyrics themselves reveal this truth: six tracks in, Karen falls into a mantra that goes "Sometimes I think that I'm bigger than the sound/I think that I'm bigger than the sound".
This is a good thing.
It is clearly evident on the defiant "Honeybear", the ponderous "Cheated Hearts" and the anthemic "Turn Into" which stands as a suitable companion piece for their break-out hit "Maps". But the true test of this, the best album of the year, is manifest on the key track "Phenomena". The shuffling beat in the beginning moments of the song set a cadence that continues throughout as Karen bubbles and bursts in a cagey rollercoaster of verse-versus-chorus that is just downright delicious.
"Show Your Bones" doesn't have the bathroom stall kind of grime that 2003's "Fever to Tell" had. With this album the YYY's try to dig a little deeper with varying yet impressive and curious results.
Okay, here's my new habit. Lately I have taken to driving aimlessly, especially on any open road and listening to the Band. There is something enriching in this little ritual and in the end I feel free, content and even redeemed.
Of course, I haven't actually driven aimlessly purely for that motive. That would be weird, right? But I want to.
I can't really understand why I've been sucked in by this band NOW. I've certainly heard their material before and always brushed it off like they were just a collection of extraneous hippies that churned out nostalgic, stylized versions of C&W jams. The worst part of the hippie perspective on this particular band is that this bands' body of work is treated as the holy grail of post-60's rock and roll. And to tell you the truth, I always prejudged their music based on their base: those self-praising, aggrandizing burnouts; so proud to have been a part of something that anyone would have been fortunate enough to be a part of if only they had been BORN soon after WWII.
For the past 10 years or so I have come into contact with the Band's catalogue a few times, in limited contexts, and I always came away with the same conclusion: this is music hugely lacking dynamic and is written and performed for guys who were too depressed to do anything but check out during the 70's..
I mean, until recently I couldn't even imagine this music to be stimulating even on the right drugs (prescription, of course ).
Obviously I have turned a corner on this. Yes, it's true: I must be a burnout.
The Band began in Toronto in 1967, but prior to that they performed in earlier incarnations as The Hawks and performed as Bob Dylan's backing band for some time, recording on the landmark "The Basement Tapes". Originally a straight-up rock and roll band, they were influenced heavily, among other things, by their employer, Mr. Dylan. The resulting aesthetic is one that is a somewhat muted rock and roll sound that is more accurately described these days as "Americana".
I've only obtusely understood the term "Americana", but have always felt that as obtuse as it may be, I still understood it. This term has been used more recently to describe bands such as Son Volt, Wilco, the Jayhawks and more accurately, Uncle Tupelo.
After listening to a lot of this 'Americana' I feel that the term is really just short for 'country for rock fans.'
You know, more like Hank Williams Sr. than Hank Williams Jr.
Or if you don't get that, perhaps a better analogy is "Music that is way more George Jones than Garth fucking Brooks."
Anyhow, the real irony with The Band is that they perform music that espouses this aesthetic yet hails from Canada.
You may have heard "The Weight" from The Band's "Music from Big Pink". Of course, no one knows it from the actual album, "Music from Big Pink". Most know the line "Take a load off fanny/Take a load for free/Take a load off fanny/and put the load right on me", but most probably know the line from "The Big Chill" or the Woodstock movie. But if nothing else, quite a few folks know the song from the 1969 film "Easy Rider" starring Peter Fonda & a walking quaalude named Dennis Hopper.
Perhaps it is because of "Easy Rider" that I refer to this music in a conditional context. I will say that when I hear "Up On Cripple Creek" or "The Weight" or really any given Band tune, I set the scene in terms that go something like this:
I wake up in a dingy apartment. It is hot. It is somewhere around noon. I am hungover, sweaty and certainly involved with the wrong woman. I poke through the place looking for perhaps some breakfast, but at the very least a cigarette. Finding neither I nose my way to the front window and see a graying Chevy Nova. Yep, it's mine. By scanning the place I can tell that the aforementioned she-devil is gone - for now. I take another look at the Nova and I know what I have to do. Start over. Hop in that sack of Chevy shit and keep whipping her until she gets me to another time zone. I hit the road, stopping only for smokes and a sixer - fuck the map. I'll land wherever God puts me. As I drive off on a mean highway into an oppressive heat, The Band's "Life is a Carnival" plays thusly: "You can walk on the water, drown in the sand/You can fly off a mountaintop if anybody can/Run away, run away - it's the restless age/Look away, look away - you can turn the page."
Nice, huh? Now I don't aspire to any of this really. I have certainly spent too much time of my young life in the throes of a hangover or two, and I certainly have been involved with a few women that could be described as "wrong". But I've never been in a position that would involve a map-less trek that involved drinking whilst driving, much LESS in a graying Nova.
However, such is the sensibility of "Easy Rider".
So it must be this that I see in the music of The Band: Irredeemable Freedom. That starting over type of freedom that is completely selfish yet very, very necessary.
Comments
Well, I listened to an album and a half of the Band tonight, The Band and the first half of Cahoots, so feel compelled to respond. But don't know what there is to say. This was great music, and I think it peaked halfway through the second album, when they brought in Van Morrison to sing on 4% Pantomime. A great song, one good vocal duetted with a better one, Van dominating. But they weren't a band of ego, they'd spent years backing Ronnie Hawkins and Dylan, they were never truly dominated because the finished track was all that counted. Whoever was on it was in the band.
They were the Hawks when they worked for Ronnie Hawkins, but by the time of the Basement Tapes they were the Band. And at that point, for their purposes at least, I think whatever was recorded or played was the work of the Band. Whoever was there, Dylan or not. They didn't seem to care who sang. Of course if it was a Dylan song they were his band, the democracy fades at that point, he was not only a star but the preeminent songwriter of his era, but the music they play together gives no impression of elitism. In fact, the term The Band seems to get turned from meaning something generic - any band - to meaning something hyperbolic, The Band. And they earn it.
"those self-praising, aggrandizing burnouts"...Hey I've been typecast! Stagefright, and soooo many great songs by The Band go through my head continuously.... Ever seen "Festival Express"?, the DVD catches them at some of their best/worst moments... http://mog.com/B42/blog_post/11221
Why 1998 Was Good for Your Sex Life Written lovingly by Jeff the Apologist
January 2006
One of my newest semi-literary obsessions is a man named Chuck Klosterman. I've been reading his stuff for over a year, and I've found it to be so easy to read, so easy to relate to his personal narratives, that it feels almost guilty. His specialty is pop culture, which is, I suppose, why I tend to feel guilty, er, shallow, about enjoying some of his stuff. There is a decent Q&A about him here: http://www.mediabistro.com/articles/cache/a752.asp One recent column of Klosterman's focuses on a particular issue of SPIN that was published in the year 1998. He spins a narrative, as he is known to do, about how during the year in question he feels as though music didn't exist. That is, GOOD music didn't exist. He goes on to mention Marilyn Manson, who, in 1998, was at the top of his/their game, with “Mechanical Animals” and its' big single “the Dope Show’. Anyway, as is my custom, I read the aforementioned article whilst taking part deux of my bi-daily bowel movements. Generally I take great joy in relating, connecting and generally celebrating Klosterman’s witty insights. However, his recollection of that particular year in question did NOT agree with me at all. 1998 was interesting. It wasn’t a pretty year, that’s for sure. The Spice Girls were busy demolishing any semblance of feminism in the western world at the time and the Backstreet Boys were helping make a serious comeback for limp-dick boy band ditties that were expressly tailored to acquire baby-sitting money. Also, nu-metal bands like Limp Bizkit were making a serious blitzkrieg for hard-cock boy bands that played a bit louder.
And it all seemed like a joke.
I remember seeing the Spice Girls on the cover of Rolling Stone and thinking, “Jesus, this joke has gone far ENOUGH.” Whatever... I was 20. Naiveté is allowable at that age, yes?
But the joke had no audience. There was no one laughing. While Spice Girl fans were living in their Spice World and Backstreet Boys fans were soaking up the glory of the Backstreets, the rest of us were waiting for the punch line that… never… arrived.
Which brings me back to Marilyn Manson: MM was making a divergent turn at that point; from serial, dirty, pseudo-satanic shock rock to serial, slightly cleaner, Bowie-esque pseudo-Satanic shock rock. The difference being, as far as I can tell, was that MM was sporting a not-so-subtle package in his newly androgynous body sock. Anyhow, this all comes back to my inner monologue whilst reading my somewhat favorite author, Mr. Chuck Klosterman.
1998 wasn’t an awesome year either - but not obviously. Of course it would be hard to feel completely assured about a year that came AFTER 1997's “OK Computer”. I understand that.
But personally (and isn’t that how it usually is? – “Sure, 1990 SUCKED, but that was the year I discovered the Minutemen!”) I discovered music in 1998 that was so incredibly heavy, so different and new that I still listen with astonishment and dread to this day.
Case in point: sure I was enamored with the last proper album (and accompanying tour) of A Tribe Called Quest's “The Love Movement”, and there was 16 Horsepower’s' “Low Estate” bringing home the creepy bluegrass/deliverance vibe. There was also a strange band called 50 Tons of Black Terror with their “Demeter” that reminded me to fuck all and let the booze take over.
But in fairness, it wasn’t all sweet nothings on this, the other side of bubblegum. There was a LOT of pedestrian music going on: Tori Amos shat out “From the Choirgirl Hotel” like it was written in her sleep; the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion released “Acme” and all the critics creamed their jeans, even though the record itself was starkly populated with solid rock n roll; and Girls Against Boys put forth their one and only major label release, as well as their only real weak album, entitled, apropos for the times, “FreakOnica”.
But none of that mattered, even though all those records now reside on my hard drive.
I’ll tell you what mattered.
Jawbox released their final release/retrospective/live document “My Scrapbook of Fatal Accidents”, which included, thankfully, their impressive cover of the Buzzcocks’ “Airwaves Dream”. The ever-idiosyncratic Soul Coughing released their swan song, “El Oso”, which remains to be some of the best white boy funk that ever was recorded. The extremely underrated group Far released their “Water & Solutions” which ended up being way, way, way ahead of their time, and to this day, makes their influenced brethren such as The Used and Fall Out Boy and who knows who else look painfully transparent and one-dimensional.
That isn’t enough? Why is it I have to be the one to remind you that 1998 was the year that Jarvis Cocker released Pulp's “This is Hardcore”?? For shit’s sake, 1998 was the 12 month span that gave us the avant-pop that became the soundtrack for all of your future breakups... none other than Mercury Rev's “Deserter’s Songs”.
Okay, I understand: perhaps you’ve never heard of any of this.
But as I assure you that “Deserter's Songs” is both haunting and intimate and… FUCKING BRILLIANT, I will concede that it has absolutely nothing on the one record that was released during this year that my hero Klosterman decided to blank out on. In the year 1998 C.E., the best sex album ever was released.
And, no, that album is not something predictable like Barry White, or even something less predictable yet still delicious such as the Afghan Whigs’ “1965”. Oh no!
But if you have never heard the album of which I am about to reveal to you, you must, by any means necessary, you must, I say you MUST go buy this album, take it to your nearest lover and perform perfunctory sexual advances to its' serenading immediately.
1998 was the year that an album entitled “Mezzanine” was released by a group calling themselves Massive Attack. Massive Attack are the godfathers of trip-hop, and of course influenced those other secondary, yet quite worthy groups such as Portishead, Mono or even Sia.
“Mezzanine” is reason enough to reject Mr. Klosterman's assertion that 1998 is forgettable, even if it is for such a shallow motive as getting laid. Trust me: if it comes down to the Spice Girls versus Massive Attack, “Mezzanine” is getting laid tonight.
Comments
i agree! mezzanine justifies 1998! good idea about getting laid with this as soundtrack! trip hop to trip hump!
MOG Meter
Comments
I've got to say, that your mog started out interesting enough, but the lines through your words overrode my desire to continue. Might want to fix that, friend. You'll get more readers...
Nice. I agree with pretty much all of them.