Thursday Memoir – The Boss Delivers

What is it about Bruce Springsteen? I mean, aside from the blinding raw talent, sexy voice, ability to reinvent a genre as he creates it and the cute little ass?

As there are about 67,000 ways to write about Bruce Springsteen, this will just focus on his first two albums. Perhaps I’ll talk about The Rising and Magic in another post.

I didn’t grow up with the Boss. Not really. I mean, I’m sure my dad played him every once in awhile, but my father isn’t really the grandiose rock & roll kind of guy. He likes jazz and bluegrass and early Rolling Stones records, so I was surprised (and I bet so was he!) when I came home from my first year of college (in the summer of 2001) toting a Born to Run CD and a brand new little crush and he proffered in return copies of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle and Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, Springsteen’s incredible first two albums. Thanks, Dad!

I don’t really remember when I started listening to the Boss. I have a sneaking suspicion that I decided, upon arriving at college, that Springsteen was the kind of artist I should listen to, and probably bought a used copy of Born to Run.

Of course then I realized that Brucey was the best thing that ever happened to music. Why? He’s someone we can all agree on, and that’s weirdly comforting. Have you ever met someone who professed to hate Bruce Springsteen? How could you? He makes great music, donates huge amounts to charity, occasionally veers off on interesting tracks like his tribute to Pete Seeger, is humble without being cloying about it, has never been involved in any scandals where he has been discovered “performing lewd acts” in a London park (*ahem George Michael ahem*) and genuinely seems like someone you’d want to have a beer with. And all of his E Street Bandmates are equally talented, normal, and genuine. He cheated on his wife, but married the woman he cheated on her with, so he can hardly be considered a Lothario. Bruce Springsteen is an all-around good dude.

The only reason I can think of to hate him is that nobody does, a fact which I’m sure some people find annoying. Now, I’m all for obscure, weird artists and strange modes of new music, but sometimes you just need the soothing balm of genuine rock music with identifiable lyrics, and it is of course Springsteen who delivers every time.

I want to talk a bit about those first two album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ and The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle because I think in order to really appreciate The Boss, you have to appreciate these albums. They are explosions of The Boss’ best talents combined with the grandiose posturing of a young, brilliant artists trying to get it all down. I call Greetings… his I-think-I’m-Bob-Dylan record. He mumbles through dense, dizzy lyrics like Dylan, but does it with a rootsy, earthy electric guitar behind him instead of an electric one. It was released in 1973, and my favorite song by far on the album is “Blinded by the Light” (covered in 1977 by Manfred Mann, a horrible, bastard version of the song with the wrong friggin’ lyrics). The lyrics are a free association description of hazy, confused nights out and about in New York City (“Lost in the Flood” from the same album has a similar, if slightly more sinister, sound/theme):

Download Blinded By the Light

What I think is so great about this album is that Springsteen knows how to surround himself with talented musicians who don’t just play their instruments, they evoke mood and paint pictures with their instruments.

The haunting piano persists throughout the album is most acutely aching on the track “Growing Up,” which features one of my favorite lyrics ever (“I hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd / When they said ‘Come down’ I threw up / Growing up”):

(Incidentally, David Bowie did a cover of the above during the Diamond Dogs sessions which is almost a tribute to the original it’s so closely realted; it’s one of a very few Springsteen covers I can stand):

More use of instruments-as-paintbrushes: The gentle harmonica of “Mary Queen of Arkansas” evokes the lovelorn lyrics with perfect acuity, painting a heartbreaking portrait of a New Jersey boy under the oppressive spell of a hot and heavy southern belle:

Those songs above are flawed, unlike some of Springsteen’s later efforts (such as “Born in the U.S.A” or “Dancing in the Dark” which are, more than anything, perfect rock songs), but I like them for their enthusiastic flaws. Early Springsteen is an excited virtuoso and a little less-than-confident. An adolescent, eager to please. It’s lovely.

The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle – the first “official” E Street Band album – is a wild party of a thing, all blasting horns and electric riffs and throaty vocals and routinely cited as one of the best rock & roll albums ever. It’s a sexy, summer album, punctuated by songs like “4th of July Asbury Park (Sandy)” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” and “New York City Serenade” which are just perfect for the image I have in my mind about summers in 1970s New York. None of the songs are less than 4 minutes and “New York City Serenade” tops out at over 9, and in the hands of less capable musicians, that is the kind of thing that would make me want to yell about overstuffing songs. But like these songs are the slow burn of a hot and heavy East Coast summer, meant to be experienced with as little clothing and as much beer as possible. And they are simply perfect.

“Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”, which has the greatest break down of any rock song ever:

Download Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Whereas Greetings… is overstuffed with emotion and dense lyrics, The Wild, The Innocent… is overstuffed with feel-good horns. Somehow, in 1975, Springsteen brought it all together for Born to Run, which is just the perfect amount of dense lyrics and feel-good horns and riffs, but I think the first two Boss albums stand as a testament to an emerging genius, and show how the Boss got his groove.

So this is supposed to be a memoir. What did Bruce Springsteen teach me about life?

…

He taught me that Bruce Springsteen rocks. And that was a very important lesson to learn.

Vacation, all I ever wanted + Songs About Nashville

Hello chicas and chicos.

You may have noticed that I’ve been absent. I am working my bad ass off at two jobs securing spending money for my trip next weekend to Music City, USA itself, Nashville TN (and thence to Dollywood!!) and haven’t even had a chance to apologize for my absence.

I’ll be back on Thursday, May 22nd with another music memoir.

Until then, here are two songs called “Tennessee” and two songs called “Nashville.” I was unable to find a song called “Pigeon Forge” or “Gatlinburg” (where Dollywood is located), much to my own chagrin:

1. “Tennessee” by Silver Jews, possibly the best song about Tennessee ever (We’re off to the land of club soda unbridled / We’re off to the land of hot, middle-aged women):

Download Tennessee

2. “Nashville” by the Indigo Girls, a lovely song from their 1992 album Rites of Passage, which actually reminds me a lot of my time in Los Angeles, weirdly ( I came to you with a half-open heart dreams upon my back illusions of a brand-new start / Nashville can’t I carry the load / Is it my fault I can’t reap what I sow? / Nashville did you give me half a chance / with your southern style and your hidden dance?)

Download Indigo Girls’s Nashville

3. The classic “Tennessee” by Arrested Development. Oh yeah. I went there. And also, a cover by New Found Glory from a compilation called Punk Goes Crunk. While I’m not really sure you could classify New Found Glory as “punk” or Arrested Development as “crunk,” I kind of dig the cover, even if the vocals are, you know, a bit whiny.

Arrested Development:

New Found Glory:

4. Finally, one of the guiltiest of my guilty feminist pleasures, Liz Phair, applying her sexy, breathy vocals to her song “Nashville” from Whip Smart (They don’t know what they like so much about it / They just go for any shiny old bauble, and nobody sparkles like you/ But I can’t imagine it in better terms/ Then naked, half-awake, about to shave and go to work). It doesn’t have a lot to do with the city itself, but goodness is it lovely:

Download Liz Phair’s Nashville

Belated Tuesday Teaser – Dizzee Rascal Maths + English

Sorry this is late, guys. I have been burning the midnight oil at my other two jobs and have found little time to write.

I had wanted to promote this album a little because 1) I think it’s fantastic and 2) How many British hip hop artists (REAL hip hop artists) can you think of? I can name…Dizzee. And, um, Ms. Dynamite. So Solid Crew? The Streets if you’re really stretching the definition of hip hop. And that’s it. Sure, there are more, but those are really the only ones to have made it Stateside, and even their success has been at best, a modest fawning of indie rock critics and play on alty radio stations. Brits aren’t really known for the drugs-and-guns culture that produces hip hop, though I can tell you for a fact that it exists. In fact, knowing what I know about the grittier sides of London and Scotland’s cities, I’m surprised there isn’t more hip hop from Britain. Scotland: The most murderous place in Europe! True story!

Oh, and don’t mistake me. I’m not saying the correlation between hip hop and violence is hip hop music causes violence. I’m saying the correlation is more like violent neighborhoods will spark outcries for justice by any means necessary, and because hip hop is a pervasive outlet for America’s urban ghettos, it wouldn’t be too illogical to say that Britain’s urban ghettos might follow suit with the music that gets created. Not so, of course, and there are a lot more socio-economic factors at work here than I care to discuss. Dizzee Rascal is one of the exceptions, and his life story reads similarly to that of most American hip hop artists, having grown up in a gritty East London neighborhood on council estates (the equivalent of the projects in America); he was involved with petty violence as a teenager before being “saved” by music and having his frustrations about the poverty and violence he faced as a young person explode in fascinating hip hop tracks.

Maths + English, which was released last year in the UK and finally got its US release a week ago, represents a departure for Dizzee. Every single track on the album could be played on American hip hop radio and fit right in, aside from Dizzee’s thick London accent. Previously, he experimented with blip hop, hip hop over computer-generated noises that sounded a lot like what comes out of a Playstation (there were erroneous rumors he recorded Boy in Da Corner, his first major release, on a Playstation) and his first efforts could be lumped in quite nicely with The Streets and other UK Garage and grime outfits (I have to call it UK Garage, meaning the hip hop-influenced genre of music that sprung from Britain’s late 90s house music explosion, rather than just garage, which for me, refers to early 1980s rock from New York City).

Maths + English still has Dizzee’s signature awesome blip hop beats, as in “Flex,” which, if I may influence any Seattle-area DJs, would sound bangin’ on the dancefloor with the bass turned up:

But he’s evolved to incorporated some really rockin’ guitars, straight synth beats and some old school drum machines and breakbeats (along with the requisite sirens) as in “Sirens”:

There’s no denying that track has finesse and flair in its production, has something to say both lyrically and musically, and is pretty confident and comfortable with itself.

“G.H.E.T.T.O” follows the format of other hip hop artists bragging how hardened they are and how hardened you are not, and how close to the streets they still are:

I’m G.H.E.T.T.O
Please don’t act like you don’t know
I stay called up when I roll,
I’m a lot of things but I’m not slow
I’m G.H.E.T.T.O
Hot and still my heart is cold,
I’ve been known to lose control
Cause problems everywhere I go.

So, alright, no new and innovative themes here; but my point is that Dizzee is making hip hop that isn’t distinctly in a category of British music anymore (i.e. UK Garage or grime), and he is doing it with an agility as an MC and producer that isn’t seen much anymore.

The album isn’t merely brilliant for what I think is an ability to “fit in” to some Americanized radio-friendly hip hop while still retaining its individuality. No, there are new and exciting things happening in many of the tracks. “Temptation” features Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, and his vocals surprisingly lend a sense of gravity and seriousness over Dizzee’s furiously speedy spitting of the lyrics. Perhaps what is most surprising about this album is Dizzee’s lyrical agility. Personally, I’d like to see him and Twista get into a battle. I’m not sure who’d come out on top. “Excuse Me Please” is political and lyrically astute, about life in the London ghetto. It’s not a very cohesive album, but there is some amazing, innovative stuff here.

Finally, I want to give a wee mention to “Wanna Be,” the track that features Lily Allen. I can’t honestly decide if this track is brilliant or annoying. Allen’s voice kind of grates on my nerves anyway, but she is kind of cute here, except I’m not sure “cute” is what Dizzee should be going for. Except it’s fun. But annoying! Oh, I don’t know. Critics were similarly split with about half the reviews I read picking it as their favorite track and one reviewer describing it as “the worst assault on my ears in 2007.” I’ve listened to it like 6 times since I bought the album, so there must be something there, but I have to admit I sort of listen to it the way I listen to a track from Fergie Ferg, because it’s kind of a tranwreck. Here it is, decided for yourself:

Download Wanna Be

Read the Pitchfork review of the album.

Random Sunday – 5 Bands I Hate

Inspired by this post on the LAist website, which was in turn inspired by this Yahoo list, I give you the top 5 bands I can’t stand. (By the way, the LAist blog post is worth a gander, as the author has the exact same feelings about Morrissey as I do. We worship the guy and yet can’t deny that he’s a douche. And yet, I also can’t deny that being a douche is part of, you know, being Morrissey, and that if he were suddenly not so damn cantankerous everyone – especially the NME – would be extremely perplexed. As much as I would love to see the NME’s cover story “Morrissey likes stuff!!!” being a douche is part of being Morrissey, I guess. But it’s still kind of annoying).

This is not a list of obvious choices. Creed? Yeah, they are annoying, and way too easy a target, and not as popular as they used to be. Everyone hates Creed (RIGHT? If not, the world I choose to live in is one where everyone hates Creed). So here are a list of other annoying “rock” bands.

5. Nickleback
Like Creed, they are probably an easy target, and yet they are still one of the biggest-selling rock bands ever. I blame them for Daughtry and regardless of whether or not I am correct to do so, I blame them for the horrific Buck Cherry. But more than that, I blame them for writing “Rock Star,” a terrible song with kind of an awesome video so catchy that now that I have written the words “Rock Star,” I have it stuck in my head. Damn you, Nickleback, and your stupid, benign, gentle Canadian rock, because it sucks. And it’s in my head.

4. Creedence Clearwater Revival
Note to John Fogerty. You were not born in the deep south. You are, in fact, from Berkeley, California, land of privilege. You never worked on a riverboat and you have never lived on the streets. There’s a reason that Tina & Ike Turner’s version of “Proud Mary” is better, and it’s because they can sing misery and the promise of freedom like they’ve lived it. Because they have. You were not “Born on the Bayou” and you are not black. You were notoriously assholeish to your bandmates and flaunted your so-called talent. Those might be decently-written songs, John, but you have no business singing them, and if your songs are only good when someone else sings them, you should be writing for Disney movies. Also, your voice is boring. I hate you because every time I go to a party, no matter what the age of the party-goers, songs of yours get lumped into the pile of music that gets played because people assume that no one hates Creedence, or – and I hate this too – CCR. Well, I do. I hate them.

3. Sublime
I was at a party last night and “Summertime” by Sublime came on. “Damn it,” I said. “I hate Sublime. Why were they ALWAYS on the radio when we were in high school? They suck.” My Northwest-raised companions looked at me like I was nuts and admitted they were not super-familiar with the song. “But ‘Date Rape,’” I said. “Why in the effing hell did we sing along to that song? It is actually about date rape and then prison rape. Why was that on the radio? It’s gross.” They shrugged. “I only knew it because my brother’s band at Stanford played it,” said one. The other friend gave me a look like she didn’t know what I was talking about. So, I think my hatred of Sublime is directly related to growing up in California, where they were an inescapable part of listening to the radio. Their easy-breezy reggae/Latin inspired rock was, to me, both vapid and occasionally gross when I was a teenager, and now that I listen to it as an adult, I find it vapid, gross, unoriginal, and, I assume, one of those things you have to do a lot of drugs to appreciate. If you have to do a lot of drugs to appreciate something, it’s not good, because I’ve seen people who are high on pot eat a lot of Funyuns. Sublime are the Funyuns of rock.

2. Radiohead
I’ll admit that I am probably wrong on this one. Radiohead are probably not my problem. My problem is with their fans and with rock critics, who treat Thom Yorke like he is the second coming of Jesus. But from the very first moment I heard “Creep” way back in the mid-90s, I wrote them off as, well, whiny. And that song is undeniably whiny and bad, as is “Fake Plastic Trees.” Since then, I am told they have produced some brilliant albums, none of which I have listened to. Sorry! I have had so many people tell me that I cannot call myself a music snob without an avowed love for Radiohead and their awesome lyric-writing that I just can’t pick up a Radiohead album without feeling like I am only listening to it because I’m supposed to. Well, I can and I do call myself a music snob even though I hate Radiohead for no good reason. Screw you.

And the rock band that annoys me the most is:

1. Pearl Jam
The 90s produced some excellent music made by low-voiced men who mumbled in low-tones. Pearl Jam and their annoyingly long-haired front man Eddie Vedder were not one of those bands. First of all, all of their songs sound exactly alike, even when they are covering “Last Kiss,” a song that was stupid in the 50s and even more stupid when Pearl Jam covered it in the 90s. Second of all, having a kind-of-creepy-low-toned voice and singing about misfits should get you one hit, maybe. I’m thinking of like the Crash Test Dummies (and “Mmm Mmm Mmm”) here. And yet! Pearl Jam have had hit after hit after bloody stupid hit. “Jeremy” was a mildly interesting song, kind of angry and different. “Daughter” was sort of the same song, but also passable as 70s-throwback stoner rock, but barely. They already sounded stale and that was only their second album. They were played all over the radio, sold out concerts, and won an AMA award for best “hard rock artist.” HA HA HA. Then Time put Eddie on the cover of its magazine as the poster child for grunge in October 1993, and that is the moment when grunge died, not on April 5th 1994 when Kurt Cobain was found dead.

The 90s should have been it for them! I’ve seen them live! They are just as boring live as they are on the radio! And they have sold 30 million albums!!! Ach, the whole thing just makes me so angry my eyes cross.

As if that weren’t enough they released live CD after live CD, inundating the music market with wasted space that could have been used for, like, an actually good band’s album. Now Eddie Vedder has a solo album, which will no doubt be exactly the same as a Pearl Jam album, and has released a single with BEN HARPER, the least rock & roll artist ever (granted, that single was in support of Iraq veterans, and it’s nice that Eddie gives a lot back, but could he please do it with BETTER MUSIC?).

Saying “I hate Pearl Jam” isn’t really new and inventive. Google it, and a whole bunch of blog entries come up, along with fan backlash, but since they still have fans, it needs to be said. Pearl Jam sucks.

***

It’s funny, I didn’t realize I had such bile for music stoners listen to. I’m sure the stoners have no bile for me, but I also just wish there weren’t a whole segment of rock dedicated to making boys who smoke a lot of weed happy. I rarely listen to anything that isn’t Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Costello or punk made between the years of 1968 and 1981, and that is pretty much the reason why. Stoned people, with the exception of the Beatles, do not make good music and they do not listen to good music. So there!

Thursday Memoir – Camera Obscura & Love at First Listen

Winter 2003-2004 was a moment in my life where I felt things I am almost certain I will never feel again. I was attending Oxford in my senior year in college, being challenged in ways I haven’t been since both academically and emotionally. I was carefree, happy, full of warm fuzzy feelings for the dreaming spires surrounding me, the friends that had come abroad with me, and the friends I had met in Oxford.

I was listening to a lot of Belle & Sebastian and the Smiths at the end of 2003; winter in Oxford can be dreary and lonely if you’re not among the students who leave after Michaelmas Term has completed, and since home for me was 7,000 miles away, I didn’t go home. Belle & Sebastian’s sardonic sunniness and The Smiths’ downright miserablist vibe went well with the very short days and very long amounts of time I had in which to do very little. Not to say I was unhappy. On the contrary, but there’s something about southern England in the winter that simply demands irony.

I was taking a film-as-lit course with an instructor who sent me to the outskirts of town to retrieve strange and disturbing Dutch films and since term had ended, I went almost every day to rent new, non-disturbing movies. It was a haul, but worth it, because I could get American and European indies that weren’t available at the bodega down the road from where I lived.

One rainy winter day I was trudging my latest bunch of movies back up to Summertown and browsing for a new selection of time-killers. I smiled at the terminally bored video clerk.

And then I heard it. Well, to be specific, I heard this:

Camera Obscura’s “A Sister’s Social Agony.” It was beautiful! The voice! The voice!

I loved it; immediately I had to own it. I asked the clerk who it was. Camera Obscura, he told me, a Glaswegian band kind of like Belle & Sebastian. I hopped on a bus headed back to the centre of town and to the nearest HMV and purchased Underachievers Please Try Harder, Camera Obscura’s gorgeous second album. Frankly now, knowing what I do about them, I’m surprised that it was carried in a large, Oxford HMV. But there it was. I bought it, took it home, and thus began what is still an intense love affair.

Though they have a lot in common with Belle & Sebastian (and their first single from 2001 “Eighties Fan” from their first LP, Biggest, Bluest Hi-Fi, was produced by Stuart Murdoch), Camera Obscura are absolutely, positively not Belle & Sebastian. Gentle charms and harmonies combined with lovelorn lyrics, Traceyanne’s gorgeous, evocative vocals, and some kickass strings. I listened to the album over and over and over again, walking to and from town, on the bus to Summertown, wherever I could. I fell in love, completely, utterly, totally with that album, and tumbled into Camera Obscura hard and fast (it should be noted that there was a boy, too, and my feelings for him, for Camera Obscura and for Oxford are utterly, completely entwined in this massive ball of love). “Knee Deep at the NPL” became a mantra. I can hear you calling / to me in the morning / How could I be falling in love with you?

“Let Me Go Home,” too, with its doo-wop flavor and pretty male vocals (Traceyanne became the sole singer from 2006 on, but I happen to think the male vocals on this album are very nice and bring a nice contrast) had me bopping along from winter into spring into early summer, feeling like every single color shined bigger and brighter. Underachievers was the soundtrack to one of the best periods of my life, fitting in perfectly with the academic, European carefree life I was leading.

In summer 2004 I moved to Southern California, and missed Oxford, college, and that pesky boy more than I ever thought I could miss anything. Camera Obscura were so evocative of the place that they brought me comfort in a very turbulent time in my life. I was excited when they decided to tour the US in support of Underacheivers, and caught their very first US gig ever in San Diego at the Casbah. It was…awkward. They were clearly uncomfortable performing live and the audience consisted of me, my two friends, and four very large dudes who seemed extremely out of place. There are a few other indie kids hanging about too, but mostly the room was fairly empty. I didn’t care. I cried the entire way through the concert, the emotion of seeing them live overwhelming me with joy and nostalgia.

It’s weird how an album can become tied into your feelings about a person or a place or, in this case both. For me, listening to that album now is difficult, because I am positive the kind of optimism it represents for me has long-since died, and it’s a bittersweet feeling that overcomes me now. I still think it’s a fantastic piece of indiepop, but you will rarely find me listening to it. It’s still too emotional, even 5 years later.

So a question I would like to pose: Did this album come at just the right moment because of fate, or because I was open to it? If I heard it four months earlier, or later, would I have thought it pretty but not paid much attention?

Sex and the City style question: Is music like love? Do you have to be open to it? And does that mean that my first, real, adult love (Camera Obscura), will forever be the litmus by which I measure all subsequent music crushes? Hrm?

Luckily, Camera Obscura continue to release brilliant, acoustic indiepop that transcends anything, in my opinion, that Belle & Sebastian ever did. Ending on an uplifting note I saw them again here in Seattle in February 2007 at Neumo’s in support of their universally-lauded 2006 album Let’s Get Out of This Country. The house was packed, the band were – in my own words, later, to a friend – “resplendent” and I didn’t cry this time. I smiled the whole way through, a big, big grin, as my heart swelled and I felt a little proud that this UK band I had discovered in some out-of-the-way video shop in Oxford before they had ever released anything major in the US, were suddenly playing to packed, enthusiastic crowds in Seattle. It gave me a little bit of a thrill, and a lot of contentment.

Tuesday Teaser – This Is Ivy League

I am privileged to work with someone whose love of music almost outweighs mine, and today she came into my office with “This will make your day.” And it did, so today I bring you This is Ivy League.

I had planned today to write about Dizzee Rascal, but he can wait until the weekend. Instead, allow me to introduce you to Ivy League, some very adorable Brooklyn twee pop scenesters. I know, I know. It sounds overly arch, and it probably is. They wear sweater vests on the album cover and sing about Japan. Normally I would say, “Eh. Decent indiepop, if you want to listen to some faux Belle & Sebastian” but there’s just something about Ivy League that break the mould of happy, clappy indiepop. Not to say they aren’t happy and also clappy. Consider “The Richest Kids In Town”:

Goodness. That is some well-produced, funny, slick indiepop. That lovely, punchy rhythm section added to the Belle & Sebastian-eque horns make for some great music for this time of year, with the promise of summer looming just over the horizon.

This is Ivy League is their first full-length album. Both of the boys in the band – Alex Suarez and Ryland Blackinton – are from a band called Cobra Starship. Hrm, you are thinking. Cobra Starship. Vaguely familiar…

…Remember Snakes on a Plane? Remember the theme song, “Bring It (Snakes On A Plane)”? No? Well, you are a better person for it. That song – admittedly the only Cobra Starship I’ve ever heard – is patently awful. So imagine my surprise when the people behind brilliant lyrics like “Times are strange / We got a free upgrade for snakes on a plane / Fuck ‘em, I don’t care. / Bought the cheap champagne, we’re going down in flames, hey” were also behind these fantastic ditties called “A Summer Chill” and “Visions of Tokyo” respectively.

I tend to think most indiepop sounds relatively alike, and it usually does. Maybe if I had heard Ivy League three months ago, when the album came out, I would have been underwhelmed. But at the moment I think that “The Richest Kids in Town” will be Spring’s new anthem and I expect I’ll be listening to them all season, or until I drench myself in summer hip-hop.

Slight break

Hello,

Nothing really came to mind when I thought about what I wanted to write about this weekend – so I’m breaking until Tuesday when I’ll review a new CD.  I didn’t want to force anything.  Hope everyone’s weekend went well!

Thursday Memoir – Green Day’s Dookie Album

Oh, Green Day. This entry will contain no critical analysis of lyrics or musings about the band’s import to my love or sex life.

Really what can you say about Dookie other than “wheeeeeee!” That friendly pop-punk – so much less cynical than the pop-punk bands that came after Green Day, like Blink 182 – was just a little taste of fun in 1994.

Post-grunge but pre-emo, Green Day were a Bay Area band and I was a Bay Area preteen. They were angry about something I didn’t understand and I was angry because I was 12. It was a perfect match. I loved them and wrote them fan letters and maybe even stalked them a little.

Mostly I’m writing this entry because the Thursday Memoirs have been about sexuaity, or love, or a developing sense of self. But you know what music is to me? It’s a fucking good time. And maybe if there were any lessons in Dookie it was “Kristin, don’t take yourself so seriously! Let loose!” And so that’s what this album means to me still. I know it touches on much deeper issues of problematic teenage drug use, sexuality, and anxiety disorders, and if I had been a 17 year old bisexual, agoraphobic stoner boy in 1994, I might have had a heartfelt, sincere emotional response to the record. But I was a pretty normal 11 year old girl. And to me, the album meant that me and my two 7th grade best friends could jump around madly and write love letters to Billie Joe, Tre Cool and Mike. I appreciate it now as a real punk album – one of the very few mainstream punk albums from the 90s, and I’m actually glad that songs like “Coming Clean” (about Billie Joe’s bisexuality) were around for kids to identify with. And I think it’s fantastic that they actually played this stuff on the radio, because it’s pretty risque. The songs are passionate without being practiced, accessible while still being artistic.

I am inclined to post songs that weren’t singles off this album since now – 14 years later (can you believe it?!) – you still hear most of the singles on the radio all the time.

So the very first track on the album is “Burnout” and it starts with a bang. Two quick drum shots, then guitars and vocals. It’s about…a burnout. Like I said, there isn’t really a lot of analysis necessary here.

It’s actually really a sad song, lyrically, as most of the songs on the album are (though who can deny the bittersweet hilarity of the lyrics of “Longview,” specifically “When masturbation’s lost its fun you’re fuckin’ broken”?).

“Pulling Teeth” was always my favorite song on the album. It’s kind of a horrifying song about the narrator being horribly abused by his girlfriend. But it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it:

I also HAVE to post “F.O.D” because of that little secret song at the end, “All By Myself,” which starts at 4:09. Do bands still do the “secret song” thing? I get so much of my music digitally that I don’t even know anymore. Plus, I STILL blast “F.O.D” and yell “fuck off and die” when someone at work or at home has pissed me off. It’s cathartic. I love the song because it starts out kind of sing-songy and cute, and then the guitars and drums start blasting and the curse words start and you realize that Green Day is good for the rock & roll soul.

I hope you are all now painting your fingernails green and slam dancing. Enjoy. I would be interested to hear from anyone for whom this album was more than just a good time, but for me, writing “I *heart* Billie Joe” on my Jansport with whiteout was about as deep as it got with these guys. And, as I said, I think THAT response is also important and part of Green Day’s appeal. They were the boy band before boy bands for the rock and roll girl. But their appeal was their talent for being serious and fun, and serious fun (see what I did there?)

Tuesday Teaser – Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid

Someone whose musical chops I admire very much told me to give this album by Manchester-area rockers Elbow a listen just last week and lo and behold today is its US release date, thus its inclusion on this blog. I will admit to not knowing a lot about Elbow. I have Leaders of the Free World, their album of 2006, and I like it, mostly because of the strange, compelling voice of lead singer Guy Garvey, but I haven’t really sat down and thought about it. The person who recommended this to me did it on the basis of my love of Arab Strap, and I can see how the two bands have a certain sense of the miserable in common, but Elbow have such a lovely, dreamy-but-rocktastic, melodic sound to them, it would be hard for me to draw much comparison to the Strap. Like Arab Strap, though, they write beautiful lyrics, and I am glad they were rec’d to me.

The Seldom Seen Kid is kind of all over the place as an album, musically. Flamenco, country, blues-rock, you name it, its on here. I’m not entirely sure it holds up as a cohesive album, but there sure are some lovely moments.

The Spanish-influenced “The Bones Of You” is one of my favorites (“I love the bones of you / That I will never escape”). Lyrics of longing with that distinct musical flair. What is not to like? The song starts almost in medias res with a nonchalant “So I’m there” and then crams in this loaded, lovely little simile “Cramming commitments like cats in a sack / Telephone burn and a purposeful gait.”

The chorus soars above those Flamenco guitars and rich vocal harmonies:

And it’s you, and it’s May
And we’re sleeping through the day
And I’m five years ago
And three thousand miles away

Download The Bones of You

Amen to that. Fantastic, right? And it doesn’t sound like anything else out there as far as I know, which makes Elbow – even in their more miserable moments – somehow sunny and refreshing.

One of the other reviews of the album I read ends with the following assessment:

Those who find Elbow drab will still probably be unmoved by this Talk Talk-inspired band’s latest. But for everyone else who likes to be moved, relaxed, and cheered by superior, soulful Mancunian lullabies, The Seldom Seen Kid is essential.

That is probably a pretty fair statement. And yet there is something more than “soulful Mancunian lullabies” to be had on this album. That review gives the impression that it’s all slow, contemplative, and a lot of it is, and yet the solidly blues influence of “Grounds for Divorce” hints at a much more upbeat enthusiastic Elbow:

(sorry for the poor sound quality; not sure what happened when I ripped it)

I would say that based on my surface knowledge of Elbow, this album is probably their biggest chance to get really noticed here in the States. It’s smart, it’s catchy, it’s beautiful and it’s accessible. It is also their first self-produced album, and there’s a level of perfectionism here that’s been absent in previous efforts. To many bands (like, say, Arab Strap) that kind of over-production would make songs feel too rehearsed and static (like say on Arab Strap’s The Last Romance), but for Elbow peeling away their musical layers only adds to their dreamy charm.

Random Sunday – Jack White is a Genius

There are very few musicians I truly idolize anymore. Sure, I’ve had my moments, as detailed in this blog, with Adam Duritz, Billy Corgan, Shirley Manson and others I have yet to detail, but these days there’s less of an urgency about my musical obsessions. I follow careers, but I don’t cry at concerts anymore (true story!).

Having said that, Jack White makes me weak in the knees. He is a one-man entertainment machine, churning out hits with his main band The White Stripes and his side project the Raconteurs, while acting in movies (like Cold Mountain and a hilarious turn as Elvis in last winter’s Walk Hard), performing onstage with Bob Dylan, and producing that Loretta Lynn album, Van Lear Rose, previously mentioned here. It is rumored he did the vocals or possibly the backing vocals for a bunch of Electric 6 hits (like “Gay Bar”). He pops up on other records as well, often credited with a pseudonym, and he’s made a hell of a lot of money. He often plays his electric guitar like a slide guitar in the White Stripes, which produces a very distinct sound, and is, I think, going to be one of the things that rock and roll remembers him for. So, who else do you know that can hang with Loretta Lynn, make music to thrash to, make sweet country ballads, caught Renee Zellweger’s eye and can play the guitar like that? Yeah, it’s official. Jack White is dreamy.

Pop culture these days doesn’t get a lot of true musical geniuses. My theory is that our attention span has become too short and people who are or could be truly great are either relegated to the indie circuit, heard by a few fans but not the public at large, or never picked up at all because they won’t “sell,” but Jack White is one exception. Commercial success and true artistic innovation are hard to come by, and despite his eccentricities (of which he has many), his talent overshadows his strange personality, which is a very good thing in rock and roll.

I’m going to talk a bit more about the White Stripes than about his other projects, because I like them best. I love that WS are constantly reinventing their sound, but because of that distinctive way Jack plays guitars, and because his guitars are accompanied only by Meg’s drums, they always sound like themselves and never like anyone else. From their first album and the hit “Fell in Love With a Girl,” they were taking on a sound decades older than them and combined loud, fierce, electric guitars with American roots music and blues, to create a genre-defying first album White Blood Cells (they say they play “folk music”). That album got them the label of a “garage” band, and their success went hand in hand with the success of bands like The Strokes and The Hives. Remember that moment in 2001 when you thought “rock is back, baby!”? Sadly, it was over too quickly, though The Strokes are still around, it is clear that they are a garage band while the White Stripes are another – more expansive – creature entirely. I think that this was hinted at on that first album on the track “Hotel Yeroba,” which features acoustic guitars and a familiar, country-stomper sound. And yet White’s vocals somehow channel an old blues musician.

That kind of country/blues influence was largely absent from their subsequent albums, but the sense of wild, crazy fun was not, and I think that’s what I like best about both the White Stripes and the Raconteurs. They are playing good, fun rock music. The White Stripes’s most recent album, Icky Thump, revisits an Appalachian influence in a couple of weird – but undeniably awesome – ways. There is “Rag & Bone,” a spoken-verse song that casts Meg and Jack as junk collectors/con men. This is probably one of my favorite tracks of theirs of all time, mostly because of Jack’s confident, braggging, swaggering vocals and guitars, and the sheer fact that it’s just such a strange little song that I doubt any other band would have the chuzpah to include, especially on an album that also includes faux-Scottish folk and electric bagpipes (“St. Andrew (This Battle Is In The Air)”). This is range, people.

Download Rag & Bone

I think it’s possible Icky Thump is one of the great albums of the post-modern age of rock & roll, with its self-conscious efforts to recreate a – for lack of a better way to describe it – White Stripesian version of practically every influence rock ever had. Each song on the album is a tribute, and yet each song is also its own magical creation.

For that alone, despite the fact he’s not washed up and old yet, Jack White should be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame immediately. Of course, that is usually what happens at the end of careers, and I hope Jack White will be around for a very, very long time, creating more weird, awesome music with any band he chooses in any way he chooses.