Tom has graciously responded to my response to his "Hey Ya" review. It's all good. Let me use this opportunity, though, to respond to a few of the things brought up in the response and the comments thread.

Specifically: "whiteness." Now, I've actually addressed this before--I think that it's glaringly obvious that Andre's concern with The Love Below image-wise (so i.e. the album art and videos and so forth) was, at least in part, to play with whiteness as a trope or image or artistic technique, and to in some ways reimagine the history of pop music. You could worry, given the pre-release rhetoric Andre was putting out, that he had gone all serious-artist Prince on us, but of course, this turned out not to be the case. In making an argument about the debasedness of modern music by making music that was much better, he made a reactionary statement in a profoundly liberal way. Kind of like punk, he doesn't so much seek to recreate an old style as forge a new style by willfully ignoring or selectively interpreting decades of artistic history.

With the video, I think Tom nails it in comments:

The video is clever cos it's imagining - as I see it - Outkast as Ed Sullivan Show world-changers in a universe where black people got on those kind of 60s pop shows and where black families were watching them. Not knowing the details of Ed Sullivan this may have been the case anyway but I don't get the impression it was. It enhances the integration aspects of the song - which I do 'get', thanks Matthew, that's one of the reasons I like it - and predicts its own crossover too. I was just trying to speculate on what makes the song different and the nerdy thing is my best stab at explaining it.

Mwanji is right, too, in saying that the song and video are not being wholly white. This is true, but it's better for being true. Andre's not doing a reverse minstrel act, he's doing a reinterpretation, and it's amazingly effective. He's retelling the history of pop music with blacks as the dominant culture, which is what's white about it. Sure, the specific forms scream "white" but it's the setting and the audience and the implied economic positions--for instance, in a white-dominated late 50's/early 60's, a really hot drummer, black or not, could never perform shirtless on a TV program, but it's reasonable to assume that in a black-dominated culture, he could have, and all the performers are clearly allowed to be differentiated as individuals instead of being grouped in identical suits--that make it an alternative history. It goes beyond its most logical predecessor, Nirvana's "In Bloom" video, by not merely pointing out the ha-ha irony of placing today's libidinal, debauched music in the context of the straight-laced variety programs (a key sign here, given their clashes with Elvis/Morrison/Jagger et al over suggestive behavior), but by taking on the variety shows on their own terms, showing what was and could have been good about them.

In other words, Andre is retelling history with transparent falsehoods, and in doing so, allows us to reclaim it. Transparent falsehoods here being better than the half-truths one sometimes sees in revisionist history because they immediately stave off any criticism of their falsehood and ideological bent by acknowledging it and playing with it, and better than murky full truths by being a better and more understandable story. (By "better," of course, I don't mean more noble but more effective. And if you don't think there's something of an agenda here, well, I wonder what hip-hop you've been listening to.) Telling a plausible untruth that happily admits its artificiality gives us another narrative to choose from, another history to believe in when we're making the new, and in that it's remarkable. What's presented is a past where blacks participated openly in the mainstream, and one of the useful services that provides is to take black music out of the position of being always oppositional--which, let's be honest, is the actual position it finds itself in today, even if it continues to pretend otherwise. If the position of a MC or a R&B or soul singer is always that of being oppressed, either by the culture or by society or love, then it's hard to make music that encompasses the promise of change. Andre's vision--which is not trailblazing so much as being a perfect encapsulation of the tenor of the times--stands out because when most musicians, black or white, engage in the practice of criticism, 99% of the time it takes the form of mere objection or complaint: my life sucks, oppression sucks, the government is unjust, men suck, women suck, and so forth. Partially, I'll happily acknowledge, this is because complaint sounds so goddamn good in pop music: a rocker screaming about something or other is often really enjoyable to listen to, and, honestly, most of us spend a decent portion of our lives pissed off anyway, so we can certainly relate. But what's done far less often, and even less often well, is to express the possible good. "You could be free," for instance, is one of the best and one of the most common but, at this point, one of the least convincing. Andre's works in large part because so much of it is being conveyed wordlessly. The music just makes you want to fucking move, to do something, to dance around and sing and get out there and, I dunno, plant a tree or something. And the video imagines something in a way that is, as I say, not actually true, but possibly true. The vision is wonderful because it is so inclusive: everyone is in on this, everyone could dance, everyone could watch this show and feel some kinship with it.

Andre is here performing one of my favorite artistic/critical tricks: he is taking a joke literally, and what he's getting out of it is magnificent. The joke in question is the one about whiteness meaning power. Of course, it doesn't, any more than cookie = power; the fact that white people have most of the power in the world is simply an accident of history. But I don't think we speak about it that way. We speak of it like this: to be white is to have power, we must end white power, the image of power is an old white man in a business suit. But we speak of it in these terms because to not do so would be both silly and dishonest. Sure, it's an illogical thing, but it's still a true thing, and while there are certainly non-whites with power, that doesn't matter so much for rhetorical purposes. The concentration of money and power in the hands of one particular race, and moreover, one particular country, is monumentally unjust. For most people's purposes, whiteness does equal power--but it's true in the sense that a joke is true. It's honest, but it's not right.

But what Andre does is take it to sort of a logical extreme. What if whiteness' association with power really is this sort of purely accidental thing? It can't just be the skin, since there are many impotent and poor whites. What is it, then? Ah, well: the trappings. The signs and signals. The--maybe--culture. And if these things are the source of the power, then the power is very easily transferred. Hip-hoppers' bling-bling aesthetic, which reclaims Bentleys and Escalades as emblems of specifically black affluence, don't go far enough: Andre wants to go back and reclaim the history first, take all the symbols that morphed into our modern culture and make them (gulp) multicultural. More accurately, he doesn't want to colonize or imitate high-class culture: he wants to colonize the white middle class, which, of course, blacks have been doing for a while both in reality and in the culture (think the Cosby Show). But Andre takes that joke (middle-class blacks as just like the rest of us) and the joke about whiteness as a sort of secret magical incantation, a ring of power if you will, and rewinds it about 40 years, reclaiming the very image on which today's white middle-class bases its cultural memory and standards.

And ultimately, of course, whiteness becomes an incidental issue to class, as we all knew it would. No one claims that, the characters in, say, Bad Boys are "acting white" because they're acting rich. Same with your standard-issue bling-bling. (There's also the criminal element to it in the Mafia allusions, and criminals have always existed safely outside the mainstream, no matter the race.) But because Andre acts middle-class, it's white. And to me, that's pretty damn interesting.

(Yes, before you suggest it, I am getting Bloom's _Anxiety of Influence_ for xmas. And aren't you proud of me for not using the word "reinscribe" once? I hate that word.)

UPDATE: At Mwanji's request, here is my post about Big Boi's "The Rooster." Incidentally, the top post on his blog right now is a link to a great article about session musicians, and his commentary is real nice.
posted by Mike B. at 4:57 PM 0 comments

Sunday, December 21, 2003

Interesting manifesto.

Like it a lot, and it sums up some of my critical stances pretty well, especially in the value of dialogue and response and all like that. Translate "public space" to politics and you see how all my obsessions circle around and around...

Two points I'd disagree with, personally:

5. We do not reject poetry or art. We know we feel rapture and we know you do too, but we also know that rapture is individual and can't be communicated. Give us something to share, to discuss. Tell us how we might become intoxicated. Or intoxicate us!

Well...I do. Reject poetry and art, that is. I think they suck. Suck a whole lot. But I'm weird.

Regardless of their suckiness or not, I don't think they really live up to the standards being proposed here, since blogopoetics and visuals rarely elicit a response. Luke's poetry--if you want to call it that, which people do, so OK--gets linked to with a "this is great!" but no criticism or comment, unless I'm misrecalling. Sasha's pictures, though very nice, never seem to get publicly commented on at all. What else is there? Marcello's stuff, while certainly creative, is prose, creative nonfiction. Woebot (and TWANBOC before it) posted a lot of pictures, but they weren't originals, if I recall, and none of them generated much debate. Some bloggers don't write very well, but that hardly qualifies as poetry. I'm aware that this is just me being capricious here in part, but at the same time a big problem I have with modern art and poetry is that it seems to close off or severely limit debate. This certainly seems to be the case 'round these parts.

12. We think a meal or a bus ride can be as interesting as a painting or a record.

"...but almost never is," would be what I'd add. Sure, I'd read David Foster Wallace or Chuck Klosterman or Heather Havrilesky talk about buying tomatoes, because they are great writers and have that particular talent for being able to talk about almost anything in an interesting way. And you could certainly have a great, funny anecdote about a bus ride, or something really meaningful and fascinating could have happened to you at a meal. Or the meal itself could be really interesting. But almost definitely not. And hopefully you'll have the sense to know. But if you're unsure--well, just don't. For better or worse, very few people are David Foster Wallace.

I dunno. I tend to think human being as fairly uninteresting as human beings, which is why, for example, reality shows have succeeded by being extremely unrealistic and the best memoirs are the ones with lots of fabrications. (And diary entries get marginally more interesting with a good beat and riff behind them.) If some stranger is interested in your life, well, that probably means you should stop telling everyone about your life and start seeing a therapist and/or personal trainer regularly, because people are generally only interested in fucked-up lives. And regardless, it'd be far more interesting to see you engage with something outside yourself, which is what the bloggers who I read regularly do. (With the exception, of course, of my own personal friends, whose blogs work as convenient alternatives to regular e-mails.)

I guess this is just me being grumpy, but, still, it's something I've felt for rather a while.

posted by Mike B. at 6:33 PM 0 comments

Received this e-mail Friday.

Note the recipients list: a bunch of clearchannel folks and some other radio folks...and, uh, me. Kinda odd.

(decided to delete the full-text version in favor of page flow, but it's available via this link)

posted by Mike B. at 5:19 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 19, 2003

Sorry kids: I had plans for at least three more fairly substantial posts today, but work intruded. Which I am now kind of bummed about after I saw the size of my xmas bonus and, well, let's just say that I wish I'd taken a longer lunch today.

Anyway, I have to go try and scam Guitar Center now, but I'll type more pointless witticisms come the morrow.

posted by Mike B. at 6:20 PM 0 comments

Dear Radiohead:

Could you please make a bad record? It doesn't even have to be that bad, just, I don't know, a Let It Be to your usual Revolver. Because Hail To The Thief--well, we can't really tell how good it is right now, because it's not like OK Computer or Kid A--it's neither a surprising leap in quality nor a stylistic contrast with the previous album. But if you make a bad record, then a "triumphant return to form" will feel great for all of us. OK?

Oh, and I'm talking to you, too, Miss PJ Harvey.

...oh, OK, I'm not really talking to you, since I get indescribably excited about a new PJ Harvey album no matter how good the last one was, so carry on.

But seriously, Radiohead, four perfect albums in a row and we've got no context! Throw us a bone here, guys. Two in a row, that's OK, but four? We're dying here!

posted by Mike B. at 5:36 PM 0 comments

Sometimes I feel kinda weird about hating on Pitchfork so much, but then I read that some people really, really, really hate Entertainment Weekly, which seems, amazingly, even more trivial, so I don't feel as bad.

Speaking of the 'Fork, what's up with that top 50 list, eh? OK, the no Yeah Yeah Yeahs makes sense, as they hated the album (although I didn't see "Maps" in the Singles list, which is inexplicable), and of course there's no Liz Phair or Fountains of Wayne. But the White Stripes thing is objectively weird, even if they did give it a negative-in-tone review (which I had a few things to say about). But the real oddity is the omission of the New Pornographers album. They liked it, we liked it, and it just sounded better over time. Surely they could've found one album to bump to make room for Electric Version? I mean, what happened? Did you guys just forget it was put out in 2003 or what? I'm not going to even get into the ones you do continue to hump...

That said, William Bowers' entry on Radiohead is probably the best thing I've ever read about Hail to the Thief (although why they didn't let Bowers write the My Morning Jacket Entry is a mystery to me). But seriously, even if you've sworn off PF, go read that Bowers thing. It just nails it.

Incidentally, I once coughed all the way through a production of Krapp's Last Tape featuring John Hurt in the titular role. Presumably it was very good.

CORRECTION: The folks in question, in fact, like Entertainment Weekly. They just hate three particuarly writers, especially this one guy, which is, amazingly, even more creepy.

One of the writers in question is named Jessica Shaw. They suggest you write her editors and complain about her apparently unfunny column. Coincidentally, she has published a selection of her hate mail on McSweeneys, a page which for no good reason is no longer on the interweb. (See the link on the bottom of the page here for "Hate Mail To A Writer For A National Magazine." The feature is also referenced here, and other McSweeneys-EW conspiracy theories are noted.)

posted by Mike B. at 5:28 PM 0 comments

Fairly amusing VR post about Michelle Branch's recent appearance in Maxim. I'm not necessarily the biggest fan of this particular poster, but he nails it here:

In what I hope is the final gasp of pop stars unaware of what irony is, she has the interview full of quotes about what a "pervert" she is, how she watches porn all the time and wonders what's in some jock's pants and then bagging on Liz Phair and Jewel's latest efforts for reasons that I believe she believes are related to artistic integrity.

That's right...the ol' SH disses Liz and Jewel right next to pictures like this.

Pop stars will always be unaware of irony, in America at least--that's part of their charm, eh?

posted by Mike B. at 8:56 AM 0 comments

Thursday, December 18, 2003

Speaking of "The Message," man, that's a great fucking song. The production is great, which doesn't seem to get remarked on much. I'm especially crazy about that great triplets hi-hat thing that comes in at the end of some measures.

The lyrics are great, too, of course--"she used to be a fag hag" and "I might hijack a plane!" Surprisingly un-cheesy, even today.

Yeah, I know, that's obvious and all, but the track's always been one of those things I knew was good and enjoyed listening to but never quite caught the full brundt of before.

posted by Mike B. at 5:26 PM 0 comments

I just wrote this about Ghost Exits:

"They want to sound like Suicide backing Africa Bambaata--they even cover the Pop Group--but these Vice-magazine-humping trendhoppers really sound like Beck's developmentally disabled cousins cutting instructional demos for Yamaha circa 1986. Their local fame stems from drunken gig antics, which is like being renowned for being date-raped, so please, please don't buy this; it'll just encourage them further."

And I read it and thought, now, is that going too far? And then I reread and thought, eh, not really.

Links:

Description of the show in question.
Free Williamsburg interview in which you can see one member's horrible fauxstache and understand why I called them "Vice-magazine-humping":

Is there anyone in the public eye you want to say "you suck" to?

Chris: Right now the scene is pretty boring. Ghost Exits are probably the
only group around making any kind of serious music. It's all about money
everywhere you go. Listen to any record today, it's all just mindless drivel. Even a lot of Hip-Hop is getting this way. But at least these people are making some kind of discernible communication. Maybe I'm just wasting words, I guess most people would rather remain asleep. So yeah, I'd like to say "you suck" to everyone. Hollah.
Ivan: It's money that is really fucking things up. All these bands are so concerned with record deals and getting their record in the NYU dorms that they are forgetting that music can be a viable art form to express ideas.
Chris: No one has anything to say, or even a decibel of emotion. Maybe some of this will change soon.
Ivan: Well it has to change, really. The city is broke and the people are getting antsy for entertainment again. It seemed to me like the only people that go to shows of these groups are people who work in the music industry anyway. I think it was in Rolling Spin -- there was an article about some Bowery Ballroom show featuring interviews with concertgoers. The article showed the people's pictures with captions beneath singing the band's praises, as if it were taken from their press kit. As it turns out, 3 out of the 4 people interviewed actually did work in the music industry. Its kind of fucked up that all these bands are complete fabrications.

And what is the fascination with English music? We live in New York, why pretend we live in London. Even the softest NY bands from the past could beat up Interpol. Even Blondie. So basically every one is going to have to sharpen up and better music will soon follow.

Is there anyone in the public eye doing everything right?

Chris: I like Marilyn Manson and Donald Rumsfeld. Any kind of Hollywood,
children's story type of villain. They play their parts very well. But it's all a joke isn't it? Is there really a war right now? Or is it just something in between the commercials? I can't tell. I guess that's the way they want it. That's why they hire such good actors!
Ivan: Tammy Faye, and Snoop Dog are really great in the public eye.

"getting their record in the NYU dorms"?

Another interview with a different view of the 'stache.

Normally, as you know, I don't want to resort to harsh negativity, talking about the members' bios, or ripping on hipsters, but here, it's really just begging for it. And there isn't a whole lot else to talk about, since the music just sort of sucks and that's it. It's not good, not funny, and not interesting. Ah well.

posted by Mike B. at 4:33 PM 0 comments

MOCHIPET - COMBAT

Capsule review:

Mochipet's Combat comes from the Violent Turd label, which has put out, among other things, Soundmurderer's mind-melting mix of jungle songs and Kid606's set of fucked-with pop hits. Similarly, this is an MP3s mashup collection, and its mission statements is in the song titles: "Johnny Cash vs. Cash Money Millionaires," "Barry White vs. The White Stripes vs. White Lion," etc. But this isn't quite the normal mash-up set, as instead of simply combining unprocessed samples from disparate tracks, it's all mixed in with Tigerbeat6-style drill 'n' bass. So we hear Cash's cover of "I Won't Back Down" over a hip-hop loop, but then a stutter-blast of rapid-fire beats and sampled vocal bits is laid over it, so there's not only the song-spotting thrill, but the more traditional pleasures of non-referential electronic music. I love that crap, so I'm inclined to like this disc, but I think the song "Yes vs. NoMeansNo" endears me to it as well, as I didn't think anyone remembered NoMeansNo. The whole set is just a lot of fun, with a lot more replay value than most mashups. And really, it's worth the purchase price just for the They Might Be Giants track, which recognizes the hip-hop nature of "Ana Ng" and throws in the best accordion crunk ever committed to plastic.

Further thoughts:

The Nelly track is pretty awesome, too. That shit gets destroyed. They (the pronoun I've decided to refer to Mochipet by) rip the chorus out of "Country Grammar" and just take it on a goddamn burning airplane ride around beats already pretty harsh (it's paired with Venetian Snares aka Kakarookee) and then twisted into its own fucked-up beats. Those little shards of melody keep popping up in various guises throughout the track, and the chorus as a whole gets passed through every filter on the laptop, it seems. The interesting thing is that it really does seem melodic to me, although maybe to people less familiar with the genre it would sound far too noisy. Regardless, it's one of the best tracks on there, and it's maybe indicative that this is one of two cuts on the album whose mashed-up artists share no elements of their names.

The faux-Atari cover art is pretty goddamn good, too.

I couldn't quite tell if this was Kid606 or not under a different guise. It seems unlikely given that I think this is a newish release and he just dropped a (so-so) proper album, and when compared with the admitted doppelganggery of The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams, the Mochipet album seems far less weird, missing anything like the more abstract intro track and the fuck-you 15 minute slow decay of the Radiohead a capella of the latter album. So I'm guessing this is some Tigerbeat associate or other. Any suggestions?

At any rate, they're similar enough that it's useful to rope the two together when making broad comparisons. And the one that struck me while relistening to this last night is how different they really are from regular mashups, especially in terms of song forms: your usual mashup either stay true to the original's form (like the brilliant Metro Area/Eminem mashup Oh, Manchester posted a while back) or uses an existing pop form, or just sort of keeps going in a linear way toward the end (thinking here of Osymyso's mashups). These, however, start, double back, throw in a few totally unrelated bits, loop the chorus, take a two-second detour, and then, uh, just kinda end. But they still make sense, and a lot more sense than, say, any of Kid606's more abstract stuff. I don't know why this is, although I guess it probably has something to do with the aforementioned bits of melody floating through the mix that give us something to latch onto immediately. Still, I think it's really neat that they've essentially created these mostly new pop songforms that are eminently workable, even if I personally can't get my head around it for the life of me. Would that I could! But this sort of abstract use of hooks in the context of beat-heavy but rhythmless compositions somehow comes together in a really viscerally graspable way.

As for the Mochipet thing, it's pretty complex, and I'm finding interesting new bits every time I listen to it. Definitely worth a listen.

posted by Mike B. at 11:58 AM 0 comments

I guess I still owe a follow-up to the Stelfox/Tufluv dancehall NIIMBYism debate I commented on, but for now, let me just make one small point that occurred to me the other day.

Dave writes in his response: "It all goes back to the dilettante/purist debate carried on in the blogosphere a few months back." Now, this reminded me of that whole thing, which itself sort of goes back to a great Simon Reynolds essay. The problem is, though, that the enemy (so to speak, heh) is defining the terms. "Dilettante" is not a word with a positive connotation in most circles, whereas "purist" is, I think. (Although I note that Simon doesn't think so in that essay.) So maybe we need something else to call the former category.

How about "musical libertine"?

(Alternately: epicure, gourmand, pleasuremonger, rake, sybarite, voluptuary.)

Hey, someone should name a band "The Dilettantes"!

And wow, I had no idea "pleasuremonger" was an actual word, but holy crap, what a word!

Me? I'm a pleasuremonger. Or libertine. I haven't decided yet.

posted by Mike B. at 11:32 AM 0 comments

New business plan?

I won't comment too much, as I know most people aren't as interested in the practicalities of music-making as I am, but suffice to say the strategy described is an interesting and possibly workable one. The idea is that if you've racked up significant self-made sales a la David Gray or Damien Rice and can go to the next level of sales, exposure, etc., you can just take out a loan from a bank instead of effectively doing the same thing from a record company. This would help people avoid major labels.

posted by Mike B. at 9:37 AM 0 comments

And speaking of NYLPM, here's a great Alex Thompson post about Belinda Carlisle (good call man!) and post-hipster elitism (another good call!), all tied up in this ILM thread which would seem to sort of tangentially address issues I and others raised two months back in response to a response to a great Freaky Trigger article by one Jim Robinson. Check out that original claps post for a classique comments debate.

(Note: ILM article features a Dan Selzer post making the argument that the dance-punk scene springs directly from a bunch of 90's hardcore kids who knew each other, which is a kinda depressing revelation. Check it out.)

posted by Mike B. at 9:20 AM 0 comments

Tom Ewing gives an ambivalent take on "Hey Ya."

He's probably not referring to my earlier assessment of the song when he says: "I'm also sympathetic to the idea that if 'Hey Ya' is the start of something then it's the start of something lame: I'm no more looking forward to everybody doing a wacky guitar track than I am to checking out the Darkness clone bands." He could very well be referring to some ILM thread which I haven't read, as, um, I don't read ILM, but regardless, I can honestly say I'm not sure I've read anyone yet who hates it. Well, I guess that shows that you shouldn't listen to me on inter-blog feuds, and why I've generally stopped participating as much as I should...

But anyway, yes, I said that I think "Hey Ya" could be the start of something, but I, being I, thought this would probably be something good. But if I'm reading Tom right, we're suggesting two different paths. He (and apparently others?) seem to be assuming that "Hey Ya" will breed a bunch of hip-hop artists doing guitar tracks, which, I dunno, seems so obvious that it would mostly work out bad that I don't even know why you'd have to bring it up. Hip-hop guys have little talent for writing a rocky song like "Hey Ya," and indie folks have pretty much no talent for writing hip-hop songs. One of the great things about Outkast is how readily their songwriting can slip convincingly into other genres and songforms. But: I think "Hey Ya" is much closer to indie than hip-hop, honestly, and were (God forbid) a good indie songwriter to try and do a Prince- and hip-hop-influenced song, in the right hands it could go very well. I'm still interested to see someone try it. It's a good model.

Then again, I'm not so sure it'd be horrible for hip-hop folk, as long as you take out the "wacky," and really, is "wacky" really a prized asset in hip-hop these days? Guitar's been used productively in any number of great hip-hop songs, and maybe this is just a different way of doing it. But yeah, I have to admit that "Hey Ya" ripoffs would be pretty bad--so much of that song is being carried by Andre's charming personality that I can only see, eh, Eminem doing something like that well.

...ooh...

posted by Mike B. at 9:07 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 17, 2003

Good catch by QV: the new Courtney Love single is now available. You can download it and get a 15-day license or something.

I like it! It's nice and loud, which is refreshing. It's not as good as "Violet" or "Awful" upon first listen, but the lead single often isn't as good as the deeper ones when it comes to Court.

...er, OK, I suppose the riff is oddly similar to "Celebrity Skin," and she does ride it too long and too hard, but I really like the chorus. Really like it.

UPDATE: Eric E. says:

And this business about enabling. Take it from someone who knows, if you are in Courtney's life in any capacity, YOU ARE AN ENABLER. i'm talking website mod, recording engineer, producer, record label, nanny, chauffeur, guitar tech, drummer, etc. etc. etc. And you're going to get yours. I know. Cuz I did. I don't care how much money or glory you're getting from it now. The poor girl will not be Ok until you stop. Stop it all. Or you will have blood on your hands. You will have blood money in your bank. And you will get yours.
This is the way of the world.

Learn a lesson from Elliot Smith. Pray for him. Pray for Courtney. She needs that right now much more than gossip or enabling.

Peace.

Hmm.

UPDATE 2: Lyrics (may have to register).

Hey Yeah we had everything
Vinyl in mono
And we looked the other way
Man we were so dumb
Is this the part in the book that you wrote
Where I've gotta come and save the day??
Did you miss me??
Did you miss me??

Well they say that rock is dead
And they're probably right
99 girls in the pit
Did it have to come to this??

Oh God you owe me one more song
So I can prove to you that
I'm so much better than you
Oh god please listen fast
Here comes the crash
We're gonna rise above
We've gotta smash it up
You won't abandon us again

Give us brilliant boys that we wanna fuck man
Full of ecstasy, hard drugs and bad luck
Yeah yeah yeah
Turn the lights...back on
You burn so hard
But you won't burn long

Three chords in your pocket tonight
Are you, you the one
With the spark to bring my punk rock back now?
(I don’t think so)

Oh God I wanna hear you say
I wanna hear you say, that you're sorry again
Oh God you owe me one more song
So I could prove to you
That I'm so much better than him
Oh God I'd give you anything
To hear you say that I was right
And you were wrong
Oh God before I leave this life
Now enable us a lover
Hooker’s never gonna cum
Just give it back to me
Blow out all of the lights tonight

Two million miles down the PCH
And now he's gone
I slashed his tires, I bled his brakes
(It had to be done)
Their hand-job lives were just too cruel
You merciless villian
We drowned them all in their swimming pools
Run away, run away, run away yeah

Now God I wanna hear you say
I wanna hear you say that you were wrong again
Now God I wanna hear you say
I wanna hear you say that
I am so much better than him
Now God you owe us one more song
Get out of my life, See this world as it really is
Is it just a sad slide show
Can't make a hooker cum
Enable us a lover
I need one thing that’s divine
I wanna hear it tonight
Let me hear it tonight
I've gotta hear it tonight
You're gonna let me hear those chords tonight

Court's description of the song back when it was recorded:

there are FOUR that i would allow in the box- one working title "mono"
about the state of rock-
onl;y its far more graceful than dakota olympia or awful- in terms of its thematic structure0

arguing with god about girls raped in the pit and a fred murder fantasy about drowning them in thier pools and bleeding the brakes and slashing the tires and three chords in your pocket being futile-

i think its very evolved lyricallya bnd begins with the line we had everything- vinyl in mono

th elyrcis took me over 24 straight hours- there was pen all over when iw ent into the booth- and i went ina ty eight or nine am - after a long night- and only recorded three takes- with diofferent lyrical catchphrases etc
(snip)

we write what we know and here i am with the two best songs one a state of Rock where is God song and a 'crusing downt he sunset strip and theres nothing thats not within my grip tonight"

but fuck it- Springsteen writes about cars.

Ah, C-Lo-speak.

posted by Mike B. at 5:47 PM 0 comments

Don't stare: she is just like us.

posted by Mike B. at 2:59 PM 0 comments

Just had the in-office company holiday party. The food was good, but when we all sat down someone put on the Rolling Stones, who, needless to say, are not our artists. After a few verses of "Start Me Up" this was remarked upon and some Christmas jazz music was put on.

I hate my job.

"Is this [our artist]?" I asked the PR person next to me. She turned her palms upward in a way that indicated that she probably should know, but didn't. "I assume it's [our artist]," she said, "but I technically wouldn't know. I'm not proud of that, but you reach a certain point in being a PR person that you don't really need to listen to the music to promote it." I told her it was just a sign she'd attained a higher level of PR skill.

Later, a new signee came in and played for us. It was extremely elementary-schooly. There we were in a small room with the chairs cleared from the middle, in the early afternoon, with flourescent lights overhead and food and paper plates scattered about, sitting patiently while an earnest man with an acoustic guitar sang to us. No one really looked like they were enjoying it, and we did a lot of looking around at each other awkwardly. We didn't have to be told to clap at the end, but of course, that's sort of the point of a job: you just know you have to clap.

posted by Mike B. at 2:23 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Tom Ellard has a brainstorm:

I got an idea - a web cam chick with an antiwar blog. She'd be blonde with the chic glasses etc. etc. but maybe she could smoke a pipe. She'd always have something rude to say about Bush, but flash her tits. THAT would be the Internet summed up in one site.

Kind of like http://maddox.xmission.com/cam_whore.html

Heh.

posted by Mike B. at 6:41 PM 0 comments

What the hell? Did some Freshman Comp class get assigned to write letters to PF letter writers as a final project?

From: Josh2Face@aol.com
To: eppy@grendel.org
Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2003 3:44 PM
Subject: Xiu Xiu Rules - says 19 yr. old fan


Dear Mike,

In your open letter to Pitchfork, you mentioned that you believed Xiu Xiu's music could only be considered "brilliant" by adolescents who are living through the "tortued teen years" of high school. Unfortunately, I can't agree with you one bit.

I got into Xiu Xiu almost a year ago to the day when I purchased their first album, an album I think is the best example of quality Xiu Xiu. While the lyrics are the most talked-about aspect of the band, I think many reviewers miss out on how good the musicians actually are. Mixing industrial techno (a genre that's been repulsive since Trent Reznor's third album) with easy-to-swallow melodies, heavy doses of sonic experimentation, Joy Division-esque backbeat, and yes, even intriguing and thoughtful lyrics, Xiu Xiu are a band with few peers. Sure, Suicide did most of this stuff years ago, but c'mon, EVERYTHING's been done these days a million times over. Hell, Radiohead's first 3 albums (OK Computer moreso than even the first two) were retreads of the early 80's Australian indy rock scene.

I, for one, don't believe the lyrics are corny. I'd recommend seeing Xiu Xiu live to clear up that whole mess. Jamie Stewart is not only a hell-of-a-guitarist with a unique minimalist style, but he's got a very powerful voice with immense range. To see him pull off all the blips, bleeps, loops, and hisses using only his vocal cords is definitely something special. Also, if you happen to meet Mr.Stewart, you'll be surprised to know that he IS the real deal. He's extremely open about his past, one riddled with abuse and divorce. When he yelps about taboo sex and shouts about his tortured soul, at least he's delivering these messages first-hand, and not faking them like so many other goth rock stars.

I'd also like to say...Xiu Xiu is not for everybody and definitely doesn't seem like its up your alley. If a Joan of Arc album is as emotional as you like to get, I wouldn't recommend ANY Xiu Xiu record at all. This is stuff that is meant to be listened to only by those who believe in its sincerity. Jamie Stewart is not trying to reach out very much, he's well aware that the awkwardness expressed is going to leave some listeners confused. To the rest of us, though, that don't doubt for a second the emotion and honesty he brings about in his lyrics, Xiu Xiu have been immensely successful at being consistent and prolific. Their full-lengths, as well as their EPs and splits, have featured quality music that, in my opinion only, has steadily advanced from post-punk to post-electronic. Jamie Stewart is an excellent songwriter, one who uses many influences to craft music that has remained largely unheard by anyone, regardless of age.

This is not high school music, unless you go to a high school in SoHo or something. Crappy punk rock, nu-metal, brainless hip-hop, and shitty emo...all these things are popular in high school. But to try to argue that Xiu Xiu is meant for 16 and 17 yr. olds is absurd and completely unfounded.

Thanks,
Josh Goldberg

My reply:

Josh-

Thanks for your letter.

I'm a little unsure where you're getting this from my letter...it is this letter, right? From, er, August?

Anyway, the words you've got in quotation marks don't appear anywhere in my letter, assuming it's that one, and neither does anything implying the paraphrase you've got there. Here's the closest thing:

"The problem with focusing on all this shock and transgression stuff with Xiu Xiu is that it's super unconvincing to me and, I hope, anyone over the age of 17. (Not to say anything bad about them, but I know from, er, personal experience that this kind of stuff has more coin when you're suffering through adolescence, and that's cool.)"

So there's that "I hope," which clearly means "I hope but my hopes are cruelly dashed" since PF seems convinced by them and all their critics are over 17, as far as I know. It just surprises me, still, that it works. I guess I forget the whole extended-adolescence angst thing a lot of indie rockers go through. The point being that you didn't have to write me to let me know that non-adolescents like Xiu Xiu: I clearly knew that already. However, I still think the lyrics are at the emotional complexity of Nickelback (if at a certainly higher artistic complexity) and nothing I've been shown to date serves to disabuse me of this notion. I wasn't saying that actual high schoolers listen to it: I'm just saying that with an acoustic guitar and a rock beat behind it, they probably could. Y'see, unlike the PF folks, I'm not confusing my conception of others' reactions with others' actual reactions.

As for the content of your letter, no, I would not be surprised to learn that Mr. Stewart is "the real deal," as unless he's an alien or a cyborg or a cleverely-disguised conglomoration of ants, he'd pretty much have to be the real deal, wouldn't he? He's just as real as David Lee Roth, believe it or not. And yes, I know he means those lyrics, man, and I'd even be willing to admit that they're probably real, although I'd also want to make clear that I could give less of a shit whether someone's lyrics are "keepin' it real" or not. I care about passion and talent, not authenticity, and while Mr. Stewart clearly has an excess of the former, he's eschewing a wee too much of the latter in search of that vaunted realness. If I wanted to hear confessionals about someone's sad youth, I'd go read some freshman poetry, or read any of the innumerable sob story memoirs that populate bookshelves and which we all pretty much agreed suck, I think. It sickens me and seems like nothing more than the aural equivalent of jerking off in public.

As for the music? Eh, it's noisy and fine, I guess, but I've heard better. That you can like or not like, and I won't really care. But lyrically, and I don't do this too often, I'll insist that people who praise Mr. Stewart's lyrics are wrong. Not just wrong in their beliefs, but wrong in their methods. You and the PF writers seem to think that everyone who dislikes Xiu Xiu either doesn't get them, is intimidated by them, or has bad taste. No, no, and no. I can listen to it same as I can listen to Merzbow, and I'm bored. Just flat-out bored. (Or amused.) In other words: I know what they're doing, and I don't give a shit.

Sincerely,
m.

ps "post-electronic"? Like, organic computing?

Joan of Arc?

posted by Mike B. at 4:21 PM 0 comments

Monday, December 15, 2003

Listening to Yo La Tengo's "You Can Have It All" off And Then Nothing... while finishing up the 7 hours of so of billing I did today, and it's impressing me in a way it hasn't before, maybe because I'm listening to it out loud--and singing along--instead of running it through headphones.

What most impresses me about it is the restraint. I used to regard it as a nice little trifle, a pretty, inconsequential thing, background noise, makeout music. Nothing like the kind of balls-to-the-wall pop songs I write about most of the time here. But in listening to it this time, I heard what it could be--heard the pop song behind it somewhere, and I appreciated it a lot more. But that's not something I'm used to looking for in music.

Not so with visual art. There's the theory there that high-art primitivism or reductionism is only permissible once you know how to do perspective, anatomy, shading, light, all those trompe le monde things. In other words, it's only OK to look sloppy once you could actually do it perfect, and this acknowledgement of the perfect lies hidden at the back of your studied mistakes.

This rarely holds true, though, for pop music, where the glorious innocence in a lot of indie music results not from conscious choice but from lack of experience, knowledge, technical skill, or technological resources. It's not that Malkmus et al could have made Slanted & Enchanted in a 48-track studio with pristine Mesa/Boogie amplifiers and a session drummer but didn't; it's not that Liz Phair could have made Exile with crisp digital production and soaring vocal lines but chose not to; it's not that John Darnielle could have made All Hail West Texas with a full band and, uh, something besides a boombox but chose the lo-fi route instead. What makes these musicians distinct is the way they embraced the limitations that had been forced on them, but all of them also chose to make records in this "higher" style when given the chance. This is perhaps a good thing, a sign of pop music's energy and youth compared to the visual arts' self-absorption and decrepitude, but it also seems to cause some problems, causing both lo-fi and hi-fi to fall short of their true potential.

But this is not true for "You Can Have It All": it is not a pop song compromised by circumstance. You know this just from Yo La Tengo's bio, with their status as music geeks and their mastery of the pop cover song unquestioned. There's no way to think these guys haven't done their homework, and their technical skill and experience is in evidence over the course of their 15-year, 8-LP, multi-single/EP career up to this point. Plus they're recording at a tricked-out Nashville studio with an expert producer, and the overall sound of the album is hardly lo-fi, excepting a few of the drum machine beats and organ sounds. So the potential's there. And if you have any further doubt that Yo La Tengo knows how to write a great pop song, you need only skip to the next track, "Tears Are In Your Eyes," for my money the most beautiful song ever recorded.

The biggest clue to the pop restraint of this track, I think, is the vocal line in the chorus. The melody there is certainly catchy, but it's more the rhythm. The line is very simple, two notes descending a step to a resolved third that mirrors the chord progression. However, when listening to it out loud and singing along I found myself adding a higher vocal harmony (wshew, good thing Georgia's an alto) that hit one note, went a step higher, and then returned to the original note, and when coupled with her line, this sounded perfect, like it should have been in the song all along.[1] With the harmony it sounds like a great pop chorus, really, really killer. But then without Georgia's vocal, the harmony line starts to sound like the lead. Which means that, I think, she was singing the harmony line all along.

And that's hard to do; it takes restraint. You hear the restraint in the arrangement, where it stays on the same two chords ad infinitum until the chorus, where it throws in, well, a third. You can hear it, too, in the way the perfect string arrangement doesn't come in until halfway through the song. But mostly, I think you can hear it, again, in the vocals. It's no accident that the whole song is built around a never-changing vocal loop that all the chords and lines work with, but when everything starts to get blended together at the end, there's really a near-infinity of other lines you could put on top of there. "You Could Have It All" as arranged by Carl Newman could be the same song but sound very, very different. There are a whole lot of hooks just waiting to be sung there, three-part harmonies in cascading double-time, harmonies above the harmonies, more vocals used as percussion. Could be done. But YLT goes for restraint.

Does this make it a better song? The band thinks so; I probably don't, in my heart of hearts, no matter how much I do like the song.[2] Restraint is admirable, but not necessarily rewarding. Still, the track is a great example of what can result when the anti-pop move is one choice among many instead of a nervous knee-jerk reaction.

[1] And trust me, with my harmony skill, it has to be obvious.
[2] Of course, one of the wonderful things about pop music is that Carl Newman, or Billy Corgan, or me can all rearrange the damn thing as we hear it. If you want it to sound like a full pop song, go arrange it that way!

posted by Mike B. at 6:15 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 12, 2003

Although you wouldn't suspect it from the "they're the English Xiu Xiu!" Pitchfork review, so far the Mu album is actually kind of catchy. The first song, Jealous Kids, even has a verse-chorus-verse song structure (!), and the bits are all pretty hooky. There's also the moment in "Let's Get Sick" (around 3:30) where it suddenly breaks for a total club-diva hook, which regrettably gets lost in the mix, but it's still pretty cool. It's nowhere near as unnecessarily harsh as Xiu Xiu, and in many ways it seems like a more energetic version of the electro stuff being posted lately at Fluxblog.

So yeah, don't worry about the hype--there's a good bit of pop in here mixed in with the weird twists on gabba/jungle fuckups and glitch. It even sounds kinda Cibo Matto at times, although that may just be the, er, "Engrish," as PF put it.

posted by Mike B. at 5:19 PM 0 comments

Somedisco links to a Worlds of Possibility post that says of Pluramon (who I have not heard):

This whole return-to-Loveless thing hasn’t really worked, it’s not as woozy as it should be, as destabilising, as confusing and riveting and downright head-swimmingly Psychedelic as Loveless was/is/will always be...

(snip)

As an aside, why do people want to make the record My Bloody Valentine would have made in 1992? Surely it’d be a lot more interesting to imagine what a My Bloody Valentine record made in 2003 would sound like. And then make it yourself. If you apply that logic, the only person to come close to Shields’ intentions would be the Third Eye Foundation circa Semtex.
Is this really one of 2003’s best records? I want the drugs those critics are on!
(Still I’d much rather hear this than one of those fucking lame indietronica MBV rehashes á la Manitoba’s last one or the other shite on that label.)

Well, geez, I'd never even considered that there was a MBV thing going on there, which I guess was stupid, given that whole Morr Music album that was all shoegaze covers thing. (Yeah, I could look up what it's actually called and what they were actually covering in order to appear smarter, but eh. I'm really only a fount of musical knowledge with the generous aid of Google and allmusic.) It just seemed, so, you know, Pet Sounds-y, although I suppose that's the context that all the US mags put the Manitoba album in, so maybe it just depends on your cultural heritage.

Still, how could any of this conceivably be called a heir to the MBV crown? First off, it's not melodic enough: there are a lot of nice bits in these sorts of albums, but it's missing the perfect flow and mix that MBV had: there's none of the great melodic lines that Shields et al were so good at.

But, more importantly, it's nowhere near as loud as MBV. For whatever reason, electronic artists have never been good at building intensity and energy in their tracks with guitar--whatever processing they do seems to smooth out the guitar so much, level it out and take away the bite, that you just can't rely on the six-string to create loudness in an electronic song. The power comes from basslines, but mainly drums: the great splatter-breaks of jungle and drum 'n' bass, the big loud kick of house, etc. But in MBV, of course, the drums were kind of buried in the mix, so if you're going for that model, you're way handicapped. Granted, the thing I really like about Manitoba is the drumming, especially the last track, but as is it comes off lacking, somehow. Pretty but too even. Not ecstatic like MBV.

Granted, MBV's reputation for loudness came mainly from their reportedly ear-blistering live shows, but you can hear it pretty clearly on Loveless, too: the guitars buzz and splinter and scream and decay, getting almost swallowed up by feedback. There's none of this in these artists' work. Maybe it's because so much of getting a guitar to sound good is in physical manipulation of the instrument and its components (Shields' "glide guitar" which worked a digital reverb pedal and the whammy bar on his guitar, coupled with distortion and calculated distance from and angle to the jacked-up amplifier) rather than in the way the raw sound is processed afterwards. But regardless, it'd be great to see these folks, who are admittedly very good at making the guitar sound pretty or fractured, make some noise, but for that I fear they'd need a real guitarist.

posted by Mike B. at 1:11 PM 0 comments

Posting an instrumental track, eh? Wshew, I feel like less of a lone nerd now.

I would love to see more music writers put their stuff up for us to hear. I mean, LPTJ refuses to, won't even talk about it, although we can get it in a store. (The LPTJ article this week is killer, though.) But it would be kind of interesting to connect the music with the writing. Mebbe.

Listening to "Landslide" and it's pretty good. (Better than my instrumental, certainly.) I'd be interested to hear what this sounds like w/vocals. I kind of hear a Dub Narcotic thing going on...

Even better, I think people should read music commentary over music. Maybe I'll try and turn that out this weekend. Maybe Sasha will, too.

This was actually going to be a Final Project for me at some point--doing commentary of music over the actual music, but I abandoned it because I love doing straight criticism too much to miss a chance at that. Anyway, that sort of thing is being done by the NYT now, so what I'm thinking is more commentary on other music over an original or semi-original backing. But, uh, I'm pretty weird.

At any rate, here's an example of what I mean when I say that spoken-word can be done in a way that it doesn't suck. (And yeah, it's mine, so be kind.)

posted by Mike B. at 12:30 PM 0 comments

"If you thought a successful marriage of IDM, House and R&B was impossible..."

...apparently you haven't listened to any electronic music in the last three years, because it's all over the goddamn place.

I like the Soft Pink Truth album OK, but honestly, I don't listen to it very much.

And ah yes: "Boy in da Corner is a must own for anyone who longs for creative beats and rhymes." But: "Granted, Andre and Big Boi have added some great tracks to the Outkast canon here ("Hey Ya" is among the best songs they've ever written) but this double record has WAY too much filler to be very enjoyable." So no creative beats and rhymes there, hmm?

(link via Fluxblog)

posted by Mike B. at 10:54 AM 0 comments

Hmm:

Tribune rock critic Greg Kot, who contributes occasionally to Rolling Stone, revealed an interesting nugget about the rock magazine’s star ratings, in the first of a two-part interview with teen magazine New Expression. (Part two will appear later this month.) The interview was conducted by Joseph Struck, of Providence Catholic High School. We pick up the interview about midway through the first installment. Edited slightly for clarity.

Kot: It helps credibility or whatever to have pieces published in Rolling Stone, and I like it because they’ve never changed a word that I’ve written. I have always said exactly what I wanted to say in reviews. Occasionally, I’ve been surprised to see that the star ratings get changed, but that’s the editor’s decision.

Struck: They change your ratings?

Kot: Yeah, they do. They have. It is weird. Occasionally they’ll bump up a record that I didn’t feel was as good, and they don’t change a word of writing, so it’s like weird, it’s like you read the review and it reads like a two-star review but there is a three-star rating on it. So it’s just kind of strange, but the editors do have the right. I guess it is in the fine print of the review section that the editors determine the star ratings and not the writers, but often that gets misinterpreted. The writers are blamed for everything [laughs]. So it’s like, “How did you give that thing three stars?” And I say, “I didn’t. I wanted two stars on it.” So that gets a little frustrating. But I have to say that the editors there have been great for the most part.

Linkage and eye-rolling "ho hum who doesn't know this" reaction here.

posted by Mike B. at 1:38 AM 0 comments

Some dude named Bob Lefsetz says some stupid shit about Missy:

30. Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott "This Is Not A Test!"
GM/Elektra/EEG

Sales this week: 63,346
Percentage change: -54%

And here we have what's wrong with the record business. It's become a HIT business.

Make no mistake, it didn't used to be.

Yes, everything Clive and Donnie and all those Chairmen are telling you is WRONG!

If you're hit dependent, you're fucked.

Look at this record. The hit isn't working, people don't want the album, it's OVER!

Believe me, in July you won't see this CD suddenly climbing the chart.

Whereas a rock album, like 3 Doors Down's, can hang around and BUILD!

Not that it has to be rock. It's just that a record must be sold on substance. Not on shock/glam/hype.

People want to have a RELATIONSHIP with an album. They want to take it into their family, give it a HOME!

Think about that. How can you get someone to kick the tires, and take the CD home.

Think of it like buying a car. You might want to take a spin in a Z4, but do you want to OWN it? For YEARS???

No, maybe you want a 530. Or maybe you even want a Camry. Because a Camry is DEPENDABLE! Hell, they sell more Camrys than Z4s, more Camrys than ANY OTHER CAR, because people see them as both functional and reliable. I used to buy records of bands that were functional and reliable. The public did too, even stuff as mediocre as Grand Funk Railroad. Yeah, Grand Funk didn't have hits until the TAIL END of their career.

And, the re-up rate on Camrys is ASTRONOMICAL! People buy one after another.

Same deal with Ford F150s.

These are basic machines. But, people are LOYAL!

The music business IS NOT the movie business. A movie is singular, one entity. Occasionally, there's a sequel. Whereas in the music business, you want EVERY album to have a sequel. You're not really making dough until you have a CAREER! And, if an act has a career, you can sell ALL their wares AD INFINITUM! People don't only want Led Zeppelin IV, they want II and III too!

Don't bang people over the head. Use a softer sell.

That's what all the indies do. They're FORCED to, they don't have the funds for these bludgeon campaigns. So the acts build more slowly, and the fans are loyal. And, even if they download the music, they buy the CD.

What kind of fucked up formula is this? Trying to get people to buy a whole album on one hit track. That would be like trying to sell that aforementioned BMW by only showing the steering wheel. That's an integral part of the car, but not the ONLY key part. Used to be the album tracks were also key parts. They will become so again. Maybe not as part of a single disc, but people don't only want the hits, they want FULFILLMENT! The people want steak, and potatoes, and fish, and salad, but the record business only wants to sell hot fudge sundaes, over and over and over again. And people have gotten so sick, they've tuned out, they've given up. They'll pick the cherry on KaZaA, but they don't want any more.

And, from an earlier entry on Jay-Z:

And, rappers release a record a year, because unlike with rock catalog, once
the public is done with a hip-hop record, they're TRULY DONE!

Hell, you don't even hear that Lauryn Hill solo Grammy Award winning album anymore.

Now, don't get me wrong: there are artists to whom you could accurately apply this argument. But Missy? Jay-Z? No no no. I don't really have any urge to hit SoundScan right now, but I'm pretty sure they've got a reasonable amount of catalog sales--any music fan worth their salt knows that 2/3 of the Jay-Z albums, and all the Missy albums, are required listening if you want to understand how they got where they are today. And that's not even getting into the kind of catalog sales that Tupac, Biggie, etc. must enjoy. Look, what you said about a hip-hop record: it's just not true. It's like writing a column in 1965 saying that because the radio's not playing Chuck Berry that the only lasting records with the public are crooner and big band albums. Hip-hop is still pretty segregated on the radio in most areas of the country, but let's be honest here, right now it's in the same situation that rock was in the late 60's/70's: it is the mainstream. So yeah, in twenty years you'll probably get "classic hip-hop" stations--I mean, fuck, the last Missy album was a classic hip-hop album! Sure, there are artists like, I dunno, Chingy and Digital Underground and Naughty By Nature that have big flavor-of-the-week hits (and I mean that purely from an economic perspective) and then drop off the radar, regardless of the worth of their songs. But people are still buying "The Chronic." People are still buying "Doggystyle." People are still buying "Ready to Die." And this is just the white audience--it seems reasonable to assume that the back catalogs of Mary J Blige and a whole host of others are doing just fine as well.

Look, one of the reasons Missy and Jay are so appealing and likable is that they manage to make hits that are also examples of great art. And if, fuck, Steve Miller Band is lasting art (and I'm not saying it's not) then "Miss E...So Addictive" and "The Blueprint" sure as hell are, too. On a certain level, I guess it sucks that the biz is so hit-driven, but the reason Jay and Missy have lasted is that they make hits that are also, regardless of that, great music. The two are hardly incompatible.

I recognize that, in many ways, he's making a purely practical argument here, that rock catalogs sell while hip-hop catalogs don't. But I think you're comparing apples to oranges: flavor-of-the-week hits in rock--the Beatles, Elvis, the Rolling Stones, Queen, etc.--have endured and prospered. Give it all a while before pronouncing hip-hop a shallow hit factory like some hyperventilating schoolmarm.

(additional: Lefsetz-EMI snipefest here)

posted by Mike B. at 1:32 AM 0 comments

Thursday, December 11, 2003

Was just talking to an artist's manager, and she said that they wanted to put some strings on a few tracks, but that the expensive thing about that was doing the charts. Really? Wow. I could make a good living doing that, huh? I always figured it would just cost a lot to get the musicians in, but I of course forgot that classical musicians will work for bus fare.

posted by Mike B. at 4:45 PM 0 comments

Two more letters (!) I got in response to my Pitchfork letter. This now brings the totals up to:

E-mails received from this PF letter: 3
E-mails received from all other PF letters (about 7): 0

Anyway, here's one of 'em.

Dear Mike,

thank you for writing one of the more intelligent letters to pitchfork i have ever seen. i am a 21 year old college student, and your point about them voting for their "own choices" as opposed to 12 year old girls is nothing short of correct. in fact, it would actually be a lot easier for them to run TRL, except, as you mentioned, they don't give a shit.

often when i hear people my age, many of the "elitists" talking about TRL or even music thats on the radio like puddle of mudd or whatever, they make their point of how it sucks for only one reason: they think they're better than the people who listen to it. this is probably due to the fact that being an "elitist" is on of the very few things that they have to hold on to. this is probably the case for many of the writers for pitchfork, but i dont want to judge anyone.

i have only recently began to listen to what is considered "indie rock" as far as e.g. The Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Pavement etc., so i feel like ive been on both sides of the fence with popular and independent music. while i feel like the stuff i listen to now is "better" in quality, i would never put someone down for liking Audioslave or Blink 182, because all they'd get out of that is: man why the hell would i want to listen to something that that arrogant prick listens to, you know? and hey, whats wrong with liking saves the day or coldplay, i mean there is some freaking sincerity in it, isnt there? sorry this is so long but i really felt like you nailed that
point on the head better than anyone. so yes, "like what you like" and thanks again for the wisdom.

In case it's of interest.

UPDATE: My reply-

Hey Marty-

Thanks for the note. Glad to know I'm appreciated. Although I've gotten 3 e-mails in response to this letter, as opposed to none for the previous ones PF has published, so I dunno if I hit a nerve or it's getting linked to or what.

Anyway, I'm with you, although I would say a few things in response:

#1: This kind of thing seems especially bad in college, because, believe it or not, I'll betcha all those PF-lovers were listening to either Puddle of Mudd or Behead the Prophet a few years ago, and they're just growing into their indie-rock shoes too. So in many ways, they're being exclusionary because they're a bit insecure about their own place in the hierarchy, and that, plus the ol' newly-converted-true-believer syndrome, makes them kind of insufferable. But always remember that indie-rock is a big nerd pile-on, and as long as you take them less seriously than they take themselves--not too hard--it's a lot more endurable. (Also, remember that you'll probably end up cooler than them, anyway.) Indie rock kids are ridiculous human beings. This is something I need to remind myself of a bit too often, like when an ex-hardcore fan who's into indie rock tries to tell me that Interpol sucks because they're pussies, but it's good to keep in mind.

#2: That said, and you probably realize this, but it's probably not a productive argumentative technique to link your opponents' positions to psychological inadequacy. They probably do have other rewarding bits in their lives, but, you know, this is the way you interact with them. Ah well. So I think I get a certain traction with PF writers because I do respect what they're saying and recognize it as legitimate--I just think it's wrong. I'm cooler than them, anyway. ;)

#3: Good point about elitism actually causing a negative reaction most of the time. Me, the only reason I'd be annoyed at a POD listener is if they refused to listen to the Flaming Lips or something like that. The only sin in my book is closing yourself off, which the PF mindset seems to happily embrace. Ah well.

Anyway, thanks again for the note.

m.

posted by Mike B. at 3:57 PM 0 comments

I whipped this up last week. (2.4 meg MP3) If you can think of something you want to do with it, feel free, just lemme hear. Alternately, if you can think of anything for me to do with it, that's cool, too. It can be rearranged fairly easily if necessary.

posted by Mike B. at 12:29 PM 0 comments

For what it's worth, Liz Phair's "Why Can't I" just came on my winamp playlist and at the opening, I thought, "Ooh, what's this, this is great!"

It really is a good song. Fuck all that Pitchfork bullshit.

Incidentally, it's hard to write dumb lyrics. I've been working on this song for about five months because I think it's killer and could be a great anthem, but I can't seem to write convincing dumb lyrics. So it's about a postmodern English novel instead. Ah well.

posted by Mike B. at 12:08 PM 0 comments

Check this out--the "Coming Soon" entry.

THE FIRST EVER GUNS N'ROSES KIDS TRIBUTE BAND!!!
THEY ARE......Li'l Gn'r!!!

That's right, five children ages five to eleven dressed in GN'R costumes pay tribute to the greatest rock band of all time! Li'l Gn'r will play all your favorite tunes and still be tucked into bed by 8:00pm.

Well, that should be interesting.

posted by Mike B. at 10:44 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Apropos of nothing: dude, Beck and Kid Rock should do a duet. I mean, haven't they had basically the same career trajectory? Hip-hop fusion to country, "Loser" and "I Am the Bullgod" to "Round the Bend" and "Single Father."

Uh, OK, I guess Kid Rock skipped that whole funk phase--pshew--but still, they just seem like high and low versions of one another.

posted by Mike B. at 11:42 AM 0 comments

Discussing Outkast over on the ol' mailing list, and a Mr. Hunter Felt made this really great point:

I just want to add that "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" is the only other non-Prince album I have ever heard that comes close to the surreal/party-loving twisted appeal of "Midnight Vultures" era Beck. I would give just a curiosity listen to, say, Big Boi's "Bowtie" or Andre 3000's "Spread" and see if they aren't exploring the same musical terrain. It's almost odd how two different artists from the mid-nineties managed to get to the same musical terrain after starting from two radically opposed beginnings (rambling, anti-folk and Southern gangsta rap). The mind boggles.

Yeah, Beck and Andre3000. Why didn't I think of that?

In other news, have I become a missionary for the Strokes or something? I seem to be continually defending them. I guess that's OK. I just really think people should give the new album a few listens before they dismiss it, because there's a lot of good there.

posted by Mike B. at 11:38 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, December 09, 2003

The gig last night actually went very well. These folks opened and were very good and funny, even if their website doesn't necessarily reflect that.

But I couldn't really get to sleep and so am kind of exhausted today and unable to post, which is really too bad. Ah well. I'll go to bed right after Gilmore Girls tonight, I promise.

posted by Mike B. at 5:25 PM 0 comments

Here's a USA Today article on the Grammys that makes some odd claims in terms of their hipness/relevance/etc...

The 2004 Grammy marathon is off to a good start with a wildly diverse pool of nominees. Whether music's most coveted prize adds integrity to its checkered legacy depends on who crosses the finish line.

(...)

For album of the year, voters have an opportunity to anoint the dizzying brilliance of The White Stripes' Elephant or Outkast's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Or they could play it safe with Justin Timberlake's Justified, a smoothly crafted pop album but hardly worthy of the year's top trophy.

Likewise, the Grammy membership could hand the best-record award to Crazy in Love, the radio-saturated hit by Beyoncé and Jay-Z and again deny Eminem his rightful place in Grammy's upper tier.

Now, granted, I like the Outkast album more than the JT one, and I like "Lose Yourself" more than "Crazy in Love" (though I think I'm in a very wee minority there). But at the same time, I don't think any of these are particular hipper than any other, and I'd even say that objectively the Beyonce and JT albums are regarded as fairly respectable, certainly moreso than 90% of past Grammy nominations. It's not like we're talking Beck v. Steely Dan here (which, regardless of the merits of the individual albums, can rightly be considered a horribly mismatched cred battle)--these are all albums with roughly the same amount of cachet. Arguably the Grammys have already helped themselves immensely with these nominations, while at the same time the choices themselves seem so obvious that it's unclear if that's actually the case.

posted by Mike B. at 5:23 PM 0 comments

Monday, December 08, 2003

Gotta go play me a gig, but given the number of posts today let me direct your attention downward to the Christgau / webzines post below, which I'm quite happy with but which has only attracted off-topic posts so far. It's long, but worth a read, I hope.

Coming tomorrow, lord willing: Mochipet, Strong Bad Sings, and dancehall.

In the meantime, you should probably go download this Frames song from Tangmonkey, as it's really beautiful. I've liked them ever since I saw them open for the New Pornographers, but none of their albums are as good as their ecstatic live shows, regrettably, which manage to go from beautiful pop bits to soaring a capella vocals to incredibly loud violin-driven noise freakouts in the space of a minute and a half.

posted by Mike B. at 6:54 PM 0 comments

Picked up the Colder album, Again, this weekend. It's OK, pretty good background music, although I haven't gotten a chance to investigate more than one video yet, which I understand is the actual focus.

What I wanted to talk about, though, is the sticker. The sticker on the album contained a quote that referred to this album as "pop." It is very, very wrong. And, as a matter of fact, it demonstrates a phenomenon, which I will capitalize to make it more important and maybe Newsweek will pick up on it: The Debasement Of "Pop" Amongst The Upper Classes (especially as une term criticale).

I've seen this happening a lot lately, electronic artists getting called "pop" despite having little to no relation thereto. Colder, Manitoba, M83 and the Notwist have all had this adjective applied to them[1], and while I've sampled them all the only one that's vaguely stuck has been Manitoba, and even then it's only a fraction of the interest I have in, say, Jay-Z, or even electronic music like Kid 606's Down With The Scene, an album arguably far more informed by actual pop music than any of these artists.

The problem, basically, is that when you think of "electronic pop," you think of things like Erasure, the Cocteau Twins, New Order, like that. The artists above sound nothing like that. At all. They sound like...well, here's the problem. Those artists were all coming from a tradition of pop songwriting that grew from Elvis through the Beatles and the great pop bands of the 70's, and then applied those lessons and songs to new equipment. The new technology genuinely created a new sound, but it didn't necessarily create new songwriting.[3] What these "electro-pop" artists are coming from is a dance songwriting tradition that starts with funk, goes through disco, and then becomes techno and house and so forth. They're then trying to take this training and apply the pop tradition to it, and it's just not working, because they don't seem to have a real understanding of pop or pop songwriting. Sure, there are guitars and vocals there, but that just means they're microhouse that happens to use guitars and vocals, not pop, but it seems to be that the mere presence of these elements has been enough for most people to label it "pop."

Well, no. For instance, I listened to about half of the songs on the Colder album, and there doesn't seem to be a single chord change on it. Not a one. Now, far be it for me to dictate terms of a genre, and while it's fine to try and do a song with no chord changes (though even the Beatles couldn't manage to keep a straight face with "Tomorrow Never Knows") but if I can go through half your album and not identify a single change, I'm sorry, you're just not pop. I don't want to do that thing where I'm defining a genre as "only things I like," but I genuinely think that a definition of pop which requires chord changes will still incorporate a lot of crap. Seriously, if you can point out what in these artists makes them pop besides the guitar and vocals, please do so.

To my ears, I just hear the same dancey pile-loops-on-top-of-one-another thing, all centering around roughly the same tones. Which is not to say that this is a bad technique--hell, something as recent as the new LCD Soundstem single basically stays on the same chord all the way through for 9 minutes, and it's fucking fantastic. The problem is that when artists like this are being labeled pop while being critiqued with the handicapped attitude toward pop that we grant electronic acts, it's weakening legitimate attempts at the genre. (In fact, many great examples of this "new phenomenon" are arguably being overlooked because they're actually pop--that Girls Aloud cover of "Jump (For My Love)" that Manchester posted a while back is far more compelling[4] than anything on the Notwist album to me.)

So let's just watch ourselves here--it's OK to call stuff pop, but let's try not to make it sound like modern primitivism, and let's try not to be fooled by the obscurism and apply the same terms to it that you would to up-front pop, eh?

[1] Also the Postal Service, which I hate, but which I'll admit is genuinely poppy.[2]
[2] Max Tundra has also been called pop, but it is pop and I like it, so again, different story. It's still not very poppy, it's just kinda poppy and could be better if it was more poppy, I think.
[3] I mean, it had, had been since the first synth, but this new songwriting didn't become widely recognized until the late 80's.
[4] Let me not damn with false praise here: actually, I just listened to it again, and it is fucking fantastic. Making a genteel pop song agressive as hell without actually making it punk, a real nice trick.

posted by Mike B. at 6:51 PM 0 comments

Three things I learned from the Virgin Ultimate Guide to Holiday Gift Giving:

1) The new Offspring album is not called Chinese Democracy, due, apparently, to "legal issues," which as a music-law person I can only assume means that Axl/Geffen already registered it as a trademark or something. If so, man, that's some sharp lawyerin'. (It is actually called Splinter.)

2) There is a Dead Milkmen DVD, which you could do worse than to buy. (But buy SGC2C first.)

3) There is apparently a Cat in the Hat Movie Storybook, by some folks named Ron Fontes and Justine Fontes. You'll note that neither of these people are named Dr. Seuss, who wrote, um, the actual Cat in the Hat book. I guess the original book needed to be...simplified? OK, I admit it, I'm stumped.

posted by Mike B. at 12:40 PM 0 comments

I really do need to do some actual work here, but first, allow me to offer for your reading pleasure this Chuck Klosterman article on Friendster. (The whole thing, not just the excerpt that made it to Gawker last week.) It's really good, especially the riff on "Favorite TV Shows":

Yet weirdly, there are some elements of the Friendster personal profile that no one seems to lie about, most notably what TV shows they like. Friendsters seem totally comfortable with strangers assuming they cheat on their wives and sketch portraits of unicorns in their free time, but they don't want anyone to think they watch According to Jim unironically. This is similar to how a person will have oral sex with you on your very first date but won't let you look inside her glove compartment at the moment because it contains a Tori Amos cassette.

As usual, the text was provided by my anonymous tipster.

posted by Mike B. at 12:26 PM 0 comments