Friday, January 16, 2004
Thanks to our usual anonymous source, we have the newest Klosterman piece, entitled "What Warren Sapp, Daryl Hannah, and Dave Eggers Have in Common, Or, What's With All the Freakin' Pirates?"
I'm kind of disappointed with Chuck for his borderline racist, and certainly bigoted, take on pirate culture and pirate heritage. As you may know, I am of buccaneer stock myself, and I find that I have to be constantly vigilant against hate speech directed at my culture. Klosterman's depiction of my people as violent and inhuman is typical. You'd think by now enlightened people would have had enough schooling to realize that history is written by the victors, and you can never trust what those victors say of the conquered. Buccaneers were a vital indigenous culture all but totally genocided by imperialist Western powers, simply because they were an irritating disruption to their exploitative raiding of the New World, a revolutionary monkey wrench in their capitalist machine. You'd think guys like Klosterman would want to celebrate that, but no: over and over again, they defame and demean my culture and my heritage as somehow "lower" than the supposedly enlightened modern-day American empire. I'm sure I don't need to tell you, dear readers, how much of a laugh that is.
posted by Mike B. at 11:39 AM
0 comments
From the aforementioned L-Word review:
Even the infamous kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards was less shocking than shockingly calculated.
This particular, and particularly widespread, attitude has been bugging me for a while, but I haven't been able to put my finger on why until just now.
The complaint boils down to this: it was calculated to be shocking, but since, as the article points out, girls kissing on TV isn't actually shocking anymore, the crime is really trying to do something that's shocking and failing. (Trying to be shocking and succeeding is, of course, just dandy, as this Pushes Social Boundaries and Challenges The Moral Norms Of Middle America, etc.) But if we all know that girls kissing isn't shocking, presumably Madonna and Britney know that, too, and so the kiss isn't a calculated shock tactic--why try to shock when you know you won't?--but a legitimate artistic choice in a choreographed routine. If you want to blame someone here, blame MTV for the close-up. But even better, turn your gaze at the particular people complaining about this, presuming they're complaining in a major media forum like the Times. Basically, they criticized two people for creating a media circus by...creating a media circus. I mean, from reading the papers, you'd suspect no one was bothered by it except people TV critics knew, and certainly everyone would have been a lot less bothered by it if it hadn't been covered (and criticized) everywhere, even four months after the event now.
In other words, it seems like the media used this to sell a bunch of papers, except they lambasted Brit & Mazza for cynically trying to manipulate the media into printing a lot of pictures of them, and these criticisms were always accompanied by pictures of Brit & Mazza. And I dunno, this seems like having your cake and eating it too. But I could be wrong.
posted by Mike B. at 11:26 AM
0 comments
Other things to yell at Ryan Adams besides "Play 'Summer of 69!'":*
- "Recite your speech to the Continental Congress of 1787 on the bicameral legislature!"
- "Play Nixon In China!"
- "That guy in Amistad didn't look like you at all, man!"
- "Dude, you make awesome beer! You make awesome beer!"
- "Why don't you use your real first name...David?!"**
* By adding this footnote sign, I believe I legitimately ended a clause with 5 different punctuation marks in a row.
** This is true.
posted by Mike B. at 10:29 AM
0 comments
"The L Word," of course, does not exclude men at all. While ostensibly celebrating the lesbian life, the two-hour pilot is in such a rush to pander to male viewers that at times it seems less like an American television show than a hastily dubbed Swedish "art" film. Each new plot development works as a perfunctory excuse to introduce another sexual variation — a man alone, a man with a woman, two women, two women and a man, etc.
All the women are beautiful, which on the one hand works to dismiss the stereotype of lesbians as squat, plaid-shirted and mannish. On the other, they are all so exquisite, even by the high standards of affluent Los Angeles, that it plays into another stereotype — and male fantasy — of the lipstick lesbian.
Miss Clap's reaction to this would probably run something along the lines of: "Damn straight! When I'm watching TV, I want to see attractive people. A show about actual lesbians would be ugly and boring--two minutes of sex followed by 58 minutes of talking about the relationship and whether they were really in love and the politics of monogamy and blah blah blah. Gay men are natural drama queens, gay women are fun to watch football with."
Not that I would endorse this point of view, of course. I'm fine with unattractive people on TV.
posted by Mike B. at 10:18 AM
0 comments
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
If LCD Soundsystem's "Yeah" is a challenge, then this is my response.
The Claps - Do It For Me (192kbps MP3, 10.0 meg)
As promised previously. Hope you like. Please listen to the end. Might need to turn the volume up a bit, but that can't be bad, eh?
posted by Mike B. at 5:23 PM
0 comments
It's kind of funny to read the New York Times article on the Flaming Lips on the same day that QV posts the old Esquire Flaming lips article. The Esquire piece eagerly took the Lips at their words--always a bad idea--and depicted Beck as a peulent "rock star." Said article was subsequently and somewhat legendarily revealed as an elaborate prank between the Lips and Beck. Beck can be a bit of a sourpuss, but so can Tom Waits--that doesn't mean either will reject a hotel room for the wall color. Now, from the Times article, we read:
Two hours before the White Stripes and the Flaming Lips ushered in 2004 with their double-bill New Year's Eve concert at the historic Aragon Ballroom here, the Flaming Lips were onstage blowing up oversize balloons, posing inflatable robots and setting up a giant video screen and confetti machine for their extravagant multimedia show.
By contrast, Jack and Meg White, who make up the White Stripes, were mostly backstage until performance time, their roadies, in black suits and bowler hats, guarding their dressing suite. The White Stripes are rock stars, and stars are not supposed to do stagehand work.
Uh, yeah, or it could have something to do with the fact that the White Stripes have three instruments and no stage setup. They could set their shit up in about 15 minutes, and probably did. The Lips, on the other hand, have a really elaborate setup, and since they probably know its layout and operation best, it's no surprise that they're all out there setting it up. And this doesn't even mean that the exes White hadn't done their setup a few hours ago. Sheesh, dude.
posted by Mike B. at 3:53 PM
0 comments
This letter from Beck is really, really funny. Go read it right now.
posted by Mike B. at 12:11 PM
0 comments
Thomas: Having heard The Dif'rent Darkness, I'd wager something like my firstborn that Black Box Recorder/Luke Haines has nothing to do with it. The guitar tones aren't anywhere near Luke's trademark direct-input distortion, and they could be and still work with the song, and the drum sounds are totally different, too.
Matter of fact, the expectation that the track would sound Haines-y has kind of ruined it for me so far. It's got none of the cleanness or the invention of a BBR track, and it seems to run out of ideas about 2 minutes in. Haines does some fabulous covers--Black Box Recorder's version of "Seasons in the Sun" is just majestic and wonderful--but this doesn't sound like his handiwork at all. Goldfrapp? Possibly, but I tend to give them a bit more credit, too...
posted by Mike B. at 10:38 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
A little teaser, in case my brain does not cohere enough to merit further posting today:
Sometime around Thursday this week--maybe Wednesday, maybe Friday, depending on when I get a chance to mix and, uh, "profreed" (I'm sure there's a more proper musical term for that)--I'm going to have a little MP3 for y'all. I think you'll like it, and it's sort of a demonstration of some stuff I've been yammering about. Or, wanky bullshit. I guess we'll see.
posted by Mike B. at 5:10 PM
0 comments
I like a lot of things about this article about the Scissor Sisters--the mention of "I Can't Go For That," singing "Hey Ya" around a campfire, although the Destiny's Child thing is just plain old not true (if you don't think that, say, "Say My Name" is unmelodic, you have a weird conception of music)--but I think the thing I like most is their use of "post-electroclash." It was pretty usual at the time (i.e. 2002) to rip on electroclash as something trendy and empty and mindlessly retro and worthless. And sure, some of it was. But there were those who saw it not for what it was at the time, but for what it could be--as not a final, finished product, but as a Great Awakening of sorts, an infusion of fresh blood and ideas into pop. It was a big open invite reading: hey, you can do whatever you want here. You don't have to be limited to guitars or rock or singer-songwriting or whatever's honorable. Look at pop history, and realize that the technology used to make any and all of those sounds is now available for pennies on the dollar, or for free in the form of computer emulators. Go listen to what you like and try and learn something from it--learn how to make it and meld it with other stuff and write your own songs and produce them however sounds best. Electroclash was limiting, sure, and a bit too easy, but I always was and continue to be interested in hearing where people take it. So far, with bands like LCD Soundsystem, the Scissor Sisters, and the continuing sophistication of still-electro acts like Vitalic, Komtrahn, and Legowelt, it's been pretty rewarding. Watch the skies.
I also like this neat little bit of music criticism:
Is "gayness" important to what the Scissor Sisters do? Shears is quick to respond. "Is straightness important to Bruce Springsteen?" Yes, because his music is almost oppressively heterosexual. Matronic finds this hysterical. "I don't think Springsteen is that calculated."
Of course, the "oppressively heterosexual" thing is bullshit, but it's endearing that he said it, and it's even more endearing that Ana saw fit to shoot him down. That's a good sign for a band, when members are willing to argue each other out of their stylistic fixations.
Then there's this:
"As the Darkness have done with 1970s and 1980s pomp metal, the Scissor Sisters have rescued commercial 1970s and 1980s middle-of-the-road music from the dustbin of kitsch history."
Well, there's important distinctions there. I do like the Darkness, a good bit, but they could never pull off sincerity, which is a pity, since that sincerity produced some of pomp metal's best artifacts. The fact that they don't take themselves seriously in the slightest while still being quite devoted to that style of music makes them lovable--is, indeed, their whole reason for existing--but it's also a limitation inherent to the genre. The Scissor Sisters, on the other hand, clearly have an unironic love for a lot of the styles they inhibit. You really need to look no further than "Mary," a totally straight up Elton John/Billy Joel piano ballad with an unapologetic chorus effect on the guitar during the breaks that you just can't pull off without actually having a great affection for "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant" and "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" and, what's more, be totally unembarassed about singing those songs on a large stage in front of lots of people. It's just too sincere a song to do otherwise. This doesn't make the Scissor Sisters better than the Darkness, necessarily, but it is qualitatively different. From that acoustic guitar comment you can tell that they're concerned with longevity--indeed, they write so many friggin' songs (their forthcoming album has songs on it that weren't on their first version of the album, and at their show on Saturday they played two or three even newer songs, bringing them to a rough total of 30 releasable songs in a year and a half) that they'd have to be--and this particular technique is a good one in pursuit of that goal. I really like 'em, and really like the songs, and look forward to seeing where they go with it. (DFA remix! DFA remix! Or at least Metro Area!)
If you haven't already, check out Matthew's post on that show. It really was a blast. The band rocks pretty hard live, and it's just generally a lot of fun. Yeah, I'm a fan now.
posted by Mike B. at 3:48 PM
0 comments
I had lots of reasons to suspect I wouldn't like them, but in fact, I really like the two songs on The Amber Smith's website, and am tempted to say I like the band in toto. They were described as very Teenage Fanclub-y, and that's pretty accurate. The first song ("Yeah Yeah Yeah"--I know, I know) is, in fact, a bit too Teenage Fanclub to be fully appreciated, but the second song, "You Don't Have to Stay (Go)" is really nice. Give it a listen. Great backup vocals in the chorus, weirdly wonderful badly double-tracked guitar solo, etc.
posted by Mike B. at 3:10 PM
0 comments
Monday, January 12, 2004
A song just came on WinAmp and I thought, "Wow, this sounds like one of those shitty nights back at the coffeehouse in college." And then I looked, and saw it was a Jason Molina song Tangmonkey posted. Which is significant because both Jason and I went to college at a little place called Oberlin. Weird.
Boy, I hate that guy. And I've hated him since before I found out he was an Obie and/or a PF favorite, by the by. But it's presumably clear at this point that the slow, sad male-singer-with-a-guitar genre is not my thing. And I'll be the first to admit that this is a particular irrational hatred...
Josh Ritter--another Obie, who I actually saw perform a few times as an undergrad--doesn't really anger me in that way, but it does occasionally weird me out to see the places he pop up nowadays (Greil Marcus' Real Life Top 10, a Starbucks CD, etc.).
posted by Mike B. at 6:09 PM
0 comments
Rachel Stevens' "Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex" is possibly the first pop song to ever be notable for who doesn't sing it.
As you might already know, it was originally pitched to--and, by the sound of it, written for--Britney Spears, and a quick listen will reveal why: addressed to an unnamed Los Angeles-residing ex-boyfriend who has been telling public tales about the end of their relationship, it chides him for being rude, assures us that he's wholly mistaken, and suggests that there are a few stories she could tell about him if he persists with this nonsense. The perfect response song, in other words, to Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" ("All of these things people told me/Keep messing with my head/You should've picked honesty/Then you may not have blown it."), which was widely interpreted as a kiss-off to Britney after their failed relationship, her dalliance with Herr Durst, and all that tabloid jazz. And as such, it works amazingly well. It's a perfect repudiation of the idea that a pop star's songs aren't personal if they don't like the lyrics, because it totally makes sense for Britney, and sounds exactly like something she's say. And why not? The whole point of being a pop star is that you're a public figure, a character on a stage, and as such, other people can write for that character if they have a good grasp of the situation and the terms, which the writers of "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" certainly do with Britney.
The only problem is that she and/or her "people" rejected it. And so instead of going to Britney, it goes to Rachel Stevens, a British popstar who I certainly hadn't heard of previous to this. Which makes it a pretty different song.
The thing about that is that our enjoyment of pop music is at least 25% contextual, whether it's the context of your social situation (your friends like it and you all listen to it together and quote the lyrics), the context of other music (references to songs you like/know, whether musically or lyrically), or the context of the singer's character and plot position in the public eye of pop narrative. A song that appeals to this last contextual category is the one most likely to gain a widespread audience if its main selling point is its contextual resonance, and there are any number of songs that have done this very well--about three-quarters of Eminem's singles, "Sweet Home Alabama," etc. And "Sweet Dreams My LA Ex" definitely shoots for that category, and does indeed at least partially hit the target. But while it is pretty pleasurable feeling the frisson of hearing a great Britney song covered by someone else without an actual original Britney song to corrupt our expectations, and while the Justin brush-off is more or less as convincing as it would have been in the hands of its intended speaker, the simple fact is that it would have been much more effective, especially in the U.S., if Britney had, in fact, sang it; there would have been much more of a media reaction, much more popular awareness, and that in turn would have created a collective listening context roughly equivalent to listening in on a warring couple's answering machine tapes. Of course, Rachel Stevens is a much more restrained, and arguably more talented, singer than Britney, and I think the song might hold up in the long term a lot better than it would if Britney had delivered it. But that doesn't change the fact that Britney's absence, while giving the song a greater value than it would have had if it had nothing whatsoever to do with her in the first place, nevertheless robs it of its full potential as a pop social artifact.
That said, it's a fantastic song. I love the guitars at the beginning that are actually very simple rhythmically--two dotted eighth-note hits per chord with the second swinging a good bit, one chord every two beats, four-bar loop--sounds so much different once the drums kick in, even though the drums aren't very difficult either--kick on the 1, 3, and pickup sixteenth to 4, snare on the 2 and 4, and that odd clattering on top mostly incidental. The fucker certainly grooves with not much. The nylon-string guitar and syncopated rhythm suggest a Latin feel, although I wouldn't really call it that blatant, since the melody isn't even vaguely Latin. Then, of course, there's the great squeaky octave synth part over the chorus, the hits that dominate the beginning of the bridge, and the fact that it's basically the same chordal loop through the whole song, with harmony to signal the chorus and a sweeter wash over the prechorus, with a great little underturn at the end of that phrase to lead into the chorus.
But the real grabber here--melody aside, which is very catchy--is that weird, non-intuitive chord progression, and the way it's carried out. The first and second bars are pretty clear, with a minor chord repeated twice shifting up a fourth to another minor chord repeated twice, but that third bar, for no good reason, seems like a trip-up that's been looped and made sense of by the melody: it carries over the second bar's chord, but then switches to a chord a half-step above the modal chord before falling back into that original minor chord. That half-step fall into the fourth measure is Latin, too, but it's also sort of illogical in its rhythm, like a sequencer that's been programmed to do a certain chord progression but is stuck in a very straight, constant, dotted eighth-dotted eighth-three eighths pattern that doesn't actually sound like you want it to sound but works nevertheless. Every time I listen to it, it doesn't do what I expect it to do, and that's a neat little trick.
posted by Mike B. at 3:28 PM
0 comments
|
|