BB #08: CHIEF INSPECTOR BLANCHEFLOWER

Intro, one, two, three, four, five, six.

Off we go once again, armed with my new understanding of their equipment set-up.

Note: I am not doing "Mason City," at least not at the present time, because I have no idea what the hell is going on in "Mason City." If anyone out there has an idea what's going on in "Mason City," drop me a line, and we can collaborate on it or something, but man, I can't make a coherant heads or tails of that sucker.

STRUCTURE

Very clear three-part structure here, to the degree that you could make clean cuts and have it be three separate songs, all. Part one is the typewriter section, part two is the mystery section, and part three is the relationship section.

Part 1

Begins with just synth and drum machine claps on the 2 and 4. The synth is doing something I've heard done before but I don't know how to do--I believe (although, again, could be talking out my ass) the oscilator is randomized and acts as a sort of irrational arpeggiator, playing a succession of eighth notes within a certain range but with no rhyme or reason. Even better, while the notes and the claps start off roughly in sync, they are on slightly different cycles, so after a bar or two they're firing at very different intervals, sort of like sitting at a red light behind another car and having your turn signal be slightly off theirs. It's fascinating to listen to, a weird, counterintuitive, and very effective choice. This continues throughout the entire typewriter section, although it occasionally changes volume and range.

After 15 second to appreciate these two things alone, the full arrangement of voice, percussion, and what I'm going to assume is autoharp (although it could be a mandolin or some other high-pitched, strummed string instrument). The percussion seems to be just toms, reverbed and either delayed at the same BPM as the claps are playing at, or just played like a 4-note mid-low feedback delay, firing off every 4 bars. The autoharp strums a single chord every 2 bars in the verse, but in the chorus changes chords. The verse chord is C. The chorus progression is C-C-F-F-G-G.[1]

Vocally, the verses consist of more or less free-spoken lyrics for two bars followed by a melody for the next two bars consisting almost entirely of quarter notes and almost all E, G, and A. The chorus melody is almost exactly the same as the melody in the last two bars of the verse, except with a transitional F thrown in for good measure. It is exactly the same for all three chords; there is some rhythmic change, but this is mainly on account of the lyrics and the chord changes are simply there to provide the illusion of movement. It's almost ADD...

In terms of arrangement, we've already covered the first verse. For the first chorus, everything stays as before except a droning organ drops in on the left channel, the autoharp plays changes, and the synth gets detuned slightly. For the second verse, all beats drop out and a second randomized synth comes in on the other channel; after two lines, the toms come in double-beat where they usually would. They're definitely delayed here. The fourth line has a overdriven, bassy, dipping synth noise. For the second chorus, the tom hits every two bars but is not delayed, and the organ comes in. I also hear a piano here, although in retrospect that was probably somewhere before. The third verse is as the first verse at first, except with the additional randomized synth. Then there's the aforementioned synth noise, and we're back to the intro arrangement, and then it's just muted randomized bass synth for the final vocals here, which get muted as well and processed.

Part 2

A beat runs through this section that's the stereotypical disco beat, kick-hat-kick/snare-hat, and I'm going to assume it's a drum machine. The chord structure is driven by a piano, although there's also an acoustic guitar here. A synth plays a leadline and I don't hear a bass. The whole thing has a sort of loose, boogie-woogie feel, although I may just be making that up. The impression is largely shaped by its contrast to the first part, given the very consistent, regular beat, and the more conventional vocal line, which Eleanor sings. The verse progression is D-G-Bm-A/Bm/A. The chorus progression is G-A-D-C. So unless I'm a dumbass,[2] the verse is in D and the chorus is in G. Sorta. Or there's just an extra C in there for no reason. Oh, and the end of the chorus is 6 Gs and 10 (?) C#s.

It all proceeds as above for 2 verse and choruses. Then it holds G for 2 bars and there's a minor-key bridge, which has the same arrangement. I'm too lazy to figure out the chords here, but it proceeds in stepwise form with the synth holding whole notes and switching octaves every bar; it reminds me progression-wise of the "My baby's got a stick..." section of "Chris Michaels."[3] Then there's a backwards-masked solo over indeterminate chords with, again, no significant arrangement change, followed by another verse/chorus pair as before. Then there's another breakdown outro with Eleanor freestyling (uh, sorta) over a murky drum machine beat and we're out.

Part 3

Starts off with a roughly similar arrangement to the basic one for Part 2, except slower, and with a clap instead of a snare on 2 and 4. The synth line plays a more organized, scale-y line, which repeats regularly. The nice thing here is probably the way the 2nd chord hangs on through the third, making the dip to the fourth chord good, as it's really just two chords with a transitional one back into the resolving tonic at the end.

Then we have the second part, which dips into a lower chord to mirror the lyrics, a common practice in this section; it's almost a Broadway song in the way the melody and progression follow the narrative arc, even as the arrangement stays consistent. It hits a nice resolving chord at the end and does a similar thing, plus tremelo, with the next part.

The fourth part is vocals and a very prominent acoustic guitar, with some synth stuff going on in the background and no beat, although the guitar strumming is fairly rhythmic and continues the groove feel of the previous section that followed through here. I'm having a hard time following the chords in these three sections, especially whether they're regular or not, and what the logic is. It doesn't sound weird in the way the first section does, but it also doesn't sound conventional. I could map it out more thoroughly, but eh, what do you expect for free?

Then we have a fifth section that's just Rhodes (?) and vocals, with the same melody and chords as in the first part of this section, except slower.

Finally, a minute-and-a-half guitar solo, at a more moderate tempo than the rest of the song and with live drums, I'm fairly sure. The piano describing the chords gives the whole affair a sort of outro-of-"Layla" feel, although the drums are, I think, played by Matt, and thus fairly simple. The main thing to note here, aside from the actually very good solo, are the weird little breaks that happen starting at 8:28, where the drums play a fill and there are all sorts of zappy synthy noises which, were I being unkind, I might suggest were injected in order to disguise the out-of-time fills, but which actually work very well, so never mind. Although, let's all just take a moment and notice the fact that the song ends with a minute-and-a-half guitar solo and I'm not sure this has been mentioned in any write-ups of the album, and given that there are not a few other lengthy guitar solos on the album, this is notable. I guess after a 3-minute section focusing primarily of out-of-sync drum machine and randomized synth and free-jazz vocals, it doesn't seem like such a big deal.[4]

In chart form:

Part 1
0:00-0:15 Intro
0:16-0:46 Verse 1
0:47-1:11 Chorus
1:12-1:45 Verse 2
1:46-2:09 Chorus
2:10-3:03 Verse 3 (outro)
Part 2
3:04-3:20 Verse 1
3:21-3:31 Chorus 1
3:32-3:48 Verse 2
3:49-4:01 Chorus 2
4:02-4:19 Bridge
4:20-4:34 Solo
4:35-4:51 Verse 3
4:52-5:02 Chorus 3
5:03-5:10 Breakdown (outro)
Part 3
5:11-5:27 Intro
5:28-6:05 Part 1 (hangin')
6:06-6:18 Part 2 (conflict I)
6:19-6:40 Part 3 (conflict II)
6:41-7:11 Part 4 (dialogue)
7:12-7:25 Part 5 (breakdown, aka Part 1 mk II)
7:26-8:58 Solo

Did I say something a few entries ago about toning this section down? Ah well.

ANALYSIS

This is one of my favorite songs on the album, a real winner, although also something of a grower, in the final analysis; it took a while to catch on, but once I paid attention, man oh man. Gimme some of that sugar.

Part 1

Fairly straightforward, plot-wise, so let's run through that so we can get to the juicy thematic bulldada. Kid wants to be a typewriter repairman, because he loves the whole experience of it, especially the idea of sleeping late, doing a quick repair, and being back for an early dinner. His uncle even owns a typewriter repair business. But he doesn't get enough good grades, partially because he is ADD.[5] He spends some time in the remedial room, and looks for other jobs, but gets distracted by the graphs, and in the end launches into a somewhat extensive fantasy about being a detective.

Now for the goodies. This is definitely the best song about ADD I've ever heard[6], and, in the Fiery Furnaces tradition, this stems in no small part from the specificity of it: not only raisins as a reward but "from her Ziplock bag," "Now I'm playing In My Own Little House," etc. Then on a slightly higher level, there are the evocations of things pleasing to ADD kids: the tangibility of typewriter parts mixed with the laziness the job would afford, the graphs in the career book, the "diamond plastic piece of wood" the street repair people are using as a warning sign. And on a higher level, there's also the fact that the verses feel ADD, rushed and unstructured and wobbling quickly from one subject to the next; even the chorus, while more organized, is a rush of words, really one sentence but covering a lot of ground.

But the best thing about it is probably how obvious it is that Matt himself is ADD. You can compare the Furnaces to prog on the basis of this album, but really, while this song is 9 minutes long, if you read through this analysis you see that there aren't any complex keys or time signatures--C major and D major and roughly 4/4 throughout--and it's really just three separate songs. Matt's just so ADD that he wants to throw as much in there as possible to keep his interest and it ends up getting long as a result. And it's blindingly obvious from the live shows, which are nothing but a near-perfect expression of ADD. It's different from a jam band mashing up a bunch of songs for creative or interpretive reasons; Matt just seems like he gets bored of each song so fast there's no reason to play the whole thing, or if you do, you have to break it up and put other songs in between the different sections. Now, this is more a guiding impulse than an actual night-by-night reason, and it ends up being creatively and interpretively interesting, but still, it's very ADD. So here we have an ADD song about being ADD. Pop affords this.

Part 2

Matt's fantasy here is very boy's adventure story: clearly set in England, full of farmers and lords and weapons and bars. The detective gets word from a nobleman that there's been trouble with a farmer who may have been involved with foul play. When s/he arrives (Eleanor sings this part, so it's sort of hard to tell what's going on gender-wise, although see my previous points about this in "Blueberry Boat") s/he encounters the farmer in question, who is carrying a gun and muttering about his son. The detective arrests and confines him and has tea with the lord, Sir Robert Grayson, but the farmer escapes and burts through the window with a sword. Luckily he is very polite and begs forgiveness. Were I to fill in the gaps here I'd assume the farmer then gives evidence that he's been wrongly accused of killing his wife, and perhaps his son is to blame. The detective then meets with someone who has, in fact, killed his/her father (the "young son"?) and get the 411. So to speak. It's disjointed, but hey, it's ADD.

The best part here is the wonderfully ambiguous line "No where you'll see."

Part 3

A very sudden shift here from 19th-century England to 20th-century America, and from the pre-adolescent version of Matt's character to the 20/30-something version. Having done the adult thing, he comes back for a visit and stays with his younger brother Michael. They drink, take painkillers and drink beer and watch a DVD, but something's up. Michael admits he's dating Matt's ex-girlfriend Jenny. Matt goes to see Jenny at her father's bakery and a confrontation ensues where it's hard to tell who's in the right: Jenny says she's dating Michael because she likes him, but Matt sees dark ulterior motives in that she's simply dating Michael to get back at Matt. We then find out that Matt's married and possibly not doing too well financially as he has to use his wife's new car to go have a drink at the bar his friend owns, it's unclear where. He doesn't like that Jenny is doing this.

Overall

The main question here, of course, is: what the hell do all these sections have to do with one another? Below you'll find my idea of what they all have to do with the other songs on this album, but why specifically are they all mashed up here? Or is it just a cop out? Sorta yeah, sorta no. There's a clear and easily-constructed narrative flow between the first two sections: the first part is a description of this ADD kid, and then the second part is his daydream, which makes just all kinds of sense and hopefully I don't have to explicate that, because, well, I'm not gonna. But then the third part just makes very, very little sense. You're dropped into a whole new situation with this character, which is fine, but nothing ever actually gets explained, although you do get a few facts: he dated someone named Jenny, he's now married to someone's who's not Jenny, and he has a younger bro who's currently dating Jenny. But what did he end up getting employed as? (A clerk at Gunzo's?) Who's his wife? When did he and Jenny date? And so forth. It's very believable that it's the same character, but it's somewhat inexplicable why the artistic choice to leave so much of the story out. Although I guess it was 9 minutes already, and focusing on small scenes is always a better idea in pop songs than trying to give the full picture. Still. It's good, but also somewhat confusing even with close analysis. Unless I'm totally missing something.

CONTEXT

The way to think of this is mainly in relation to "Chris Michaels." Part 3 here is what happens afterwards; part 1 is what happened before, at least with Matthew's character. I'll admit to being sort of unclear as to how all of this relates, whether it's a parallel narrative or the same one, and while the naming differences would suggest the former (there's no "Jenny" or "Michael" in the previous song, although note the last name), but I prefer the latter because it's more fun. As I tangentally suggested in my entry for CM, I think Matt's character is Tony, and Tony's unnamed mistress is in fact Jenny. To change a bit what I said there, I think Tony gets dumped by Jessica, comes back from Columbia after Melinda's fleed the country, and enters into a serious relationship with Jenny, which ends sometime around college in a nasty way, and then a few years later Jenny starts dating Tony's little brother Michael. Many things are pretty much left unexplained: why they break up (although clearly Tony cheated on Jenny, in classic cyclical fashion, since he assumes she's trying to get back at him), where Michael was all this time, what Tony's doing with his life, but I'll try and fill this in with my wrap-up, to come by the end of the year (promise). Or hey, maybe a future Fiery Furnaces album will get into it.

"Spainolated" and (if you're lucky) "Birdie Brain" to come tomorrow, or I eat an entire mattress.

[1] This is much easier when you're doing it at home with a guitar at your side. Stupid work. Alternately: stupid me not having perfect pitch.
[2] And I am.
[3] "Shouldn't you use the same section name you used in your analysis of that song?" Eh.
[4] Were this more of a critical post, I might note something here about the way this contrasts with coverage of Wilco's A Ghost is Born, but that's for another time, I suppose.
[5] Yeah, OK, "ADHD," but ADD is one letter less, so in the spirit of the disorder, I'm going to use the shorter version.
[6] Not counting, of course, the brief Atom & His Package line: "At the punk rock / academy / where all the students / they're diagnosed with ADD." Great song.

posted by Mike B. at 10:28 PM 0 comments

Also, while I'm being nerdy, I might mention that the first paper in that post below is really, really good. Check it out.

posted by Mike B. at 10:17 PM 0 comments

Presumably all you music nerds out there know P.D.Q. Bach, but you may not know (I didn't) that the guy behind it has a weekly radio show. I'm currently listening to it on WNYC when I'm not Blancheflowerin' it, and this week it's all about transcription. He just introduced a bit from "Stars and Stripes Forever" as "the most famous piccalo solo in the world." I never realized how annoying that part was before.

Of course, I'm predisposed to anyone whose website prominently features the legend “Dedicated to the Proposition that All Musics are Created Equal” but still.

posted by Mike B. at 10:10 PM 0 comments

Impressions from my travels today:

If there's anything that would make the $20 MOMA admission fee seem acceptable, it would be trying to get in today when admission was free. The line not only went all the way down 53rd street, it then looped back on itself three times. Yeah, I'll pony up two sawbucks to not deal with that. It looked pretty from the outside.

Sideways is both very good and not sad. Sure, it was bittersweet, but the ending cut nicely between happy and said, leaving it ambiguous but hopeful. Payne is better than a lot of people at balancing awkward moments (which I have only a certain tolerance for, while I do enjoy them) with wish fulfillment and straight-up humor. You could argue that it was a cop-out not to have a wholly sad ending here, but, you know, decent ones happen all the time. The failed-writer jokes were very good, although eternally second in this particular category to Martin Amis' The Information, where the jokes about agents getting headaches and the description of the revolving-door/cellphone scene are just magnificent. Although, I always feel like it's kind of mean for published writers to make jokes about writers who can't get published. Anyway. Also, did anyone else laugh at the fact that Grapes of Wrath was playing on the TV when Guy-From-Wings looked at himself in the mirror? It's a double pun! Also also, the trailer for In Good Company looked excellent. Go Topher Grace.

posted by Mike B. at 8:03 PM 0 comments

Friday, November 19, 2004

Oh, Thomas Bartlett.

It was also the kind of landmark record that can be very difficult to
follow. Cave and his band, the Bad Seeds, released their next studio album in
2001, "No More Shall We Part," a dense, intricately complicated record that had
a few brilliant moments, but for the most part felt overworked, overthought, and
stale. Last year came "Nocturama," a sloppy, indifferently written record that
replaced overthinking with thoughtlessness and was easily the worst that Cave
had ever made. It began to look as though "The Boatman's Call" might have marked
not only the highpoint of Cave's career but also the beginning of its rapid
decline.

Earlier this year, I met with Cave as he prepared to release his two-CD
record set -- "Abattoir Blues" and "The Lyre of Orpheus." He spoke at length
about the progression from "The Boatman's Call" to the present, and while he
didn't, in so many words, say that his last two records were bad, his tone --
and his inability to even remember one of the titles -- made it clear that his
esteem for them may be as limited as mine.

Translation: "even though there's no "proof" of this in the article, I got the distinct feeling that the musician's opinion of his work was exactly the same as my opinion of his work. Sounds incredible, right? Especially given that musicians don't often dislike things they've made and I irrationally hated the last two albums? But true! Sure, there's no basis for that, but you just had to be there, with me, and Nick Cave...it was awesome, by the way."

I also like an ostensibly interview-based article in which quotes from the subject appear in less than one-third of the paragraphs therein. What's that other 2/3 about? Oh, you know...stuff.

posted by Mike B. at 5:27 PM 0 comments

Hmm, someone named "Chuck" notices the exclusion of Metallica from the Rolling Stone Album Guide and mentions it to Gawker. I wonder what Chuck's last name could be?

posted by Mike B. at 4:13 PM 0 comments

Blogs: overly self-important or total sell-outs, man?

Agree with the first but not the second, at least not about the specific blogs mentioned; you want to throw in certain other more Livejournal-y NYC blogs[1], I'm in a bit more, but still not very far.

Of course, this is Chris Ott we're talking about here.

[1] A good rant about same at Lindsayism.

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

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Searching on Google Scholar for things in your interest area can be kind of scary. Viz:

Exploring modal subdivisions in alternative music

"The concern of this article is with a particular set of harmonic practices that rock
musicians, particularly those who participate in the domain of guitar-oriented
‘alternative’ rock, have been using with noticeable frequency in the last ten years. I
am also interested in discussing the concept of the power chord (a term I shall explicate
more clearly below)"

Technology and Aesthetics in Popular and Not-so-popular Music

Do we believe the voice proclaiming —man, I feel like a woman“ is really Shania? Does
her voice sound real to us, or real only better? Have we become accustomed to this new
aesthetic of digitized perfection? In ten or twenty years, will it sound as dated as an 80s sax
solo? As multiple takes are recorded, dismantled and reassembled and synthesized, the voice becomes a "shifting centre of a collage of a thousand microperformances.“ Technology has
shattered the connection between performer and performance, as Ian Penman explains in an
essay on amplification and the voice, and "the presumed truth of the voice (as in some scene of
confession of gospel gnosis) cannot be thought of as immutable, as the voice is always now œ via
recording - at a remove from itself."

Theses on Sleater-Kinney

Marx wrote the “Theses on Feuerbach” in 1845 in preparation for The German Ideology, which he coauthored with Friedrich Engels. Engels only discovered the “Theses” after Marx's death, and he regarded them to be “the brilliant germ of the new world outlook.” In postmodernity, outlooks are certainly less sweeping. This article offers a set of cultural materialist theses on the sound of the all-female rock trio, Sleater-Kinney, in a dialogue often faithful to Marx's original work.

Schwarze Netze statt Netzstruempfe? Weibliche Kommunikationsraeume in Jugendkulturen und im Internet

Die Texte der weiblichen Punks drücken u.a. die sexuellen Bedürfnisse der Frauen direkt aus. Sie holen sich das, was sie wollen, notfalls mit körperlicher Gewalt. Sie beschreiben Männer, wie sonst Männer Frauen beschreiben, abtaxierend, abschätzend. Diese aggressive Komponente wird dann vor allem durch die riot grrls wiederbelebt. "I want to fuck you like a dog / Take you home and make you like it."

‘*1/2’ a critique of rock criticism in North America

As a particular type of gatekeeper, rock critics play a significant role in shaping the representations of artists for an admittedly small, but influential, population, as well as establishing an artist's place in music history. In Sound Effects, Simon Frith (1983) maintains that rock critics are ‘opinion leaders’ and are the ‘ideological gatekeepers’ of the community for which they write. Additionally, I argue that rock critics function as Gramscian ‘organic intellectuals’ who articulate the ideas held by the population of which they are a part (Gramsci 1971, pp. 5-14).

GIRL POWER: FEMINISM, GIRLCULTURE AND THE POPULAR MEDIA Ashley Lorrain Smith, BAS

[This is crashing, but there's some good stuff on the Spice Girls. And pro!]

johnny_paulhus

I’ve never really listened to Liz Phair. The White Stripes are up next on my listening list. I’ll get around to Liz sometime in the summer perhaps.

It’s strange to realize just how many people have been entirely UN-influenced by Fight Club. Today the ladies at work asked me if I wanted anything from Wendy’s. “Yeah, I’ll take one of those Chicken B.L.T. salads,” I said (a darn satisfying meal if you haven’t had one yet).

“What kind of dressing do you want?” asked office lady Betsy.

“Oh, they’ll include Honey Mustard dressing,” I said.

“What if they don’t?” she asked.

“Don’t worry they will. It comes as a complete salad hobby kit.”

“Hahaha,” laughed office lady Betsy and the lovely office hottie Emma. “’Hobby kit.’ I like that.”

I didn’t feel like explaining, so I reluctantly took credit for the line, and then I went back to my office and got to thinking: I’m backing out of the banquet that is America. I’ve grabbed my filled plate and quietly excused myself from the table. I sense that the ceiling’s caving in; everyone sees it, but most people deny it...

posted by Mike B. at 4:09 PM 0 comments

There's something sort of perfectly sad about this, and I can't really say why. I just want everything to be OK.

posted by Mike B. at 1:12 PM 0 comments

Great post from Joe, sort of about the relation between the election and our particular mindset. Well worth reading. As I said in the comments, I've been meaning to make a post along those lines for some time; maybe I will soon.

posted by Mike B. at 1:07 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Brief addendum to the below based on some new information:

"You don't understand! They've been watching me since I was a little kid! Tracking my movements, following me everywhere!"

"No they haven't...uh, OK, they have, but see, there was this thing called Columbine...I did mention it's nothing personal, right?"

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

Oh, he's trying so hard. And in City Pages no less! Let's see if we can demonstrate why it's wrong between our day job as a celebrity artist/filmmaker and our fabulous night out at the Delancy or wherever the hell I'm supposed to be. (Context on the author from this peek here, and be sure to check this.)

First off, just to mention, I was more confused than pleased by Kelefa's rockism piece, although it was a fine piece of writing; if I had to identify a manifesto for popism it would probably be Sasha's JT review in Slate. But the nice thing about this whole business, you know, is that it doesn't really seem to demand manifestos--we're kinda winning, ultimately. It's not reactionary, as people who criticize it often assume (the summation here is that it's 'like those blogs I encounter every now and then that begin, "I don't care what people think--I'm starting to think Dick Cheney is hot!"'), an assumption that I can only assume comes precisely from the stance being attacked: the idea that critical legitimacy only comes from standing in opposition to something. Meh. Sanneh's piece sorta does, but that was part of the reason I disliked it, although I also realize that it pretty much had to be that way to land in the Times. We just like the music, dude. We're not doing it because we want to piss other people off, although we've discovered that the simple fact that we do like this music does piss people off, which I think we (I, at least) find really funny. But it's just more pleasure-seeking.

...and "The last multi-megaton ordnance...was Renata Adler's notorious 1980 attack on Pauline Kael's When the Lights Go Down"--really? I mean, granted I'm a young pup, but just off the top of my head there's the whole Dale Peck "Rick Moody is the worst writer of his generation" thing. You'd think that qualifies, and that's, what, 2 years ago? 3 years ago? Sanneh's was a nice piece, but in terms of its importance, this is the first argumentative response I've seen, and from someone who looks to be primarily a movie critic no less, so I don't know how true that is.

Oh, and just before we get to the meat of this: cool kids? Seriously, dude? I mean: "Sanneh is a mall-ratty kitsch queen in love with what the cute, popular kids are liking. He so wants to fit in, it could give you a toothache." Wow. I mean--and I'm just putting this out there, I know it sounds crazy--we could actually like the music and it could have nothing to do with social status which has never been much of a concern for rock critics anyway, let's be honest here.[1]

The real key error in the critique lies in the charge that Sanneh's solution isn't sufficiently old-guard leftist enough. Hahaha. Behold!

What he's saying--though he lacks the sand to come out and say it in so many words--is that the "rock establishment" that enshrines the Lone Wolf is, by dint of its Lone Wolf worship, racist, sexist, and homophobic. Okay...accepting that thesis, you'd expect that next Sanneh is going to come out in defense of subversive, openly politicized, rigorously critical queer artists and/or artists of color. A ringing endorsement of Stephin Merritt and Me'Shell NdegéOcello will now follow--right? Hardly. Instead, it's time for a late-night trip to Wal-Mart, for a jumbo bag of Skittles and all the CDs your poor arms can carry!

Sand?

Uh, anyway...look, he didn't explictly say the "establishment" is un-P.C. because he wasn't friggin' implictly saying that. I don't think people are really concerned that Mojo is sexist--they're concerned that they're dumbasses. It's pretty simple. Race/sex/gender prejudice matters a lot in many areas of the music and entertainment industry, but not, fundamentally, in consumption or criticism. The problem with criticism is, like I say, Being A Dumbass. (BAD!) The fact that 70s anti-discoism was rooted in homophobia and racism isn't the main argument against it, then or now, it's just a big red flag that should pop up for intelligent people who want to adopt the same stance. You know, do you dislike this because it's bad or because it's new? Because it's stupid or because it's widely accepted?

The problem here is the same one we've seen before: confusing politics and culture. The most straightforward illustration of this is probably the following line, and, for those of you who are reading this post before the article itself, let me assure you that he actually says this: "Sanneh is like a Vichy girl who can't believe how fast her heart is beating as she kisses a Luftwaffe colonel...."

Yes, that's right. Indicating affection for Mariah Carey is like kissing a Nazi. Jackass.

Look, the solution to the problems being outlined here is not "com[ing] out in defense of subversive, openly politicized, rigorously critical queer artists and/or artists of color" because, well, a) like I said before, BAD's the problem, not the magic prejudice dance, plus b) that, um, hasn't worked very well before--minorities have made a lot more cultural headway by making pleasing art than by being championed by marginalized rock critics (plus (c) those who know me know reading the word "subversive" made small blisters start breaking out on the back of my neck, but I'll let it sit). Jesus Christ, I mean, why in God's name would the solution to people being close-minded about hot R&B be to big up Tom fucking Morello?[2]

This isn't politics. This isn't a massive injustice or a life-threatening issue. It's just people being dumbasses and we would like them to stop, please, because it's really annoying. Not every goddamn argument has to take place on political terms. There are other ones, like aesthetics, where one person can say, "I find this pleasing," and the other person can't rationally respond with "that's impossible!" as the author seems to be doing here. It is not impossible that people like pop. Apparently several million of them like Usher, and really, I mean, holy God, I don't even like Usher. So clearly it's not impossible. We're, what, 15 years past P.E. saying "Elvis never meant shit to me" and we're honestly questioning the idea that Nirvana might not be the Alpha and the Omega to someone?

And then it gets better.

Ahhh, so that's it! At the end of the day, the you-go-girl defense of otherness in combat with smothering white-boyness is a red herring. It's all about how to stop worrying and love...the marketplace...This generational screed pretends to "oppose and resist," but is really all about bending over for the "marketplace." Sanneh sees the displacedness and cultural impotence of the rockists and wants no part of that. He'll hang his hat with the red states, thank you very much. He knows la musique de Juicy Couture is here to stay.

Well, ignoring the charming gay joke[3]: are you fucking serious? I mean that. You're kidding, right? You're questioning the sincerity of someone liking Ashlee Simpson but at the same time you're honestly suggesting that doing so is a vote for Bush? C'mon. This is a put-on, right?

The idea that popism equals chartism has been thoroughly discredited. We're not only interested in what's number one; we're interested in whatever's engaging in the conversation of pop, which can include things at #87 as much as things at #2. Just on a very basic level, this stuff is interesting--the way the machines whirrs and twirls is a lovely thing to watch, and to know about. But beyond that, who cares? Why is a song that's produced with making money in mind (the best way to do this being, of course, to make something pleasing) any different than one that's produced with getting attention, or getting laid, or looking smart, or pleasing yourself in mind? How is the listening experience actually any different? It's not! In politics, the ends don't justify the means, but in art, the vast majority of the time they do. Most artists, especially the "lone wolves," were total assholes; they used and abused and ignored and generally tormented lots of people they knew, and along they way (and arguably, because of that) they made some good art. How is this better than the means of getting a bigass paycheck to make good art? It's not. We're coming at it from the opposite angle: having been interested in the music, we then become fans of the process, of the context, because pop music is all about context; pop is engaged in a conversation with itself. And that's at least as interesting as anything else. Recognizing the market is different from unreservedly endorsing the market--we'd like to see our favorite artists do better, too, we just tend to blame this on them or their labels being dumbasses rather than complaining about the cruel market.

So that's absolutely without merit. Now let me summarize the argument he's making here re: Bush states. Since Republicans are now very solidly the party in power, it would make a certain amount of sense to ally yourself with them, but this would be a fundamental betrayal of your values, so it would be evil. Similarly, since pop is now the primary cultural force, it would make a certain amount of sense to abandon rock totally, despite your love of it, but this, too, would be wrong and evil.

Oh, where to start? Let's just run it down.

1) The author tries to steamroll over this point, but you can like rock and pop. Sanneh states this quite clearly. And this is different from what most rock critics say. You can't be a Republican and a Democrat. (Unless you're Joe Lieberman.)

2) Since when was pop not the dominant cultural force? It is, by fucking definition. This is not a new development. Despite the gauzy histories of the boomers, rock was in no way the sole cultural force at any point in our history. And this isn't even getting into the rock-as-pop point.

3) What tangible benefits are there to endorsing pop over rock? None that I've seen. The rock critics still hold all the power. Liking pop just makes you weird.

4) What consequence is there to liking pop over rock? When you cynically throw your hand in with the right, you're helping gut environmental regulations, kill people in other countries, abrogate civil rights, etc., etc., the whole boring long list which is nonetheless pretty bad. When you throw your hand in with pop (let's just ignore whether or not this is cynical or not) you're...uh...putting bad music on the radio, man! Yeah, that analogy stands up.

This drives me nuts. I've been called a conservative before under similar circumstances, and it's just stupid. If you think that people voted for George Bush because they have, essentially, bad taste, you need to get out more. The idea that liberals view "the red states" (iee!) basically like they view pop fans--as misguided teenyboppers who will eventually grow out of it--scares the crap out of me. We're going nowhere with this, guys.

Why am I getting so worked up about this? Didn't I say it doesn't really matter? Well, it does, at least to the degree that if you think someone's position on Justin Timberlake or the new Modest Mouse song is an important piece of political speech, your citizenship should be revoked and thrown into a deep pit and you should be forced to listen to Top 40 radio until you goddamn like it. If you think there's any necessary correlation between musical taste and public policy, you are killing America. And if you think recognizing the market makes you a Republican, ask yourself: did Bill Clinton work with the market? Was he a Republican?

I have no need to apologize for being interested in what lots of people like. It might win what last I checked were called "popular election." Popular--pop. Get it, ya dumbass?

[1] Plus: "But you've got to be pretty dedicated to living in the moment to believe that we're living in a golden age of popular music." Yes, we're being inauthentic. You shit-licking fucknugget.
[2] Were I to take the author's tack, I might say something here along the lines of "That's like the Bush administration's reacting to 9/11 by invading Iraq!" but that's goddamn stupid.
[3] Not to mention the equally charming trend throughout the article of making snide feminization comments that were intended to be bitingly critical, apparently, all explained by the "well I thought he was a lay-dee" line near the beginning. Aha! So that's why we've got the gawky girl with the popular kids, naughty lady kissing Hitler, "edible body glitter," "Juicy Couture" stuff. Girls just don't get real music, man. They're too occupied with status and clothes and flirting...with, um, Nazis...

posted by Mike B. at 4:13 PM 0 comments

Three new Flapole reviews today: Leonard Cohen, which I like more than most, apparently; Chromeo, in which I give a formula for when an album is too ironic and annoy Hillary; and Bloc Party, in which I probably annoy Paul. All I can say about the last one is that I guess I was in a bad mood and I'm willing to be converted. But I don't think it's very likely.

posted by Mike B. at 11:22 AM 0 comments

A few more things I noticed about the M.I.A. mixtape during headphone sessions:

- The Prince mashup. Don't know how I missed this before, but there's totally the hook from "When Doves Cry" under "Baile Funk Two." It's quiet, so it's not really as mashuppy as the other tracks, but it's a lovely little touch, and is especially effective in smoothing the transition to the "Sweet Dreams" hook that "China Girl (Diplo Mix)" centers around--when it slides right from the Prince-synths into the Eurhythmics-synths, it's perfect. Oh, and the lyics to "China Girl" are fantastic too.

- The vocal line in "Amazon." It's lovely, but specifially the "chorus" ("Hello/this is MIA/could you please/come get me") where she rises up on the last syllable of "hello" and "please." Because this rises along with the annoying hook, it defuses its annoyingness by masking the tone (plus rides the beat a lot better than the original), but by not being repeated too much doesn't become annoying itself.

- The guitar noise before the 2nd chorus in "Sunshowers." I referred to this below, but after a close listening, I'm pretty sure it's the riff from "Push It" run through a distortion box. And it only appears once! Awesome. It could be from a different song, so correct me if I'm wrong, but it's definitely a sample there at 1:20.

posted by Mike B. at 11:04 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, November 16, 2004

You know what's weird? A spanish-language cover of "In the Ghetto," that's what's weird.

posted by Mike B. at 6:27 PM 0 comments

In this Kyle Gann piece (via The Rambler) he makes the distinction that I've been making for a while, "rock criticism" v. "musicology" (or Lester Bangs v. music theory, or "descibing things" v. "analyzing things" if you prefer), in an interesting way:

I have two kinds of student writers. One kind is very good at style and
atmosphere. They can talk about music in relation to their lives, tell how
certain songs make them feel, relate their likes and dislikes. The other type
knows musical terminology, and can describe music in intelligent detail. The
first type of writer is entertaining to read, but ultimately merely subjective;
the second is more persuasive, but a little dry and lacking in color and emotive
effect. Almost none can yet combine the best of both worlds. The first type are
almost all pop music aficionados; the second type tend to be classical and jazz
musicians.

Besides the correlation to what I've written about on this blog, it also caught my eye because there was a time when I was also spending a lot of time thinking about student writers. I don't much anymore, because a) I'm not a student writer now, and b) in retrospect, it was kind of stupid. That said, though, I did go on about it far too long here.

Anyway, the way this is relevant is that it demonstrates the degree to which you can't blame the teacher for the institutional flaws of the program or discipline. If anyone could get student writers to bridge this gap, you'd think it would be Gann. But since there's a lot of self-selection going on, people come to the program having been inspired by traditional music criticism, which if it's pop is impressionistic and if it's classical is analytical. It's hard to break out of that, because if you've decided to be a music writer, that's what you want to be, and for whatever reason, writing programs have a strong bias against telling students that what that want to be is stupid. (OK, I understand this.)

On the one hand, I think Gann is coming at this from the wrong angle--what's missing from pop criticism that we find in jazz/classical criticism is not that it can make objective value judgments, because it can't. All pop fans hate something they once intensely, unquestionably loved--I mean, I once owned 3 MC Hammer albums, you know? For jazz and classical folks, I don't get the sense this happens--OK, you might not be as geeked-out about Shostakovitch or Ellington as you once were, but that doesn't change the fact that these guys were still very, very good at what they did, and probably geniuses. This is not the case with the pop music we like as early adolescents, and, let's be honest, not the case with the pop music we like at any point in our life. This is a large part of pop's appeal: it is made by non-geniuses, by ungreat people. We might argue passionately that X is better than Y, but we do it in the terms we do ("Poision are pussies, man!") because we know, deep down, there's no actual rational justification for our views. Pop music is dumber and less complicated than jazz and classical music. Oh sure, I can make a great case for why that's good and interesting and worthy of attention, of the way it wedges itself inside this proscribed space and makes hay of the microvariations, of the contextualizations and narrative developments, but I'm not sure there is a way you can analyze, say, Poision and Ozzy Ozzborne's early solo work to say which one is better.

But you can analyze them in ways we haven't been, and this is where I think the potential for crossover lies. One of the things that interests me about classical musicology is the way it isn't just a dialogue for critics or listeners, it's also something that fundamentally informs compositional and performance techniques. When pop criticism does this, it's mainly in negative ways--keyboards are lame and fake, or heavy metal is stupid, or pop-country is conservative and commercial ("bad"). What it doesn't do is break open the music and show what it's doing in a way that encourages other people to work off that. Sure, musicians do this already, but not with criticism's help; they just use their ears to hear something, like it, and figure out how it's done. If pop criticism wants to make judgments, I think it can do this most usefully by highlighting things that are going unnoticed, or explaining where pleasure comes from. And this is where analysis comes in. I don't think it would work comparatively with pop, but it would work within the context of a song or an artist.

On the other hand (that was a long break, huh?), I think he's dead-on with the stuff about making classic criticism more subjective. Those music-appreciation things sound stupid because they try and posit a subjective interpretation as something eternal--well, of course this is what this bit represents, don't you see? But what pop criticism has shown us is that by explaining the particular personal meaning something has for you, you actually encourage other listeners to strengthen their own personal connections, not take on your individual interpretation. The best pop criticism, it seems to me, is very specific. Klosterman is good at this. You know he's not trying to make a universal statement about GnR because he's telling you the name of his friend from high school. And once he's done this, once he's grounded it in the personal, he's won the right to make broader subjective statements. And then, as Gann points out, the critic can then explain what particular individual elements in the music suggest this, and why. You can make the case. I'd like this, and I do see some people doing it already.

posted by Mike B. at 11:03 AM 0 comments

I was going to link this even before the charity appeal, but Tom's Band Aid piece really is great.

posted by Mike B. at 10:41 AM 0 comments

Monday, November 15, 2004

Speaking of which: Sasha on M.I.A., if you haven't seen it already.

Also, the M.I.A. website. The EPK is less a, you know, EPK, and more a home video of her rehersing a performance of "Galang" in a dance studio, and is sort of perfect. No direct link, but go to the Music section and click on the TV.

posted by Mike B. at 5:22 PM 0 comments

There are a lot of things I like about Diplo & M.I.A.'s Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1, and probably more to come, as I've only listened to it twice. But here's what I've got so far.

- There's no intro. It just drops you directly in with two different mixes of "Galang," like you've wandered into a club at an early peak of the set, which "Galang" would be in almost anyone's mix. The flow is effortless and unselfconscious, going from one bit to another without calling attention to the transitions but without feeling like an epic megamix, either. This is simply how the music should go, it feels like; there's no intro or outro necessary because there's no need for contextualization. It is so of the moment that it's simply a transition from your everyday life, from the sounds around you to the sounds being directed deliberately into your ears.

- There aren't any skits. Even the one track labeled as a skit isn't actually a skit, it's just the closest this mix gets to one; everything is a song because there are no breaks, there's no need to stop dancing, and the music reflects this by sounding both laid-back and hard, relaxed enough so you don't get worn out but giving you the energy to keep going just in case. It's an evocation of a perfect kind of high. (There are others, of course--c.f. rave and speed metal--but this is another one, a different one.)

- There's a "Walk Like an Egyptian" mashup. This was where it really won me over, in no small part because there's also one on probably my favorite mashup album, Kid606's The Action Packed Mentalist Brings You The Fucking Jams.[1] The Bangles remix in particular is notably better here than on the Kid's effort; the context he used it in was the key there, but here, it's just straight-up brilliant, sliding it effortlessly (again!) into a hottt dancehall beat. It seems to focus, almost unconsciously, on the line "all the kids in the marketplace." It's not an ironic gesture, or, rather, it's more than an ironic or funny gesture (because lord knows I love those)--it's making this song better.

- She makes the goddamn "Goodies" hook not annoying. Unlike a lot of people, I find the repeated use of this otherwise-good octave riff in the original Ciara track maddening. But M.I.A.'s vocals distract me, call my attention away from the drone, and then you realize she's singing about being held hostage in the Amazon. Except it's also about hooking up with someone but feeling sorta trapped and sorta guilty, and the wet smell falls across both. And she's worried about getting detention. And then you realize that this riff was also used in a Missy song, and the track here follows a different Missy song. And then you remember that in the track before that, the Bangles mashup, this noise also appeared, in a modified form. And you start to understand why this is all sounding so good. It's perfectly detailed.

- The Clipse track that follows it. And then it ambles into a Clipse remix[2] that's hushed and nocturnal, like the old meaning of jungle, sparse, muted percussion, and a heavily reverbed synth line. It's the opposite of crunk, like someone snuck into the Neptunes' studio while they were sleeping and made a track quiet enough not to wake them. Plus, the Clipse have their own Goodies mashup. And this brings it forward one more.

- The bootlegs aren't bootlegs. Generally, mashups are either digested as one-at-a-time MP3s, where, isolated, they can often seem half-assed and gimmicky; or in the context of an album, and in particular on an album like this, centering around an artist with notoriously few finished tracks, they could seem like filler. But they don't, somehow; they seem like perfectly natural transitions, exactly what you'd want, and almost equally as good as the M.I.A.-native tracks--and don't forget, again, that the mix started off with an M.I.A. track, setting the tone for the whole thing very effectively. If you don't pay attention, there's no differentiation, and that's an amazing thing.

- "POP." Which, not surprisingly, my Media Player auto-generated playlist (which, very surprisingly, pops right up) puts ALL IN CAPS like certain other folks do when using that most sacred of words. Because it's important, and in a way, it's the ultimate subject being addressed here. But confusingly, it's probably the least poppy M.I.A. song yet, consisting almost solely of a slow-moving, squawky distorted synth-bass line and near-screwed drums, all plodding along behind nimble vocals. But the vocals are fantastic. This is one of those things I'm going to need to return to[2.1], but the thing that's most grabbing here is the way the sort of triumphalist language that feels tired now is being specifically used in the context of pop culture, in the need to invade that and take it over, and not only that, but it's an affirmation of the undeniable ability to do that, while not necessarily downplaying the difficulties ("It's rough in here / but it's rougher out there."). There's none of the "my stuff wouldn't ever get played on the radio anyway, maaaan" crap we're used to hearing; it's just "try somethin' new cause it ain't over." The second verse in particular here is just killer, and in contrast to the somewhat insistent tone of the rest of the mix, this one song demands, and rewards, closer attention. The whole midsection here of M.I.A. originals, tracks 10-13, is great, and this isn't even getting into the fucked-up mix of "Sunshowers," especially the bit around 1:20 where a drums-and-vocal section ends with the totally illogical but totally effective inclusion of metal guitars, and then a slide into the wavering, pitch-shifted chorus vocals[2.2]. Man. And then when the regular chorus vocals drop in after that, it's even better, somehow.

- The horn-centric chorus of "Bucky Done Gum." Not much else to say, really. You expect it to go somewhere and then it just goes twelve different places. And then it continues under the verse! Awesome.

- The ending. Matthew's already mentioned this, but the one-two punch of "U R A Q T"[3] to "Bingo," i.e. "the Big Pimpin masup," is killer enough to dwell on a little bit more. "URAQT" seems like one of those songs that takes something that wouldn't seem poppy at all and makes it into a total top-40 trope. (See: tablas, "Get Ur Freak On.") I don't know what the hell is playing the hook here, but it's just totally unexplainably fantastic, old-fashioned but groovy and right. And then, of course, the bit where she starts sing-speaking the title, in a melody that pretty much no one but M.I.A. herself could have pulled out of this beat, is just lovely. And then, of course, what to follow up with but her doing her thing over the looped "Big Pimpin" beat, with not much even added except for some totally inexplicable sound FX, but what she does with it is awe-inspiring, particularly the chorus, but also definitely the unexpected, totally distinctive "h-h-h-holla" chant that comes up in the middle, and of course the "do you know how this beat is made?" line. And then they let the beat ride for a while, and a computer voice says "M...I..A" and we're done, with a sense of nonstop goodness that you just don't get very much. Just mind-bogglingly excellent.

[1] This mix rivals that album for that title, as well as "best title for a mashup album."
[2] ???
[2.1] In part because I can't make out the lyrics entirely, mainly because I haven't given it a headphones listening yet--and it's rare that I like an album these days without giving it a headphones listening. So if anyone has lyrics, that would be very helpful.
[2.2] Which are themselves a reference to the original, where an octave-up version of those vocals appears under the second verse. Here, though, they're wavering, sliding in and out of key.
[3] As it's never put, but writing it this way makes the meaning clearer.

posted by Mike B. at 1:37 PM 0 comments

It is our label's publicity lady's birthday today. In her card, I almost wrote, "I sympathize--dealing with rock writers all day would age anyone prematurely." Then I decided this was mean and just wrote happy birthday instead. I didn't mean it in a mean way, though.

posted by Mike B. at 1:09 PM 0 comments

Great, guys. I can't wait until they put these on antipsychotic medications. It's going to make treating paranoid schizophrenics that much easier. Sample exchange, 2006:

"I can't take my pills because the government has implanted miniature transmitters in them to track me!"

"Don't be silly, the government doesn't...uh, OK, it does have tiny antennas there on your medication, but look, it's nothing personal..."

posted by Mike B. at 11:57 AM 0 comments

Sunday, November 14, 2004

Reading this NYT article about Puffy Ami Yumi, I now desperately want to hear lots of them. If I had to identify one particular line that hooked me, it would be this one:

"They have been familiar faces since 1996, when "Ajia no Junshin" ("True Asia") their debut single in imitation of the group E.L.O., sold more than a million copies."

A million-selling debut single in imitation of the Electric Light Orchestra? Seriously? Sign me up!

So yes, if someone would like to send me an album or some MP3s, that would be lovely. Drop me a line.

Also, the Ensler/LaBute review, which sees fit (wisely) to include a capsule modern social history of the interaction of weight and feminism, is very good, although I still think that any LaBute review can simply consist of the statement "LaBute's characters are not human and should not be mistaken for such" and leave it at that. But.

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