Well, Christmas Eve. What to do to celebrate the Christmas season?
How about listening to the Beatles' Christmas albums? All of them. From '63-69 and beyond. You can find them here: http://www.beatlesource.com/bs/mains/audio/xmas/xmas.html
It's fascinating to hear the Beatles evolve from happy go lucky band to experimental group. The first few years are near-drunken efforts, full of thank-yous and song fragments. 1968 is a full blown tape collage ala Revolution 9. It's a sort of alternate document of the Beatles' rapid rise and dissolution.
I listen to music. Plenty of music. So much music that words often fail me when I try to describe exactly what kind of music I like. I like everything...but not that, that, and certainly not that.
My taste has led some to call me names. "Elitest," they say. "Playlist Nazi!" they call. This usually happens when I am chucking their Dave Matthews Band CD out the window, or when I'm trying to prove a point (don't call my music collection "white").
Still, I am just like everybody else--I have weaknesses. 2007's dirty secret was my unabashed love of 'Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss." The first CD I ever bought with my own $10 was WWF the Music: Volume 2. I have a history of buying CDs for the cover, bad albums from good bands, quirky throwaway singles for the b-sides.
In short, I fall for music, regardless of my tastes. Here are five songs from this year, presented in no particular order, that I am not ashamed to love.
Last year I might have said some bad things about Britney Spears' first attempt at a comeback, Blackout. A year later, I find myself taking back nearly everything I said, unless it was funny, because Blackout served as a pretty damn strong prototype for this year's Circus, which is Spears' true comeback I guess, because she's sober.
Listen to this song. Tell me that if you heard it at a party or a club or some trendy establishment that you wouldn't be in the least bit tempted to dance. You can't. You know why? Because underneath the annoyingly catchy chorus that most people sing with no sense of tonality lies a huge, screaming monster of a club jam that owes more than a little to Soft Cell's "Tainted Love." Maybe I'm just assuming that everything with lasers owes something to Soft Cell, but fuck, there's something in this song that moves.
At this point, I think, I'm supposed to be tired of autotune, but fuck it. This song combines a good beat, Rihanna, and what the MPAA would call "mild elements of horror," and the music video makes me laugh. What weird, campy thing won't Rihanna co-opt for a video?
I've been disinterested in Weezer for a long, long time, but between Rivers Cuomo's mustache, the awesomely awful cover to their new album, and this song, I was almost convinced that they were ready to return in a big, big way.
Weezer is one of those bands that falters under the weight of their brilliant debut. Sure, they have their fans, their apologists, and their decent sophomore effort, but they kind of suck, and people who aren't fans or apologists have given them shit about it since 2003.
"Pork and Beans" is, in many ways, a response to those critics, including me. Everything about the song, from its slacker attitude to its meme splicing music video, hearkens back to the Blue Album. It's lazier sounding than anything they've done, but that's the point. It's like that Bon Jovi song "Have a Nice Day," but with personality.
I like this song for the lead-up to its release more than for the music itself. Having graduated, Kanye decided to detour to 808's and Heartbreak before something more worthwhile--Grad School, Med School, or TV/VCR Repair. 808's is a departure for Kanye, because it's more about singing than rapping, and Kanye doesn't sing all that well. Granted, autotune makes it so that you don't have to sing very well, but soon Akon and T-Pain will meet a reckoning for unleashing this plight upon the earth.
I like the song because, for weeks, Kanye hyped it up on his blog, releasing version after version to his adoring public. Two years ago, an artist wouldn't be caught dead doing something like that, but all of the newfangled fuck the record label price scheming and album releasing has made it such that a guy as huge as Kanye could upload this to his blog until he got the finished product.
See everything I wrote about "Womanizer." That Ms. Spears has managed to remain relevant while most of her teen pop peers have fallen is probably more a testament to America's tabloid mentality than to any inherent skill, but she is a hitmaker. If she manages to keep relatively clean while showing a knack for adapting and changing to America's pop music needs, she may just be my generation's Madonna.
You just have to wonder if Britney will be as ripped as Madonna 20 years from now.
Because of a man named Jesus and some monk friends of his, in a few weeks an arbitrary denomination of time (itself a man-made concept) will pass. It's time to bid adieu to 2008 and sashay our way into 2009. Jews, don't fret: it's still 5769!
This means that we must look over the new music that came out over the year and rank it. 10 is the number, probably because us Normals have 10 fingers.
10: Vampire Weekend, Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma I purposely ranked Vampire Weekend tenth, just to spite them. I really want to hate them: their ubiquity, their Urban-Outfitters-ass-looking album cover, the fact that both David Byrne and Paul Simon appropriated Afropop much better and earlier than them. Perhaps most of all, they are unabashedly upper-class New Englanders, who even sing about the fact! I have a class consciousness, and I shouldn't relate to these guys. Lyrically, I don't. But I love the sound of the music. It takes a lot for me to listen to rock music these days; chiefly it must be danceable and innovative. Vampire Weekend are danceable, and though they aren't completely new, they're different from their peers. Good enough.
9: Neon Neon, Stainless Style Neon Neon - Raquel Neon Neon is Boom Bip, a producer of mostly hip-hop, and Gruff Rhys, the lead singer of Super Furry Animals. Super Furry Animals are a pretty dope rock band in their own right, from Wales. This is a concept album about John Delorean, and as such is going to be awesome even before you hear the music. The music is great, though. It's New Wave as it actually sounded in the '80s, not filtered through irony or attempting retro-ness. It's got guests from the worlds of rap and rock, and if you want a soundtrack for a coke-fueled party that also has some ennui, here it is.
8: Sébastien Tellier, Sexuality Sébastien Tellier - Roche Imagine that Daft Punk did the score for a porno. That is essentially what this album is; it's produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. Most of the lyrics are in French, which I am admittedly not fluent in. It sounds so raw, filthy, and yet seductive. Sébastien is a pervy dude. Some of these songs bring to mind Serge Gainsbourg, especially when he was singing about Brigitte Bardot. This is the perfect background for rutting by candlelight.
7: Koushik, Out My Window Koushik - Be With Koushik Ghosh is an Indian-Canadian chap that makes beats for Stones Throw Records. If this album was just instrumental hip-hop, in the vein of J Dilla, Madlib, et al it would be great. However, it straddles the lines between hip-hop, ambient sounds, trip-hop, and other stuff. His vocals are so ethereal on here, I can't make out much of what he says. He just takes me to new atmospheric levels of happiness! This is the perfect record for driving in the summer, or swinging a little kid around by the arms in a meadow.
6: Q-Tip, The Renaissance Q-Tip - Move It shouldn't need to be said that Q-Tip was at his best with Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A Tribe Called Quest isn't reuniting (yet?), so we get this. It's arguably the best hip-hop album of the year. Tip's rhymes are smart, funny, fluid and everything else you could want. J Dilla, the greatest beatmaker that ever lived, graces the album with the song "Move". This is how you make a "real" hip-hop album; not by pandering to backpackers, not with excessive paeans to the golden age. Hip-hop is alive, and Q-Tip is dope.
5: Wale, The Mixtape About Nothing Wale - The Opening Title Sequence Wale is a rapper from the D.C. area that incorporates hilarious and deft wordplay with cool beats that borrow a bit from D.C.'s native go-go style. Go-go is a funk/hip-hop hybrid that is extremely local. Anyway, his first proper album doesn't come out until next year, but this mixtape is great in that it is inspired by Seinfeld. "The Kramer" takes Michael Richards' racist rant and spins it into a balanced look at modern prejudice. "The Cliché Lil Wayne Feature" really does feature Lil Wayne and is hilarious. All in all, worth the free download at his myspace!
4: Santogold, Santogold Santogold - Anne Earlier in this space, I popped Santogold in as my favourite album/artist of 2008. She's great, but not that great. Critics call her a biter of M.I.A.'s style; I think it's just because they're both beautiful brown ladies that make music tangentially related to hip-hop. Santogold's mix of new wave, ska, hip-hop, and Pixies-esque rock (did I miss anything?) seems like it would be overreaching. It's a testament to her awesomosity that it rocks and begs multiple listens.
3: Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea Silver Jews - What Is Not but Could Be If If Bob Dylan wasn't still making music and as relevant as ever, then Silver Jews' David Berman would be this generation's Bob Dylan. His lyrics could be the stuff of Great English Literature. The music is pure Americana, evoking the countryside to the hipster enclaves. Berman's latest album is one in which he sounds ecstatic to be past his depression and discovering his Judaism in a way that makes sense to him. This is earthy, inspiring, gutbusting rock that means something.
2: Hercules and Love Affair, Hercules and Love Affair Hercules and Love Affair - Blind I was watching one of those VH1 nostalgia shows, and there was footage from the '70s of rock fans basically rioting inside a football stadium. They were burning disco records and going crazy with hatred for the despised genre. Like Donna Summer sang, I'm coming out, in favour of disco. Beyond that, I'll be so bold to say that anti-disco feelings were and are homophobic, sexist and racist. People said rock was the only real music, because disco was the music of gay men, women, and black people. As such, it couldn't be as badass as the white man's rock and roll. Rock stars were doing cocaine too, disco musicians just wanted people to dance while they snorted! Hercules and Love Affair is a modern yet faithful blend of house music and disco, featuring occasional vocals by Antony & the Johnsons' Antony Hegarty. Soaring and debauched, and funky as all hell. This is music for covering yourself in glitter and dancing until your ass falls off.
1: Girl Talk, Feed the Animals Girl Talk - Hands in the Air Do I really need to sell people on Girl Talk? Gregg Gillis is a national treasure by this point, at least in the crowds I run with. Like most people, I came to him via 2006's Night Ripper. I wouldn't be disappointed if that album played at every party I ever went to, and it seemed for a while that it did. There can be no fruitful debate over whether Night Ripper or Feed the Animals is the better album; it's Godfather vs. Godfather II. Feed the Animals is an instant party, blending everything awesome and making pop trash transcendent.
If Jack White's intention in forming the Raconteurs with Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler was to sound as different from the White Stripes as possible, sophomore effort Consolers of the Lonely finds the group failing, but doing so with flair.
The myth of the White Stripes, according to the media that adores them, is that the duo is a tightly controlled, orchestrated garage rock outfit featuring drums, guitar, and piano. They broke that convention with Get Behind Me Satan, an album focusing on marimbas and fractured pop music, and Icky Thump, which worked within the Stripes ethos but worked in organs, horns, bagpipes, and, on the Conquest EP, a third musician.
With all that out of the way, Consolers of the Lonely sounds a lot more like a White Stripes album than debut effort Broken Boy Soldiers did, and benefits as a result. Here and there are the horns, organs, and blistering guitar work of Icky Thump, but with less Delta blues and more (way more) 70's rock.
The album came together at the last minute and was released a week after it was announced. The quick turnaround is and isn't evident at turns. This is the most lavish of Jack White's production efforts, yet the album lacks a sense of cohesiveness, as though White or Benson came up with an idea in studio and pursued it to the bitter end.
There's a touch of Dylan ("Carolina Drama"), Ennio Moricone ("The Switch and the Spur"), garage rock ("Hold On"), and countless hand waves to the classics that Black and Benson grew up on. A nice touch: Typical Benson tune "Many Shades of Black" has White on vocals, giving the song just enough edge to make it stand apart.
Often, it's hard to tell where White's voice ends and Benson's begins. White's presence dominates the album though, mostly because the album focuses more on guitar solos than Broken Boy Soldiers did. Again, a good thing. This is a supergroup with one superstar, but in 2006, it sounded like White was hiding behind his less heralded bandmates, and while songs about werewolves and secretaries are cool, songs about killing a man with a milk bottle are way, way cooler.
I said earlier that this sounds more like a White Stripes album than the Raconteurs' first album did, and I'm not lying. The White Stripe's tour supporting Icky Thump was cut short due to Meg White having a mental breakdown of some sort, and this, well, is the fall back. As a result, it sounds a lot like Icky Thump, without the meandering experimentation of "St. Andrew (The Battle Is in the Air)." The album is also more bloated than a typical White-led album, clocking in at 55:30. Yes, too much of a good thing is a bad thing.
Otherwise, I wouldn't be upset at all if we went White Stripes/Raconteurs from now until the end of time. The promise of Broken Boy Soldiers (Hey, Jack White might sound good in a proper band!) has officially been fulfilled. It's no longer fair to call this a side project - the Raconteurs' ambitions outstrip the label.
For 13 years, Chinese Democracy was an album as unattainable as the concept the name intones. Like Brian Wilson's Smile, rumors, speculation, and the occasional song wafted through the air like vapor, taunting and tantalizing fans who hoped beyond hope that The Spaghetti Incident? wouldn't be the band's final statement.
After a rush of propaganda, including songs released to Guitar Hero and Dr. Pepper's promise to give everybody in America a free drink on them if Axl delivered the goods, Axl, well, delivered the goods. The verdict?
Worst album I've heard this year.
You've probably noticed that the first two things I mentioned in this review are the wait (14 years) and the promotional effort (massive) behind the album. Am I jaded? Am I bitter? Not particularly. Life is, surprisingly, the same with a new Guns n' Roses album as it was without. While Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, The A.V. Club, and All Music Guide can blow Axl's horn all they want, lauding the album with four star review after four star review, I did the brave thing: I listened to the whole goddamn album.
It starts well enough. As a matter of fact, "Chinese Democracy" and "Shackler's Revenge" are fine songs - the sort of thing I'd want to hear in a mosh pit. Considering the state of mainstream rock music these days, that is a high compliment.
Things take a turn for the ballad-y with "Better," but it's fine, as far as ballads go. With "Street of Dreams" though, Axl crosses into straight up "November Rain" territory, and to make matters worse, it sounds like he's using Auto-Tune. It's an odd effect for a rock album, let alone a Guns 'n Roses effort. "If the World" uses both Spanish guitar and strings to such an effect that it sounds as though Rose replaced Seal in the studio.
Without going into every painful detail, the album veers from rocker to ballad with varying success. Some songs start with some absolutely weird vocal arrangements ("Scraped"), while others sound like the bloated AOR that was supposedly vanquished with Appetite for Destruction ("Catcher in the Rye"). None are particularly good, minus the minute or so interlude in "Madagascar" where you can hear the famous opening words from "Civil War."
Yes, it's really been 13 years since Axl entered the first of 14 studios necessary to complete the album. Yes, the album saw 66 people replace Slash & Co. If anything, Chinese Democracy proves that giving unlimited money and turning a blind eye to a man who wouldn't save a concert if Metallica were on fire is akin to giving AIG some of that sweet, sweet bailout candy: There's enough money to do the job, but the guys at the top just weren't made for these times.
For Axl, the time was 1991. The place was Sam Goody. The people were lined up around the block for Use Your Illusion. I've always argued that, pared down to a more manageable 14 tracks, Use Your Illusion would have been one of the best albums of the 1990's. Here, 17 years after "November Rain" and "Civil War," Axl effectively proves me wrong. With nothing to lose but other people's money, Chinese Democracy is a meandering album made for an audience that no longer exists.
Chinese Democracy is no longer a myth; it's a nightmare.
Welcome to Sublime Noises, a music blog by three white guys from Michigan.
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