Table of contents

Preface
introduction
PART I: OLD FRIENDS
The Rolling Stones Plundered My Soul
Eminem (featuring Lil Wayne) No Love
Big Boi Shutterbugg
Paul Weller No Tears to Cry
Blur Fool’s Day
Robyn Dancing on My Own
The Shins Goodbye Girl
Train Hey, Soul Sister
Stone Temple Pilots Between the Lines
Hole Samantha
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers I Should Have Known It

PART II: NEW SENSATIONS

Drake Over
Sleigh Bells Tell ‘Em
Janelle Monáe Tightrope
Jenny and Johnny Scissor Runner
Best Coast Boyfriend
Magic Kids Superball
Hunx and His Punx U Don’t Like Rock n Roll
The Drums Forever and Ever Amen
Male Bonding Year’s Not Long
Japandroids Younger Us
Free Energy Hope Child
Happy Birthday Girls FM
 Table of contents

PART III: BETWIXT/BETWEEN

M.I.A. Xxxo
MGMT Flash Delirium
The Hold Steady Rock Problems
Against Me! Rapid Decompression
Gaslight Anthem American Slang
LCD Soundsystem Drunk Girls
Scissor Sisters Invisible Light
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings I Learned the Hard Way
Band of Horses Factory
The Dead Weather Die By the Drop
The Black Keys Everlasting Light
Arcade Fire Month of May
The National Afraid of Everyone
Interpol Lights
Vampire Weekend Jonathan Low
Katy Perry California Gurls
The Kills Pale Blue Eyes
Blitzen Trapper Destroyer of the Void
Ray LaMontagne Beg Steal or Borrow
Mark Ronson & the Business Intl Lose It (In the End)
Cee-Lo Green Fuck You

About the author

 PREFACE

As proof of my willingness to subscribe to the conventions of preface

writing, allow me at once to dispense with the caveats.

First and foremost, it’s ridiculous to conceive of this book as anything

more than a blurry snapshot of contemporary pop music. Its composition
– 40-plus song reviews, channeled into three semi-arbitrary age brackets,
then organized without regard for chronology – represents a direct
affront to the Western notions of linearity and narrative momentum. This
is not the textual equivalent of a mix tape, wherein the tracks build on
one another for purposes of edification or pleasure. “Singles On Speed”
is exactly what its name implies: several dozen one-off criticisms, turning
over rapidly and groping for some sort of collective purpose, only to find
that modern life is confoundingly random.

Secondly, it’s ridiculous to conceive of this book as anything less than

a blurry snapshot of contemporary pop music. What we listen to, both
as individuals and as aggregates, might be a mere point of data on
the larger indices of economic determinism. But I’ll be damned if our
taste in music doesn’t hold some significant meaning, be it material or
ideal. Our record collections function as surrogate diaries, compressing
loose fragments of sound into postmodern mosaics of identity. These
mosaics can reveal less than they should or more than we’d bargained
for, but their content is almost always instructive. The 21st century man
is virtually inseparable from his music, connected as he is by sleek wires,
strange frequencies, and aesthetic impulses. “Singles On Speed” aspires
to affirm this connection without forsaking its underlying mystery. Faith
in music ought to be like faith in God: iron-clad and fire-tested, but
ultimately ineffable.

Thirdly, despite my evident tendencies toward soap-boxing and popping

off, this book is not about me. Nor am I a particularly important actor on
its subject matter. Music exists and excites irrespective of the critic, and
will continue to do so as long as our species retains the slightest trace of
aural competence. The art is, and must be, the prime mover. Those who

1
 PREFACE

write about it are simply trying to negotiate a foothold in its wake. The
tasks of the critic skirt the border between indulgence and futility – but
the job’s inherent vanity only serves to make it more fun.

Lastly, despite my admitted penchants for disavowal and prevarication,

this book can’t help but be about me. To abdicate responsibility for its
contents would be a shameless act of cowardice, made incalculably
worse by the existential importance I’ve already ascribed to pop music.
So rather than retreat, allow me to move forward with a short series of
personal confessions: I came of age during rock and roll’s Lost Weekend,
with my childhood bookending the Reagan Eighties and the Clinton
Nineties. (This is roughly Born in the U.S.A. through Nevermind, though
I was too busy listening to Michael Jackson and Kool Moe Dee to
appreciate the gravity of such records.) I grew up without the Internet,
cell phones, or cable TV, and have subsequently been a late adopter of
virtually every cutting-edge technology save the Norelco® electric razor.
This is not so much a point of pride as an admission of neglect: I don’t
follow trends or fads because I typically lack the intellectual wherewithal
to understand them. I’m alternately three years behind and five years
ahead of the times. Which makes for an awkward social life and a spastic
summer wardrobe – but also an awfully interesting record collection.

In the end, “Singles On Speed” is a reasonably honest document of

what I’ve been listening to for the past six months. It jumps genres and
corrupts more than a few cultural idioms, but the book’s true merit,
insofar as it has any, is its consistency. I always called them as I heard
them. And I occasionally heard them wrong. Yet I never failed to remain
thematically dedicated and sonically curious. There’s a certain nobility in
this – a nobility that, when coupled with $1.29, can buy me the new Taio
Cruz single.

So, hey, maybe there’s no money in art. But there’s no art in money, either.

2
 PREFACE

Looking back at my half-year struggle to keep up with the daily

tastemaking and hourly downloads, all I know for sure is something I’ve
known all along: Pop music is under no obligation to be popular. This is
usually a blessing, sometimes a curse, and always an interesting topic for
discussion. It’s the truth that redeems the faults of “Singles On Speed.”
Find it on your own terms. If you come away empty, don’t be concerned
– it’s probably my fault.

A.m.V.
September 7, 2010
Paris – Zürich – Trieste – Dublin – Asbury Park

3
 INTRODUCTION

Author’s note: This book started as a blog. Not just a blog, but an anti-blog; that
is, anti-”American Idol,” anti-”Glee,” anti-Ke$ha – even anti-Animal Collective.
Ironically, in the midst of this reactionary stance, I forged a workable coexistence
with Billboard and bedroom pop alike. In “anti,” I somehow found affirmation.

Still, the angers and frustrations that midwifed “Singles On Speed” won’t
be forgotten anytime soon. As such, the blog’s original mission statement is
included below – largely unedited and completely uncensored. Its concerns
remain relevant, even to those of us who have come to love pop music
unconditionally. (Well, quasi-unconditionally.) Give it a speed read.

This blog’s founding operational principle is that the Ramones were an

enormously influential band. Just not influential enough.

Pardon the staggered phrasing and the sudden stop. They’re not used as
devices of rhetoric or agents of misdirection; they merely underscore the
fact that rock music, like political ideology and social class, is becoming
hopelessly bifurcated. In one corner, we have the douched-up bellows
of Chris Daughtry and Chad Kroeger, a school of sound that seems
to aspire to standards first broached by such world-beating bands as
Creed, Staind, and 3 Doors Down. In the other corner, we have Animal
Collective and Hot Chip, a streaming mediocrity of fey atmospherics and
effete in-jokes, each accorded status and sanctuary by a patchwork of
dubiously credentialed music vlogs.

That which exists between these two poles can rightly be called a sonic
no man’s land – first because it’s sparsely populated; second because it’s
utterly devoid of testosterone. In fact, with just a quick booster shot of
perspective, the “no man’s land” label can be extended to incorporate
the dueling poles. Nickelback may traffic in the latest iteration of
cock rock, but they certainly don’t bowl you over with stubble-ridden
menace or the more violent hypertrophies of the XY chromosome
pairing. Their songs are threatening only in their conspicuous absence

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 INTRODUCTION

of intelligence. As for Animal Collective, their records are tone and

pulse followed by pulse and tone. The music is entirely lacking in
secondary sexual characteristics. It’s androgynous without the attendant
ano-genital intrigue. It’s also bereft of focus and stridency. Despite
being spectacularly overthought, the Collective’s discography remains
inadequately self-aware – that is, too cool for school, but too smart to
question its underlying theses.

This speaks to the central qualitative problem in contemporary pop:

Indie music is far too cerebral, while mainstream music is completely
insentient. I can forgive the mainstream its trespasses. (After all, what is
the Top 40 if not a grope for the lowest common denominator?) Indie,
however, has some serious explaining to do. The genre is fabled to
represent an alternative to the reigning musical regime, a tug not only to
the left of the dial but also to the left of what’s normal. Consider rock and
roll’s shadow history: The Velvet Underground subverting British jingle-
jangle with their narcotic drone and NC-17 themes; Iggy and the Stooges
exposing the lie in Flower Power by taking an industrial buzzsaw to the
Peace and Love crowd’s mellow acoustics; and the Ramones – perhaps
the quintessential expression of rock and roll spirit – bringing speed,
volume, and attitude to a scene that’d been lulled to sleep by ‘ludes,
drum solos, and Rick Wakeman’s keyboard.

This trip down memory lane is not made in the service of nostalgia. The
proto-punk movement needs to be remembered, if only so that we can
also recall the musical caprices that the punk machine raged against
so passionately: progressive rock and disco. The irony of contemporary
indie is that it’s inverted the animal spirit that infused both its infancy and
early adolescence. Today’s “alternative” is a mutant conflation of prog
languor and disco sheen, a music that subordinates human agency to
pixelated sound effects and hypnotic swells of rhythm. It’s not bold, rude,
or dangerous. As such, it’s not rock and roll – at least in the traditional
(and best) definition of the phrase.

“Failure to rock” is not a federal offense. But it is a case of gross artistic

negligence. Contemporary twenty-somethings are being disserved by

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 INTRODUCTION

Beach House, Ke$ha, and Ariel Pink in much the same way that Seventies
youth were disserved by Yes, Peter Frampton, and the Village People.
Each artist, past and present, is guilty of specializing in distraction at
a time when engagement is absolutely essential. Here we are, in the
midst of the worst financial crisis since the Roosevelt era, with our nation
embroiled in two protracted armed conflicts, with China and India
threatening to usurp our platinum-card consumer status, and the best
we can come up with in terms of Pitchfork-certified redemption songs
are “My Girls,” “Round and Round,” and “Good Intentions Paving
Company”? Where’s the urgency? Where’s the anarchy? Where’s the
blitzkrieg?

Well, if you’ll forgive a little premature chest pounding, I’ll solemnly

declare that here’s the urgency, the anarchy, and the blitzkrieg. In case
you haven’t noticed, this blog is called Singles On Speed (S.O.S.). It’s
designed to showcase songs that undercut the synth-laden sloth that
the indie industry callously slops onto our plates, complete with number
grades and wholly unnecessary remixes. S.O.S. represents less a cry for
help than a call to arms. It’s here to argue that the synthesizer cannot be
used ironically; that digital audio loops are instruments of artifice, not art;
that Radiohead should cut the shit, and get back to writing songs like
“Just.” “Hey ho, let’s go!” isn’t just a Ramones lyric; it’s the first and last
sentence of this site’s mission statement. And our need for speed has
nothing to do with amphetamines.

I’m cynical enough to realize that three chords played in 3/4 time no
longer constitute the raw materials of revolution. Contemporary rock
and roll, even in its primest permutation, isn’t likely to change the world.
But it can change your world. (Or, at the very least, your day.) Whether
this change will be for the better or for the worse, I don’t know. And
this unpredictability, this off chance at a blindside wallop or grievous
testicular injury, is part of the punk ethos’ appeal.

6
 INTRODUCTION

If you’re content to bob and weave to this week’s chillwave psychodrama,

that’s perfectly OK. But that’s not me. I want sins, not symphonies. I want
a track that’ll impel me to do something that I’ll later be ashamed of –
like head banging, fist fighting, or voting Republican. A fifty-carat rock
single comes with clearly discernable side effects. These include, but
are not limited to, loss of car keys, bloody stool, and temporary feelings
of invincibility. Chalk the first two up to harmless teenage kicks, and the
third to that blurry emotional intersection where men win glory and meet
danger at the same time, often with only tenuous command over their
faculties.

That’s what S.O.S. is searching for: Music that’ll make a sober man feel
drunk and a drunk man feel sober; sounds that possess equal parts
clarity and grandeur, with headache and heartbreak commingling in
microments of stark power and sheer release. Jonny Greenwood may be
a musical genius, but I’ll take Johnny Thunders, cracked voice and junkie
business included. Better yet, I’ll take Johnny Ramone. He set the pace
for modern rock. Accordingly, he set the preconditions for Singles On
Speed. His music, like his band’s typically hyperbolic album title, is truly
“Too Tough to Die.” So let’s skip the epitaphs, and double-time it to the
rock and roll. Because when nobody moves, everybody gets hurt.

(March 7, 2010)

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PART I: OLD FRIENDS
 OLD FRIENDS

The Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards not

Plundered My Soul only wrote rock’s signature song, “(I
Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” they also
Disclaimer: Song reviews needn’t produced the genre’s most compelling
always be prefaced by a disclaimer. creation myth: the verse-chorus-verse
But when the song in question is the of “Brown Sugar.” Those scarred old
Rolling Stones’ “Plundered My Soul,” slavers and cotton-field laborers, those
a little context can do an awful lot of African drums that beat cold while
good. English blood ran hot, corroborate
the fact that rock and roll is a
So, for the record, this reviewer is conspicuously miscegenated medium.
obliged to report that he considers the Take the five-note African scale
Stones to be the greatest band in rock and superimpose it on the diatonic
and roll history. By “greatest” I don’t European scale, and you’ve got the
mean the most skilled or influential, makings of all blues-based music. Not
just the most emblematic of what coincidentally, you’ve also got the
mainstream rock was, is, and aspires to Rolling Stones.
be – that is, the most rock and roll of
rock and roll bands. I can feel the Too Cool For School set
retreating at the mere intimation of
At bottom, the rock genre is an the Stones’ indispensability. So let’s
atomic-powered mixture of backwater agree to drop our sabres and seek
blues, high-country swing, and street- reconciliation on the only reliable
corner bravado. It was birthed in the middle ground: the belief that Exile on
wake of the nuclear bomb, developed Main Street is the band’s best album.
in an age of unprecedented material After all, we’re gathered here today to
comfort, and matured amid a malaise assess “Plundered My Soul,” a song
that called into question the very that dates from the famously strained
dance-first, ask-questions-later Exile sessions but is only now enjoying
ethic that characterized its wonder the dignity of an official release. The
years. The Stones remain singularly track is a revealing sonic artifact of
important because they covered this a titanically popular band caught
panoramic musical evolution better digging at its roots and dodging its
than any of their contemporaries, taxes, only to harvest spectacularly
moving from dawn to decadence at strange fruit. Like “Tumbling Dice”
a pace commensurate with the times. and “Honky Tonk Women” before it,

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 OLD FRIENDS

“Soul” splits the difference between “I thought you needed my loving/But

rollick and reserve. It shuffles out of the it’s my heart that you stole,” Jagger
box into a Stones-standard open-D riff, sings. Then he adds the punch line: “I
with Keith Richards’ blues savvy laying thought you wanted my money/But
the foundation for Billy Preston’s piano you plundered my soul.” A woman
plunk. Less than 10 seconds after the he’d pegged as a gold digger has left
opening note, we’re telepathically his bank account untouched, only to
ported back to 1972. Punk has yet to swipe a healthy portion of his vaunted
happen; the Beatles’ break-up has mojo.
yet to indicate its finality; and Michael
Jackson has yet to turn in his dark Such subject matter is par for the
skin and nappy hair. By god, what an course on Exile. The double album’s
innocent time! most identifiable lyric is probably
“Baby, I can’t stay” – a four-
Still, only a fool would argue that word attempt to convince us that
the Stones were squeaky clean. The inconstancy is somehow romantic.
Richards family name is more or less Then again, what else would you
synonymous with junk and booze, expect from a rolling stone? Bluesmen
largely on account of the debauched are not known for their fidelity, nor are
behavior that Keith exhibited during rock and rollers uncommonly prone to
the Exile era. “Soul” reaffirms Richards’ stasis. The Stones are a single band
doped-up grooves, gaining its slink that’s survived five or six different lives:
and strut from rock’s most economical the death of Brian Jones; the Mick
lead guitar. Keith sets the mid-tempo Taylor-Ron Wood transition; the disco
pace, then weaves in and out of the stupor of Emotional Rescue; and the
song’s foreground with his sweet stone-cold folly of Steel Wheels being
electric licks. Mick Jagger handles the mere bumps along the path. “Soul”
rest, peppering his typically over- takes the boys back to their heyday. It
emoted vocals with gritty melisma and sounds like “Tumbling Dice” folded
pointed accents. “My indiscretion’s into “Waiting on a Friend,” evincing
left a bad impression,” Mick admits, a melancholy that’s part Mississippi
flush with the realization that his lady Delta, part London Fields. There’s a
friend is gone for good. He’s not caution to this despair, implying that a
particularly heartbroken over the loss, straight-ahead rock number, like “Rip
just embarrassed that the sudden This Joint” or “Down the Line,” is just
departure has caught him off guard. around the corner.

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 OLD FRIENDS

We’ll cross that corner next month, or Detroit vs. Brooklyn, but Dre vs.
when Exile is reissued as a two-disc Ye. Em embraced the lighter side of
treasure trove of digital remasters and Dr. Dre, infusing the über-producer’s
previously unreleased studio tracks. sleek, electro-Chronic piano rags with
Reissues commonly feed off Boomer a rousing combination of fifth-gear
sentimentality rather than righteous flow and devil-may-care lyrics. Jay, on
tunes, hoping to bank in on the the other hand, partnered with super-
remembrance of things past. In this samplers on the order of Kanye West.
case, however, you get the feeling He rode their jacked instrumentals like
that the nostalgia will be good, but the a pimped Cadillac – loose and easy
music will be better. The simple truth when times were good, rough and
is that Exile hasn’t gathered any moss ready when the shit went down.
or betrayed any loyalties. It sounds the
same as it did in 1972: old, dirty, and Truth be told, Em was the better
guilty as sin. It offers no apologies for portent to the future of hip-hop beat
its excesses and expects no sympathy making. If the Dirty South takeover
for its shortfalls. It just wants to be has proved anything, it’s that you
heard. Let the disclaimers end there. don’t need a stockpile of James
Brown or Ornette Coleman 45s to cut
(April 20, 2010) a blockbuster rap record. Nowadays,
beats are truncated to the point of
chic mongrelization (think Wayne’s “A
Milli”) or soap-operatic swell (think
Eminem (featuring Lil Wayne) Drake’s “Over”). MCs who dabble in
No Love the finer side of sampling are typically
fitted for cap and gown, then cited as
Slim Shady has never been one for late graduates of the Old School. Even
phat beats. Even in his heyday, when Hov himself, ever the enterprising
he was moving more units than Jay-Z businessman, has struck a clean
and Lil Wayne combined, Em preferred balance between the suave R&B rip
to rhyme over slinky electronics rather and the fluttering, M.I.A.-meets-Cash-
than hype samples. Compare “The Money digital dove. “On To the Next
Real Slim Shady” and “Without Me” One” is manned by Sean Carter, but it
to “99 Problems” and “Encore.” The just as easily could have been driven
key distinction is not white vs. black by the man behind Tha Carter III.

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 OLD FRIENDS

So how does Marshall Mathers, the one that should have dissed the disser
world’s erstwhile favorite rapper, but instead calls the game out on its
fight his way back into hip hop’s top tendency to dispose of its heroes.
tier? Apparently, he takes a look at
what’s trending and rushes headlong Don’t get me wrong: This single is not
in the opposite direction. Em’s especially good. But that’s not for a
“No Love” is fueled by a fat, gaudy lack of effort, passion, or pedigree. In
sample – a sample which proves addition to the Weezy guest spot, Em
beyond a reasonable doubt that gets a beat custom designed by the
Mathers is afflicted with elephantitis good folks at Just Blaze Enterprises.
of the scrotum. The source material What results is the most profane
is Haddaway’s perennial club-douche public service announcement since
anthem, “What Is Love” (better known the infamous “I learned it by watching
as the Night at the Roxbury song). As you!” spot for a Drug-Free America.
Pitchfork so eloquently put it, “Word
to Chris Kattan.” Can I get a “What- Suffice to say that Wayne’s lead verse is
What” for Will Ferrell? not even remotely drug free. It’s cued
by a lighter flick, which communicates
Jokes aside, the funniest thing about a dual urge: first, spark the joint; then,
“No Love” is that it kinda, sorta works set the track on fire. Weezy comes
as an angry-rapper theme song. through with killer opening couplets:
Wayne and Shady walk these mean “Throw dirt on me/Grow a wildflower/
streets together, trading verses less Fuck the world/Get a child out her.”
like bummed cigarettes than used This is a man who knows a thing or
hypodermic needles. They’re clearly two about rebirth. And though he’s
getting high off their rhymes. Each currently encaged, it’s obvious that
shouted recrimination is triple-layered the chains of convention can’t hold
with a Me Against the World spirit, him. Weezy has become the thinking
as if the single-finger salute were man’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard, mouthing
the only weapon worth brandishing off on the cosmos even as he trades
in contemporary pop. As line builds in profundities he doesn’t fully
upon line, and the “You kicked me understand. When he tells us, “My
while I was down” refrain ensconces bars are full of broken bottles/And my
itself in your memory bed, “No Love” night stands are full of open Bibles,”
becomes the unlikeliest of dis tracks – we don’t waste much time wondering

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 OLD FRIENDS

how he reconciles sin and piety. That steps into warp speed. He not only
would be like trying to capture the controls his verse; he contains his
Holy Ghost. anger. Em can only smite his candle
and curse the darkness.
Em’s mic turn isn’t as immediately
compelling as Weezy’s, but it’s Ultimately, both MCs make the best of
definitely flush with Shady’s their pairing – not only with each other
characteristic bursts of well-articulated but with Just Blaze’s nightclub synths.
catch phrases. His flow is quicksilver, A central problem of genre-bending
and it alights on every hot topic rap producers, especially those who
from bitch MCs to the hellacious purport to work in “rock,” is that they
payback that’ll soon befall his don’t know rock very well. The emo-
haters. If anything, Em raps too fast ization of hip hop, seen previously
and skillfully to lend his points the on Kevin Rudolf’s “Let It Rock” and
benefit of gravitas. He’s still got that Wayne’s Rebirth, is pushed to sordid
arresting sinus-infection inflection, bile depths on “No Love.” One could be
dripping from his nose like water out forgiven for thinking that the track
of a primed spigot. And his intra-line coalesced as follows: Blaze decided
fluency – the consonance, assonance, to make a bad Timbaland beat, circa
and accenting from word to word – 1998, while Weezy and Em conspired
remains as tight as a vice grip. Only to channel their inner Dashboard
Em can spit the rather pedestrian Confessional. The beat is not phat, it’s
“I’m on the top of my game til the hip lazy. And while the flow comes fast and
don’t hop anymore” and leave the hair furious, it can’t fully redeem the flaws
standing up on the back of your neck. of its host.

Yet, in the current pop environment, Let’s give Em some credit: His song

some talents are hindrances rather has the weight and urgency of an

than credentials. Em puts his head Emergency Room visit. Unfortunately,

down and plows through his verse like the patient in question comes across

Secretariat on steroids. His stage- as sick rather than ill. Somebody page

crashing fantasies – and a very funny Dr. Dre. We need a strong dose of

“Where’s Kanye when you need him?” some of that funky stuff.

lyric – get lost in the shuffle. Wayne,

(June 9, 2010)
in contrast, starts slowly, then stutter-

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 OLD FRIENDS

Big Boi (perhaps the) major player on the hip

Shutterbugg hop scene, and arguably no other act
has been as instrumental as OutKast
The indie rock sound is varied and in earning ATL its capitol status. In a
dynamic, but a good portion of its slow, sweaty, decade-long grind, Big
enthusiasts run on borrowed nostalgia Boi and Dre brought Southern Playa
for the unremembered Eighties. anthems into the pop mainstream,
(James Murphy’s words, not mine.) using pointed drawls and atmospheric
One wonders when hip hop is going beats to circumvent the horseshit East
to follow suit. After all, the genre Coast vs. West Coast rap wars. The
came of age during the Reagan-era Kast were a crew of many colors, but
push for slashed entitlements and its central stripes were club-vibed and
draconian drug policies. Urban decay chronic-lit. (See “Hey Ya!” and “The
was the necessary backdrop for rap’s Way You Move” for the dance floor
growth, as it allowed DJs to siphon bang and “So Fresh, So Clean” and
off public electricity, graffiti writers “Ms. Jackson” for the psychedelic
to vandalize public works, and MCs edge.) As such, it should come as no
to articulate public concerns. Those surprise that Big Boi has painted his
public concerns included, but were not first proper solo record with several
limited to, disco beats, “my Adidas,” coats of good-time varnish.
and break dancing.
“Shutterbugg” is 2010’s answer to
That’s the thing about the the escapist disco sound that defined
unremembered Eighties: While Rome early-Eighties hip hop. It’s an Old
burned, hip hop was advising its School joint sparked with new-age
clients to kick back and cut a rug. In feints and flourishes. “Bugg” flies
this particular history, Rome happened out of the gate with an electric blast,
to be New York, but any underfunded chock full of talkbox effects and “Cry
American city would have sufficed. Me a River” Timbatronics. The style is
modern but not exclusively digital; that
Thirty years later, amid “the greatest is, it’s driven less by cold, high-tech
financial crisis since the Great loops than warm, heavily syncopated
Depression,” rap’s axial poles may ripples. (Imagine Grandmaster Flash’s
have shifted south, but its party “The Message” folded into the muzak
ethic still holds primacy. Atlanta is a from Nintendo’s “Pole Position.”)

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 OLD FRIENDS

There’s a buoyancy to the beat, a pulse Clan. Then he plunges even deeper,
that’s first hypnotic, then magnetic, but singing the refrain from Soul II Soul’s
always held down by a dynamite MC. 1989 club hit, “Back to Life.” At that
moment, the listener is inclined to look
Big Boi has the tightest flow of any around for Downtown Julie Brown and
rapper south of the Mason-Dixon Line. her MTV dancers, flush as the sound is
In terms of sheer lingual speed and with proto-rave ingredients.
agility, our Boi can hand Lil Wayne
his ass and Young Jeezy his walking In the end, however, “Bugg” adheres

papers. Big has something of a jazz to the “I’m the greatest!” tradition that

singer aesthetic: He’s equally adept hopped from Muhammad Ali to the

at quick surges and syrupy reels; he likes of Kurtis Blow and LL Cool J. Big

can spin his way through tricky vocal Boi flexes nuts regarding his “triple

cadences or snap along to rat-a-tat- O.G. status,” fancying himself the

tat lyrics; and, most impressively, center of attention as he double fists

he can embrace hot bebop slurs or his way through the V.I.P. lounge. With

stone-cold, Sinatra-like enunciations. synths aflutter and drum machines

On “Bugg,” he imparts an effortless pounding on cue, Big takes complete

sprint to his rhymes, racing to the control of the narrative, sounding

dance floor like a man on fire. His slicker than Slick Rick and kooler than
sharp intonations are as clear as his Kool Moe Dee.
instructions to cut loose: “Party people
in the club/It’s time to cut a rug/And What often goes unremembered

throw your dukes up in the air/Just for about the Eighties is that its rap beats

the shutterbuggs.” Public Enemy this were utter garbage – lightweight

is not – but it’ll still take a nation of sound effects completely unworthy

millions to hold us back. of the thoroughbred MCs who were

rhyming over them. “Bugg” corrects

“Bugg” hosts a battle of alter-egos: this deficiency by drafting a thick,

Even as Sir Lucious Leftfoot puts his propulsive Scott Storch production as

best foot forward, Daddy Fat Sax is its backdrop. Storch gives the track a

consciously taking the track retro. In metro-Miami feel, which Big snatches

his second verse, Big makes pointed up and escorts directly to A-Town.

references to the Geto Boys, the The song works because the dove

Underground Kings, and the Wu-Tang and the divo are finally matching in
pedigree and acting in concert. Big

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 OLD FRIENDS

checks the rearview mirror but doesn’t inclined to drop the deuce, and opine
marinate his music in tired nostalgia. that the Modfather is moving forward
Sometimes it’s best to merely look by looking back.
back, rather than actually go back,
before advancing forward. In this particular case, as is the general
rule, objects in the rearview mirror
“Bugg” is a long time coming and a may appear closer than they are.
longer time delayed, but its author is At first listen, “Tears” sounds like a
still so fresh, so clean, and so much straight-ahead Neil Diamond rip,
better than his Southern competitors. complete with the chesty baritone
Big can curtsy to the classic or nod and Brill Building warmth. Upon
to the new without deferring to the second spin, the Northern Soul vibe
myopic trends of the marketplace. and Scott Walker symphonics assert
He understands his genre’s potential. themselves, packing a resonance
Just as importantly, he understands worthy of Phil Spector. Subsequent
its limitations. His new single proves analyses pick up Tom Jones in the
that commercial hip hop can survive its nose and Ray Davies on the palate,
shotgun marriage to Auto-Tune. Every with a pleasing, spirited aftertaste of
line of his testimony deserves our public house psychedelics. Everything
time, our attention, and, ultimately, our is very swinging and Sixties until you
applause. Now more than ever, let’s realize that the vocalist is the lead
hear it for the Boi. singer from the Jam – at which point
you say, “Where are the fucking power
(April 10, 2010) chords?”

These chords are not forthcoming.

Paul Weller Nor are they necessary. Because on
No Tears to Cry “Tears,” Weller is less concerned with
the exigencies of the modern world
What’s gotten into Paul Weller? Is than the reliable rewards of a well-
it that most obsequious of artistic produced pop song. His voice is bright
tropes, nostalgia? Or that lifeblood and generous, possessing none of the
of progressive songwriting, sonic cockney severity that characterized his
curiosity? After listening to Weller’s early Jam vocals. Rather than reboot
latest single, “No Tears to Cry,” I’m the take-it-to-you guitars of “In the

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 OLD FRIENDS

City” or the working-class redress of The track has the blue-eyed charm
“That’s Entertainment,” Paul cops and blokey immodesty of a solid
the tender rises and echoes of the Nick Lowe single, but it certainly
Righteous Brothers. In a song that isn’t “Marie Provost” or “American
barely eclipses the two-minute mark, Squirm,” wherein ambient, power-pop
we get subtle strings, plangent piano, tones palliate the jaded narrative. Here
and textural shifts that lend equal Weller is reaching back beyond his
deference to builds and drops. Weller punkish roots, beyond his Who fetish,
is engaged in a balancing act between to a simple story about man, woman,
recalcitrance and desperation: He and and their tragic incompatibilities.
his betrothed have lost that loving There are no wasted words or bratty
feeling, and Mr. Mod is keen to come asides, just the cool reserve of sorrow
off as both sensitive and dispassionate. and realization.
He starts the track with “If you don’t
want to see me fall/Turn your face to Weller has certainly earned this
the wall,” inviting listeners to imagine perspective. Earlier this year, he picked
a man on the verge of breakdown. But up the “Godlike Genius” statuette at
by the time he reaches the chorus, the NME Music Awards, thus sealing
Weller is in full recovery mode, his legacy with the type of honorary
bellowing “There’s no way I can lie/ accolade that says “Sorry your band
There’s no tears to cry/My eyes never got as big as U2.” For many of
have dried.” us, however, the Jam are far more vital
and affecting than their worthy Dublin
Such are the wages of romantic acolytes. Paul was a godlike genius
impasse: It hurts to let go, but not well before Bono had dispatched with
quite so much as it hurts to stay his Irish mullet. By the time Margaret
together. This is an evergreen pop Thatcher rolled into Downing Street,
topic, and Paul does well to give it in 1979, Weller had already written
the Nick Lowe by way of Elvis Presley such enduring proletarian anthems as
treatment. The question is whether he “Away From the Numbers,” “Down
does this in earnest, as per the King’s in the Tube Station at Midnight,”
protocol, or with irony, in the manner “Saturday’s Kids,” and “Eton Rifles.”
of the Basher. “Tears” doesn’t attempt to match
these classics; instead, it aims to
I don’t hear any sarcasm in “Tears.” transcend them, to sidestep the

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 OLD FRIENDS

Jam and leapfrog the Style Council. faded. But the mid-Nineties records
By staring down his past, Weller is that fueled their showdown remain far
ensuring that his future is written by no more popular than the boy-band shite
one’s pen but his own. and introspective art rock that gained
favor in their wake. As such, the recent
“Tears” is so versatile a ballad that disbanding of the Brothers Gallagher
it could have been sung by Roy and the purported reunion of the
Orbison, Engelbert Humperdinck, Albarn/Coxon cohort scored high
Elvis Costello, or several of the ever- enough on the breaking-news index to
evolving iterations of Bono. Yet, in the merit blog posts and video embeds on
end, what makes the single special both Pitchfork and Stereogum. After
are the Weller bona fides – that all, even the most jaded Beach House
is, the combination of street beat fan has fond memories of Parklife
and love story. More than any other and Definitely Maybe, what with their
contemporary British songwriter, Paul enduring counterpoints of symphonic
can make timeless beauty sound like swells and hi-fi pride.
breaking news. And that’s neither
nostalgia nor sonic curiosity – it’s the Earlier this week, the rumors of a
rarified product of sheer talent. formal Blur reunion were substantiated
by the appearance of a brand-
(April 13, 2010) new studio track. It’s called “Fool’s
Day,” but it’s not meant as a joke
or contrivance. In fact, the single is
Blur positively adult – an odd descriptive
Fool’s Day to apply to Britpop, considering that
the genre has always been something

Hanging on in quiet desperation is of a promotional arm for the enfant

the English way. So it should come terrible (see Gallagher, Liam). These

as no surprise that Britpop, a genre days, Damon Albarn seems less

long thought to have been felled by intent on whipping up a media frenzy

the rough edges of Radiohead’s OK than dialing down the bombast of

Computer, still has a vestigial grip on his Cool Britannia past. “Fool’s” is

the pulse of perfidious Albion. not interested in heady dreams or

aspirations. Instead, it focuses on

Sure, the Blur-Oasis tabloid beefs have commonplace routines and rituals.

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 OLD FRIENDS

Each verse reads like a lean haiku numb detachment, depending on the
entered into the daily diary of a low- listener’s predilection. I see “Fool’s”
maintenance middle-aged man: “TV as subscribing to a school of thought
on/Of course caffeine/A science of that combines the Kinks’ “Waterloo
submission again/Another day/On this Sunset” with the Jam’s “That’s
little island.” That’s nearly a quarter of Entertainment,” whereby a slightly
the song – and it’s not even half cockney voice can ascribe gravity (or at
a Tweet! least poignancy) to a simple meeting
at the subway station or the passive
If Blur started out as an anti-grunge act of “watching the tele and thinking
band, perhaps they’ve now evolved about your holidays.” As the old saying
into an anti-Gaga band. They pack no goes, life is what happens while you’re
bright lights or expensive pyrotechnics, busy making other plans.
nor any implication that what they’re
doing is particularly exciting or In this regard, “Fool’s” is a perfect
noteworthy. “Porridge done/I take my slice-of-life capture. It eschews the
kid to school/Pass the pound shop, soaring chorus that typically acts as
Woolworth’s” is real-time testimony the backbone of a Britpop song,
from a day in the life, resembling a opting for short verse after short verse
45th-anniversary update of “Woke of status updates. Yes, there are the
up/Got out of bed/Dragged a comb occasional digital pulses and stark
across my head.” As if to rebut Jarvis psychedelic tones, but the track will
Cocker’s most memorable argument, not be confused with anything from
Albarn seems to be implying that even the new MGMT album. “Fool’s”’
wealthy rock stars can live like common vibe is stripped down and grown up,
people. facing the charms and indignities of
adulthood with a long-night’s stubble
His statement is backed by a and a long-day’s weary resolve.
comfortably muted instrumental: a Albarn ends the song where he, as a
basic drum beat, an on-again/off- working musician, belongs: in a studio,
again synth swirl, and a guitar jingle professing “a love of all sweet music/
that never quite meets up with its We just can’t let go.” His song may
jangle. The chilled-out vocal cadence sound like an ennui-ridden lament,
is useful, as it’s able to tell a mundane but it’s ultimately a celebration of his
story with either sober engagement or profession.

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 OLD FRIENDS

Which is not to say that it’s a pall over the entire affair. If there’s any
celebration of Britpop’s legacy. Blur desperation on the track, it’s of the
in general and Albarn in particular quiet variety. What could be more
transcended the genre’s limitations British than that?
ages ago, with the most conspicuous
evidence being Damon’s platinum (April 18, 2010)

run with the Gorillaz. This idiomatic

mobility aside, 2010 remains an
important year for Britpop, since it Robyn
marks the inception of the sound Dancing on My Own
going legal, at least in statutory terms.
If you date the genre to the Stone The New Yorker recently described
Roses’ 1989 debut LP, then Britpop is Robyn’s Body Talk, Pt. 1 as “eight
21 – so you’re compelled to buy him a handsomely formed, near-perfect
drink. And if you date the movement pop songs.” I’m content to echo this
to Suede’s 1992 “Downers” single, assessment, albeit with the addition of
Britpop is 18 – so you’re obliged a qualitative sidebar: Of the album’s
to pass him a voter’s ballot or a eight songs, none is more handsome
conscription card. Either way, you’re or near-perfect than “Dancing on My
forced to come to terms with the fact Own,” a fluttering wallop of digital
that Britpop has come of age. disco that might be my favorite pop
single of the year. “Dancing” has the
Maybe that’s why “Fool’s” sounds so thrilling immediacy of a club track but
goddamned mature: Blur simply aren’t the sober awareness of an acoustic
kids anymore. They’ve been on hiatus ballad. This mixture of wild mercury
for more than seven years. Were they and coiled intensity gives the song an
to return with another burnt offering odd chemistry and an odder charisma;
to the gods of eternal adolescence, it not only gropes for the zeitgeist, it
we might find it hard to take them also looks forward and backward with
seriously. Those who feel that all that’s equal deliberation, as if crossing some
sacred comes from youth obviously sort of sonic byway. Robyn is mindful of
haven’t spent much time listening to the traffic, but makes no concessions
pop radio. Occasionally you need a to intervening forces or external actors.
wizened eye and a furrowed brow. On This is her drama, and she’ll cry if she
“Fool’s,” Blur supply the former while wants to.
preventing the latter from casting a

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Perhaps I led this review with the New been just far enough ahead of the
Yorker plaudit merely to document the curve to seduce hipsters and the NPR
scope of Robyn’s bourgeois appeal. set alike.
If this is the case, my aims were
completely unconscious yet entirely Body Talk re-ups Robyn’s “I’m a
understandable. Robyn may not be cyborg, and that’s OK” conceit, only
a household name, but she’s hardly with greater bandwidth and more
a fringe act, either. Her last album, gigabytes. In fact, the record pairs
self-titled and released in 2005, is the robotic and the emotional so
widely considered to be one of the expertly that “conceit” hardly seems
best pop LPs of the past decade. Its an appropriate noun to attach to its
clean Swedish production is conjoined approach. At this point, the teched-
with singing that’s playful, clever, and up love ballad deserves a subgenre
utterly human. The conceit seemed all its own. And Body Talk’s first
to be that man and machine were single, “Fembots,” could offer the
not accursed antagonists in a hastily movement’s mission statement: “I’ve
evolving dystopia, that the organic got some news for you/Fembots
and the inorganic could affirm, rather have feelings to.” The song is smart,
than subjugate, each other. This ethic catchy, and sexy. But “Dancing” is the
now informs blockbuster singles from better composition, largely because
the likes of Lady Gaga and the Black it subordinates savvy jocularity to the
Eyed Peas. The avant-dance idiom that passions that come pre-programmed
Robyn helped propagate five years in all adolescents.
ago has become the new normal, with
the woman-as-robot aesthetic climbing Radio Pop is a young woman’s game.

to new heights on Janelle Monáe’s And although she’s in her early thirties,

ArchAndroid and falling to new Robyn is uniquely positioned to crash

lows on Christina Aguilera’s Bionic. Billboard’s gates. Her voice is infused

Consider it computer generation for with a perpetual adolescence, one

the Computer Generation; that is, which not only maintains an alto-legato

music that uses the mechanical device range but also is quick to drop “g”s

as theme, instrument, and reason for and “er”s. This slang-style elocution

being. Digital certainly didn’t start with makes Robyn sound younger than she

Robyn, whose discography dates only is, perfuming “Dancing” with the scent

to the late Nineties, but she’s always of underage kicks even as it bangs with
adult insight.

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 OLD FRIENDS

There are, of course, more obvious here, why can’t you see me?” makes
reasons why “Dancing” is an elite- for a fairly direct chorus. The narrator is
echelon pop song. Let’s start with in a dance club, eyeing a former flame
the beat: It sounds like a Japanese who’s moved on to another woman.
motorcycle in full rev, primed to There’s a tacit intention of winning him
a healthy purr but too disciplined back, but a provisional acceptance of
to dabble in the red. The rippling staying solo and enjoying the caprices
electronic notes amp up to an (and catharses) of the dance floor. In
impressive RPM level, then propel other words, “I can live, with or
forward with a sleek blast of snares. without you.”
It has the texture of a Max Martin
track crossbred with the theme music That said, I’m not willing to let Robyn
from Nintendo’s “Pole Position.” The off the hook so quickly. The essence
digital and the dulcet don’t so much of songwriting is the marriage of the
duke it out as bond together in a wordplay with the instrumental, and
covalent alliance. This bizarre aural something about “Dancing” tells me
alloy reminds me of the lyrical imagery that this particular drama holds more
in Bruce Springsteen’s “It’s Hard to Be than meets the eye. So let’s use our
a Saint in the City,” wherein the Boss ears instead: The beat is sweet and the
claims to have “silver star studs on chorus is convincingly downhearted,
[his] duds like a Harley in heat.” Robyn but there’s a sinister tone that chimes
doesn’t quite pack the horsepower just below the radar. Is the protagonist
of a Harley, but her shiny rice rocket a jilted lover or a deluded stalker?
of a track definitely secretes some When Robyn sings, “So far away,
serious pheromones. There’s sex, love, but still so near/(The lights go on,
vulnerability, and longing on the vinyl the music dies)/But you don’t see
– a range of feelings that most Top me standing here/(I just came to say
40 fare is anathema to cover but that goodbye),” we can’t help but feel a
Robyn indulges on the regular. little creeped out. What, exactly, does
this goodbye represent? Is Robyn once
This is not to say that Robyn writes with again channeling Springsteen – “For
the nuance of Shakespeare or Joyce. me this boardwalk life’s through/You
On “Dancing,” the lyrics work precisely oughta quit this scene too”? Or is
because they don’t require a Cliffs this song’s postscript an aggravated
Notes treatment. “I’m in the corner, assault?
watching you kiss her/I’m right over

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 OLD FRIENDS

I’m clearly taking liberties here. our sociocultural trend toward ever-
Dancing on one’s own is substantially increasing complexity; but, to those
different than pulling a Single White who follow indie music with an attuned
Female of the Jennifer Jason Leigh ear, the Shins’ no-fuss approach can
variety. But I consider it a tribute hardly be said to come as a surprise.
to Robyn’s musicianship that her
pop dramas provide the flexibility Much has happened in the 32

for interpretation – even if some of years since Squeeze released their

the interpretations are wild and ill- “Goodbye Girl” single – namely

conceived. Club singles rarely activate New Wave, postpunk, New Pop, hip

anything but the id, but “Dancing” hop, thrash metal, grunge, digital

is imaginative enough to counter the disco, and countless hybrids of these

body talk with a little brain teasing. It’s and other idioms. The net result is

sentient and sensate, yet still highly that there’s more competition and

syncopated. That’s the future of pop cross-pollination in contemporary

music: a bizarre amalgam of techno, pop music. One would expect

rock, and R&B, all rendered personal this outward-expanding corona of

by confessional lyrics. Left-of-center sound to push serious songwriters

artist have been making this sort of toward postmodern composition.

music for years. Now’s the time for But in certain alternative sectors, our
radio to catch up. multiplicity of forms actually translates
into less cacophony and clutter.
(June 22, 2010)
“Goodbye Girl” is a great case study in
reverse engineering. The original, full
of the frenzy of 1978, sounds like it was
The Shins
recorded in a clock shop or a penny
Goodbye Girl
arcade. There are Devo-esque blips,
The Shins’ cover of “Goodbye Girl” beeps, and cuckoos – all of which
defies convention by sounding were signs of the times, none of which
demonstrably less modern than were necessary to the song’s inherent
the original. It reconceives a busy, integrity. After all, Glenn Tilbrook
mechanical affair as a sweet strum and Chris Difford are more Lennon/
through power pop’s back pages. McCartney than Mothersbaugh/Casale
Such treatment might clash with or Byrne/Eno. Their tracks imagine that

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rock’s radicalization never happened, Lyrically speaking, Squeeze can adore

that the Beatles’ discography stopped without adornment, and Mercer flexes
at Rubber Soul. For Squeeze, the this muscle by presenting “Goodbye
melody is the medium and the Girl” as a stripped-down, acoustic
harmony is the cherry on top. What ballad. The background noise is
they communicate is the very opposite minimized, lending primacy to
of U.K. punk’s daft anarchy – that the story.
is, a reification of daily ritual, where
one describes the here-and-now of Our tale begins with the
the silent majority rather than the perambulations of a one-night stand,
dystopia of the vocal fringe. Tilbrook/ segues into a fly-by-night robbery,
Difford compositions endure because and ends with a confession of
they treat shared experiences with a longing for the purported thief. More
Faulty Towers sensibility: The lads are specifically, a mark falls for a woman he
more than happy to have a laugh at encounters in a pool hall and, duped
their own expense. Listen to “Up the into the illusion of mutual attraction,
Junction,” “Another Nail in the Heart,” is subsequently relieved of the
or “Is that Love?” Each song plays contents of his billfold. Mercer sings
like a reaction to a Dear John letter Squeeze’s lines with clarity but not
that the writer never took the trouble embarrassment, using his high register
to mail. to report an honest, detail-oriented
account of the goings-on: “She
“Goodbye Girl” fits this tradition to a took me to her hotel/A room on the
T, turning a private affair into a public second floor/A kettle and two coffees/
humiliation. You wouldn’t think that the The number on the door.” Is this the
Shins would be up for this sort of thing, tattered poetry of recollection or the
as James Mercer, the group’s leader, spartan prose of a police report?
is often described as painstaking and
self-serious. Yet on the “Goodbye One could ask that question about
Girl” redux, the band breaks out many Squeeze songs. Tilbrook/Difford
heaping doses of good humor. Mercer often force their protagonist to play
will not soon be mistaken for a barrel the fool, making his bed in the first
full of monkeys, but his crafty, almost two verses and lying down on it in the
artisanal approach to songwriting owes third. What’s special about “Goodbye
much to the Tilbrook/Difford model. Girl” is that the protagonist plays the

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unwitting (or, at least, the unrepentant) Train

fool. Even after he’s been robbed Hey, Soul Sister
and ransacked, shrugging off the
matrimonial bond to his wife along If you want to know why the recording
the way, he still pines to “say hello to industry got bamboozled by the
[his] goodbye girl.” He either doesn’t digital revolution, look no further the
realize that the little lady is a cold, major labels’ long-standing allergy to
calculating pro – the type of woman ingenuity. In light of the blind betting
who slips a mickey into her john’s and Johnny-come-lately strategies
hotel-room coffee – or his adoration is that sustained the commercial music
so great that he’s willing to let bygones apparatus in the decade prior to
be bygones, and offer himself up for Napster, one can only wonder how a
another pilfering. structure so decadent and depraved
managed to survive as long as it did.
The Shins do their best not to obscure
this message. Their breezy melodies The feckless drama’s denouement
both honor the sheer songcraft of went something like this: At the
Tilbrook/Difford and conspire to beginning of the Nineties, Sony,
mimic the duo’s central leitmotif: Capitol, and RCA – along with
quasi-consensual victimhood. Mercer countless other off-shoots and affiliates
disavows his own writing credit even – barnstormed the Pacific Northwest,
as he reaffirms Tilbrook/Difford’s, jockeying to scoop up any band that
arguing that caring is not creepy. This sounded even remotely like Nirvana.
argument fails, of course – which is just In the mid Nineties, as Dave Mathews
as Squeeze intended. The sentimental Band, Counting Crows, and Hootie
fool is destined to play the perpetual and the Blowfish started to break the
ass. On the original “Goodbye Girl,” bank, the Big League brokers were
Tilbrook/Difford identified the donkey. keen to sign every five-piece with a
Three decades later, the Shins provide grounding in roots rock and ready
the pin-on tail. access to an electric harmonica.
Then, at the turn of the century, as
(July 30, 2010)
Generation X outgrew terrestrial radio
and Baby Boomers surrendered to the
nostalgia of Greatest Hits reissues,
the labels packed up their guitars and

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 OLD FRIENDS

threw heavy timber behind the Boy logic, grabbing the melodic tones
Band phenomenon, milking Justin of late-Nineties album-oriented rock
Timberlake like a many-nippled and finding platinum on this side of
cash cow. the millennial divide, specifically with
2001’s Drops of Jupiter.
This carpetbagger mentality
underscored the industry’s ruinous Then the bridge collapsed, to much
myopia. At every juncture, the majors sound and fury. (Emphasis on the
were guilty of chasing their tails – that fury.) Aside from Creed, is there a
is, waiting for something big to break, pre-9/11 pop band more pervasively
then imitating the reigning sound reviled than Train? Sure, Matchbox
until the fad lost its mojo. Amid this and the Goo Goo Dolls come to mind,
frantic grope for the zeitgeist, the but neither of these groups were as
industry lost control over the means of earnest as Train. Pat Monahan pledged
production. Musical content was still to sing to you until you liked him,
critically important, but, by the early goddammit! He lacked Scott Stapp’s
Aughts, the physical CD became an ferocious messianic complex and
antiquated, unnecessary encumbrance. Johnny Rzeznik’s thinly veiled self-
loathing. He intoned to the heavens
You might be thinking, “This is all – literally “Calling on Angels” – and
good and well – but what in God’s expected the firmament below to
name does it have to do with Train?” accept his entreaties with equal parts
Well, Train are a major label outfit, a wonder and delight. In short, the guy
band of wily veterans with a history was a douche but thought he was
dating back to the heady, Monica a prince.
Lewinsky-era program in Adult
Contemporary hit-making. They were As it turns out, a little delusion can
signed during the aforementioned take a middling band an awfully long
dash for roots rockers and radio- way. Against all odds, and back from
friendly jam bands. But when the mass a sphere many iterations more distant
market lost its passion for patchouli, than death, Train have pulled into
Train proved versatile enough to tackle Grand Central Station with a huge,
girl-targeted guitar pop, in the vein of glossy, totally disarming #1 record.
Matchbox Twenty and 3 Doors Down. “Hey, Soul Sister” is a glittering pop
They bridged a certain gap in chart gem derived from untold decades

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 OLD FRIENDS

of soft-rock rites and lite-FM rituals. of the mass audience) is looking for
It will haunt your mother’s radio something friendly and escapist. “Soul
station for years to come, finding Sister” fits that bill to a T, making up
its niche alongside such reliable for what it lacks in originality with a
warhorses as Rod Stewart’s “Reason heaping dose of infectiousness. I find
to Believe” and Elton John’s “I Guess the gratuitous use of ukulele – yes,
That’s Why They Call It the Blues.” ukulele! – instantly arresting and
Despite being almost 10 months gratifying. Though you’re bound
old, “Soul Sister” has only recently to hear rebuttal testimony, I think it
managed to claim this year’s “I’m takes balls for a group of grown men
Yours” slot. This slow build – released to resort to dulcimer tones. Most
to crickets and tumbleweed, then contemporary pop is synths and drum
subsequently resurrected to fanfare machines, and Train have conquered
and a media blitz – demonstrates the the charts by busting out the uke?
confounding incompetence of the We haven’t seen a coup like this since
record industry. Train are a Sony outfit, R.E.M. rode Peter Buck’s mandolin
party to resources that the likes of solo to a loss of religion and a win of
Vampire Weekend or Dirty Projectors several Grammys.
could never imagine. Yet the label
couldn’t break this blatantly obvious Which begs a peripheral question: Is
summertime anthem? If Sony didn’t Pat Monahan as old as Michael Stipe?
hear the single potential in “Soul With his band back in the spotlight,
Sister,” they ought to be investigated Monahan has had to entertain the
by the Better Business Bureau, Today Show and View circuits. And
and have their commercial licenses while he’s certainly a fine-looking
revoked. man, his A&R department seems
determined to make him look mildly
But enough about the industry; let’s ridiculous. Pat’s big hair and bratty
focus on the song. It’s not a criticism countenance position him as a
when I say that “Soul Sister” is member of the Replacements circa Let
generic and pandering. Not every it Be. But his tight blazers and skinny
single needs to push the envelope of trousers place him as an Entertainment
post-millennial songwriting. In fact, Tonight guest host.
most of the time, the mass audience
(or, more appropriately, what remains We excuse these trespasses only

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 OLD FRIENDS

because Monahan sings an order platform that counts. But, if you’ll

of magnitude better than Justin forgive the pun, Train have a platform
Bieber. He may not have quite the as well. They bust out well-produced,
same pipes that channeled “Meet overwritten power ballads, fueled
Virginia,” but “Soul Sister” is so well more by “Rocket Man” ambition
structured that anything more than an than “High Enough” posturing. So
unintelligible rendering will suffice to if “Soul Sister” happens to be their
charm and beguile. Pat’s lyrics have last dance, what a way to go out. The
never been his strong suit. (Cases are song has scored musical cameos on
still pending in The Hague for such CSI: NY, Medium, and Nurse Jackie,
cruel and unusual lines as “She checks with close to 3 million legal downloads
out Mozart while she does tae-bo.”) to boot. And lest it go unobserved,
Yet “Soul Sister” has the melodic “Soul Sister” seems destined to
elasticity to accommodate train-wreck soundtrack a future ad campaign for
couplets of the first order, including either eHarmony or Match.com. The
“Your lipstick stains/On the front lobe song is mellow gold, and it shines all
of my left-side brains” and “I’m so the brighter for sidetracking the typical
obsessed/My heart is bound to beat machinations of the recording industry
right out my untrimmed chest.” These and meeting the listening public
words, however dubious, lock into the on its own turf. If Train’s next stop is
track’s ambient groove and adhere to oblivion, at least they left us something
the simple instrumental like a snake beautiful to drown out the sounds
around a staff. This snake isn’t chasing of departure.
its tail; it’s wagging its rattle – and
(April 12, 2010)
inviting us to sing along.

Popular music being the unstable,

balkanized compound that it is, “Soul Stone Temple Pilots
Sister” is likely to be Train’s last main- Between the Lines
stage hurrah. Facebookers and iPaders
have little use for graying crooners of Were Stone Temple Pilots the first of
questionable pedigree. They’d rather the second-wave grunge rockers or
identify and exploit the next big thing, the last of the Sunset Strip hair bands?
like the major labels of yore. Content Given the two-decade backlog of
is important but replaceable; it’s the narcotics in Scott Weiland’s circulatory

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 OLD FRIENDS

system, identifying his quartet’s genre Cantrell sonic continuum. The only
by means of blood test or DNA sample question likely to come forth from his
is more or less out of the question. So tongue is “What have you done for
let’s wave off the white lab coats and me lately?”
cut directly to the chase: STP were
neither a C-league Pearl Jam nor a Until this week, STP would’ve had

tepid retread of Motley Crew; they the damnedest time cuing up a

were a creaky bridge that connected respectable response. But now that

L.A. leather with Seattle flannel. This they’ve leaked the first single off their

sonic dexterity made them one of the upcoming reunion album, the band’s

Nineties’ most popular rock bands. But music can finally speak for itself. The

it also makes them acutely difficult to song in question, “Between the Lines,”

compartmentalize. is not of the genus that seeks to skimp

on volume. Its message is refreshingly

Take another listen to STP’s first clear: “For those about to rock, we

single, “Sex Type Thing.” Is that Layne salute you!”

Staley on lead vocals, or Axl Rose?

Weiland’s sex-type thing, whatever it Which is not to say that “Between”

might purport to be, definitely swung is an AC/DC rip-off or a conventional

both ways – ie, back to the alcoholic head banger. Yes, the track is
Eighties and ahead to the heroin-chic heavy and anthemic, but it can’t
Nineties. (Granted, the latter had completely hide its terroir. Like many

already begun in earnest by the time other selections from the STP-Talk

of Core’s release, but it had yet to Show-Velvet Revolver discography,

reach the parodical, aggro extremes of “Between” adheres to the classic rock

Staind, Limp Bizkit, and Creed.) side of grunge, placing an emphasis

on straight melody and swagger-laden

There is, of course, a slight problem guitar. Weiland wields the ringmaster’s

with any discussion that seeks to cane, pointing to his own sordid past

carbon-date STP’s sound to the with such lines as “I like it when we

period straddling George H.W. Bush’s talk about love/You always were my

presidential term – namely, that we’re favorite drug,” yet his remonstrations

currently living in 2010. Today’s pop aren’t so egomaniacal as to turn the

music fan couldn’t give a quibble or affair into a one-man show. Dean

a bit about the C.C. DeVille/Jerry DeLeo runs his hands up and down

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 OLD FRIENDS

the song’s throttle, pushing “Between” Bloated” joke, you’ll discover that the
into hyperdrive with a canon fusillade band is alive and kicking.
of power chords and retro riffs. There’s
(March 23, 2010)
nothing inherently novel about this
bellow-and-wail formula, but we’re
not filing patents here – we’re simply
rocking out to a solid, all-American Hole
guitar jam. Samantha

The STP of 2010 are an order of You know those “Miss Me Yet?”
magnitude more confident than the bumper stickers? The ones that are
STP of 1992. Rather than hide their currently making the rounds at your
influences behind concussive kick local evangelical church and Bass
drums or extended low-notes, the Pro Shop? Well, if you replace the
band is content to show its hand to sticker’s awkward background photo
everyone at the card table. If daddy of George W. Bush with a Getty image
wants a shout-along chorus, daddy of Courtney Love, you’d have a pretty
will write a shout-along chorus. And if cogent advertising campaign for Hole’s
mommy wants to bite a full 15-second new album, Nobody’s Daughter.
mini-section from Nirvana’s “Stay
Away,” mommy will pull the theft Music-based nostalgia has finally
red-handedly, complete with “Get beset Generation X, with the source
away!” background vocals. Weiland of their yearning being more guttural
finally realizes that he’ll never be Kurt than reasonable. It seems that most
Cobain, Axl Rose, or David Bowie. He’s people over 30 hate contemporary
now free to tinker unapologetically pop with such a passion that they’re
with his back catalog, fashioning willing to revert to sounds they never
“Between” as the logical fallout of really embraced in the first place.
“Slither”’s metallic echo and “Tumble “Celebrity Skin” (1998) didn’t get any
in the Rough”’s trippy bluster. Without higher than #85 on the Billboard Hot
according primacy to either grungy 100 singles chart, and Live Through
static or hairspray shimmer, Scott and This (1994) peaked at #52 on the LP-
his STP comrades manage to unleash dedicated Billboard 200. Yet we long
an unlikely winner. If you can resist for Courtney because she’s a symbol
the temptation to make a “Dead and of Album Oriented Rock’s last stand, a

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 OLD FRIENDS

conflation of Seventies punk, Eighties hustler, hell bent on the destruction

underground, and the early-Nineties’ of pride and property. You don’t
indie-fab moment, all strung together need to run any chemical assays to
by a connubial tie to rock and roll’s last determine that she’s Courtney Love’s
legitimate icon. alter ego. (Think Mariah Carey’s Mimi
with a run in her stocking and a spike
So while the reconstitution of Hole in her vein.) Courtney is clearly relying
might be something of an anti-reunion on the burned-out rocker’s favorite
– few original members, no hot-shit songwriting trope – public confession
festival exclusives, only luke-warm blog of private sins, cleverly disguised as
buzz – it nonetheless takes Generation a dialectic. But she does this sort of
X back to a time when guitars ruled thing inimitably well, both on disc
the roost, when Big Government and in the tabloids. I think she’s bright
wasn’t cramming affordable health enough to enjoy the irony in her
care down our throats, and when construction: She disavows the very
apartments in Seattle could be had past she’s banking upon to sell her
for a song (literally). I’m not sure if the record.
band’s newest single, “Samantha,”
will conjure a full-on revisitation of “Samantha” is cut from the alt-rock
yesteryear’s grungy verve and Sub cloth that launched dozens of “Seattle
Pop sonority, but it does its job – sound” subgenres and moved untold
that is, making today’s antic dance quantities of flannel. It’s got a mixture
music seem childish – fairly well. It’s of Smashing Pumpkins fizz and Jack
essentially a 4-minute “Adult Swim” Endino fuzz, whereby the vocals burn
banner, raised by heavy reverb, and the guitars bleed. When Courtney
snarling vocals, and the nation of sings “Stab the gutter right out of
millions that’s not content to bequeath that girl,” she sounds like she’s been
Top 40 to Taylor Swift. studying at the Marianne Faithful
School of Skanky Rasp. She may be a
“Samantha” starts in mid-tempo, then fifty-carat flake, and her persona may
builds into a heavy romp through be as fraudulent as Goldman Sachs’
Courtney’s back pages. The titular annual report, but the trauma in her
Samantha is cast alternately as an voice is real. Insofar as the song has a
object of pity and ridicule. She’s a chorus, it’s the umpteen repetitions,
junkie, a prostitute, and a major-league either in whole or in part, of the phrase

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 OLD FRIENDS

“People like you/Fuck people like me/ Hole’s founding operational principle is
In order to avoid agony.” Looks like that innocence is overrated. Courtney
someone’s got a victim complex. Love doesn’t value innocence so much
as her ability to lose it. And once it’s
But it also looks like someone’s got gone, she can only hope that it’s paid
a credible rock single. “Samantha” off well, like hubby Kurt’s celebrated
manages to marry the pain of the prey teenage angst. Love’s sense of purity
with the bloodlust of the predator, is far too track-marked and emaciated
sounding equal parts put upon and to prop itself up and ask, “Miss Me
wizened up. Courtney needs help, but Yet?” Rather than pose subjective
she’s certainly not helpless. In this way, questions, Court would prefer to
she reminds us of her late husband, reach for the proverbial kerosene, if
who always offset his whimpers only to scorch the outer layers of her
of defeat with growls of defiance. celebrity skin.
“Samantha” takes the vulnerability
of “Dumb” and shoots it up with the Such “Burn, baby, burn!” insouciance
bravado of “Frances Farmer Will Have reaffirms Courtney’s appeal. The
Her Revenge on Seattle.” The result charred remains of her career are far
could be something insipid – a Bush from beautiful, but we just can’t find
song, for instance – but instead we get the fortitude to look away. The reason
a tattered diary page that packs the for this is unclear. But I guess we’re
sort of sonic punch that the game’s afraid we might miss something.
been missing. However you feel
(April 29, 2010)
about Miley Cyrus, you can be certain
that she’s not going to drop a single
containing the line “If you were on fire,
I’d just throw kerosene.” That’s why
Tom Petty and
Courtney is so necessary: She’s not
the Heartbreakers
afraid to be indelicate.
I Should Have Known It

The moral of “Samantha” seems to be Tom Petty may not have been the best
Love’s not-so-soft lament of “No one singer-songwriter of the late Seventies,
can regain their innocence again.” This but he certainly had the best mission
is somewhat suspect, considering that statement: “Don’t bore us. Get to the
chorus.”

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 OLD FRIENDS

Rarely is a sentiment this concise also He’s forgetting that Petty and his
so expansive. The phrase contains the Heartbreakers weren’t the least bit
snarl of punk, the stomp of garage, interested in reordering the aesthetic
and the smirk of a rock and roll outlaw. principles of Western music. This is a
It covers the sonic continuum that band that wanted to go back to the
stretched from Elvis to the Ramones, future – that is, to remember the time
leaving ample gas in the tank for Tom’s when verse-chorus-verse was a catalyst
own variations on its theme. And to exhilaration rather than an object of
Petty, never shy or imprecise about his disdain, and then to channel this fist-
origins – see “One foot in the grave/ first ethic onto the airwaves.
and one foot on the pedal/I was born
a rebel” – ran down his dream with all Bear in mind that we’re speaking of
the amped-up horsepower of a race Jimmy Carter-era airwaves, frequencies
car driver. beset by prog fog and disco taint.
(Hell, even the president himself spoke
Ultimately, the key distinction between of an invidious cultural “malaise.”)
Tom Petty and Kyle Petty is not one of Much of what had made the American
attitude but of instrument: The former songbook so spectacular – the low-
traffics in guitars, while the latter brow sensitivity, the miscegenated
trafficked in motor stock. Both feel the rhythms, the 12-bar blues – was
need for speed. And both know it’s obscured by the smoke and mirrors of
good to be King. studio production. Pop-star posturing,
with its attendant bared chests and
At present, of course, few phenomena demi-god grandeur, didn’t help
hold less cachet in the music press matters either. Man and medium were
than NASCAR and dinosaur rock. If caught in something of a death spiral,
the hipster set has any respect for Tom clearly unaware that their fates were
Petty, it probably comes with a side intertwined. As the music became
order of caveats and condescension. more artificial, so did the musicians.
His Zagat-style entry in Pitchfork’s back
pages might read, “Reliable bar-band I’m not going to be so ingratiating
leader” with an “ear for pop hooks”… as to ask whether this milieu rings a
but “where’s the innovation?” Yet bell. Some things should be obvious
by posing such a question, the indie – among them that contemporary
snob unwittingly reveals his ignorance: pop is a no-man’s-land of teen

33
 OLD FRIENDS

dreams and television tie-ins; and that Despite the song’s boy-done-wrong
contemporary indie, the so-called subject matter – “Thanks for nothing/
“alternative” option, is dominated Yeah, thanks a lot/Go ahead, baby/
by fidget house (ie, disco without Take all I got” – it certainly sounds
the black people) and chillwave (ie, like Tom is enjoying himself. He
prog without a conceptual frame). continues to insist that postpunk
Considering these ground conditions, never happened, refusing to allow the
Petty’s new single, “I Should Have Heartbreakers’ lead or rhythm guitars
Known It,” plays like a Heartbreakers to be subordinated to the bass. He hits
record from the late Seventies. The us with a walloping riff as soon as the
track dusts off “Don’t bore us. Get to track opens, and gets us to the chorus
the chorus,” only to roll it around in in under a minute. (Not bad, Tom. Not
the mud of the Mississippi Delta and bad at all.)
soak it in the swamps of the Florida
Panhandle. Once again, the M.O. is Yet, truth be told, this is not Tom’s
not invention but reinvention: taking song. It’s Mike Campbell’s. He’s the
the blues of the Deep South and one who’s wielding the killer riffs and
transposing them onto the jingles and the “Heartbreaker” hammer, not to
jangles of reverb-laden rock and roll. mention the compositional gear shift.
At the start of “Known It,” Mike is all
It should come as no surprise that this about propulsion – he’s revving the
formula renders a racket that sounds engine and spitting out sparks. By the
an awful lot like Led Zeppelin. “Known song’s midpoint, he’s moved to slide
It” is a ramble through Zep’s prime, guitar, content to vamp and wail like
blending the buzz and resonance of Duane Allman on amphetamines. The
“Black Dog” with the slinky majesty real rush, however, comes in the final
of “Misty Mountain Hop.” There are minute, when Campbell is unleashed
traces of the disorienting slurs and like a mad gator in a Gainesville marsh.
wrinkles that characterized “The He imparts an Everglades echo to his
Crunge,” but, by and large, the stadium-rock chops, making music
band razes the roof at full throttle. that’s at once of the soil and the
Perhaps it’s only coincidental that the sky. Petty chimes in with his ringing
Heartbreakers have produced a track Rickenbacker, but only to lord over a
so similar to “Heartbreaker.” Or maybe band that’s white hot. It’s almost as if
Petty is just having some fun with us. the Heartbreakers had developed a

34
 OLD FRIENDS

fever, and that the only cure was more Now more than ever, there’s a place
Campbell. for a song that grabs you by the lapels
and drags you across the barroom
“Known It” is the strongest classic floor. “Known It” can call that place
rock single of the year. That’s not its own. The track is a Petty single in
saying much, given the genre’s slim the tradition of “Woman In Love” and
slate of new material; but young “Running Down A Dream,” wherein
folks could learn a great deal about angst and aspiration are let off like so
songcraft by studying the Petty- many pockets of steam. By ascribing
Campbell dynamic. What starts as a primacy to the guitar, it asks Campbell
strut morphs into an all-out gambol, to do the dirty work while Petty makes
with limbs aflair and toes atapping. a clean escape from the burdens of
The listener doesn’t think, he merely rock stardom. Tom doesn’t care if he’s
experiences – which is not a sign of “relevant;” he just wants to be good.
insentience, but transcendence. When That sentiment may not be as catchy
you’re not given the time to get bored, as “Don’t bore us. Get to the chorus,”
you’re not afforded the luxury of but it’s just as bulletproof. Long may
indulgence. Melody and verse engage you run, Tom. No one from the current
you head-on, chugging like a freight generation is going to catch you.
train towards a chorus that serves as
a climax. This swift evolution from (May 17, 2010)

tension to repose is no musical caprice

– especially when all parties involved
know that the intensity is about to
be ratcheted up to higher and
higher levels.

35
PART II: NEW SENSATIONS
 New sensations

Drake MC. Rather than subscribe to the

Over tired exaggerations of biography-by-
bullet-hole, Drake uses his ostensible
Of the many things that Drake and I disqualifiers – a comfortable suburban
don’t have in common, perhaps the upbringing, a protracted tenure
most conspicuous is a collaboration on Degrassi: The Next Generation,
with Nicki Minaj. Sure, this “Dricki” Canadian citizenship – to his
partnership is initially notable for its professional advantage.
sheer comedic value, as Nicki Minaj
is the most over-the-top MC name In our age of ascendant tween spirit,
since Tony Yayo. But, upon further Clean Cut is the new Thug Life.
review, the collab also merits mention Commercial rap isn’t looking to recycle
for its tacit hubris. Both Drake and Rakim or Tupac; it’s looking for its Fall
Ms. Minaj are relative newcomers to Out Boy: an act that places sensitivity
the hip-hop game. Neither have the and introspection over the genre’s
platinum album or Disney franchise historical pillars of violence, misogyny,
to ensure immediate integration into and ego. After all, it’s awfully hard to
the Billboard Hot 100. Yet Young make industry-leading dough when
Money Entertainment released their you’re locked behind bars – a lesson
joint joint, “Up All Night,” as a single. that Drake’s sponsor, mentor, and hype
This tells me that the organization man, Lil Wayne, has learned the
has a lot of confidence in Drake. He hard way.
carries the proverbial load on “Night,”
dropping the first verse, sing-speaking Drake is being marketed as a dude
the chorus, and lending the track its who’s more likely to pack moisturizer
pervasive cool. Instead of Hova, he’s in his pocket than a Tech Nine.
Nova: the newbie who’s charged with This palatability, distinct from the
bringing enough star power to light up outright friendliness of a Justin Bieber
the pop charts, the social media, and or a Jonas Brother, is the central
the hearts of the silly white girls who emblem of his fast-track approach
underwrite both enterprises. to superstardom. Last year, he
graduated from playing a paraplegic
Drake is getting a 500-decibel PR high school student on Degrassi to
blast because he represents hip hop’s trading main-stage rhymes with such
next frontier: the post-street cred musical stalwarts as Jay-Z, Kanye West,

37
 New sensations

Weezy, Alicia Keys, and The-Dream – would fit nicely in Kanye’s pantheon of
all before releasing a proper LP. The clever come-ons. But, when delivered
hip-hop gods were clearly hoping that by Drake, the words exude worn-down
Drake would assimilate into rap’s royal melancholy rather than amped-up
family without any detours through pride. Throughout “Over,” the boasts
drug rehab or the state pen. And glance while the anxiety wallops. The
“Over,” the standout track on Drake’s single trades in currencies of self-
much-anticipated debut album, just doubt, not self-aggrandizement.
might mark the beginning of his reign
as pop music’s crowned prince. In mathematical terms, Drake = Ye +
Weezy/Kid Cudi. He’s got a deliberate,
“Over” leaps off its vinyl with an beat-adhering flow that mixes gravel
artful flourish, using a symphonic and grass. Our boy’s neither too hot
R&B sample to signal Drake’s arrival. nor too cold; which, for all intents and
The brass and the fanfare give the purposes, makes him the Goldilocks
song an outer armor of importance, of the rap circuit. In a scene already
coupling Wagner with blaxploitation overloaded with “too angry” and
before ceding the floor to Auto-Tuned “too arty,” Drake steps up to deliver
vocals. Drake sings (and I use the verb the “just right.” And by “just right”
loosely), “I know way too many people we mean not prone to unlawful
here right not that I didn’t know last weapons possession, uncalled-for
year/Who the fuck are y’all?,” his VMA stunts, or untenable hipster rap.
voice sounding more exhausted than After all, a pimp has got to keep his
threatening. At first glance, these hos on the street if he wants them
lyrics could serve as the introduction to make their numbers. And “Over,”
to one of Kanye West’s recent records. an expertly pimped out track from
The texture (decadent chill) and the both a production and promotion
attitude (V.I.P. ennui) come from the standpoint, is copyrighted by Young
Ye school of existential hip hop. The Money Entertainment, Cash Money
key difference, of course, is that the Records, and Universal Motown. That’s
MC is a decade younger and comes three deep-pocketed industry players
with several metric tons less baggage. throwing their collective resources
Yes, “You too fine to be layin’ down behind a single unproven MC. Which
in bed alone/I can teach you how to is precisely how a star is born in
speak my language, Rosetta Stone,” contemporary pop. Did you really think

38
 New sensations

that Drake was blowing up on his own? informs the listener that he’s not going
to change a thing: “This is what I’mma
Drake is a classic right place/right time do til it’s over/Til it’s over/But it’s far
entertainer. The major rap labels now from over.”
employ fully credentialed marketing
consultants and a bottom-line oriented That last bit of swagger is characteristic
A&R staff. Each corporate pusher is of artists who employ mononymous
sophisticated enough to know that stage names. Prince, Madonna, and
fans of Justin Bieber, Joe Jonas, Miley Bono find common ground in their
Cyrus, and Taylor Swift will soon need embrace of fame and all its trappings.
something slightly edgier to grow Drake is not yet of their stripe or their
into. Drake fills that hypothetical station, and he probably never will be.
void, acting as a counterpoint to hip But his cautious confidence is backed
hop’s long parade of reprobates and by moneyed interests and discernible
roustabouts. That’s why Young Money skill. If this rap thing doesn’t work
has got him dressing up in varsity out, he can always take the Will Smith
jackets and tooling around in Sprite route, and return to acting. Should
commercials. When an MC has no the industry pimps raise their hand,
street cred to lose, the blatant acts of Drake is athletic enough to duck the
ingratiation can start from inception. blow and double-time it to greener
pastures. So when he says “it’s far from
In addition to being a highly leveraged over,” I’m inclined to believe him. And
commodity, Drake is a capable I have it on good authority that Nicki
performer, a deft rapper, and one Minaj feels the same way.
sharp cookie. “Over” isn’t the work of
(June 18, 2010)
a Manchurian candidate. If anything,
it’s a muffled shout of protest from
inside the machine. “Who the fuck Sleigh Bells
are y’all?” is rap’s answer to “By the Tell ‘Em
way, which one’s Pink?” The performer
knows he’s being exploited, but his
In The Iliad, Homer frequently
rewards are so great that he’d be
describes battle as “the clamor
stupid to hop off the gravy train.
incessant.” This epithet could just as
Drake seems to have his facts straight.
easily attach itself to Sleigh Bells’ new
After airing the insecurities that come
single, “Tell ‘Em,” a ring-the-alarm
standard with his profession, he

39
 New sensations

cochlea crusher that shoots first and years prior to “My Girls.” But let’s take
asks questions later. The track makes a look at the video tape: While the
an absolute racket, with arms of iron AC have certainly made their mark,
and bronze cascading into each other they’ve made it in the margins, winning
like so many strong-greaved Greeks critical lauds and a pole position in
and horse-breaking Trojans. Ultimately, the Chillwave 500. There’s been no
however, the song is less ancient than real crossover in demographics. If you
postmodern: It sounds as if it’s caught ask your mom if she knows who Avey
up in the Hadron particle collider, Tare is, she’s likely to point you in the
subject to subatomic squawk and direction of James Cameron.
industrial mayhem. Sleigh Bells cram
the primal, the prevailing, and the Translation: Our indie-rock battles,
futuristic into a tight, tinnitus-inducing though often loud, are small in scope
package. The result is something as and smaller in glory. Sleigh Bells have
concussive as a sharp blow from swift- already garnered major buzz, yet
footed Achilles. Who knew that “the they’re largely unknown outside of
clamor incessant” could take the form Brooklyn’s hipster ghettos. “Tell ‘Em”
of some next-generation shit? could (but probably won’t) change all
that. It layers deftly detonated noise
The implications of the Hadron bombs with a dance beat and sheer
comparison extend beyond “Tell rock and roll spirit. In the aggregate,
‘Em”’s jones for hyperspeed collisions. it sounds like metal machine music,
Like nuclear physics, Sleigh Bells’ only with lasers. The song swirls and
fire-in-the-hole aesthetic can be a bit pulses almost as hard as it crashes
too knotty and arcane for the layman and crunches. It opens with a digital
mind. Its sound is so dense and thrust- explosion that approaches sonic
boostered that one wonders how it boom; the whiplash is so fast and
can make the upgrade from smoking furious that the listener should be
gun to mushroom cloud. made to wear a neck brace. Next
comes the weaponization of the
This is not an irrelevant concern. The drum machine, whereby snares and
Bells are touted in indie circles as toms morph into short rounds of
the Next Big Thang, just as Animal rat-a-tat-tat gunfire. Sleigh Bells’
Collective was tagged with the patron and partner in crime, M.I.A.,
“greatness” label some two to three helped pioneer this “violence-is-pop”

40
 New sensations

arrangement. What the Bells do, and determines the directional integrity of
do conspicuously well, is add guitars to the track. “Tell ‘Em” is uncivil but not
the musical cocktail. uncivilized. It’ll pulverize your senses
and befog your spatial awareness
It’s useful to mention that the band’s even as it commands you, however
eardrum assault comes courtesy of dangerously, to dance.
just two people: Derek Miller and
Alexis Krauss. Miller mans the guitars It’s in this small crevice between
and the production board, and Krauss poison and palliative that today’s
womans the vocals. Together, they music makers win glory. The acclaim
constitute a flavor combination that may not be incessant – in fact, it may
pleasantly fucks with your palate. Call be cruelly truncated – but the laurels,
them the sweet and sour chicken of once loosed, cannot be taken back.
skinny-jeaned indie, at once in thrall to The Bells deserve credit for pumping
brutally serrated riffs and pop-singer the volume on an increasingly stillborn
melodies. In their earlier singles, idiom. They’re one of the few alt-rock
Sleigh Bells sounded a bit like Gwen bands with the balls to pull off an
Stefani fronting the Kinks. With “Tell open-carry. Their guns are out, and
‘Em,” the duo move into My Bloody they’re positively blazing. Now it’s up
Valentine territory, alternating shrill to the gods to decide whether the
orchestrations with warm buzz. Still, bullets will hit their targets.
the track is far from loveless. Krauss’
(May 3, 2010)
voice manages to rise above all the
feedback and distortion, as if the band
were aiming for the crunk sublime. I
don’t know whether this is an aesthetic Janelle Monáe
or a messthetic. Nor do I care. Tightrope

“Tell ‘Em” works as avant-garde pop In a recent essay on popular culture,

and top-shelf indie – not that there’s British novelist Martin Amis wrote,
much of a distinction between the two. “One can be famous without being
You get the sense that Sleigh Bells talented. And one can be rich without
are committed to making a high-end being talented. But one cannot be
variety of low-end music, wherein talented without being talented.”
the bass, while physically absent, Janelle Monáe proves this smirking

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tautology right – at least insofar as appeal. Janelle is DIY in attitude but

it can be proved and not simply painstakingly professional in execution.
shrugged off with an acerbic “No shit, First, she mapped out a cycle of
Sherlock.” concept albums so esoteric that they
could throw Jeff Mangum for a loop.
As a singer, songwriter, dancer, and Then she recorded with the likes of
conceptual artist, Monáe is defined by Big Boi and Diddy. And, somehow, the
her ability to contrive, choreograph, process cohered into top-shelf pop.
and perform. Her talent is omnipresent
and overwhelming; it bubbles up and Monáe’s first major-label single,
sparkles like the effervescence in a “Tightrope,” sounds like the jump-
glass of Champagne, as if to signal off to a long and fruitful career in
the potential to enliven and intoxicate. mainstream music. Its enticements are
She’s yet to become particularly immediate and numerous, ranging
famous or wealthy, but her uncommon from Janelle’s opening soul man howl
endowment for the arts has her in to the track’s finger-snapping beat. The
prime position for a breakout into verse singing is quick and clipped, in
superstardom. the manner of hip hop, but the choral
interludes are articulated with a little
Now’s a good time to issue the more space and resonance. Monáe
evergreen critical caveat: Let’s not get can go from zero to sixty faster than
ahead of ourselves! At the moment, a Ferrari Testarosa, spitting “When
Monáe is decidedly indie. That is, you get elevated/They love it or they
she’s alternative in the sense that hate it” with a fluency that reminds
she’s doing something demonstrably us of Big Boi’s hyper-speed rhymes.
different and less popular than your (Note: He graces the track with a brief
Rihannas, your Beyoncés, and your but bangin’ guest verse.) She can
Katy Perrys. These indie credentials, also lean back and wail, fortifying the
however, shouldn’t be misread as song’s Dap-Kings-on-dope rhythm
indicating a proclivity towards the raw with Erykah Badu-style intonation.
or the low-fidelity. Monáe doesn’t work She doesn’t aim for the grown-woman
in the tradition of Beat Happening gravity of Sharon Jones, nor does she
or Guided By Voices, where a settle for the little-girl melodrama of
conspicuous amateurism constitutes the Glee cast. If “Tightrope” can be
a large component of the performer’s classified conventionally, it would be

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as “indie soul” or “art-school R&B” android community of a civilization

– which, to the ecumenical listener, called Metropolis. When Janelle sings
translates seamlessly into “pop.” This “I’m another flavor/Something like a
track is as easy to like as “Hey Ya!,” Terminator,” you not only believe her
“Womanizer,” or “Crazy.” but push right past James Cameron
to Fritz Lang and George Lucas. Her
How, then, do we make a Monáe? narrative is cosmic rather parochial,
Well, if Lady Gaga is the bastard packing an interstellar groove that
stepchild of David Bowie and marries Devo with OutKast. Yet even if
Madonna, Janelle might be best you know nothing of the Mayweather
conceived as equal parts James Brown saga or the Metropolis back story,
and the Black Eyed Peas. Bear in mind “Tightrope” can still transport you to
that we’re talking the good part of a distant universe. It works as a dance
the Black Eyed Peas – the accessible – dexterously “walking the tightrope”
beats, the strong songcraft, the energy – or a lifestyle – keeping your cool and
exchange between Will.i.am’s DJing maintaining your foothold, even as
and Fergie’s singing. There’s also the androgenic society crumbles.
explicit futurism, that audacity to deal
in “next-level shit.” The key distinction, I can’t think of an entertainer I’d
of course, is that Monáe is actually rather see usher in the rise of the
making that next-level shit, while Will machines than Janelle Monáe. With
is giving Eurodisco an electric charge her spectacular pompadour – which
and calling it the Second Coming. takes the follicular excesses of Cosmo
There’s something Old School about Kramer and squares them – and her
Monáe’s futurism. It’s not Dada like tuxedo-and-tails approach to stage
Gaga, a perfomer who aims to wow us wear, she exudes a prescription dose
with gut-wrench acoustics and punitive of “Other.” Her sophisticated sense
couture. It’s more like James Brown of rhythm and flat-sole virtuosity are
trapped in a science fiction novel – less superhuman than extraterrestrial.
far-out but funky. Take a look at the “Tightrope” video
and try not to come away believing
“Tightrope” comes from an album that Monáe is one of the best dancers
entitled The ArchAndroid, wherein in popular music. Her performance is
Monáe’s alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather, musical Viagra® – not for the proverbial
becomes a messianic figure to the member, but for the spirit.

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In the end, Janelle’s talent makes Jenny and Johnny

her what the game’s been missing: A Scissor Runner
New Hope. (Star Wars reference fully
intended.) And if modern history has Jenny Lewis is one of my favorite
proved anything, it’s that A New Hope contemporary singer-songwriters.
doesn’t necessarily imply A Sure Thing. Notice the absence of the word
In President Barack Obama, we’ve “female” in the previous sentence.
seen how “once-in-a-generation” Gender, after all, has very little to do
political talent can be subordinated to with the calculus of good songwriting:
the indignities of political commodity. Either you can pen a solid tune, or
The same thing can happen in the you can’t. And Jenny most certainly
name of commercial commodity, can. (For case-closing evidence, see
whereby rough edges are rounded and “Acid Tongue” or “Rise Up With
wild ideas are domesticated for the Fists!!” – her exclamation marks, not
sake of the mass market. But the real mine, though I’m happy to second the
fun of “Tightrope,” like the real fun of enthusiasm.)
“Yes We Can,” is the faith it inspires
in its affirmer. We revel in the notion With “Scissor Runner,” Lewis adds
that this guy or girl is worth betting a Y chromosome to her catalog’s
the house on, even if – especially DNA. This genetic material comes
if! – that house is in danger of being courtesy of her boyfriend and
repossessed. frequent collaborator, Johnathon
Rice. (“Johnny” if you’re nasty.)
With Monáe, I’m hoping for change An accomplished songwriter in his
I can believe in, but I’ll settle for a own right, Rice has a weary, wistful
few solid singles and a rising pop voice that mixes John Mellencamp’s
profile. As Janelle sings at the onset of earthiness with John Mayer’s pop
“Tightrope,” “Another day/I take your orientation. His solo work has always
pain away.” This may seem a meager been a little too deliberate to hold
reward, but it’s good enough for now. my attention, but, coupled with his
Dull the ache and maybe – just maybe! paramour, Rice finds just the right pace
– a more consequential deliverance and provenance. His vocals are made
will follow. for AM Gold of the Laurel Canyon
strain – which, to be clear, indicates
(May 20, 2010) no strain, just day after day of warm
sunshine and low humidity.

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The Eagles did this sound well. amiability, “Scissor” bites the soulful,
Fleetwood Mac did it better. And weekend vibe of Bruce Springsteen’s
Jenny and Johnny, given their semi- “Meet Me at Mary’s Place” and
soft acoustics and mixed-double the shot-out-of-a-cannon opening
pairing, mirror the Mac in ways that chords of Nick Lowe’s “(What’s So
transcend a shared geography and Funny About) Peace, Love, and
similarly boho-chic wardrobes. The Understanding.” The single’s tastiest
Mac wrote one of the late-Seventies attribute is its forward propulsion,
few perfect pop songs, Rumours’ “I which is insistent even as it leans
Don’t Want to Know,” leaning heavily toward the mellow-yellow sounds of
on Stevie Nicks’ lyrical concision and the Me Decade. If you’re going to
Lindsey Buckingham’s vocal restraint. look back fondly on the Seventies, you
“Scissor Runner” takes this track’s could choose poorer influences than
mojo into the 21st century, keeping Stevie, Lindsey, Bruce, and Nick.
the light riff and the male-female
interplay. To call the single breezy is Still, forward propulsion implies
like calling Chicago windy or Seattle a future purpose. And I think this
wet – that is, simultaneously clichéd band has the chops to replicate their
and understated. replications – to not just reanimate
the Mac’s old tricks, but to deliver
The Jenny and Johnny website pure pop for now people. There’s
describes the duo’s early material as something astral, perhaps even
“fast” and “ultra-melodic,” adding heavenly, about a love song that
that their voices were often blended doesn’t try to hide its underlying
together, “creating a completely new positivity. “Scissor” sounds so happy
sound.” Well, two out of three ain’t that it causes you to hear hand claps
bad. “Scissor Runner,” which is among even though none are included in
the group’s earliest collaborations, the mix. Such is the sensibility of an
is quick enough to support a hasty enchanted afternoon in the Canyon,
gallop. (It might even be considered wherein delight overpowers the
“fast” by West Coast standards.) And protests of despair. In the end, Jenny
no sentient soul will question its ultra- and Johnny prove to be a charming,
melodiousness. But on the originality symbiotic duo. Lewis sparks the track,
metric, this song will win no blue and Rice dedicates it to the one he
ribbons. Beyond its Return of the Mac loves: “She ain’t a princess/But she’s

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an artist/Painting a portrait/All over Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend” than

my heart.” You’re a lucky man, Johnny. the catty melodics of the Lavigne-
Thanks for setting your relationship Simpson sound factory. Don’t get
to music. me wrong: Bethany loves cats (see
her Twitter page and her album
(July 21, 2010) art) and melody (listen to “Sun Was
High” or “When I’m With You”), but
“Boyfriend” largely succeeds on the
Best Coast strength of its dog-like devotion to
Boyfriend harmony. The track is a study in vocal
loops and lo-fi production, the very
Hey, little boy, she wants to be your elements that define Best Coast’s
girlfriend. “She” is Bethany Cosentino debut LP, Crazy for You. Cosentino
– singer, songwriter, and, in that dual supplements her hazy verses with
capacity, the central creative engine ample and extended “ahhh”s, serving
behind Best Coast, a partly sunny as her own background singer. This
two-piece band from Los Angeles. second vocal layer plays deftly with the
The “little boy” in her equation goes song’s unobtrusive surf guitar, which is
unnamed but not uncoveted, adhering presumably supplied by Cosentino’s
to the grand musical traditions of Avril collaborator, Bobb Bruno. (He is
Lavigne and Ashley Simpson – ladies marginalized in virtually every press
who are content to lunch on the piece on the band, so I feel no need to
remains of another woman’s man, then elaborate on him here. Sorry, Bobb.)
skip out on the bill.
“Boyfriend” is something of a
With “Boyfriend,” Cosentino reveals
straggler from the recent “blissed-
her willingness to play the house
out buzzsaw” scene, wherein reverb
wrecker, to separate her beau from
and girl-group harmonies come
his beauty of the moment. As it turns
together to impart warm noise and
out, this extradition is less malicious
clunky textures. Almost invariably, the
than fantastic. The song is a California
production sounds estranged and
daydream – fairly easy, fairly breezy,
anti-charismatic, like the theme music
and awfully aspirational. It owes
to a postlapsarian Eve. The subgenre
far greater debts to the Ramones’
that’s popped up around this sound is
“I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and
conspicuously female, if not necessarily

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feminine. Vivian Girls led the pack, KKK. A rock purist might be inclined
with Dum Dum Girls following in tow to criticize Cosentino for failing to
and delivering better tunes. Best decide whether she wants to be
Coast establish their own identity quirky or punk. But if you look at the
by being considerably less abrasive. discographies of the Ramones, the
Their Wall of Sound is minimalist and Cramps, the Misfits, and the Talking
ethereal, packing little of Phil Spector’s Heads, you’ll find that quirk was an
bombast. “Boyfriend” could be the essential element of punk. Before
work of a somnambulist, with its twin the CBGBs scene got paved over by
columns of languor and longing softly aggression, its only entry requirement
pulsating behind a veil of sleep. was weirdness.

What’s interesting about this single Best Coast win bizarro points for
is that it begins with a feint but is making the confessional sound distant.
defined by a protracted flutter. Listen “Boyfriend” is inviting but not sweet,
to the opening drum break – it’s nearly brandishing retro-chic tones that seem
identical to the percussive flourish benign until they become narcotic. It
that jumpstarts Bruce Springsteen’s casts out a line, then quietly reels you
“Badlands.” But where the Boss into its echo chamber. This chamber
pumps his track full of gravity and could be an L.A. recording studio or a
pathos, Cosentino dials down both New Age drum circle, but I prefer to
her emotions and her tempo. She’s think of it as a beating heart, forever
passively lovesick and actively prone to pounding out its cardiovascular
lonely-girl platitudes, including “One cadences, be they healthy or diseased.
day I’ll make him mine/And we’ll be In all honesty, I wish Best Coast would
together all the time.” Occasionally, raise their BPMs to, say, a steady 65,
however, the limp prosaics are busted just to keep me from nodding off
up by patches of postmodern poetry, during successive spins.
such as “The other girl is not like me/
She’s prettier and skinner/She has Yet I’m sure that if Cosentino tried
a college degree/I dropped out at to corset her laid-back vibe into
17.” These couplets bear the mark of an amped-up uniform, the music
Joey Ramone, who seemed forever would lose much of its magic. If I
fated to lose his baby to either the learned anything from my awkward
neighborhood tough or the regional adolescence, it’s that you don’t get

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 New sensations

between a girl and her beau without Up – then to move on to the next
shedding a little blood. So let’s allow victim before expectation can assent
“Boyfriend” to keep its distance. to afterglow. The period of actual
Given adequate space, maybe the pleasure is abridged to a condition of
relationship will grow. negligibility. Our Band Could Be Your
Life has been replaced by Our Band
(July 29, 2010) Could Be Your Weekend.

This tendency toward the premature

purge is a symptom of connectivity.
Magic Kids
The fruits and memes of social
Superball
networking are filtered through a prism
Music blogs trade in connectivity of cool, enabling the medium to heat
rather than connection. They alert us up with a maniacal blaze of turnover.
to the sorts of musical microtrends The content is almost irrelevant so
that might inspire a new hairstyle long as the reaction is strong.
or a tighter cut of jeans, but they
do it breathlessly, as if preoccupied Connection, on the other hand,
by the footsteps of the next nano- requires complete surrender to a
sized paradigm shifter. This loose band’s charms. No glances over
footing and itchy trigger finger are the shoulder, rebooting for fresh
at odds with the deep institutional headlines, or jumping to another
memories that characterize such sites mp3 – just a physical record and a Do
as Pitchfork and Stereogum. One Not Disturb sign. By offering our full,
would think that a scalable collective unironic attention, we stand a chance
of professional music writers would of stilling the fray and identifying the
stand up for staying power, and keeper, like Keanu Reeves picking out
issue their superlatives in a manner essential fragments of binary code in
conducive to fan building and sound The Matrix.
breaking. Instead, the introduction to
a new artist is short but bombastic, This job is difficult, but far from
like a slightly more intellectualized impossible. And we don’t have to be
version of an ad campaign for a Will among the ranks of the chosen to
Ferrell movie. The impetus is to Like spot a winner. Sometimes a song can
Us, Friend Us, Retweet Us, Buzz Us outsmart the music blogs’ promotional

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 New sensations

cycle, and swing back around for a worked, albeit through lo-fi haze. The
second helping of hype. Magic Kids’ newer, album-ready version brings
“Superball” is doing just that. Last a welcome crispness and an added
year, the song’s demo-level recording electric interlude. The harmonies soar
dominated my indie earbuds for, and the chamber arrangement works
well, the better part of a weekend. up a sweat. No longer do we mistake
It was jaunty, fun, and conspicuously an orchestral flourish for a set of rusty
life-affirming – so much so that it bed springs. Twee is tweaked to a
retained a beloved-orphan status on knee-high replication of the Wall of
my playlists through the early part Sound.
of this summer. Then, just as Magic
Kids were fading to the fringes of my Still, “Superball” sounds less like a
consciousness (seemingly destined to Phil Spector number than a Beach
be confused with Here We Go Magic Boys composition cut down to
and the Magic Numbers), “Superball” size by Beat Happening. It doesn’t
returned in prime fighting condition: endeavor to bowl you over with
pumped-up by the production board excess. Instead, it colors itself lovelorn
and ready to serve as the sonic anchor and nostalgic, yearning for the days
to a credible debut album. when the protagonist bounced
his Ball to the rafters, ostensibly in
True to its title, “Superball” is between feedings of peanut butter
designed to bounce. Its strings are and Popsicles. Lyrical snippets suggest
warm and coiled, as if prepared to an unhealthy relationship between
bound energetically off a cement Ball and boy: “When we were young/I
surface. Prior to launch, the vocalist used to play with you for hours in
whispers a “1-2-3” count off, then the sun” segues shortly into “You
sings in a manner so sweet and were always on my mind/And you
unaffected that his voice more or stayed in my pocket all the time.”
less cedes the floor to the fluttering But more important than the effect
instrumental. In the original, a pairing of this odd anthropomorphism is its
of violin strokes and organ swells motivation. What, exactly, is going on
gave the song two distinct RPMs: the here? Is Magic Kids’ totally unguarded
first was set on “hummingbird,” the approach genuine or a cheeky pose? Is
second on “butterfly.” The former was “Superball” too precious and, as such,
frantic, the latter ethereal – and both too good to be true?

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To ask these questions is to give Hunx and His Punx

the song more headspace than it U Don’t Like Rock n Roll
deserves. (Or desires.) “Superball”
disarms you with its sweeping, highly Here’s the thing about punk rock: Just
musical phrasing, not its brain-dead because anybody can do it doesn’t
narrative. The demo recording stayed mean that anybody should do it.
in my pocket for more than nine Far too often, the genre’s insurgent
months, enjoying as many spins as a spirit is channeled into deviant
busy iPod could reasonably accord a forms, including such lamentable
one-off single. It’s a credit to the album subcategories as “Eastern Elite
track that version 2.0 intensified my art-school project” and “German
connection to the song rather than supermodel’s musical debut.” Three
diluted it. In fact, I prefer the lightly chords are easy to play; easier to
tousled remix, with its spit-shine and play badly. Every lumpen misfit with
peppy oom-pah-pahs. It’s heartening a movie to promote or a daddy issue
to see a song this special get a second to resolve can simply pick up a guitar,
running on the blog roll. The rebound slash a hole in his jeans, and set about
was worth the wait, and its example soiling his reputation. Bad-boy status
is worth learning from: Connectivity is earned – sometimes convincingly!
is for 13-year-old girls with calloused – with just two or three Dee Dee
thumbs. Connection is for those of Ramone-style count-offs. Then it’s all
us who are willing to make genuine aboard the Rocket to Russia, a vessel
sacrifices for our music. All it takes is a of rich musical heritage but dubious
little patience, a lot of bandwidth, and standards of personal hygiene. Part of
a discerning ear. The future belongs to the peril of being in a rock band is that
listeners who don’t mistake the wind most of the flights towards acclaim
up for the pitch. Wield your bat wisely. and solvency have to be aborted,
sometimes suddenly, often deservedly,
(August 6, 2010)
and occasionally with an immodest
body count.

Hunx and His Punx have all the

makings of a crash landing. They pack
the look of a performance troupe
who’ve begrudgingly chosen music

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as their “dominant artistic medium,” wet dream, I don’t know what is.
owing to a lack of returned phone
calls from Jon Waters. Hunx (nee The song ultimately reveals itself to
Seth Bogart) is a hairdresser by trade, be a punk-mediated Dear John letter,
and his backing band appears to a breakup caused by irreconcilable
be composed of plus-sized women record collections. The “sniff too
with sub-Sid Vicious chops. I’m not much glue” reference is obviously a
flexing my critical license when I say quick wink to Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee,
that Hunx is spectacularly amateur. and Tommy – one which is followed
Nor am I betraying any secrets when shortly thereafter by “You don’t
I say that he’s spectacularly gay. His like the Ramones/So you’ve got to
first album, released last month, is a leave home.” Call Hunx a hack if you
loose collection of bubblegum punk must, but don’t accuse him of lyrical
and swinging disco-rock, perched ambiguity. He’s smart enough to keep
somewhere between Danny & the it simple, and weird enough to keep it
Juniors and the B-52s. The record interesting. Were he to find the nerve
is called Gay Singles, presumably to dress himself in something more
much to the chagrin of the folks at than a slinky, leopard-print leotard, his
eHarmony. list of influences could be worn on his
physical, rather than his proverbial,
The most compelling of the gay sleeve.
singles is “U Don’t Like Rock n Roll,”
a bare-bones romp through the sillier The Punx sound is heavy on echo and
sections of the Ramones’ catalog. jingle-jangle, in the manner of Buddy
A reverberating bass line and twee Holly, the Ronettes, and Girls. The
production values are paired with latter group is San Francisco’s most
drums and hand claps lifted directly ascendant “It” band, and Hunx has
from “Rock and Roll High School.” positioned himself as their strongest
The resulting mess is less thievery Oakland ally. Highlights from this
than homage. Hunx spends the track subtle act of ingratiation can be seen
berating his boyfriend’s taste in music: in Girls’ Triple-X remix of their “Lust
“What the hell is wrong with you?/I For Life” video, wherein Hunx scores
think you sniff too much glue/You don’t a nude cameo. This appearance
like rock n’ roll/And I don’t like you.” If might lead you to believe that our
such a chorus is not a monosyllabist’s boy aims to make his name as an

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agent provocateur. Yet his own music people. If gay singles are ready to go
largely steers clear of shock rock and steady, I say we let them marry them
protracted PR gambles. Yes, Hunx into our playlists. Don’t allow the
is unapologetically fabulous, but he Mormons over at Clear Channel to
tempers the built-in hurly-burly by dissuade you from the notion. They
projecting a small measure of queer don’t like rock and roll. And though
prudence. For every song named rock and roll is too classy to comment,
“Cruising” or “I Won’t Get Under I’m inclined to think that the feeling
You,” there are three or four with more is mutual.
innocent, innuendo-free titles, such as
(April 1, 2010)
“Teardrops On My Telephone” and
“The Last Time.”

In the aggregate, Hunx churns outs The Drums

singles that are equally suited for Forever and Ever Amen
afternoons at the malt shop or late
nights at the Blue Oyster. His Rocket to The Drums’ “Let’s Go Surfing” was the
Russia has landed safely, and without best beach song of last summer. The
much in the way of media-driven track hung loose but also delivered a
fanfare. “U Don’t Like Rock n Roll” welcome, sobering edge, like a cool
may not be popular, but anybody with morning’s cup of coffee. “Surfing”
functioning eardrums and a sense of effectively turned last August from
humor can tell that it’s campy, quirky, a sweaty, humid mess into a sweaty,
and harmless fun – albeit the type of humid mess with whistling and angular
harmless fun that seeks to supplant guitar. It traded in something you
“The Thong Song” with “The Schlong don’t hear much of in pop music:
Song.” Its perfunctory guitars are understated good times.
charming; its catty, nasal vocals are
disarming; and its generous organ Apparently, these good times became
swells keep things rolling in the right so protracted that they prevented
direction. the Drums from wrapping their debut
album with any semblance of urgency.
Note to reader: With “organ swells,” Only now, nearly 10 months after the
I’m not making a cryptic allusion “preview” single, is the band’s LP
to erect appendages. This is 2010, materializing on release schedules.

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 New sensations

To complement this auspicious Despite its Anglophilic ethos, “Amen”

portent, the Drums have released stands as a direct counterpart to the
another postpunk banger, “Forever British Invasion: Instead of featuring
and Ever Amen.” Just be forewarned British boys who sound American,
that I use the words “postpunk” and the track features American boys
“banger” cautiously: Yes, the song who sound British. A neo-Albionese
retains the band’s signature guitar character coats the entire affair. The
tone – somewhere between Tom verse cadences and the interplay of
Verlaine and Johnny Marr, with every electric and analog remind me of
strum feeling like a stab – but the the Moody Blues’ “In Your Wildest
overall sound adheres closer to the Dreams” (which, ironically, is a song
college rock of the 1980s than the that’s perhaps best left forgotten). The
militant entertainment of the late lyrics, however, seem to have been
1970s. The Drums appropriate the plucked from The Lesser Lines of Echo
spikiness of Gang of Four without the & the Bunnymen. “And let me run till
strident politics, preferring to temper the end of time/Until our hearts are
their music with the warm rush of a aligned into the sky” conjures open
perpetual chill PiL. Singer Jonathan fields and high-altitude fantasy, as if
Pierce is a kind of anti-Johnny Rotten, the song’s narrator could pop in and
eschewing provocation in favor of out of his paramour’s comic book – like
romanticism. As a frontman, he’s most in A-Ha’s “Take On Me” video.
often compared to Morrissey. This
analogy is convenient but ultimately Still, “Amen” and its authors hold far
misguided. Pierce can’t croon with the more indie cred than their European
same mesmeric contempt as the Moz. forebearers. Though the Drums have
But what he lacks in pitch he more “Big in England” written all over them,
than makes up for in enthusiasm. Even they can still set the backstreets of
when his band is lazily brandishing hipster Brooklyn aflame. The dance-
its minimalist racket, Pierce imparts punk contingent professes a taste
the impression that he’s trying – and for authenticity in their music. But
trying really hard! Such volitional, concomitant with every hard truth is a
undisguised effort is tantamount to rough day that these kids would rather
trampling on Morrissey’s grave. (And put behind them – either through
Morrissey’s not even dead.) sonic abandon or epic dreamscapes.
So when Jonathan Pierce sings “We,

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we are the young/We live forever,” of concrete on concrete exudes

you can almost see the skinny-jeans both solidity and stolidity, as if the
set pivoting toward the slender-guitar demolition man had stopped by,
sound. started the job, then lost interest.

The Drums’ genius is to pair the sharp That’s a fairly good fictional parallel
chords of postpunk with the soaring for the true story of Male Bonding’s
choruses of New Pop, excising the sound. The band started in the rock-
former’s abrasiveness and the latter’s hard environs of punk and noise, then
schmaltz. “Amen” starts with a flurry abruptly shifted to a more tuneful
of echo-laden pizzicato, but ends with iteration of slacker pop – that is,
an extended cascade of “Oh”s. This something lower in volume but higher
is proof positive that the band is not in fidelity. This metamorphosis makes
averse to the niceties of anthemic the Nothing Hurts cover art informative
songwriting. All those “Oh”s give as well as interesting. At first glance,
the song a “Born to Run” audacity, in one expects the unalloyed clamor of a
which parting feelings, both anxious wrecking crew. At first listen, however,
and exhilarating, can be emoted but one gets the skuzzy reserve of urban
not articulated. Such are the sweet bohemia.
limitations of youth. May they live
forever and ever. The “Amen” is Either way, Male Bonding is a band
strictly optional. under construction. And their first
single, “Year’s Not Long,” seems
(May 24, 2010) to imply that their recent sonic
renovation was not only completed
ahead of schedule, but also designed
Male Bonding to highlight the group’s core
Year’s Not Long competencies. Singer John Arthur
Webb is far from an Iggy Pop-style
Male Bonding’s debut album, wild man; in fact, his voice’s strength
Nothing Hurts, has beguiling cover is its fragility. By channeling his soft
art. It depicts a fine mess of shattered tenor into a dreamy croon, Webb
brickface, with each chipped gives “Not Long” an ethereal vibe, as
block stacked at random against a if the Morning Benders were trading
whitewashed stone wall. This image harmonic structures with Fleet Foxes.

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 New sensations

Still, Male Bonding are a rock band, like microwaves, slowly heating up
with a grounding in three-chord riots the track while the singer keeps his
and primal percussion. When these cool. This juxtaposition of abandon
abrasive elements act in concert with and detachment affords “Not Long”
Webb’s more heady impulses, the its well-deserved Sub Pop credential.
group finds a sweet spot between The jagged edges of the instrumental
hardcore and shoe gaze. Perhaps align with the round resonance of the
this explains why “Not Long” sounds vocals, as was the case with most of
like a conflation of Weezer and Sonic Sub Pop’s “Glory Days” bands, from
Youth, mixing “My Name Is Jonas” Mudhoney to Nirvana. Male Bonding
bombast with Daydream Nation drone. stand out for their concision and their
It’s friendly enough to attract even the Englishness. “Hanging on in quiet
cautiously curious listener, but strange desperation” doesn’t presuppose a
enough to scare off the dilettantes. proclivity for the 10-minute epic. So
when the band broke ground on “Not
Noise purists might not take to the Long,” they made sure that the project
song’s conventional arrangement. would take just a shade over two and
“Not Long” uses its clangs and buzzes a half minutes – thus validating the last
as narrative accompaniment rather two words of the song’s title.
than sheer experimental texture.
Despite a rollicking drum beat and All in all, Male Bonding are just
quicksilver guitar riffs, the track’s another brick in the wall: They play
uproar isn’t all that uproarious. Don’t light fuzz spiked with the unwashed
get me wrong: “Not Long” packs spirit of grunge. But with constructive
plenty of energy – but it’s an energy building blocks so hard to come by
that feels more rodeo than rock and in contemporary alternative, why not
roll. With its spasmodic bass line and grab the clay and pass the mortar?
cavalry-charge rhythm, the song is
(May 26, 2010)
somewhat reminiscent of the Old
‘97’s “Time Bomb,” only with Mike
Watt slapping out the low-end strings.
Taken together, the guitars spiral out

55
 New sensations

Japandroids saw the midnight sun?” communicate

Younger Us a camaraderie that will outlast the
dewy caprices of youth. Yes, the look-
“Younger Us” is a straight-ahead back-with-longing vibe is a bit precious
song with a split personality. It for a pair of 25-year-olds. (Can a singer
wears its heart on its sleeve even as really evince nostalgia for something
it presses its blade to your jugular, that he might have experienced last
balancing vulnerability and menace weekend?) But, taken as a whole, the
like constituent members of a high- song is less a lament than a firestarter.
wire act. This odd emotional alchemy, It flashes forward with a desperate,
by which soft nostalgia and hard riffs windswept determination, as if its very
are brandished in separate but equal reason for being is to rage, rage, rage
measures, animates the track with a against the dying of the light.
sonic youth that’s part punk, part pop,
and part indie. Assemble these parts “Younger Us” breaks out of the box
together and you’ve got the gestalt of with the tones and textures of Nineties
the song’s authors, a promising two- alternative. Its opening riff recalls the
piece band from Vancouver called post-grunge guitar pop of Green Day,
Japandroids. Blink 182, and No Code-era Pearl Jam,
channeling a jittery hybrid of “All the
The Droids occupy the blunter edge Small Things” and “Lukin.” Once the
of the Pacific Northwest tradition, vocals kick in, however, it becomes
taking the garage-honed chops of clear that we’re in lo-fi territory. The
the Sonics and pasting them onto narrator may sound like a basket case,
the antic musicality of Hot Hot Heat. but his story will not fit inconspicuously
Brian King (guitar) and David Prowse on the Dookie track list (or on any
(drums) play accessible noise rock that charting album, for that matter). He’s
doesn’t sacrifice feeling or affect for neither paranoid nor disturbed, just a
the purposes of arty existentialism. little taken aback by the head rush of
“Younger Us,” their best work to date, a quarter-life crisis. When King shouts
gets to the heart of what it means to “Give me that you-and-me-to-the-
be human without resorting to the grave trust/Give me younger us,” the
spiked vein or the Kleenex box. Lines listener is quickly convinced that he’s
such as “Remember when we had not using punk as parody or protective
them all on the run?/And the night we layering. The Droids are completely in

56
 New sensations

earnest. Amid a fuzz fest and stop- rubato is the right speed for youth, a
and-go phrasing, King and Prowse time when mad dash can beget lazy
articulate their most naked insecurity: melancholy with neither purpose nor
the fear of advancing years and warning.
retreating vigor, be it real or imagined.
They’re content to save the “Forever “Younger Us” climaxes with an
Young” pep talks for Jay-Z. extended shock wave of cochlea-
crushing sound. As the ripples build
As we get older, we become more on one another, and an echo pattern
concerned with our legacy. (The begins to emerge, the listener gathers
fact that this statement is a cliché that Japandroids are thrashing
doesn’t make it any less true.) I think about with both pride and regret –
Japandroids conceived “Younger Us” fighting off the final throes of young
as a youthful artifact that will age with adulthood, even though resistance is
the twin graces of truth and dignity. futile. We have a name for this angry
And I’m pretty sure that the track will metamorphosis. It’s called “growing
manage to fulfill these objectives. up.” I hope Japandroids stick around
Through the fortunes of fate, I recently long enough to reap the benefits of
sequenced the song alongside the their maturation.
Skids’ “Of One Skin” on an iTunes
playlist. The Skids number dates to (June 16, 2010)

1978 – that year of flux between U.K.

punk and Anglo-American New Wave.
“Of One Skin” has the same split
Free Energy
personality of “Younger Us”; its tactics
Hope Child
are balls-out but its strategy is rather
conservative. The song, like “Younger
Free Energy are something of an
Us,” sprints forward, then comes to a
endangered species in today’s
near stop – only to sprint forward once
alternately rule-laden and scattershot
again, with all the swiftness of Mercury.
music scene. They play timeless,
This is “tempo rubato,” wherein
hypermelodic power pop, yet they’ve
certain notes are lengthened while
been embraced by the central curators
others are shortened, in a manner that
of Young America’s postmodern
can seem disconcertingly arbitrary. Yet,
sound. Such thematic incongruity
despite its intrinsic inconstancy, tempo
would be laughable were it not

57
 New sensations

corroborated by the facts on the rip of Reed’s “Dirty Boulevard.” And

ground. their current single, “Hope Child,” is
nothing if not an uptempo, off-the-
Here are Free Energy’s hipster smack version of “Sweet Jane.” Smart
bona fides, in order of descending money says a reprisal of “Satellite of
importance: 1) James Murphy of LCD Love” comes next. Somebody call
Soundsystem – who’s pretty much the David Bowie.
don of digital disco – recently signed
the Philadelphia five-piece to his So, yes, FE’s music is hopelessly
proprietary label, DFA; 2) Pitchfork, a derivative. In the aggregate, it sounds
ratings agency that likes its synths up like the Velvet Underground shifting
front and its guitars tuned by either into Bachman Turner Overdrive. Or
Tom Verlaine or Andy Gill, just gave Big Star with larger amps and smarter
FE’s debut album, Stuck on Nothing, groupies. Or Fountains of Wayne with
an enthusiastic 8.1; and 3) SXSW blog an ascendant AC/DC fetish.
posts, careening out of Austin at a
fever pitch, report that the band took Each of these descriptions, amusing
skinny-jeaned Texas by storm. If these as they might think they are, don’t do
guys were on NASDAQ, they’d have the band justice. The thing about FE is
just scored a killer IPO. that their pathology reports are already
in – and it’s clear that their tunes are
From stats we move to queries; positively infectious. The Velvets on
namely, What’s fueled the Free Energy Prozac® sounds like a patently bad
phenomenon? The answer to that one idea. Yet when “Free Energy” is
is easy: influential word of mouth. But cued up, complete with cowbell and
as to what caused these mouths to go fuzztone guitar, the formula works like
all slack-jawed in the first place, I can a charm.
only posit a theory: I think rock critics
like Free Energy because the band has “Hope Child” is equally auspicious.
evinced a commitment to rewriting The truncated “Sweet Jane” riff kicks
the greatest hits from Lou Reed’s back things off with Detroit Rock City
catalog. Their first single, titled “Free abandon, only to be nicely tempered
Energy” in the smirking, solipsistic by hypnotic hand claps and warm,
tradition of “Bad Company” and echoing percussion. When the singer
“Minor Threat,” is essentially a straight finally skips in, one wonders whether

58
 New sensations

Stephen Malkmus took a break from Sprangers asks, “Do you know child/
the Pavement reunion expressly to cut That a little while/Is all we got?”, he’s
this track. Frontman Paul Sprangers choreographing the triumphant return
obviously supplemented his collection of his song’s mantra: “We broadcast
of Reed, T. Rex, and Thin Lizzy records hope!” In the coda, FE repeat “You’re
with an ample chaser of Slanted & not alone” over and over again, like
Enchanted. Accordingly, Free Energy’s the Boss shouting “Dream of life!”
slacker sensitivity manages to stretch in between the final lyrical passages
all the way from Andy Warhol’s Factory of “The Rising.” Lonesome days, we
to Kurt Cobain’s Pacific Northwest, presume, are terribly overrated.
with the interdimensional slow-ride
hitched aboard Rick Derringer’s Rock “Hope” may spring from the fiery
n’ Roll Hoochie-Koo. On “Hope,” FE heights of a Marshall stack, but it
pound out insentient dinosaur-rock closes in a communal exhalation of
tropes and insipid lead-guitar clichés. relief. Here we have an indie band
Their hooks and chord surges gnaw staking its claim to the feel-good
away at your elitisms and defensive song of the year. When was the last
reflexes, until your only option is time that happened? I’m going to go
surrender. It’s a Cheap Trick, in every with “never.” Maybe Free Energy are
sense of the phrase. innovators after all.

(March 21, 2010)

Success is cinched shortly after the
track’s minute mark, when Mott
the Hoople piano clunks crash the
party and immediately set about Happy Birthday
working their magic. Buzz gives way Girls FM
to shimmer, and shimmer to sonic
breakdown. Free Energy undertake Sub Pop has been putting one over
a dynamics adjustment from the on the underground for nearly 25
Springsteen school of anthem years. They purport to traffic in left-
building. They reduce the ruckus to of-center guitar rock and shaggy
a single drum beat and an acoustic Seattle sonority, but they’re actually a
strum, generating the requisite brilliantly commercial label. Art-school
tension for a sing-along finale (a la aesthetics, timely talent acquisition,
“Badlands” or “The Rising”). When and the world’s greatest corporate

59
 New sensations

tagline – “Sub Pop Records: Going accelerator, brake – except when it’s
out of business since 1988!” – belie brake, accelerator.
a cleverness that extends from
the recording studio to the digital This tempo tug-of-war is mediated
marketplace. The label’s most resonant by guitar phrasing that starts flat
single is almost certainly Mudhoney’s and drone-heavy but builds to quick
“Touch Me I’m Sick,” which set crescendos and, eventually, a sliding
the template for the high-viscosity, synth-treatment. “Girls”’ final minute
bleeding-guitars sound that would features a feedback-and-sound-effect
later become known as “grunge.” section that recalls Nirvana’s “On a
Yet as Sub Pop matriculates into Plain,” only in rainbow hoodies and
young adulthood, its cultural legacy skinny jeans. The track climaxes with
is perhaps better characterized as a fun shambles of speedy falsetto and
“Touch Me I’m Slick.” SP sell us pop, digital key shuffles, as if Birthday were
but call it “indie.” And they do it with a aiming to fast-forward the breakdown
smile on their face. from Weezer’s “El Scorcho” into 2010.

Which brings us to Happy Birthday, References aside, the “Girls” gestalt

new-school Sub Poppers who merit is fairly simple: petty discord into
high marks for their latest single, swinging harmony. It throbs, bops,
“Girls FM.” The track is a tasty mix of sways, and rocks – all in under three
Calvin Johnson, Brian Wilson, and Kurt minutes, and never with anything less
Cobain, keeping just enough space than a healthy teen spirit. The single
for the alternation of vibrato guitar is spectacularly accessible, but its
stabs, twee choral harmonies, and affiliation with an indie label will get it
loser-tinged lead vocals. As a whole, branded “Alternative.” And I think
“Girls” evinces a smirking naïveté; Sub Pop likes it that way. Because if
Birthday know they’ve got something they can corner the market on “Girls”‘
special, but they’d never be so gauche brand of snap, crackle, and pop, SP
(or industrious) as to beat us over the will be going out of business for many
head with it. Their song is driven by years to come.
stop-start percussion, enabling it to
(March 16, 2010)
showcase stutter steps of momentum
and then slacken into a stasis of retro
dreamtones. It’s accelerator, brake,

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PART III: BETWIXT/BETWEEN
 BETWIXT/BETWEEN

M.I.A. largely limited to the criminally insane.

Xxxo M.I.A. can’t be afforded the same
“anything goes!” mentality, as she’s
As M.I.A. becomes more popular, now something of an alt-pop icon, with
she also becomes more convenient. a record label to run and production
It’s one thing to have a fringe rapper values to maintain. But, to her credit,
big-up the Tamil Tigers; quite another she does seem to be stubbornly set on
to have a multi-threat entertainer “devour,” forever determined to eat
make subversive music videos and an ever-larger portion of market share.
ready-to-wear couture. American Her chief colleagues and competitors
poet Dan Chiasson recently wrote are no longer Hot Chip and Lady
that “anti-institutional assaults of Sovereign but Jay-Z and Lady Gaga.
sufficient vigor inevitably end up being
institutionalized” – a sentiment that “Xxxo” is probably M.I.A.’s most
seems just about right for M.I.A. She’s accessible single to date. It takes her
no longer a madcap emissary of chaos, electro dancehall tendencies and tilts
but a reliable agent of provocation. them toward digital dance rather than
And this reliability makes her an order mutant disco. The sound is postpunk
of magnitude less dangerous. and neo-tribal, which, given the sordid
history of the compound adjective,
Don’t get me wrong: M.I.A.’s fangs are might lead you to believe that “Xxxo”
still out. It’s just that their edges have is feral like the Slits or savage like
been blunted by a surplus of attention. Siouxsie and the Banshees. This is
In the wake of “Paper Planes” and the simply not the case. The track is pulse-
Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, her heavy but understated, with M.I.A.’s
fan base has become more expansive vocals alternately sung and spoken
but less discriminating. This transition rhythmically. Imagine Ke$ha with a gag
seems to have pushed M.I.A. into reflex, or Gaga with a grounding in
Flipper territory: She doesn’t want the music of Southeast Asia. The harsh
audiences with good taste. She wants drums say “jungle,” but the swirling
audiences that taste good. synths say “hipster nightclub.” The
track will work rooms from Bangalore
When Flipper coined this slogan in the to Brooklyn.
early Eighties, they were San Francisco
punks with an audience that was Consciously or otherwise, M.I.A.

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 BETWIXT/BETWEEN

is following a quiet-loud-quiet catalyst and an antagonist to modern

dynamic. She creeps up on the track love. Constant contact is naturally at
slowly, issuing her first few lines odds with constant craving, as the
with “Paparazzi”-style echo and former preempts the latter. There’s
reserve. Only in the chorus does she simply no substitute for alone time –
relent to “Bad Romance”-caliber and “Xxxo,” by all rights a love song,
bombast. She sings “You want me is expressly devoted to the type of
be somebody/Who I’m really not,” boy-meets-girl narrative that needs
half in frustration, half in acceptance. no peripheral characters. If he wants
One could take issue with the broken her to be somebody that she’s really
English: “You want me be” is the kind not, well, she can pull him aside and
of construction I typically associate set him straight. The song’s final lines
with my buddy Chico, who, as of this are “We can find ways/To expand what
writing, has not secured a recording you know/I can be that actress, you be
contract in either his native Dominican Tarantino.”
Republic or the good old U.S. of A. But
it’s not like we listen to pop music for I’m hoping that this is a “so happy
its practitioners’ perfect elocution of together” point of departure, not a
the Queen’s English. M.I.A.’s culture, thinly veiled reference to a sex tape.
which is also our culture, is more than M.I.A. is under no obligation to go
postpunk – it’s also increasingly post- blow for blow with Britney Spears.
coherent. When was the last time you She’s not a freak diva, Billboard bimbo,
received a text message composed or radio-friendly felatrix. She’s always
of complete sentences? Have you classified her music as “Other” –
ever Tweeted in idiomatic prose? And that is, divorced from the drivel on
how, in God’s name, do we reconcile the airwaves and acutely allergic to
Chatroulette with Western concepts genre classification. In years past,
of linearity? M.I.A. reminded us of a World Music
Missy Elliott – a woman who was as
These questions are not entirely enthused about getting her freak on as
rhetorical. Nor are they thematically getting her point across. Now Maya’s
irrelevant. M.I.A. peppers “Xxxo” got a bigger pop profile than any
with references to iPhones, Twitter, contemporary female rapper, in part
and photo uploads, suggesting that because she’s ignored the no-politics
modern connectivity might be both a ethos of commercial hip hop. Her

63
 BETWIXT/BETWEEN

songs may sound cacophonous, but most musically ambitious pop song of
they’re always driven by a steady beat the year would be an understatement
and a fertile mind. of epic proportions. The track is an
electropsych carnival of synth balms
“Xxxo” shows that M.I.A.’s songwriting and organ swells, with “Kids”-like
and production still taste good. As propulsive drones abruptly giving
to whether they evince good taste, way to Papa John Phillips harmonies
I’m inclined to go with a cautious and “Bizarre Love Triangle” vocal
affirmative, reserving final judgment cadences. In the aggregate, the single
until the full LP drops. Check back sounds like Win Butler fronting Love,
with this adjudicator after the album as produced by an acid-addled
is officially released. By then, the Phil Spector.
prosecution will have rested, the
defense will have risen, and the gavel If I’m dropping a lot of names, it’s
will have been smashed to pieces. only because I’m picking up a lot of
reference points. And Love’s Forever
(May 12, 2010) Changes, an enduring WTF? moment
from 1967, is a convenient starting
block. Combine Arthur Lee’s hippie
MGMT head trips with Oracular Spectacular’s
Flash Delirium haunted house music and you’ll get
a pretty good idea of what “Flash”
Contemporary indie bands are tacitly aspires to. It’s equally indebted to
forced to choose between angularity Summer of Love smiles and Winter of
and reverb. They can come icy, shrill, Discontent surliness, with the Fall of
and sonorous or buzzy, layered, and Man being acknowledged implicitly.
headache-inducing. The third way,
generally speaking, might as well be “Forever changes” isn’t just a
the highway. “dinosaur rock” album title; it’s also
an apt description of MGMT’s four-
Well, I hope MGMT have EZ-Pass – minute sonic chameleon. “Flash” starts
because they cover an awful lot of with an electronic whimper – think the
sonic asphalt on “Flash Delirium,” the opening notes of LCD Soundsystem’s
lead single from the band’s upcoming “Losing My Edge” or the Broken
Congratulations LP. To call “Flash” the Bells’ “High Road” – leading you to

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 BETWIXT/BETWEEN

imagine that the song will adhere to The Hold Steady

a standard quiet-loud-quiet dynamic. Rock Problems
As it turns out, nothing about the track
is standard. The principles of pace By decree of the Twin Cities Council
are given a workout worthy of Jack on Subterranean Pop, the Hold Steady
LaLanne, with Ben Goldwasser and are legally required to sound like a
Andrew VanWyngarden alternately conflation of the Replacements and
stretching, sprinting, and pumping Hüsker Dü. Some might consider this a
iron. The duo move seamlessly from rock and roll problem of the first order.
Killers-style space pop to hipster I consider it an impetus to greatness.
discord and an echo-heavy, “I Am
the Walrus” crescendo. There’s no Even without Prince & his attendant
subscription to the conventions of Revolution, Minneapolis/St. Paul had
verse-chorus-verse, but the interplay one of the most fertile music scenes of
of tension and repose flashes a classic the early-to-mid 1980s. And although
commitment to weirdness. the Hold Steady’s frontman, Craig Finn,
is now an established Brooklynite, his
“Flash” secures its ultimate triumph roots trace back to urban Minnesota
by knowing its breaking point, and and its messy, rollicking Twin/Tone
then pushing right past it. The song catalog. The Steady’s recent records
is a formal eclipse of the expectations have been at odds with contemporary
hoisted upon an indie outfit beholden indie precisely because they’re
to a major label contract. Goldwasser informed by the likes of pre-major
and VanWyngarden are pressured label Paul Westerberg, Grant Hart,
to make some serious Euros for the and Bob Mould; that is, each HS
Sony Corporation, yet they refuse to album holds classic rock as sacrosanct,
be corseted into this year’s model. not as an obsolete idiom best left to
I’m not sure if this is musical genius or history’s dustbin. For all their left-
commercial suicide, but, anyway you of-the-dial urgency, the ‘Mats and
slice it, congratulations are definitely the Huskers were among the few
in order. Eighties alternative bands to champion
Creedence Clearwater Revival and
(March 10, 2010)
U.K. punk in equal measure. Melody
generally won out over noise. As Bob

65
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Mould put it, “I don’t tend to walk is another of the band’s bantam-
down the street whistling hardcore.” weight anthems. The song fights to be
heard, and it’s bound to succeed in its
The Steady’s latest single, “Rock anticipated niches and pockets. Just
Problems,” passes the whistling test don’t expect HS to sell out Madison
– provided that you have the labial Square Garden anytime soon.
dexterity of a virtuoso. This is a fast-
paced, hard-hitting song, driven by a Such sentiments could serve as an
buzzsaw riff and dense, rapid-fire lyrics. improvised postscript for the twin
The problematic narrative follows the discographies of the Replacements
out-all-night exploits of boys and girls and Hüsker Dü. These Minnesota
in America, two constituencies that bands had pop chops, but their
seem to be teetering on the edge intentionally sloppy, guitar-fueled
of fracture. “The girls want to go to sound clashed inexorably with the
the party/But no one’s in the shape Reagan Era’s hypermodern, synth-
to drive,” Finn reports, sounding happy New Pop. Today, with digital
like Bruce Springsteen with an epic effects and trippy atmospherics
hangover. His backing band, however, winning the indie dollar, straight-
is less E Street than Cheap Trick or ahead riff rockers are similarly
KISS. “Problems” bumps and shreds, disenfranchised. As Finn’s female
as if custom designed for burnouts and antagonist complains in his newest
dirtbags. work, “I just can’t sympathize with your
rock and roll problems” – ostensibly
Yet the Springsteen analogy remains because they’re so dated and cliché.
apt. The Boss, after all, is something of
an aberration – an East Coast rocker But there’s a timelessness to the one-
with a Middle American sensibility. If too-many aesthetic that the Steady
you buy one of his tracks on iTunes, have cultivated. The band is heir to the
the Genius app is likely to direct you sonic thread that runs through such
to John Mellencamp or Bob Seger, not disparate pieces as Springsteen’s “I’m
Lou Reed or the Ramones. The Steady A Rocker,” the Huskers’ Zen Arcade,
occupy a similar sphere – the place and the ‘Mats’ “Message to the Boys”
where the Badlands meet the Outer – not the Dylanesque “wild mercury”
Boroughs, where the barroom floor but a late-Fifties atomic fission of anger
meets the arena lights. “Problems” and aspiration. Finn seems to realize

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this; which is probably why he ends “Rapid Decompression,” the first

“Problems” with a cry of “This is just single off the band’s upcoming White
what we wanted!” Good rock and roll Crosses album, can be said to revel in
is about conflict – between the body the sonic limbo between Black Flag’s
and the mind, the rhythm and the poverty and Nirvana’s prosperity. Its
blues, positive charges and negative fiery interplay of lead and rhythm
energies. If this mixture weren’t a guitar coats the track in thick layers
recipe for trouble, it wouldn’t yield of rock and roll danger, with each
such a glorious cocktail. My advice is down-stroke alternately churning up
to drink ‘em if you got ‘em. Because the adrenaline and settling the groove.
without its flair for intoxication, rock The central chord flourish marries
and roll wouldn’t be half as fun. Johnny Thunders with Slash, finally
closing the 3,000-mile gap between
(March 29, 2010) CBGBs and the Whisky A Go Go.
Frontman Tom Gabel barks out his
lyrics like a Digital Age Joe Strummer,
Against Me! using an anticly quick cadence to
Rapid Decompression propel the song forward. He builds
momentum with each successive line,
Against Me! occupy the sphere where enabling his comrades to stick and
strident punk meets commercial hard move with percussive volleys and
rock. In theory, these coordinates shouted harmonies. This unit cohesion
would place them in deep-pockets gives the track an All-for-One, One-for-
territory, alongside such reliable gravy All vibe. “Rapid” is, for lack of a better
trains Green Day and Pearl Jam. In descriptive, an anthem.
practice, however, the band arrived a
little too late to partake of the post- But what happens when you write an
grunge enthusiasm for guitar-driven anthem and no one shows up? When
pop. Given today’s abhorrence of you assemble a sing-along chorus,
the amp, Against Me! seem fated to and no one sings along, are you party
appeal to pockets and cults, playing to a sound or a chimera? That’s the
out the string of their major label dilemma that bands like Against Me!
contract in rock venues that bring and the Hold Steady face. Every time
respect instead of revenue. they release a bouncing, arena-ready
number, questions arise as to whether

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their ambitions are justified. Even the Against Me! fan: Both he and Gabel
biggest barrooms pale in comparison deal in the same themes and textures.
to Madison Square Garden. And the And if the Boss were launching his
contemporary stuff that passes as career today, he’d likely find himself in
mass-activating fare either derives the same predicament – beloved but
from American Idol or comes from marginalized, on the backstreets until
the Killers/Muse school of synths and the end.
spaceships. What’s an earnest little
(March 30, 2010)
band of punks to do?

Now as ever, the only recourse is

to keep on plugging. Against Me! Gaslight Anthem
started in the manner of the Pogues, American Slang
leveraging sloppy acoustics with a
convivial undercurrent. “Rapid” shows The highway is alive tonight, but it’s
just such a knack for catholic rabble- claiming heavy casualties. That seems
rousing. It could stand in for an Irish to be the score on Gaslight Anthem’s
drinking song or an Irish fighting song, latest single, “American Slang,”
provided that there’s more than a pint another earnest, honest, and hard-
of difference between the two. When charging dirge from the group’s small
Gabel sings “Sometimes it feels like but memorable discography. Despite
the whole world’s coming to an end,” their relative youth, Gaslight possess
you don’t know if he’s pushing politics old souls. Their sound is redolent of
or blarney. Nor do you care. Bruce Springsteen, the Clash, and
U2, with the Boss clearly claiming
“Rapid” is a quick jaunt into the head-honcho status. These Jersey
unwashed corridors that accommodate boys shimmer and suffer, flashing a
the likes of the Dropkick Murphys spirit in the night that’s first leavened
and Alkaline Trio. The living isn’t easy, by a runaway American dream, then
but it isn’t without its charms. This shadowed by the proverbial darkness
song will find an audience among on the edge of town. If Springsteen
the hopefully disaffected – that is, were a litigious man, he could
the downtrodden who take stock plausibly claim half their royalties.
(and find hope) in upward mobility.
No wonder Bruce Springsteen is an The disorienting thing about “Slang”

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is that it starts with a Cars-y bounce “You told me fortunes in American

rather than an E Street shuffle. The slang” until the words leave their
jingle-jangle guitars that compose mark. He’s cryptic enough to keep the
the song’s opening passage are more meaning ambiguous. The line could
in the manner of Matchbox 20 than be a lament or an accusation, and the
Steven Van Zandt or the Edge. At song as a whole could be a product of
the 30-second mark, you’re inclined failed romance or financial crisis. Yet
to anticipate the imminent arrival of any mention of horoscopes, especially
Rob Thomas’ husky tenor, presumably those of the dubious variety, inevitably
for a mellow romp through Adult points us towards Madam Marie,
Contemporary. But then Brian Fallon’s whom the cops busted way back in
voice emerges out of the ether, worn 1973, “for telling fortunes better than
and broken, yet reliably undaunted. they do.” Springsteen’s blue-collar
Fallon sings a bit like Brandon Flowers, smarts and boardwalk mentality are
filtering the Killers’ Las Vegas New never far from Gaslight’s radial burn.
Wave through the machines and fires Even the single’s title recalls E Street’s
inherent in New Jersey’s 732 area “American Skin,” a ballsy ballad
code. It’s in this sonic badlands – part about the shooting death of Amadou
desert, part blacktop, part alley way Diallo. That song’s final couplets – “It
– that “Slang” asserts its identity, ain’t no secret/No secret, my friend/
moving from toe-tapper to anthem. You can get killed just for living in/
Fallon shouts about “damage,” Your American skin” – cost Bruce the
“gallows,” and the place “where we Rush Limbaugh demographic, not to
died last year,” but his blood brothers mention more than a few New York-
lift him up with woo-hoo! and oh- area police escorts. That’s the price
oh! harmonies. The bell-ring guitar you pay when you have the stomach to
break and “Cut me to ribbons!” write about what’s real.
background vocals mix urgency with
resolve. Gaslight are a No Retreat, No Bruce and Gaslight both traffic in the
Surrender band, and they’re not about biggest of big subjects: life and death,
to apologize for investing so much right and wrong, your worst memories
energy in their throwback rock and roll. and your favorite song. For them,
the only topic that trumps untimely
Fallon brings the track to a close with demise is unlikely redemption. “Slang”
a forceful but tender refrain, singing is partial to just such a rising. You

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can search iTunes and Limewire until water level, setting the pressure
your hard drive explodes; you simply gauge at just the right reading for
won’t find a more exhilarating song LCD’s protégés and label mates, The
about the darker angels of human Rapture, to break the proverbial flood
nature. “Slang” is therefore the perfect gates with “House of Jealous Lovers.”
soundtrack for hard times: anthemic
but not escapist, inspirational but The resulting deluge managed to
not melodramatic. Even when we’re drown those of us who were gauche
saddled with debts that no honest man enough to spend late 2002 listening to
can pay, we’re compelled to remember the Strokes, the Mooney Suzuki, and
that fortune favors the bold. Longwave. Our neo-punk movement
sputtered in its infancy, shifting from
(March 23, 2010) scene soundtrack to jeans-commercial
fodder in less than a year. Bands
started trading in guitars for turntables,
LCD Soundsystem and the more alluring cohorts within
Drunk Girls the young female demographic began
to filter out of the rock clubs, in favor
Guitar-rock partisans are prone of the DJ and his dance floor.
to associate the words “LCD
Soundsystem” with the mark of I’ve long held James Murphy
the beast. Just as the early-Aughts’ responsible for this unfortunate
underground garage revival was exodus, as he was an erstwhile rocker
gaining national traction, James (fronting such bands as Falling Man
Murphy & Co. dropped “Losing My and Pony) who succumbed to the
Edge,” an epic-length negotiation twin indulges of the DJ booth and the
between spoken-word testimony, low- digitally-enhanced production studio.
end Casio pulses, and delayed-release To me, his work was directed at a
block rockin’ beats. It rode hipster dubious end – that is, getting people
neuroses (“I hear that everybody who shouldn’t be dancing to boogie
that you know is more relevant like they’re on “Soul Train.” But after
than everybody that I know”) and a listening to LCD’s latest single, “Drunk
truncated Killing Joke sample to the Girls,” I’m willing to let bygones be
central square of Lower East Side bygones, and kill my anti-Murphy
indie. “Losing” raised Ludlow Street’s grudge in its eighth year.

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“Drunk” is synthetic music with Sometimes doing what you believe in

organic sex appeal. Under normal requires you to act out of character.
circumstance, I’d be inclined to cover What “Drunk” argues is that alcohol is
my ignorance of pop’s contemporary a way around the rules, a catalyst that
dance genres by alluding to the ever- skips the set-up and gets straight to
trenchant New Order or the always- the action.
reliable Chicago house idiom. But
while “Drunk” is certainly teched up In musical terms, this means taking
and high-BPM, it’s clearly not techno Bowie’s “Hang On to Yourself,” giving
or breakbeat rave. There’s some it the glam-meets-Blur treatment,
rock in its genome, not to mention and then layering in a snippet of Billy
a disarming sense of humor and a Squier’s “Everybody Wants You” guitar
distinct sense of purpose. As indie tilts lick. Here we have LCD’s new micro-
toward “chillwave” and “blisscore,” genre: mutant disco, as informed by
with nary a guitar nor a non-android electro-punk and Britpop. Like Pulp,
voice in the cupboard, Murphy Murphy uses syncopation not to stand
returns with angst, insecurity, and in for substance but to underscore
an elevated heart rate. His sound is his social message. His lyrics tend
human, eschewing our latter-day pulse toward the observational and the
puritanism for an antic, amped-up confessional, like Jonathan Richman
playfulness. stuck in a strobe light: “Drunk girls
like a night of simplicity/They need a
“Drunk” is a Dionysian track, in lover who’s smarter than me”; “Just
thrall to alcohol and all the insipid ‘cause I’m shallow doesn’t mean that
rituals associated with its excessive I’m heartless/Just ‘cause I’m heartless
consumption. Murphy’s target is not doesn’t mean that I’m mean.” Notice
the intoxicated woman but his own how many times the word “mean”
obdurate alter ego, particularly its has appeared in this review, both in
tendency to be stupefied by first lyric citation and text proper. “Drunk”
principles. “Oh, Oh, Oh! I believe is an ode to hedonism, but not one
in waking up together,” he sings, that advocates insentience. As in
adding “That means making eyes “Losing My Edge,” LCD spike their
across the room.” Murphy’s manic, footloose and fancy-free instrumental
Bowie-inflected voice exposes the with several bottles of intellectualized
inconveniences of ideology: insecurity.

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Reduced to its essence, this single is ask of Scissor Sisters. The electrodisco
pogo music – a fluid, rollicking affair ensemble has laid low for the temporal
expertly crafted for jumping and jiving equivalent of a presidential term,
in a dark nightclub, with the Miller Lite releasing nary a track since 2006’s
in your right hand raised up like the Ta-Dah. The content gap has grown
Statue of Liberty’s torch. From a certain so wide that Chinese Democracy is
remove, “Drunk” sounds like “Lust For starting to get worried, fearing a loss
Life” updated for the 21st century – or of straggler glory.
scaled back to suit paleolithic times.
When Murphy puts a wrap on the track Thankfully, Axl’s opus can quit biting
by singing “The day becomes the its nails, for the Sisters have returned
night!,” you don’t know whether this is with a single that aims to make up for
a cause for celebration or concern. As lost time. At 6:12, “Invisible Light” is
Mark Mothersbaugh once said, “The the collective’s longest commercial
more technology you have, the more track. It argues, unwittingly or
primitive you can be.” And LCD, with otherwise, that a deep hourglass is
their supercomputer feel and Art of needed to accommodate the myriad
Noise futurism, somehow harken back caprices of today’s digital dance floor.
to man’s state of nature. “Drunk” is a Seductive synths are not enough.
high-momentum backing track for the Groovy buzzes and snaps are but
noble savage. I guess that makes it a whetter of appetites. In the post-
punk – or at least rock and roll. Gaga, post-James Murphy world,
credible club music had damn well
You’ve come a long way, Mr. Murphy. better be layered, sarcastic, and self-
Have a drink on me. aware. There are only two targets for
contemporary pulse poppers: “epic”
(March 26, 2010) or “anthem.” A mere “entertainment”
simply will not do.

Scissor Sisters “Light” holds up the epistemological

Invisible Light end of the bargain. It’s born to be an
epic, both in length and impact. The
Are you better off than you were four track is built around a steady, synthetic
years ago? That seems to be the heartbeat, a metronomic device that
question that fans and critics need to throbs and fades but never stops

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pumping. Ana Matronic’s keys blend This song section is captained by

into the rhythm, providing soft swells Sir Ian McKellen (seriously!), thus
and subtle flashes of atmosphere. demonstrating the considerable
Percussive components, supplied advantages that American bands
by both a first-rate sampler and enjoy when they happen to be huge
second-generation drummer Randy in England. McKellen’s script is largely
Real, coalesce into a supplementary balderdash and poppycock – it
pacemaker, ensuring that the track consists almost entirely of softcore
doesn’t slacken when the primary beat doggerel centered on lust and sexual
loop is drowned out by vocal surges or awakening – but its subject matter
ambient noise. doesn’t preclude the voice-over from
packing its fair share of fun. How can
Amid the pitter-patter and dreamy you not derive a little pleasure from
vibes, Jake Shears’ voice stands hearing an Oscar-nominated actor
out for its ability to gear-shift from bark out the following nonsense:
methodical control to Dionysian “Painted whores. Sexual gladiators.
abandon. His upper-register wail Fishtailed party children. All wake
remains the Sisters’ sonic signature, from their slumber to debut at the
a point of differentiation that enables Bacchanal.”? Is Sir Ian pissed that
them to work in the broad tents of pop he lost the lead role in Caligula to
rather than the stuffy ghettos of house Malcolm McDowell? Or are the Scissor
or trance. Shears’ singing gives the Sisters just irredeemably perverted?
melody shape and direction, a one-two
punch that leads the band straight I’m going to have to go with the latter
into the “Twilight Zone.” I speak not of – but not without a nod of respect
the classic television program, but the and an offer of congratulations. On
Golden Earring banger from the fall of “Light,” the band manages a sleek
1982. This rock track’s bouncing, mildly musical progression, jettisoning their
malicious cadences are borrowed Elton John-meets-Bee Gees disco
generously for the first three to four fever for a Depeche Mode-meets-
minutes of “Light.” But just as the Frankie Goes to Hollywood New
intimations of plagiarism begin to gain Pop swagger. Gone are the icy plunk
traction, the Scissors throttle back the of “Laura” and the queer honky-
beat and cede to the foreground to a tonk of “Take Your Mama”; in is the
spoken-word interlude. warm wash of the group’s hypnotic

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“Comfortably Numb” cover, albeit with passages from pop music’s Book of
an added dash of glam. Love that it’s neglected to ask a very
important question; namely, Is one text
“Light” is a lithe yet loafing single, sufficient to cover a subject so vast and
at once motoring along and variegated?
skipping deliberately. I take these
tricks of tempo as a sign that the Shouldn’t there be an entire School
song is properly self-aware – that is, of Love? Or at least a baccalaureate
conscious of its length, architecture, program expressly devoted to affairs
and purported importance. I don’t of the heart and the harmony? Just
know enough about dance music to imagine the emeriti, in Soul and
determine whether “Light” delivers R&B alone: Dean Al Green, Provost
game-changing goods. Nor am I Luther Vandross, and such Honorary
properly qualified to opine on the Musical Chairs as Sam Cooke, Aretha
relative merits of the band’s upcoming Franklin, and Marvin Gaye. If this
album, Night Work. All I’ve got at my roster had been assembled, perhaps
disposal are fond memories of the Sharon Jones wouldn’t be in such a
Sisters’ debut and six-plus minutes of bind. Had she been offered a more
sonic testimony that reaffirm my earlier comprehensive course load in sound
convictions. “Light” is adequately and sentiment, maybe she wouldn’t
excellent to keep its authors among have had such a bad-luck rumble
the fillet of the mutant disco genre. through the blackboard jungle.
I’ll leave it to the market to determine
whether the band is better off than it Jones’ latest single, “I Learned the
was four years ago. Hard Way,” is a done-me-wrong
ballad derived from one of the
(April 14, 2010) Book of Love’s more sour chapters.
Despite its lush, retro arrangement,
the song is emotionally naked,
Sharon Jones and pushing accusations, insults, and
the Dap-Kings self-reproaches across a slinky astral
I Learned the Hard Way plane. “Hard Way,” however, isn’t
next of kin to Jazmine Sullivan’s
The listening public has become so “Bust Your Windows” or Carrie
accustomed to hearing three-minute Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.” It’s

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not the reaction to faithlessness that’s helped break the Dap-Kings. This is
accorded primacy but the realization. not a James Brown-style hip-shaker;
The act of discovery – that she’s living Sharon is committed to composing
a lie, that her man is untrue – is what a deliberate, classy denunciation of
drives Jones’ narrative. She smells her beau. In place of lightning, “Hard
the foreign perfumes, hears the Way” brings the thunder, with claps
breathless phone calls, and fingers of admonition segueing into cracks of
the tell-tale hotel key, piling all the righteous anger.
accouterments of the philanderer
into a blazing bonfire of vanities. Jones doesn’t traffic in the headlong
Once the sordid plot is unraveled, melodic runs of Beyoncé Knowles or
Sharon doesn’t flinch from meeting the sultry swagger of Erykah Badu.
adultery’s petty indignities head-on. She makes “Urban” music that’s
She channels infidelity in high-fidelity, completely uninformed by hip hop and
giving orchestral heft to a humbling its attendant heavy beats. Her songs
confession: “I learned the hard way, belong to the live-band era, packing
that your love was cruel/I learned the a sound that’s as organic as it is
hard way, to be your fool.” insidious. “Hard Way” seeps into your
bloodstream and rattles your bones,
The instrumentation on “Hard Way” like the sock-it-to-me soul that it so
fits the track’s subject matter. The obviously aspires to imitate. Jones has
opening horn blast, more sobering truly studied under the masters, mixing
than stirring, sets an ominous tone, as Otis Redding’s down-home abandon
if operating by the dictates of pathetic with Aretha Franklin’s pitched control.
fallacy. It’s immediately clear that Yet, on “Hard Way,” she comes across
something is rotten in the impending as a latter-day Tina Turner, forever
state of affairs. Jones’ voice, recalling shouting “What’s love got to do with
the likes of Tina Turner and Marva it?”
Whitney, adds a necessary urgency
to the background brass. Her central Fortunately, Jones doesn’t use this
refrain – “Now I know about you!” – question as a mere point of rhetoric.
throws its weight around only after She provides an answer, and that
Jones has walked the thorny path from answer is “Everything!” Love parades
suspicion to certainty. Her soundtrack through her songbook like a marching
never reverts to the whiplash funk that band through the Rose Bowl. Its

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lessons may be hard, but we get the portion of Neil Young’s discography to
feeling that the subject is worth the displace its sludgy, viscous, ax-grinding
fighting for. And while Jones might counterpart.
have been slow to intercept the
cheater on her horizon, this middling Insofar as this movement had
misgiving is nothing that can’t be a vanguard, and not just an ad
cured by a couple of hours with a hoc assortment of sweet-singing
Bobby Womack album. strummers, the Shins could probably
be said to constitute the lead flank.
Smart money says Sharon already has They were the earliest popularizers of
Womack cued up on her turntable. She the Back to the Garden ethic, setting
may not be a founding member of our the turn of the century as something
theoretical School of Love, but she’s of a dividing line between the Old
certainly earned the right to take home Masters and the New Slang. Scores
a degree. Let the record show that of pale imitators followed – and by
she’s graduating with honors. “pale,” I mean “lily white” – but their
hack work eventually bore righteous
(April 5, 2010) fruit, coalescing into the current
bumper crop of Decemberists, Fleet
Foxes, and Band(s) of Horses. Each
Band of Horses ensemble is whip-smart and buzz-
Factory worthy, but, of the three groups
cited, only the Horses possess true
Is it just me, or has the Pacific commercial potential.
Northwest gone mellow? In the 15-plus
years since grunge lost its commercial With their warm acoustics and high-
punch, the so-called “Seattle sound” pitched harmonies, BoH are a living
has toned down its intensity and testament to the lighter side of Shakey.
amped up its facial hair. Out is the They exude a vibe that’s at once feral
heroin-chic fealty to Rust Never Sleeps; and ethereal; the band manages
in is the beardo fascination with to keep their knees in the soil while
Everybody Knows This is Nowhere. their heads float amongst the clouds.
The Sub Pop scene has negotiated Ben Bridwell’s braying lead vocals
a gradual but genuine paradigm are clearly reminiscent of Young’s
shift, allowing the singer-songwriter drifter croon. Yet, both materially

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and metaphorically speaking, the and Pete Droge’s “Beautiful Girls.”

“commercial potential” to which I These smooth symphonics give
allude has less to do with Harvest “Factory” a spectral air, as if it just
than After the Gold Rush. I’m fairly emerged out of the gloaming. BoH do
certain that the Horses have won the this sort of thing better than any other
majority of their gold through product indie rock outfit. Even if you’d never
placement, be it in ads for Ford Edge heard of the group, and stumbled
or via quick musical cameos on One onto “Factory” by happy accident, you
Tree Hill and 90210. They’re a zeitgeist wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the
group, if only in the sense that their band’s last underground hit was called
music pairs well with the contemporary “Is There A Ghost.”
lifestyle, wherein a mellow backing
track is preferred to a song that grabs This single will coexist peacefully
you by the throat. with the recent Morning Benders’
cut, “Promises.” Like the Benders,
“Factory” is another sleek ballad in BoH have a knack for semi-orchestral
the middle-of-the-road tradition. Its builds that give a song texture and
soft pulses and deliberate pacing taste. Guitars ring and keyboards
conjure a lazy afternoon in the country chime, quietly marking rhythm as the
rather than a hard day’s work on the track ventures onward. The band is
factory floor. But under the dreamy walking in place, but they appear to be
instrumental lurks an affecting sob climbing the stairs.
story: Bridwell’s protagonist has just
been dropped by his girlfriend. Now Such is the rock sound for the modern
he’s forced to carry on all alone, moment: soothing yet active, ever-
shuffling from hotel to hotel and from present yet unobtrusive. This sonic
shiny recollection to painful memory. formula lets us combine labor and
“It’s temporary, this place I’m in,” Ben leisure, to listen in to our digital
sings, “I permanently won’t do this jukeboxes even as we’re thumbing out
again.” emails and status reports. Perhaps the
Pacific Northwest has gone mellow
To augment the Man-Beside-Himself because rock at large has become
aura, the Horses unbridle a series less immediate. The genre no longer
of doleful, moaning guitar breaks, kicks in your door and impregnates
redolent of Weezer’s “Pink Triangle” your daughter; instead, it wafts into

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conference room, kitchen, and retail The Dead Weather

outlet alike, as if channeled through Die By the Drop
some unknown but ubiquitous censor.
You can’t order a cup of coffee or Sinister machinations are afoot on the
watch a sports highlight without Dead Weather’s “Die By the Drop.”
encountering a short piece of mood Makeshift graves are being dug; death
music. And if this is the milieu in which plots are swinging into motion; and
we’re obliged to operate, I’ll gladly lead guitars are crying out in pain,
take “Factory” over, say, “Party In the suffering the tortures of a thousand
U.S.A.” or “Need You Now.” spiked beasts. The preponderance
of the evidence points toward two
BoH deliver a pleasing, plangent vibe. possible interpretations: Either the
They never demand your attention, but Dead Weather are evolving into a
once they infiltrate your defenses, they suicide cult, or Jack White is trying to
command your respect. “Factory,” lay his current commitment to rest,
“The Funeral,” and, above all, “No presumably so he can start another
One’s Gonna Love You,” comprise a frighteningly hirsute supergroup.
post-millennial iteration of AM Gold,
offering easy listening to palliate the Then again, perhaps one shouldn’t
vicissitudes of our hard-knock lives. expect sunshine and tangerines from a
It’s not Guns n’ Roses, but it gets you band named the Dead Weather. Such
through the day. And in times like a designation has a leaden, lumbering
these, there’s certainly no shame in feel, like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple,
copping the aural lithium. Just be sure or Nickelback. And “Die,” true to its
to hold on to your Nirvana records. title and pedigree, positively drips
Because this softer Seattle sound, like sludge, mire, and base intentions.
the heavier fare before it, shall pass –
regardless of how many Edges Ford is I don’t mean that in a bad way. The
able to push off the lot. track is dense but not ponderous,
heavy but not weighed down. Its sonic
(April 21, 2010)
heft recalls Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog”
and “When the Levee Breaks,” twin
celebrations of the blues transported
to a mystic realm beyond psychedelia.
“Die” has a similar intensity, high on

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drone and vibration, but still insistent serious, dark-toned band. Eerie
enough to qualify as a single rather atmospheres get along well with the
than an experiment. In the shorthand blues, as the idiom is flush with little
reserved for bastard genres, the track devils and would-be Robert Johnsons.
is less Psych-Blues than Abnormal There’s an element of the supernatural
Psych-Blues. to the entire Mississippi Delta
mythology, what with its crossroads,
Supporting testimony comes early its hell hounds, and its spectral
and often. “Die” opens to rattles and journeymen. When White sings “Some
quivers that imagine the mash-up of people die just a little/Sometimes
MGMT’s “Flash Delirium” and Captain you die by the drop,” he could be
Beefheart’s “Electricity.” The song eulogizing all the shut-down strangers
quickly assumes a magnetic pulse – a and backwoods bards who never
gentle tug with a malevolent edge. escaped their provincial cultures.
Alison Mosshart and Jack White
trade lines like bummed cigarettes, He could be. But he isn’t. Because

alternately dragging and spitting out “Die” treats the blues progressively,

smoke. “Let’s dig a hole in the sand, incorporating rock vibes and the

brother,” Mosshart proposes, “A occasional Digital Age flourish. Its

little grave we can fill.” The subject choral rush forsakes the stripped-
is shared destiny, wherein wide-eyed down acoustics of Son House for the
madness and millennial desperation thick grooves of Jimi Hendrix and

coalesce into unholy matrimony. the industrial buzz of grunge. I’ll be

“I’m going to take you for worse or damned if the “worse or better” guitar

better!,” shout the Glummer Twins, layering doesn’t sound conspicuously

leaving little doubt that this marriage is like the Stone Temple Pilots’ “Down.”

bound for the underground. Mosshart There’s a brutality to these blues, and

and White consecrate their connection the listener is compelled to feel the

in the muck and murk of freshly noise.

upturned soil, with no honeymoon

suite in sight. For the Dead Weather, “Die” is Jack White returning to what

the key marital vow is not “I do” but he does best: down-tempo bombast.

“Til death do us part.” When he realigns with Meg, maybe

they’ll channel the Elephant side of

Fortunately, death becomes this their discography – a wide pocket

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of catalog that manages to pair an Sure, such analysis reeks of bias and
electric feel with a swampy sensibility. oversimplification. But when we
In the meantime, we’ll settle for the treat pop music with a complexity
Dead Weather’s potent strains of normally reserved for rocket science,
moody blues. Their sound is maturing. we sacrifice the thrilling immediacy
And their textures are sharpening into that’s made rock and roll something
a dagger blade of ever-more-blunt of a surrogate religion. The faithful
proportions. This might appear to were there for Mick Jagger in 1965,
be cause for concern, but I offer my and they still line up by the millions
sincere assurances: The evolution is all to sing along to the final verse of
for the better, none for the worse. “Satisfaction.” You can call this sort of
rock and roll fundamentalism irrational,
(April 3, 2010) unbecoming, or, if you must, pathetic
– but you can’t deny that it’s a force to
be reckoned with.
The Black Keys
Everlasting Light Even as we acknowledge disco’s
hipster-mediated resurgence, we’re
If you’d told me 10 years ago that indie obliged to note our doubts about its
rock would soon make a hairpin turn staying power. In the late Seventies,
toward mongrelized disco, I’d have Donna Summer’s Bad Girls was of
dropped my Strokes EP and petitioned greater cultural import than the
for your immediate institutionalization. Rolling Stones’ Some Girls. But do
The classical theories of popular you honestly think that Ms. Summer’s
music posit that rock and disco are songs could support a worldwide
diametrically opposed idioms – one stadium tour? She couldn’t sell out The
representing truth and teen spirit, Olive Garden, never mind Madison
the other celebrating the shiny, the Square Garden. And this fact is oddly
skeevy, and the insensate. Rock comforting.
generally requires human agency:
a band, several instruments, and a The Black Keys enter our discussion
convincing live performance. Disco, precisely where it began – that is, at
quite conversely, suppresses organic the onset of the 21st century, when
effort with mechanical efficiency. It’s synths were slowly encroaching into
push-button music instead of music territory formerly accorded to guitars.
that pushes the envelope. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney

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began collaborating as the Nineties line, allowing for the mass production
met the Aughts, and have since put of all-natural goods.
in a decade of shared service. In that
time, they’ve seen the riff-centered The Key’s latest single, “Everlasting
power duo tumble from a position of Light,” signals a slight departure – in
primacy (the White Stripes, Local H) to register if not in texture. Auerbach
the outskirts of obscurity (Sleigh Bells, sings in a suave falsetto, recalling a
No Age, Japandroids). Within the indie hybrid of mid-career Curtis Mayfield
circuit, guitars are now frequently cited and “Blue Orchid”-era Jack White.
as tools of the rear-guard, vestiges of That said, the track is far from ethereal.
a “rockist” regime that championed Carney grounds the production in a
phallic symbols and primal energies. bedrock of drums, deftly pairing the
Their subtle erasure from both the percussion with Auerbach’s chugging
music video and the sound stage has guitar. The central riff is short, sweet,
resulted in the wholesale emasculation and repetitive – abuzz with reverb but
of pop music. The airwaves and the never in danger of losing its propulsive
social media are now firmly controlled energy. Think Led Zeppelin’s “D’yer
by five Amazons (Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Maker” or the Rolling Stones’
Ke$ha, Taylor Swift, and Miley Cyrus) “Shattered,” wherein a concise figure
and one countertenor (Justin Bieber). drives the song forward, backward,
The Top 40, in short, has surrendered and, occasionally, sideways. The
its balls. melody locks you in so intensely that
you’re inclined to ignore the narrative.
This is why we’re obliged to thank
our lucky stars for the Black Keys. Perhaps this is for good reason:
They’re a two-man wrecking crew “Light” is not a song for fans of
that somehow manages to temper sophisticated lyrics. The lines are
the sound of demolition with dense constructed to maximize rhyme
flurries of rhythm. The formative BK hit potential, not to illuminate the human
parade, comprising such songs as “I condition. This is the ironic legacy of
Got Mine,” “10 A.M. Automatic,” and Mayfield, who, for all his civil rights
“Strange Times,” is rendered thick by glory, could shoehorn three rhymes
the intermingling of Delta swamp and into a transitional chorus without
Akron rubber. It’s as if the river and the forsaking his croon. (See “It is now
factory conjoined beside the assembly up to us/And we know we must/Build

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up a trust.”) Auerbach works similar Although I characterize it as a rebuttal

wonders, offering to bring “sun where of contemporary indie, “Everlasting
there is none,” and then to captain “a Light” excludes no one. Its lumbering
train goin’ away from pain.” The latter wallop packs the pagan blues of Led
lyric, though puerile, folds beautifully Zeppelin alongside the urban soul of
into its attending riff, which sounds like the Impressions, sounding at once of
a locomotive just setting off from the the soil, the water, and the sky. This
station. If the Keys have a message, coalition of elements comprises rock
it’s “Woman, get ready, there’s a train and roll’s living palette wheel. Artists
coming.” The boxcar door is wide blend the colors anyway they see fit,
open – and so is the joint future of the and we quarrel on the merits of the
protagonists. resulting canvas. In this particular
case, beauty is not in the eye of the
For once, however, let’s allow the beholder, but in the ear of the listener.
medium to usurp the message. All we can do is keep listening, and
Rock is a wildly miscegenated form, hope for the best.
stitching up the Mason-Dixon and
(August 14, 2010)
Anglo-American divides with sleek
threads of sonic testimony. The Black
Keys are a product of this sublime
orgy of parochial impulses and
Arcade Fire
universal aspirations: What happened
Month of May
in Memphis and New Orleans can
happen in New York, Chicago,
At the 3:42 mark of “Crown of Love,”
Liverpool, or London. (Hell, it can even
the sixth track on Arcade Fire’s debut
happen in Akron.) Blues-based music
album, Funeral, the indie rock universe
travels on a continuum that provides
abruptly pivoted on its axis. After using
no quarter for racial or geographic
the majority if its run time to build a
discrimination. It’s a sound that’s
dour, dirge-like tension, the song
utterly hostile to the concept of the
activates its hidden pressure valve,
velvet rope. And the Black Keys’ grand
releasing a genre’s worth of angst,
purpose, insofar as they have one, is
ennui, and stalled momentum. Part
to disavow the conceits of Digital Age
purge, part call to arms, this
disco.
microment of violin glory revealed
Funeral for what it was: A memorial

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service for the garage rock revival, and bases; the “Crown” pivot point shows
an augur of the eclectic, multi- the pitcher’s tell; and “Wake Up”
instrumental sound that would soon knocks the ball out of the park.
come to characterize the minor-label “Rebellion (Lies)” simply tacks on
circuit. insurance runs, as if to say, “This band
means business!”
“Crown of Love” is not one of Arcade
Fire’s more popular tracks, but its sonic Unfortunately, such forthright ambition
reorientation is a genuine feat of can’t help but earn a group a
physics. In terms of compositional reputation for being uncompromising
gravity, there’s a discernible Before and or “too serious” – a charge that
After, a clear Action and Reaction: Arcade Fire’s second album, Neon
Previously, simple, stripped-down rock Bible, seemed expressly designed to
and roll had ruled the roost. corroborate. Another masterpiece – or
(Remember the Vines and the Hives?) another hyper-indulgent chain yank,
Subsequently, serious, carefully depending on your proclivity – Neon
orchestrated pop assumed the reins. fostered several sleek leitmotifs and an
The difference between Arcade Fire impressive array of unconventional
and, say, the White Stripes is best instruments. It was the sound of the
understood in the context of this king’s court and the scholars den,
transition: The latter is a band going condensed into a single LP. Yet despite
for broke; the former is a band going its comfort with subjects high and
for Baroque. mighty, the record still burned with the
power-chord passions of the demotic
What made the Fire indispensable, age. It tried to be all things to all
however, was that their Baroque rock people, and it damn near succeeded.
harbored not the slightest vestige of
Renaissance Faire slackery. Yes, there The Fire’s newest single, “Month of
were harps and luthier-quality May,” betrays these aspirations. It’s
narratives. But these elements didn’t nothing more than a balls-out banger
cohere around a litany of tired pastoral – which makes it nothing less than a
themes. Funeral’s track list reads less slap in the face to those who pine for
like a study in functional tonality than the band’s more lush and intricate
as a stacked line-up card: The arrangements. I won’t go so far as to
“Neighborhood” songs load the call “May” a “sonic departure,” as that

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would be a cliché. (And a meaningless Rocket to Russia. The more

cliché at that, considering that Arcade appropriate reference point, though, is
Fire have shown an ability, if not a deeper and darker: The Misfits’ Static
preference, to make pedal-to-the- Age. I’ll be damned if “May” isn’t a
metal rock and roll.) Still, the song’s kissing cousin to the Misfits’ “Bullet.”
bull-rush rhythm and double-time beat The singles share a manic intensity and
are not what you’d expect from the a breakneck pace, with “Bullet”
Fire after a three-year hiatus. Perhaps garnering distinction for being an
that’s why it’s packaged as a B side to order of magnitude more violent. Win
“The Suburbs,” the official lead single Butler may be a man of many colors,
from the band’s forthcoming album. By but he’s yet to drink the blood-red
unchaining “May” from the A-grade potions that transport mere mortals to
sweepstakes, Arcade Fire allow the Glenn Danzig territory. True, when Win
track to be its own animal. Separated shouts “Some people sing, sounds like
from its natural habitat – that is, the LP they’re screaming/Used to doubt it,
– the song takes on a feral air: It’s but now I believe it,” we’re lead to
neither thrash metal nor freak folk but wonder whether he’s forgotten to take
a sturdier, more efficient his meds. But even with the track’s
amalgamation. And when metal and pounding percussion and death-stare
folk come together, what do they guitars, we never doubt that Butler will
form? I’ll go with “punk rock.” retain control of his art.

No need to polish your spectacles: I’m He does this by folding less reactionary
indeed reporting that Arcade Fire have textures into “May”’s DNA. The lead
released a punk record. In the riff bears vague traces of Black
language of their own discography, Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” adding just
“May” sounds like a souped-up and enough fuzz to temper Tony Iommi’s
electrified “Television Antichrist stutter-step propulsion. Eventually, the
Blues,” only with the Springsteen track finds room for ambient tones and
inflections usurped by the discordant noise layers that recall early-90s Sonic
heebie-jeebies of the CBGBs set. The Youth. When Régine Chassagne steps
track commences with a Dee Dee in to harmonize with Butler, “May”
Ramone-style “1, 2, 3, 4” count-off, feels like it’s being visited by Thurston
then careers into a riff that could easily Moore and Kim Gordon. This doesn’t
be mistaken for something off of mean that the single goes soft; it

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merely signifies that, after a sustained “May” earns classification into the
crescendo, the song jumps the 2:30 “Songs That Matter” file for two
hurdle by playing around with its reasons: First, anything that a group of
dynamics. The sound washes out in a Arcade Fire’s caliber puts out after a
snap of the fingers, then returns at full sustained absence is going to cause a
blast for a minute-long coda that’s Richter-level tremor. Second, the song
equally moody and ferocious. In the effectively rebuts the belle orchestre
end, “May” wouldn’t be out of place sound that Funeral helped escort from
on either Static Age or Goo. It’s punk the margins. “Month of May,” like
rock and art rock, tinged with firm “Crown of Love,” represents a musical
strokes of goth and indie. Let’s call it pivot point. Only this time it’s Arcade
“Blitzkrieg Baroque.” Fire themselves, rather than the indie
rock universe, that’s swinging on its
On “May,” the ornate flexes are axis. This change is not as drastic as its
reserved more for the lyric sheet than predecessor, but its repercussions will
the instrumental score. Butler still leave a fairly wide wake.
apparently conceived the track to be
part of a song cycle that chronicles a Let’s hope that this wake swallows
city-to-suburbs diaspora. Surprisingly, Funeral’s more unfortunate
Win idealizes the urban environment godchildren. Because like other
but renders the outskirts of town brutal epochal indie records of the past 15
and malignant: “Month of May, years, such as Kid A, Aeroplane Over
everybody’s in love/In the city we’re the Sea, and “Losing My Edge,” the
safe from above” segues rapidly into Fire’s first album inspired untold
an ominous depiction of suburban volumes of second- and third-tier
youth – “Kids are still standing with music. This unfortunate (and perhaps
their arms folded tight/Some things inevitable) irony prompts my final,
are pure and some things are right.” absurdly unreasonable request: On
This inflexibility, be it philosophical or their next LP, the band that’s renowned
aesthetic, is a harbinger of a culture for taking themselves far too seriously
war, one which the Fire are loath to will have to raise their self-regard to
fight but too proud to boycott. The near-messianic levels. In my mind,
band will be heard, in every sense Arcade Fire’s meticulously arranged
imaginable. And American music will postpunk is obliged to be perfectly
be all the better for it. emblematic of our age. It must

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integrate dark urges with light speeds, Thankfully, the National’s latest single,
satirize a material culture on the verge “Afraid of Everyone,” doesn’t aspire
of insolvency, and conquer the vast, to a dual identity. It’s the perfect
purgatorial spaces between distillation of an artist beset by modern
mechanical failure and human triumph. anxiety, haunting its indie vinyl like
If possible, it should also sound good. nothing since the last Arcade Fire
album. In fact, “Afraid” could be
“Month of May” can’t fully deliver on mistaken for a Win Butler solo record,
this one-in-a-million fantasy, but it’s as it combines my-body-is-a-cage
certainly a step in the right direction. themes with black-mirror augury.
And I, for one, am extremely interested Berninger is clearly trapped within
to see where the next step leads. himself, and the accommodations are
far from comfortable. “Lay the young
(May 28, 2010) blue bodies/With the old red bodies,”
he sings, imagining a killing field that
spans generations and colors alike.
The National The narrator is positively bleeding with
Afraid of Everyone insecurity, a condition that appears to
result from the tremors of uncertain
Things weren’t looking too good times and the shortfalls of a low-rent
for the new National album. Its first pharmaceutical regimen. The track’s
leak, the limp, atmospheric “Blood sober, pain-addled chorus reads,
Buzz Ohio,” full of clipped croons “With my kid on my shoulders I try/Not
and pregnant pauses, sounded like to hurt anybody I love/But I don’t have
Julian Casablancas covering Pink the drugs to sort it out.”
Floyd’s “Learning to Fly.” The live
material that followed was similarly I’d be inclined to slip Berninger some
mellow and moody, with lead singer Xanax® were his song not so singularly
Matt Berninger applying an Ian Curtis arresting. “Afraid” commences with a
baritone to U2-style shimmers and drone tone of somber digital swells,
rings. This mixture of antic intensity fogging up the canvas in preparation
and anthemic composition made for a for the dark-hued vocals. Berninger’s
shaky vessel. At a certain point, jagged lyrics and delivery are so honest and
vulnerability ceases to be a signature immediate that the listener quickly
musical texture and starts to become
an alt-rock fetish.

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understands the depths of his terror. the same. Because if “Afraid” proves
He’s afraid of radio, television, and the anything, it’s that the National are
people he encounters on the street. nothing to be frightened of.
Most of all, he’s afraid of himself.
(April 20, 2010)
And the fallout from this paralyzing
pantaphobia is a sense of visceral
longing for the unattainable; that
is, an antiseptic, threat-free Fortress Interpol
America. If “Afraid” can be said to Lights
be a party jam, the party in question
would have to be a Tea Party, all Quick, who’s the better Joy Division
placard-carrying worry and shit-your- cover band: the National or Interpol?
pants panic. The former are trending higher, but
the latter have posterity on their side –
The only fear that matters on this so, ultimately, the decision is largely a
particular track, however, is fear of function of taste.
music. I mean that in a respectful,
Talking Heads sort of way, whereby I’m going to take the path of least
a chilling vibe is established without resistance and greatest complexity:
multi-instrumental bombast. The I prefer the National to Interpol for
National evince a vintage reserve, sheer songcraft, but still think that the
making their message unambiguous Pols are an order of magnitude better
but keeping their acoustics soft and at the Joy Division business. They
no-filler. You won’t find a fleet-fingered key differentiating factor is Interpol’s
guitar solo or a sing-along refrain on clinical sterility. You could undergo
“Afraid.” Its aims are more modest, prostate surgery in their recording
but no less affecting, than anything by studio and come away infection-free.
Coldplay or Green Day. I plainly admit Their throbbing bass and rhythmic
to being blindsided by its hazy synths guitars pack industrial heft without
and stark verses, a sonic seduction the risk of industrial accident, always
made all the more unlikely by my initial reining in the aggression before
distaste for this religiously buzzed-up it reaches the point of absolute
band. When their new album, High abandon. Like Joy Division, Interpol
Violet, is released, I’ll give it a fair and make alien sounds out of human
thorough listen. I advise you to do emotion, all echo and ominous jangle,

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while the National can’t quite extend me/I want you to police me/But keep
beyond the terrestrial plane. it clean.” You can just about hear the
orderlies reaching for a straitjacket.
The Pols latest single, “Lights,” may be
their first in two years, but it’s certainly Still, is it any surprise that “Lights” is
not far removed from their postpunk characterized by darkness? Interpol
wheelhouse. The band continues aren’t the Black Eyed Peas, and Banks
to traffic in neurotic buzzsaw, with runs no risk of being confused with
pointed twitches and flails popping Will.i.am. When the Pols’ frontman
off under the reverb. “Lights” sounds has, in the pop parlance, “gotta
a bit like “She’s Lost Control” – but, feeling,” that feeling is generally
then again, so do three out of every depressing. The band’s music is clean
four tracks in the Interpol discography. but fidgeting, as if the ensemble were
The new single distinguishes itself practicing masochists, forever in thrall
by subordinating Manchester’s clink to hair shirts and self-flagellation. Their
and clank to New York’s quivering heavy snares sound like a whip hitting
angularity. This is a song on the verge the flesh.
of a nervous breakdown, with the band
seeking asylum in pointed confessions “Lights” builds its stress level with
of frailty. formidable dexterity, then pulls
its pin with a minute-long coda of
The ill-at-ease vibe is concentrated instrumental calm and pained vocal
in Paul Banks’ shuddering vocals. repetition. Banks sings “That’s why I
His voice is a jagged ripple of ache, hold you/That’s why I hold you...dear,”
reimagining Ian Curtis’ haunting with the pregnant pause before the
baritone without the Jim Morrison last word expressing more assurance
deep-throat. Banks sounds like he than doubt. The effect is oddly
needs a hug, or at least a month away reminiscent of Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse,”
from blunt objects. When he pleads which closes with a soothing promise:
“Teach me to grieve and conspire “All that is now/All that is gone/All
with my age,” you’re not sure if he’s that’s to come/And everything under
suicidal, homicidal, or just bored. This the sun is in tune.” Yet, despite this
hint of instability goes from amber to implicit harmony, we can’t ignore the
red only when Banks puts in an earnest fact that the sun has been eclipsed
request for supervision: “Please police by the moon, that the lunatics are

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on the grass, in the hall, and in our around town in my father’s recently
heads. Interpol’s job is to stand in decommissioned Mercedes Benz,
this darkness and try to fend off the stripped of its top but churning with
demons. the character of money nearly as
old as Plymouth Rock. The mayor of
Let’s hope Banks is more successful Wellfleet would refer to me unironically
than Ian Curtis was – and that his band as “Chief,” “Junior,” or “Pal.” And Ivy
will never be forced to take the New League chicks would dig me.
Order route. Interpol have cohered
into something special: there’s no End scene.
joy, but there’s no division either. And
in the bizarro world of rock and roll But don’t start over. Because flights of
mathematics, these two negatives add fancy are what make Vampire Weekend
up to a resounding positive. Just don’t so lovable. Your average middle-class
expect a smile anytime soon. Because kid, not knowing Choate from Exeter
if Interpol ever attempted to turn its or Falmouth from Mashpee, connects
frown upside down, the universe would with the band through vibe rather than
probably implode. narrative. VW songs drip with privilege
but towel off with alternating strokes
(May 4, 2010) of sarcasm and satire. Ezra Koenig is
singing of a demographic to which
he’s never belonged, nor will ever
Vampire Weekend belong. In a sense, VW provide the
Jonathan Low soundtrack to the life that he wishes
he was living. The yacht clubs and the
Vampire Weekend provide the Vuitton sweaters merely offer cover for
soundtrack to the life I wish I was Koenig’s counterintuitive stratagem:
living. This life is characterized by Rather than pretend to be less wealthy
prep-school spirit, wrinkle-free khaki, than he actually is, he insinuates that
and a flair for the high seas. If I had he’s an order of magnitude wealthier
my druthers, I’d be sailing astride the than the typical J. Crew customer.
Elizabeth Islands at a cool 15 knots,
wearing little more than boat shoes This charade is part of the substance:
and a strategically folded Dartmouth VW observe from afar, then infuse their
diploma. Once landward, I’d tool blue-blood personae with all the color,

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quirk, and humor of John Cheever or The track takes on an added

J.D. Salinger. They’re not just a band. dimension when Rostam Batmanglij
They’re short story writers. unsheathes his electric strings. Though
Rostam is technically a “keyboardist,”
The Vamps’ latest musico-literary he’s fluent in many instruments and
effort, “Jonathan Low,” is aflutter multiple musical histories. He spikes
with the mysteries of a handsome “Low” with a piquant dose of Classical,
drifter. As a one-off contribution to triggering a chord progression that’s
the forthcoming Twilight: Eclipse oddly redolent of Johann Pachelbel’s
soundtrack, the song is not of a Canon in D Major. (Don’t give me
unified piece with Vampire Weekend that face. You know this piece from
or Contra. It’s forced to wander on its weddings, graduations, and jewelry
own and mingle with the hoi polloi, commercials. It’s pretty much joint at
hoping against hope that it won’t be the hip with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,
throttled by album-mates Muse or the signifying “class” to those of us who
Dead Weather. have none.)

Upon first listen, “Low” doesn’t appear As one might deduce from its
to be concerned with rendering itself constituent elements – lean Eighties
immune to the taunts of neighborhood guitar, rapid-fire mandolin, and
bullies. Koenig starts the track with Baroque composition – “Low” packs
a Totally 80s guitar figure – think the an ethereal instrumental. Yet even as
opening strains of Rick Springfield’s its players soar above the clouds, the
“Jessie’s Girl” – then has his comrades song’s lyric sheet is rife with references
overpower his light strum with a firm to the clay beneath our feet. There’s
blast of mandolin (yes, mandolin!). a macabre aspect to this number,
By the 15-second mark, “Low” a pesticide of sorts that’ll keep the
seems to be aiming for a hybrid of bullies at bay. Early in the track,
Working Class Dog and “The Battle Jonathan Low is depicted as “Living
of Evermore.” Koenig’s vocals don’t inside a house/Beneath the hanging
entirely betray this sensibility, as they tree.” Later, Koenig transitions from
bounce amiably from Indie power ugly portents to clear causes of
pop to accessible World. It’s full steam concern: “Violence from without/And
ahead, like a ride on the Block anger from within/Crawling through
Island ferry. the fields/Informing next of kin.”

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Mr. Low is either a killer or a murder band’s canon is based on a knowing

victim. As such, his song is as wink and a playful nudge. The private-
compatible with the Eclipse concept as academy pretensions and Cape
it was incompatible with the Contra LP. Cod allusions are mere fodder for
By giving this single a little time in the the haters, of which there are many.
cellar, VW has found the right outlet But when the Vamps’ discography is
for its distribution. reviewed as a whole, a simple truth
emerges: What initially sounds like a
Like the Vamps’ three earlier B-sides, gimmick quickly establishes itself as
“Ladies of Cambridge,” “Ottoman,” an ethos. VW aren’t playing games;
and “Giant,” “Low” is different from they’re playing music. And when
the band’s proper album tracks – but my ship comes in, be it to Martha’s
only subtly different. The distinction is Vineyard or Bayonne harbor, I want
a hair-part or a mustache trim rather to hear “Mansard Roof” coruscating
than a complete face lift. “Low” is out of the dock-side jukebox. I enjoy
a little darker and more menacing feeling like I’ve made it, even if I’m
than, say, “Campus” or “Cousins,” an island’s-length removed from
but it’s still a VW short story, complete respectability. Vamps like us, baby, we
with scene, protagonist, and sonic were born to run. And someday, we
signature. VW continue to do for just might get our victory lap.
“Afropop” music what Hall & Oates
(June 4, 2010)
did for “Philadelphia Soul”: They
Anglicize and suburbanize it, not
in petty homage but in an effort to
domesticate a bastard idiom. The
Katy Perry
Vamps order Indie and World in
California Gurls
effectively identical measures, then
make each item more palatable for
Here we are, just three days into
listeners at large. The result is neither
summer, and the annual flex-off for
a disgrace nor an act of cultural
Song of the Season is all but over.
appropriation; it’s a triumph of pop
Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” is
over pomp.
running the musical equivalent of a
West Coast offense, first befuddling
For all the fiction, fantasy, and
its competitors with flash and dash,
aspiration in the VW storyline, the
then jacking up the score with extreme

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prejudice. The track has been the #1 Janelle Monáe’s “Locked Inside” are
song in America for only two weeks, all of a higher caliber.) But Perry is not
but it’s held sway as our country’s selling her song, per se. She’s selling
most ubiquitous single since it was California – which, despite its crippling
released in early May. “Gurls” is debt and heinous White Zinfandel,
dominating every pop medium, from isn’t likely to be outdone by Missouri
radio to video to digital download, or Connecticut on the public relations
which all but confirms that our front. The state’s female contingent
instruments of promotion act in semi- has been internationally renowned
conspiratorial concert rather than since Brian Wilson was but a gleam
proud independence. The song is so in his overbearing father’s eye. So,
pervasive that I sat down to write this at bottom, Perry’s song functions to
review without having heard Perry’s remind us of what we already know:
opus in its entirety. I’ve since corrected that California girls are irresistible,
this glib point of entry, but, truth be unforgettable, and undeniable.
told, I was never being particularly
cocky or bold; I was just being Each of these adjective is used in the
reasonable. Because when a single song’s lyrics, and they are easily the
gives you a bum’s rush of the “Hey, longest words that Katy deigns to toss
Soul Sister” or “Run this Town” variety, at us fawning submentals. Summer
you don’t have to actively listen to it to songs are not composed to pique the
hear its message. intellect. If anything, they’re stridently
insentient, awash in glad tidings and
And Ms. Perry’s message, insofar as feel-good rhythms. “Gurls” delivers
she has one, is “Put away the posing on both accounts, bringing the breezy,
oil and pick up the suntan lotion.” the bouncy, and the melodic in family-
“Gurls” offers an endless summer to size portions. Perry co-wrote the track
friends and foes alike, displacing diva with a pair of Scandinavian Billboard
snark and one-upmanship with the busters, Dr. Luke and Max Martin. This
glossy confidence of a pusher who translates into music that’s jam-packed
knows that her product is the best on with electronic ripples and computer-
the market. Ironically, “Gurls” is not manipulated emoting. The result, in
the best summer song on the market. effect, is a very good Miley Cyrus song.
(Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” Mark A synth-laden beat, tactfully smuggled
Ronson’s “Bang Bang Bang,” and over the border from parochial guido

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to international house, flares up into a “Katy, my lady/Lookie here, baby/I’m

disco-glam guitar figure. It’s as if a Chic all up on ya/Cuz you representin’
bass line were given a quick Prince California.” This is pretty prosaic stuff
polish, then hyperlinked to the 21st from a man who was once the poet
century. The track should have its own laureate of Long Beach. But, in the
Twitter feed, if only to prove that it’s end, we can’t help but think that it ain’t
alive, self-aware, and of the moment. nothin’ but a G thang – as in, “How
many G’s is Katy paying Snoop for this
Perry’s vocals are demonstrably cameo?” Wes’side reputations don’t
modern. When she sings “You could come cheap.
travel the world/But nothing comes
close to the Golden coast,” her voice It’s instructive to note that Perry
is Auto-Tuned into a condition of considers “Gurls” to be something
sterility. Despite its frequent references of an answer song to Jay-Z’s “Empire
to scantily clad women, “Gurls” is State of Mind.” And while it’s a bit
ultimately too camp to be sexy. Its goal heady for KP to go tete-a-tete with
is to charm, not to titillate. Hovi, you can’t blame a California girl
for trying. But you can call her out for
Perhaps that’s why Perry turns to falling short. I grew up directly across
Snoop Dogg to lend the track an the river from Manhattan, in a satellite
extra dizzle of narrative fluency. Snoop city that bundled a higher crime rate
welcomes us to Cali with a short with a lower tax bracket. As such,
spoken-word intro, then ushers us out I hold a Jersey-fortified antipathy
with a playful closing verse. In doing toward the big-money grandeur and
so he joins Ice Cube and Dr. Dre in the cultural arrogance of New York. Yet
pantheon of West Coast rappers who I still fell hook, line, and sinker for
have handed in their strap for a full clip “Empire.” The beat is tight, the MC
of crossover appeal. The Dogfather is a virtuoso, and the chorus girl’s got
has more or less been a high-profile pipes that could channel the lower
musical prop ever since the “Beautiful” Hudson into Newark Bay. “Empire”
buzz died down in late 2003. He’ll work captured the 24/7 hustle and flow
with anyone (see the Andrew Dice Clay that’s central to New York’s identity,
collab), and he usually gets the job both as the Tri-State’s backbone and
done. On “Gurls,” he spits short, suave the business capital of the world.
rhymes, capping his guest stint with The song’s sound, circumstance, and

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drama conspired to induce chills. truth was revealed: Although the

track’s sound is ersatz, its appeal is
“Gurls” doesn’t supply the same realer than Real Deal Holyfield.
anthemic firepower. It simply tickles
your fancy until you scream “Uncle!” “Gurls” is a phenomenon of the first

and succumb to a guiltless belly laugh. order. And as I ogle the myriad pop

This may seem to be a lower form of numbers that cross my laptop, I find

art, but maybe that’s Perry’s point: myself opting for a slight modification

Look to New York for the histrionics of Brian Wilson’s classic refrain: I don’t

and the striving. Here in California, wish they all could be California Gurls,

we’re all about entertainment. but I’ll allow Ms. Perry to melt my
Popsicle until something better

I can accept this explanation. I just comes along.

hope that the East Coast-West Coast

(June 24, 2010)
beef doesn’t regenerate its more
malicious appendages. If Suge Knight
were to smoke Alicia Keys, Ke$ha
would have to be put down as a matter The Kills
of consequence – which, on a strictly Pale Blue Eyes
hypothetical level, might not be such
a bad thing. Thankfully, however, we The Levi’s Pioneer Sessions constitute
can stand reasonably assured that the musical arm of the company’s “Go
New York and Los Angeles will not Forth” advertising campaign. If you’ve
only coexist amicably but feed off each missed the TV spots, you’ve missed
other. Songs like “Gurls” and “Empire” consortia of uncommonly athletic men
reach such exalted heights because and women running through fields
both coasts are pumping and priming and setting off fireworks, apparently
the hype machine. When “Empire” at random and without regard for
started to fade, “Gurls” stepped in to trespassing laws. As these kids streak,
pick up the slack. With an eye towards rampage, and generally whoop it up, a
summer, it arrived with a trunk-load Whitman’s sampler of Leaves of Grass
of silliness. (Have you seen the song’s couplets are counted off in the voice-
video? It looks like a soft-core Fanta over. “Pioneers O Pioneers!” makes
commercial.) Yet as the swimsuits and for logical source material, and its lines
tank tops were unpacked, a telling are quoted freely:

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Come my tan-faced children Ferguson. Reconstruction was a real

Follow well in order, get your bitch, especially for the dungareed
weapons ready classes.
Have you your pistols, have you your
sharp-edged axes? But let’s drop the politics for the
...We must bear the brunt of danger moment, and focus on the tunes.
We the youthful sinewy races, all the The Pioneer Sessions, quite ironically,
rest on us depend are a Levi’s-mediated program of
covers songs. Contemporary artists
By the end of the spot, your blood is rework classic pop, rock, and hip hop
stirred and your loins are lubed. But joints, pioneering nothing but the
you’re also left scratching your head. degree of corporate outreach into
What, exactly, have you just witnessed? the independent music scene. From
A Hitler Youth recruitment film? An a thematic standpoint, Levi’s would
especially strident preamble to Season have been wiser to shelve “Pioneers
Two of Jersey Shore? Or a uniquely O Pioneers!” in favor of Whitman’s
American call to arms? “Song of Myself.” In this poem, Walt
states “I bequeath myself to the dirt,
I happen to be a pretty big Walt to grow from the grass I love/If you
Whitman fan. As a writer, he swung want me again, look for me under your
for the fences even as he imagined bootsoles.” Kind of flips the cosmos
a world where fences would be on “Don’t tread on me!,” doesn’t
rendered immaterial. In the context of it? “Song” is the most generous of
the Pioneer Sessions, however, don’t Whitman poems. The writer reframes
his words sound just a trifle bigoted? eternal life as an organic resurrection,
“Tan faces” and “sinewy races” in which every foot that descends into
recondition the conventional jeans the soil upturns a thousand sleeping
commercial as a Digital Age exercise spirits. This is a great metaphor for a
in eugenics. As any student of history covers collection. After all, what is a
can tell you, manifest destiny loses cover song if not an earnest retread?
some of its romance after that destiny
has been made manifest – particularly And I’ll say this for the Sessions: The
when it’s clotted with lynchings, covers that Levi’s have unearthed
border skirmishes, and dead Indians. to date run the gamut from the
We might want to move beyond earnest to the spectacular. Highlights
an ideology that predates Plessy v.

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include Nas’ sleek update of Slick rough mix of laziness and intoxication.
Rick’s “Hey Young World,” the Dirty I can’t think of a song I’d rather not
Projectors’ good-humored treatment run through a field to than “Pale Blue
of Bob Dylan’s “I Dreamed I Saw St. Eyes.” Its stark minimalism is the very
Augustine,” and the Shins’ acoustic antithesis of Whitman’s transcendental
version of Squeeze’s “Goodbye Girl.” bounty.
Overall, the terrain has been friendly,
and comes with welcome variations in Yet the song obviously proved
topography. inspirational to Mosshart and her Kills
collaborator, Jamie Hince – otherwise
The Session’s latest release, the Kills’ they wouldn’t have chosen to cover it.
take on the Velvet Underground’s The duo remain convincingly faithful
“Pale Blue Eyes,” is notable for its to the original, just adding a little
retrospective revelation: If the Kills’ more rollick and sobriety. Where Reed
Alison Mosshart had been around in and company sound dreamy and
1967, Nico would have been out of a untethered, Mosshart and Hince have
job and Lou Reed might have found their boots on the ground. Beneath
a muse less destructive than heroin. their soles lay tighter chords and more
Mosshart sings the track masterfully discernible feelings.
– which, in a sense, means that she
doesn’t sing it at all. “Pale Blue Eyes” Hince’s strumming is slack but wary,
is never going to cue a running of ever vigilant for the chorus and
the bulls, be they in Pamplona or the next verse. Mosshart’s vocals
on Wall Street. The song is a quiet recall a punkier, artier Chrissie
resignation, lamenting a love lost and Hynde, discovering that her city, her
an idyll defaced. As such, it’s kind of an innocence, and her man were gone.
anti-Pioneer anthem. Rather than go Still, she survives, calmly articulating
forth, “Pale Blue Eyes” hangs backs, Reed’s distinctions between
content to arrive fifth, sixth, seventh, conception and reality: “I thought of
or twenty-eighth – whichever number you as my mountain top/I thought
manages to help the protagonist of you as my peak/I thought of you
lose all semblance of momentum. as everything I could not keep.” The
The Velvets excelled at down-tempo vibe is less outright surrender – to
drone and sonic indolence, with the sorrow, pity, and self-loathing – than
space between their notes indicating a casual forgiveness. In this way, the

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Kills’ “Pale Blue Eyes” sparkle with here and now – finding kinship with
some of the cautious optimism of LCD Soundsystem’s “All I Want” – as
Concrete Blonde’s “Joey,” which it is of the then and there – borrowing
Johnette Napolitano memorably some of the negative charge from the
closes by intoning “Joey, I’m not angry Velvets’ “Sister Ray.” In the process,
anymore.” it captures the in-between, sounding
like the Modern Lovers singing about
The Kills don’t sound angry, just a modern love. Graded as an item of
bit disappointed. This sentiment is observation, rather than revolution, the
in keeping with the left-of-normal song shines. It won’t foment free dope
scene that the Velvets helped launch. or fucking in the streets – but, for a
If “Pale Blue Eyes” came out today, jeans commercial, it’s not half bad.
Pitchfork would be on it like white
(July 21, 2010)
on rice, championing it as a zeitgeist
track. And they’d be right: The song
sounds current in ways that “Come
Blitzen Trapper
Together,” “Sugar, Sugar,” and “I
Destroyer of the Void
Heard It Through the Grape Vine”
simply can’t. The great pop bands of
In his capacity as lead singer and
the 1960s, including the Beatles and
songwriter for Blitzen Trapper, Eric
the Rolling Stones, weren’t afraid to
Earley has shown striking aptitude
experiment, to bounce off the walls
for verse-chorus-verse constructions.
until their blood began to boil and
Tracks such as “Furr,” “Wild Mountain
their skin became scabbed. But the
Nation,” and “God & Suicide” carry
Velvets always did them one better:
the sobriety of bardy precision even as
They ripped the scab away in one
they flaunt the abandon of electric rock
quick, fearless motion, leaving blood
and roll. Earley often seems dedicated
on the floor. They were the pioneers –
to wielding his wares in the service
the youthful sinewy race on whom the
of a classic rock reclamation project,
future of independent rock depended.
wherein stalwarts like Neil Young and
Bob Dylan join hands with upstarts
Mosshart and Hince do a nice job
like Ten Years After and the James
of documenting the history that the
Gang. But his music also saves room
Underground set in motion. Their
for modern themes and latter-day
“Pale Blue Eyes” is as much of the
influences, including Beck, Pavement,

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and Wilco. These artists supply the track gives no quarter to art school
lo-fi, slacker tones that help prevent elitisms, whereby the challenge of
Blitzen’s songs from becoming too “getting it” usurps the commitment
tight or cerebral. After all, Harvest and to songcraft. Earley never attempts
Blood on the Tracks have been done to deceive or outsmart us; he simply
before – and no post-millennial band makes it plain that, on this particular
stands a chance of topping journey, he prefers the detour to the
the originals. paved road. Clocking in at six-plus
minutes, and composed of four
“Destroyer of the Void” represents a distinct song suites, “Destroyer” is as
semi-surprising change of direction for dynamic a freak-folk song as anything
Blitzen. It’s not that they’ve forsaken we’ve heard during the Chillwave
Harvest or Blood; it’s that they’ve Era. It’s a kind of sonic second cousin
spliced the acoustic pride of mid- to MGMT’s “Flash Delirium,” with
Seventies Young and Dylan onto the melodies and motifs that last for just a
DNA of Dark Side of the Moon. On few bars, then are torn asunder by the
“Destroyer,” the prairie winds meet imagination of the composer.
the lunar fringe, and the point of
intersection sounds strangely like the Which is not to say that “Destroyer”
Beatles adrift in the cosmos. Earley is discordant or abrasive. If I was
does away with linear narration and forced to describe the song in one
the trusty refrain, burying his old spells word, I’d go with “harmonious.” And
like a Pacific Northwest Prospero. I’d do it for two reasons: 1) Blitzen’s
Still, more than a modicum of Blitzen’s vocal harmonies are pitch perfect
early magic remains, largely because throughout the track, and 2) Earley’s
Earley can separate “concept” from sequential song suites operate in
“structure,” and write a song that concert to form a unified whole. The
remains thematically intact despite effect is not a collection of short
frequent shifts in style and tempo. stories but a series of book chapters,
each subordinating individual glory for
I won’t lie to you: “Destroyer” does collective integrity.
occasionally skirt the outer borders
of listener comprehension. That The suites are best understood as
said, listener comprehension is not a loose patches of rock history stitched
prerequisite for listening pleasure. The together by highly competent

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musicians. For its first minute, a piano ballad that’s equally earthy
“Destroyer” is in thrall to CSN and ethereal. “Destroyer” is the title
harmonies that allude to Queen at track from Blitzen’s most recent album,
their most bohemian and rhapsodic. and it’s in this soft, spacey, searching
Harpsichord-like keys soon enter place that the LP reveals its essence.
the pool of voices, providing a crash The record is a bildungsroman
course in the studio phrases of the without bombast, and the single
Beatles: The warm psychedelics recall is something of a synecdoche: An
Magical Mystery Tour, while the forlorn abbreviated representation of the
strings remind us of “While My Guitar aggregate, complete with wild ideas
Gently Weeps.” and grounded testimony. Earley may
have ignored the amber lights of the
This contemplative chapter gives way four-minute mark, but he keeps his
to astral synths and copious “ohh”s lyrics clipped and crisp. “Destroyer”
and “ahh”s, flipping the Beatles begins with the line, “Here’s to the
weathercock in the direction of “Lovely lone and wayward son,” a lean phrase
Rita” and “Something.” Yet as the that somehow conflates T. S. Eliot’s
track ambles forward, the George “Let us begin then, you and I” with the
Harrison textures slowly morph into cornfed rock of Kansas.
a Joe Walsh guitar solo. This arena-
rock flourish informs the next episode, Blitzen are high and low, realistic and
which sounds like Axl Rose covering romantic, alternating road-weary wit
Mountain. The pace picks up, fingers (“I fell in with men who were wicked
become fleeter, and feet start to in the end”) with misty visions of
stomp. Earley sings like he’s got a dragons, wizards, and similarly symbolic
rattlesnake in his throat, lending shake characters from the Land of Make
and sizzle to every vocal line. Believe. This marriage of man and myth
defines “Destroyer,” which plays a bit
This third suite will please long-time like Dylan on acid. (The song is tangled
Blitzen devotees, as it follows the up in tambourine men, if you will.) Its
band’s signature formula: verse- story is prone to loops and tangents,
driven struggle resolved in a choral but the tale’s hero brings it on home in
catharsis. But before the listener gets the end. When Earley sings “The future
too comfortable or nostalgic, Earley is winging like a bird/Out over the void/
downshifts into the song’s final section, And all my petty crimes and curses,

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they are destroyed,” he completes His voice is one of the five deadliest
the arc of sin and redemption. It might weapons in contemporary pop music,
sound like wishful thinking, but is hope the other four being Jay-Z’s digital
really all that audacious when one’s Rolodex, Max Martin’s production
dues have been paid, one’s stature board, Lady Gaga’s hat rack, and Justin
has been earned, and one’s guitar is Bieber’s undescended testes.
decidedly in tune?
Among the contributors to this
Like country rock and plugged-in folk, fearsome arsenal, only Jay and Ray can
cynical pop has been done before, and make credible claims to immortality.
done exceedingly well. So perhaps Both produce music that’s fit for
Earley is telling us that it’s time for annals – in Jay’s case, the annals of
Bright Side of the Moon. The lunatic urban cool; in Ray’s case, the annals
remains on the grass, but he’s free to of frontier anxiety. Nearly all of
dash headlong into the forest without LaMontagne’s songs feature a man
fear of capture or punishment. The in the midst of crisis, seeking a token
Blitzen songbook has always been female comfort or the redemptive
open to the possibilities of, well, buzz of manual labor. On his very first
possibilities. And while “Destroyer” single, “Jolene,” Ray put it this way:
is a break from the past, it honors “A man needs something he can hold
the band’s “Don’t fence me in” on to/A 9-pound hammer or a woman
ethic. You’re free to choose your own like you.” I’ve heard these lines more
adventure. Then you’re beholden to than a hundred times, and they still
deal the consequences. Rock and roll is elicit a standing ovation from the hairs
a big-tent affair, but it has no room for on the back of my neck. Some of the
the unimaginative. blame can be accorded to the beauty
of the lyric. But most of the culpability
(July 1, 2010) belongs to Ray’s husky, beleaguered
baritone.

Ray LaMontagne LaMontagne’s latest single, “Beg

Beg Steal or Borrow Steal or Borrow,” isn’t quite as raw or
affecting as his Trouble-era material,
Even on the doggiest of summer days, but it hosts the quiet desperation that’s
Ray LaMontagne can give you chills. long pervaded his acoustic canon.

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The song’s themes are evergreen: involvement in the story. If before he

ennui and wanderlust – or, translated was confessing, now he’s testifying.
into the vernacular of American folk,
closed minds and open roads. This Let’s not make too much of this
tradition, however, is tempered by a adjustment in narrative handle.
small slice of novelty: LaMontagne LaMontagne’s most bankable asset is
now has an official backing band, the still his voice, a bellow that packages
Pariah Dogs, who patch up the empty grit and grace in a manner that recalls
spaces that a solo performer is obliged Van Morrison, Joe Cocker, and Bobby
to leave unattended. This adds girth Womack. Part country, part soul, this
to Ray’s sound even as it robs it of the voice gives “Beg” a steady hand
immediacy that “one man, one guitar” and an honest intensity. Ray paints
seems expressly designed to deliver. a Hopper-like portrait of small-town
“Beg” is warmer and thicker than angst, his claustrophobic protagonist
“Jolene,” yet it has little of the latter’s itching for a taste of whatever the
bleary-eyed starkness or material highway might bring. The single
urgency. This track conjures emotions, slowly blossoms into a harvest of old
not tears. And it communicates that influences and contemporary passions.
LaMontagne, for better or for worse, It packs the sober drive of Neil Young’s
has pushed past the boundaries of “Old Man” and the country twang
first-person songwriting. of Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Teach
Your Children,” thus reimagining the
Consider the song’s first line: “So your aesthetic possibilities of the CSNY
hometown’s bringing you down.” On franchise. It also carries the backwoods
Trouble, Ray would have scrambled stomp that Jack White recently
the perspective, and gone with “My brought back to Nashville, as well as
hometown’s bringing me down” – the unplugged, “let-it-grow” fervor
or perhaps something less direct that Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes
and more poetic, so as to color the have planted in the Pacific Northwest.
composition confused, wayward, and When you combine this pastoral
romantic. But this is not Trouble. And conviction with postmodern unease,
this is not Ray LaMontagne circa 2004. you get LaMontagne’s call to action:
His maturity is marked by his ability “One of these days it’s gonna be right/
to transcend the self and become a Soon you’ll find your legs and go/And
story teller divorced from personal stay gone.”

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This take-to-the-road spirit is part and They’ve made their choices and they’ll
parcel of Outlaw Country. But it’s also never know
the essence of second-generation What it means to steal, to cheat, to lie
classic rock, a genre that derives What it’s like to live and die
much of its directional integrity To prove it all night
from “We gotta get out while we’re
young/’Cause tramps like us, baby, The difference, of course, is the
we were born to run!” Take away degree of estrangement; which,
the exclamation mark and you’re almost as a matter of course, plays
left with the dry-palmed gravity that like a difference in the degree of
LaMontagne imparts to “Beg.” By commitment. Whereas the Boss has
replacing the Jersey fist pump with a hatched his own escape plan – and
hinterland beard stroke, Ray converts is trying desperately to convince his
the fuel of Born to Run into the fire of girl that his love, his ambition, and
Darkness on the Edge of Town. His his promises are worth the risk –
song’s chorus – “Young man, full of big LaMontagne is merely reporting on
plans/Thinking about tomorrow/Young another man’s predicament. The crisis
man, you’re gonna make a stand/You is still there, but it’s existential rather
beg, you steal, you borrow” – could be than elemental, with the protagonist
the rich man’s rebuttal to the attitudes thinking too much and doing too little.
expressed in “Badlands.” And the final
couplets of the final verse – “Dreamin’ There’s a truth to this approach. In the
of the day you’re gonna pack your planetary aggregate, more small-town
bags, put the miles away/Just grab flights are conceived than carried
your girl and go where no one knows through. But the drama, as it were, is
you/Oh, what will all the old folks say?” with the getaway car. If a young man
– sounds an awful lot like the entreaty is willing to beg, steal, or borrow, then
that Springsteen used to seal the fate he should be ready to steal, cheat,
of “Prove It All Night”: and lie – that is, to lay it all on the
line and never look back. Sure, such
Baby, tie your hair back in a long terminology places us squarely in
white bow the theater of the cliché; but clichés
Meet me in the fields, behind the only become clichés because they’re
dynamo commonly understood. This familiarity
You hear their voices telling you not eventually breeds contempt, as the
to go

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phrase is overused to the point of Mark Ronson &

vulgarity. Good songwriting, however, the Business Intl
should be vulgar, meaning that it’s Lose It (In the End)
obliged to allow a certain measure of
demotic comprehension and popular Mark my words: Record Collection,
buy-in. But it should also be refined, the hotly anticipated LP from Mark
demanding that its craftsman show Ronson & his Business Intl, will be the
an uncommon flair for the interplay of pop album of the year. This is not an
sound, word, and image. entirely naked prediction. I make it
on the strength of three pre-released
Songwriters like Bruce Springsteen and singles – “Bang Bang Bang,” “Lose
Ray LaMontagne are national treasures It (In the End),” and “The Bike Song”
because they need just three chords – which, in their aggregate, feature a
and four minutes to turn the mundane transatlantic guest list that includes
into the extraordinary. On “Beg,” everyone but Mary Queen of Scots.
LaMontagne doesn’t quite complete Each song is infused with the zeitgeist,
this magical transformation. We get his playing out that ever-deliberate battle
voice, which is beautiful, but we don’t between the high-tech and the human,
get his personal perspective, which is the turntable and the guitar rack, the
essential. There’s gossip in this grain, dance floor and the concert stage.
but it feels oddly detached, like a Ronson not only has his finger on the
second-hand account made to stand pulse of Young Anglo-America, he’s
in for the whispers of the prime mover. also dictating the normative range of
I’d prefer Ray uncensored, unfiltered, beats per minute. His headphones
and unfettered. He’s talented enough serve as something of a stethoscope:
to go it alone. The man is Dr. Pop, alternately
supplying remedies and issuing
(July 5, 2010) prognoses.

“Lose It” is his most compelling brand

of medicine – not because it goes it
down easier than “Bang” or “Bike,”
but because it has a longer period of
efficacy. I’ve been listening to the track
several times a day for the past two
weeks, and it’s still growing on me. The

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beat is epic, occupying the heretofore Phantom Planet and returning Ronson
unpopulated sphere between a collaborator. He draws the unenviable
truncated Bach toccata and an amped- task of bookending Ghost’s guest
up version of “The Legend of Zelda” verses with an airy R&B hook. Those
theme. It’s both Baroque and digital, familiar with Wu lore will recall that
balancing technical command with the only man deemed fit to introduce
contrapuntal swagger, as if to prove Ghost is the late, great Ol’ Dirty
that the act of “dropping science” can Bastard. I doubt that Greenwald would
be performed either in the laboratory deign to lace up ODB’s mud-caked
or on the street corner. Tims, but, in the interest of Ronson’s
track, he serviceably carries the vocal
Much of this science is dropped by component, sounding at once poppy
Ghostface Killah, the V.I.P. MC whom and forlorn – that is, English.
Ronson recruits to spark the track.
Ghost bounds into the beat, bringing After all, the Business Intl are not quite
an earnest grit to the song’s pulsating, as cosmopolitan as their name might
video game undertone. Like all Wu- imply. Their formula, as devised by
Tang veterans, Ghost knows how to Ronson, is to conflate American hip
back you up and beguile you at the hop with British dance pop. This is a
same time, issuing vague threats and slight deviation from Ronson’s previous
pointed humor in rapid sequence. For obsession, which was to pair U.K. neo-
my money, the track’s choicest couplet soul with classic Motown. Inevitably,
concerns Ghost’s take on the lubricants both productions derive from the same
of love: “I stay in clubs drinkin’ the place: the post-millennial recording
white gin/’Cuz y’all girls is poison, studio. Ronson is like a three-star chef
peace to Mike Bivins.” That’s the first in a test kitchen – prone to intrepid
Bell Biv DeVoe reference I’ve heard experimentation, but smart enough
since the mid-Nineties. And Ghost to keep the ingredients palatable. His
pulls it off without a hitch, quickly genre-bending is impressive because
moving from old friends to newer it’s not forced. Ronson largely adheres
editions. His two verses are short but to the blues-based traditions of the
memorable: all Killah, no filler. American and English pop canons,
mixing R&B with hip hop and rock
The toughest job on “Lose It” falls with funk.
to Alex Greenwald, lead singer of

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This is a rather polite way of saying wide enough stance to accommodate

that he doesn’t punish his audience three distinct generations, like a Patek
with cold, unattenuated, Moroderized Philippe watch or the effects of a faulty
forms. Twenty-minute synthscapes, all chromosome. Such singles are useful
hard and minimalist, are simply not because their onset of action isn’t
his style. staggered. Mom, sis, and grandpa
could conceivably initiate an a capella
“Lose It” clocks in at a swift 2:27. version of the tune at the Thanksgiving
Contained therein is an expert dinner table, in between servings of
instrumental build, Greenwald’s deft turkey and pumpkin pie. Pitch and key
interludes, Ghost’s wicked rhymes, aside, I’d argue that this impromptu
several hype horn samples, and a serenade is actually a good thing,
closing bell of pounding percussion. not just for familial bonding but for
Ronson’s track covers a lot of ground, national accord.
but it’s neither overconceptualized
nor underdisciplined. It’s a generous, Let’s frame this debate in the fields of

master-class caliber pop gem. 2010’s pop crop. At some point during

I’m proud to have it in my record the year, you’ve probably experienced

collection. And I look forward to Train’s “Hey, Soul Sister” or Katy Perry’s

meeting its brothers and sisters. “California Gurls,” either in audio or

video form. Choose one track as your
(August 14, 2010) baseline variable, then ask yourself the
following question, even if it’s entirely
hypothetical: Could this song maintain
the collective interest of me, my
Cee-Lo Green
children, and my parents for more than
Fuck You
a two-week period?
Although the year in pop music is
getting a little long in the tooth, it’s I’m going to hazard a guess. And
been decidedly short on the type of that guess is an emphatic “No.” Not
one-size-fits-all anthems that mislead because the songs are inherently
us into thinking that America still has flawed or improperly marketed, but
some semblance of cultural unity. because pop music now adheres
I’m speaking of songs that push the to the promotional strategies of
threshold of universality, striking a blockbuster film: The opening
weekend means everything – so the

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emphasis is placed on the preview, not holds its grip for the duration of its run
the feature. We expect epic turnover time, from verse to chorus to bridge.
in content and don’t like to look back If anything, it gets progressively
more than a month or so, for fear of better, channeling its pressure gauge
being called a straggler. Songs have from firehose to fountain, leaving the
got to put up or shut up, which means listener drenched in liquid gyrations of
that many worthy singles are buried melodic glory.
prematurely, often to the sound of
silence. I can think of only one contemporary
pop single that’s as instantly
I’m hoping that this will not be the arresting as “Fuck You”: Robyn’s
case for Cee-Lo Green’s “Fuck You.” “Dancing on My Own.” But even this
The track’s title will obviously fortify comparison is faulty, largely because
its appeal to the under-18 set, who we’re dealing with a fundamental
require at least one expletive or sexual difference in caliber. In terms of
reference per pop single. But make no overall infectiousness, Robyn merely
mistake: “Fuck You” is not a novelty transmits a stomach flu. Cee-Lo,
song. It succeeds in spite of (rather on the other hand, delivers an STD
than because of) its name. Green heretofore undocumented in the
dresses his track in casual chic attire, clinical literature. To be less clever, and
supplying a head-bobbing rhythm and more callous, the difference between
a finger-snapping beat, each of which the communicability of “Dancing on
is indebted to Motown’s Funk Brothers My Own” and “Fuck You” is analogous
and ATL’s prime hip-hop export, to the difference between the relative
OutKast. severity of HIV and AIDS.

Ultimately, the best measure of the I use an insensitive analogy because

song’s merit is expressed in a single “Fuck You” is designed to elicit a
data point: its level of infectiousness. strong reaction from the listener. The
On a scale of 1 to 10, “Fuck You” lyrics are addressed to a recent ex,
scores an 11 and change. It’s effective whom Green encounters amidst his
immediately, like a bracing squirt daily routines and rituals. She’s with
of hand sanitizer, a tart letter of her new boyfriend, and the passing
resignation, or “Hey Ya!” Yet it’s not of the proverbial torch lights the fuse
all wind up and no pitch. The song on Cee-Lo’s barrage of f-bombs.

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The cursing is neither gratuitous nor smooth and steady. “Fuck You” takes
especially angry; “F U!” is simply the an alternate route, using Cee-Lo’s
default reaction to witnessing one’s inimitable pipes and hyper-honest
lady with another man. We’re working lyrics as its central selling points.
with known knowns here: She’s clearly Like another soul man with the last
a whore and he’s clearly a douche. So name Green, Cee-Lo doesn’t sing
why not exploit the universality of the so much as sang. He can shift from
situation? falsetto to croon in a single vocal line,
allowing the emotive to overpower
That’s the irony of Cee-Lo’s pop the intellectual. If “Crazy” was the
masterpiece: Here we have the most cerebral Cee-Lo, this is him at his most
radio-friendly single of the year, and instinctual. His wounds manifest in
its title precludes it from being played the form of blame and petty derision.
on the radio. Luckily for Green, no “If I was richer/I’d still be with ya,” he
one actually listens to radio anymore. testifies, later upping the ante with
His track will blow up on the Internet, “I pity the foo-ooo-ool/Who falls in
spreading like wildfire along the love with you,” perhaps hoping that
California coast. If he hopes to make his melisma will soften the slight. The
any money off “Fuck You,” he’d better Best Supporting Vocals statuette goes
release it on iTunes before I finish to Cee-Lo’s partners in harmony, who
writing this sentence, like Taylor Swift throw in a timely “Ooops she’s a gold
would’ve done in the event of a leak. digga/Just thought you should know
One song, however great, isn’t going ni**a.” The delivery is so charming that
to sustain his momentum all the way you’ll forget that Kanye West used the
up to his album’s tentative release same rhyme scheme five years ago.
date, in December.
Cee-Lo, however, is intrinsically
But let’s not worry about that now. different from Kanye, Big Boi, and
Instead, let’s enjoy the track’s virtually every other “urban” artist in
transfixing piano clunk, soaring pop music. His vulnerabilities are the
harmonies, and jingle-jangle guitar. essence of his appeal, not something
The latter element reminds me of to be revealed merely to counter
the Spinners’ “It’s A Shame,” another charges of egomania. Green projects
lamentation on the faithless woman, a sort of anti-swagger, in which he’s
but one where the R&B comes always being undermined by some

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uncontrollable urge or irresistible He refuses to recognize the hard

force. On “Crazy,” it was manic boundaries between the confessional
depression. On “Fuck You,” it’s a and the anthemic, so his work tends
lady. Both times, the muse inspired to alternate between seduction and
a cathartic track. By professing his concussion. “Fuck You” aspires to
lunacy, Cee-Lo seemed to negotiate master both conditions by juggling a
the task of transcending it. And by personal statement with a universal
flipping off his ex, he’s taken the first narrative. In practical terms, this means
step toward forgetting her. This song is that the song can’t decide whether
that rare track worthy of vintage Prince: it wants to be liked by millions or
wronged but upbeat, profane but loved by thousands. To be fair, pop
confessional, simple but funky. songs never had to make this decision
when content was valuable and radio
“Fuck You” closes with a bout of was viable. But “Fuck You” doesn’t
emasculated desperation, moving have the luxury of an Alan Freed or a
from tenuous resolve to cry-baby Casey Kasem. It’s an anthem cruelly
appeals. When Cee-Lo sees his little deprived of a flag to salute – so it
red Corvette being piloted around assembles a salute all its own, using
town by another fellow, he comes little more than a frown of disgust and
spectacularly undone, pleading “Baby an extended middle finger. For some,
baby baby why ya wanna hurt me so this constitutes a freak flag. For others,
bad?/I tried to tell my mama but she it represents a naughty little caprice.
told me ‘This is one for your dad’.” For me, however, the filth and the funk
The first line could come from a coalesce into the best pure pop single
Smokey Robinson ballad, the second of the year.
from an early Beatles number. Cee-
Lo winks even as he weeps, evincing Whether or not we’re willing to
a musical economy that’s perfectly admit it, America needs this song. It
attuned to today’s social media, where shouldn’t let a four-letter word stand
curse-addled multitasking is not just in its way, even if it’s used with extreme
recommended but compulsory. prejudice and frightening repetition.
Perhaps today’s pop music has to be
That said, Cee-Lo is probably a bit adequately offended before it can
too uncompromising to conquer the cease to be thoroughly offensive. Sure,
mp3 generation, never mind their this is an opportunistic conjecture;
CD- and vinyl-toting forebearers.

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and, yes, I duly concede that your far better soundtrack. Cee-Lo is trying
contrary opinion is just as worthy as to provide it. And since we’re fortunate
mine. But if you’re more outraged by enough to live in a liberal democracy,
Cee-Lo’s language than the fact that we’re blessed with two distinct
“Love the Way You Lie” has been the choices: Either buy in or get the fuck
#1 song in the country for more than out of his way.
a month, we’ll be hard pressed to find
even the slightest sliver of common Vote red or blue, early or often, for

ground. change or for stasis – but, for God’s

sake, at least have the conviction
This polarization is symptomatic of to show up at the polls. Our pop
America’s current state of intractability. franchise is too valuable to bequeath
We have many problems, from the to an oligarchy of rhythmless MBAs.
economic to the existential, but I think Let’s take America back, one Billboard
our musical crisis still demands some slot at a time.
token attention. Simply put, a nation
(August 22, 2010)
of, by, and for the people deserves a

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anthony M. Verdoni is the president of

Green & Byrd, a fledgling advertising
firm based in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
He has written about pop music for
the better part of four years, garnering
several meaningless awards that
needn’t be specified here. He holds
diplomas and/or post-due tuition bills
from such schools as Boston College,
Rutgers University, Princeton University,
and P.S. 33 of Jersey City. Singles On
Speed is his first book. He intends to
write another – but he’s not sure when,
how, or why.

Singles On Speed is dedicated to Kenny Marino (1943 - 2010),

a classical music fan who was cruelly deprived of his coda.

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