Pretty Goes with Pretty

My Listening Hours: The Rest of January–March

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
When this album came out last year I was mildly interested in hearing it but also felt that I was kinda done with Wilco. Then all the reviews I read said it was boring, and the two mp3s I downloaded didn’t put up much argument. Five or six months later it seemed to be on everyone’s best-of-07 lists, so I gave it a shot all over again, this time the whole album. My ultimate reaction is somewhere between “boring” and  “best of the year.” The album starts and ends with some of the band’s strongest songs ("Either Way" sticks in my head for days at a time). But the middle sags, to the point that I rarely feel the urge to put the whole album on. I cherrypick my favorite tracks onto playlists instead. Part of what bothers me is that transparency of the influences on some of these tracks: the chorus of “Hate it Here” screams Beatles, and Jeff Tweedy’s delivery on “What Light” is like karaoke Dylan.

Neu!, Neu! 75
Neu!'s third and last album is just six songs, split down the middle between what Michael Rother wanted to do (synthy pseudo-ambient, a la "Seeland") and what Klaus Dinger wanted to do (guitar-driven punk riffing). Somehow it feels cohesive anyway—probably because both approaches still utilize a kind of tunnel effect—the songs move in one direction, little digression in terms of dynamics or structural shifts. Whether relaxing to the first half or waking up to the second, all six tracks on Neu! 75 envelope you. A little dated, but also a little of what I've wanted/needed lately. Like Animal Collective's "For Reverend Green," I've been drawn to songs that create a kind of sonic effacement. That probably doesn't make a lot of sense; but it will require a longer post to explain.

Vashti Bunyan, Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind
Standing in the record store, my wife and I held this collection in one hand and Bunyan’s debut album in the other. I think we were beguiled by that white coat she’s wearing on the cover, and the fact that there were twice as many songs on this album. There are a lot of great songs here; she's got a fantastic voice and often great lyrics (I find the sentiment in "Leave Me" refreshing for a pop song). But perhaps because this wasn’t a composed album, rather a collection of demos and outtakes from the same era and just after, it becomes a bit overwhelming. Twenty tracks of Bunyan’s morose lo-fi laments gets a little tiresome. One at a time, great, but tough to take as a whole.

Panda Bear, Person Pitch
I like Person Pitch, but I’m at a loss to figure out how it was at the top of so many lists last year. On the list, sure—but the very top? I think there are far fewer ideas happening here than it gets credit for; I don’t really hear what Person Pitch is trying to accomplish in forty-eight minutes that "Bros" doesn’t do in toto in twelve minutes.

The Mae Shi, Hlllyh
My full review of the album (including mp3) can be found here. My brilliant wife, after listening to the album herself, called me out: “you don’t really like it as much as you say you do, right?” The answer is I don’t know, maybe. A great deal of what I like about Hlllyh is tied less to the actual music and more to my memories of going to shows every weekend in a warehouse in downtown Phoenix or a house party in Tempe—just a crowd of smelly dudes watching their friends go apeshit in front of them (no actual stage, of course). Truth be told if I hadn’t gotten this album for free I wouldn’t have bought it. Now that I own it, I skip it as often as I let it play when the songs come up on shuffle.

Os Mutantes, s/t
I’ve had an album’s worth of Os Mutantes songs in my iTunes for years now, though it wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I finally bought a proper release. Where better to start than this, their debut 1968 album? It doesn’t contain my favorite OM song—that would be the Rita Lee-sung version of “Baby,” rather than the version here—but there's plenty else to love, like the jubilant "Senhor F."

LCD Soundsystem, 45:33
To be honest I've only owned this album for a couple weeks, and probably listened to it three times since picking it up. So my opinion is not fully formed. I'll say this though: it's not my ideal workout mix.

Terry Riley, In C
Because you know what is my ideal workout mix? In C. I swear, I plug in my headphones, get on the treadmill, and start jogging my ass off to In C.  Who needs a house beat when you have Riley's patterns and clusters? If only my body had the stamina to run for an hour fifteen. I poop out around, uh, 45:33. I get completely lost in this piece. I've only got a handful of contemporary composers in my collection—Glass, Reich, and a 3CD compilation tracing the origins of electronic music which hits a lot of the well-known twentieth-century avant-garde composers. A few months back I mentioned that this was an area of music I knew was in my future. In C might be the piece I needed to hear to make that future come a little sooner. (You can download all of In C for free from last.fm.)   

Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
I'm actually surprised that I dislike this album as much as I do. I don't hate it, but based on how terrific I found Satanic Panic in the Attic, you'd think I'd be taken by the obvious aesthetic leaps the band is taking. I can respect the growth—there's even songs, like "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger," that I really like—but as often as not I find Hissing Fauna to be terribly grating. The harmonies are almost abrasive on "Suffer for Fashion" or "Faberge Falls for Shuggie," and "The Past is a Grotesque Animal," all twelve minutes of it, just sounds like Kevin Barnes had the studio time so he indulged himself.

Buckingham Nicks, s/t
In another My Listening Hours post from a few months ago, I went on about Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which sparked a lot of comments as to the worth of the group. My feeling on the band was that Lindsey Buckingham’s songs are far and away the best of the bunch, both on Rumours and on Tusk. Stevie Nicks’s voice is of course distinctive and, when her songs aren’t tainted by pop-cultural oversaturation, her songs can be great too. Really it’s just bland Christine McVie that weighs down the albums. So it seemed logical that searching out the out-of-print (but easily gotten) Buckingham Nicks—which the duo recorded prior to joining Fleetwood Mac—might yield great results.

Turns out this is a pretty perfect encapsulation of my post from a couple months back, “Do I Want to Go There,” in which I wondered aloud when, exactly, my jones for music from the 70s would steer me wrong. The vast majority of Buckingham Nicks is bona fide MOR schlock. Some good melodies here and there, but frankly the album cover should rightly scare you away.

George Harrison, Dark Horse
On a similar note, George Harrison’s Dark Horse was also disappointing. A couple good songs—particularly "Simply Shady"—but most of the album showcases Harrison’s weak voice, directionless songwriting, and bad sax, none of which I expected from George.

Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the albums coming out in the next few months that have me most excited.

My Listening Year: The Best of 2007 (New Release Edition)

1. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha [mp3: "Fiery Crash"]
Other albums released this year might have been more ambitious, more audacious, more immediate, more dramatic. But the simple fact is this: no other album occupied my time more than this one. It's musically and lyrically sophisticated, not without humor or irony but never self-conscious either. And it's the best kind of album, where every single song, at one point or another, is your favorite.
Previously: my review of the album

2. Peter Bjorn & John, Writer's Block [mp3: "Paris 2004"]
I never got obsessively into Writer's Block the way I did with Armchair Apochrypha, but like a faithful dog, this album has never been far from my iPod. There ain't a single bad song here, and best of all there is a lot that is different from "Young Folks," lest you form your opinion based on that one overplayed track. (I gave you "Paris 2004" here; I love the unexpected timing of the chorus.) I played the hell out of Writer's Block for the first part of the year, and I've consistently returned to it after the honeymoon, still loving each and every track from first to last.

3. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga [mp3: "Eddie's Ragga"]
Easily the best-produced album this year. I knew I liked this album for its songs, but once I started listening to it on headphones and started noticing all the little details, it got even better. Radiohead could take a few lessons from Spoon in terms of using the studio as an instrument. As if everything else Spoon does, they know when to use it and when not to use it. "Eddie's Ragga" is a good example: listen to it on headphones and hone in on that guitar. It's basically one chord for the entire song but the sound of the subtly guitar changes throughout.

4. Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala [mp3: "Shirin"]
Easily three or four of my favorite songs of the year are courtesy Night Falls Over Kortedala. The album drags a little in the middle—one too many songs with that syrupy layer of strings—but as time goes on even the songs I liked less on first listens have been growing on me. I can tell that I'm not done with this album yet.

5. Radiohead, In Rainbows
Last week I mentioned that after listening to In Rainbows, I stopped abruptly and haven't felt the need to go back. That's still true, but in anticipation of this post I did put it on once more, and darn it but I can't deny that it's a cohesive, well-thought-out, engaging album. My feelings on my personal relationship to Radiohead aside, this is an album with few faults.
Previously: my review of the album; Radiohead teams up with the Eagles to fuck record stores; and of course, "All I Need" rendered as lolcats.

6. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
This album is getting a lot of love right now, showing up at or near the top of many other best-of-the-year lists. For me, seven of this album's nine tracks are fantastic, which is enough to get it on my list; I just wish it didn't totally crap out on the last two.
Previously: my thoughts on "Us v. Them"

7. New Pornographers, Challengers
I got into the New Pornographers late, and hence picked up their other three albums all at once. I wound up processing all those albums as one large body of work. Challengers, therefore, is the first New Pornographers effort I've taken on its own terms. That might be why I appreciated this album's layers more than others did. I'm not sure what I would have thought if the band had done Electric Version 2.0—would I have embraced a dozen more super-charged anthems or would I have felt like they were spinning their wheels? Who knows. The bottom line is that Challengers is different, but not too different. I appreciate that. I've said this before, but: I never would have thought my favorite tracks on a NP album would be the slow songs, but that's what happened. For an album I'd been anticipating all year, Challengers somehow managed to be a pleasant surprise.

8. Feist, The Reminder
Heading into 2007, this was my most-anticipated album. So of course it disappointed a little. And by now I'm all Feisted out for a while, what with the ubiquity of "1234" making discussion of Feist too polarizing to be interesting (come on, just listen to this music—there's nothing polarizing about it; you either love it or you're ambivalent about it). At any rate, The Reminder succeeded for me as a collection of ten or twelve great Feist songs, though it failed as an album. It didn't quite cohere, though most of these songs will continue to pop up on various iTunes playlists, guaranteeing consistent rotation around this house.
Previously: my review of the album; my suggested resequencing of the track list; and my post on "Adult Alternative"

Bring In Da Noise, Leave Out Da Funk

There’s been a good deal of discussion this week about Sasha Frere-Jones’s article in the New Yorker, “A Paler Shade of White,” in which he laments the lack of black influence in indie rock. Yes, his claim is truly that dubious. Many other blogs have already dissected this article and its many flaws—most notably Status Ain’t Hood, the Existence Machine, and Clap Clap—so I won’t go into too much detail, other than to list the article’s three most significant flaws. As Richard Crary says at the Existence Machine, SFJ’s points are either “too vague and, as a result, largely dubious,” or “too specific, and hence sort of silly.”

First, as nearly everyone else has pointed out, SFJ is being too selective in his examples, picking on Arcade Fire but ignoring !!!, the Rapture, Battles, Amy Winehouse, Cold War Kids, White Stripes, Spoon, My Morning Jacket (check the reggae influence on Z), Tortoise (an egregious omission, coming from a guy who was in Ui), and of course the official (as of last week) biggest indie band on the planet, Radiohead. The percussion on at least half of In Rainbows is heavily influenced by jungle, which itself is based on sped-up hip hop beats.

Some of the bands I’ve mentioned there aren’t technically indie, though they do play to the indie audience (among other people)—and I didn’t even mention Beck or Bjork or Gnarles Barkeley (am I allowed to note actual black people or does that ruin the game?)—but that’s the second flaw in SFJ’s argument: he is arbitrarily lamenting the loss of black influence on “indie rock,” a term notoriously ill-fitting as a descriptor, as it can be applied to an aesthetic or to a business decision. SFJ himself doesn’t seem to hold himself to a concrete understanding of the term. He picks on Wilco, a band on a label owned by Warner, but then dispatches the entire genre of rap-rock in one dismissive statement.

Finally, most problematic for me is that SFJ deigns to draw these lines at all. By now—i.e., the twenty-first century—music has already passed through its postmodern stage and come out the other side. To say that concepts as broad as “rhythm” or “swing” are purely the forte of black music at this point is a little ridiculous. The sound of modern music is like the outcome of a game of telephone. For instance, many people are holding up LCD Soundsystem as an example refuting SFJ. James Murphy's act is obviously dance music, but his direct influences sound to these ears more European than African-American. Brandon Soderberg, in a comment to the Status Ain’t Hood post, made a similar point:

For example, James White & The Blacks were taking from James Brown and free jazz as well as punk-ish, nowaveish contemporaries. Now, one gets the sense that bands get their rhythmic influence from only stuff like James White and the Blacks.

My question to SFJ, then: is that necessarily a bad thing? Is a band inherently wrong in the execution of music-making to “only” be influenced by James White, and not James Brown? If the end result is good, it doesn’t really matter.

SFJ seems to implicitly acknowledge that the black influence is so ubiquitous that it’s nearly pointless to try and identify, for he doesn’t go after modern-day groups that incorporate elements of jazz or blues or gospel (the Killers!) in their music: he only goes after the one genre of music that is still explicitly tied to black culture: hip hop. And frankly that is where his whole argument finally derails. There is an entire genre of music dedicated to the white co-optation of hip hop, and SFJ himself notes that it fucking sucks. He further digs his own hole at his blog, where the conversation continued. A reader pointed out the ludicrous attempt to “devote an entire section of your article to white rappers without mentioning any of the successful indie/underground examples… like Aesop Rock or El-P.” SFJ’s response was that he ignored those acts—get this!—because they weren’t popular enough!

Eminem is the rapper known to people all over the world, just as Zeppelin was the rock band that everyone knew. What struck me was how many good blues-derived rock bands of the seventies there were and how few white rappers (really only one) are big, good, and important. I have lots of time for Atmosphere and El-P and MC Chris, without thinking hard. I was simply trying to outline the pop landscape against which indie rock is working.

Which brings us back to just how SFJ is defining his parameters. Indie rap is covered fairly extensively by indie rock outlets (just yesterday Pitchfork ran a news item on the possible reunion of Company Flow), so how are these artists not working against the same pop landscape? Why exclude independent white rappers, yet attack an alt-country band on a major-label subsidiary, and try to use that as an example of how “indie rock” has lost its soul?

Update: my brilliant wife read the New Yorker article last night and made three excellent points.

1. Did he really ask why Devendra Banhart doesn't rip off R. Kelly? I'll tell you why: he's too busy mining Latin music. Miscegenation lives!
2. Where would Brian Wilson be if doo-wop (and choral music) didn't come first? Viva miscegenation!
3. Seriously, the guy makes a lot of interesting, possibly valid points—but why does he place a value judgment on them?

Us v. Them

Last week Fluxblog and Clap Clap had a nice exchange about LCD Soundsystem’s “North American Scum.” Fluxblog said it nicely—

[T]he spirit of the track fits nicely with my prevailing mood in the 2007s. It's agitated and defensive, but eager to puncture the self-righteousness of its imagined rivals. It's THE song if you despise what your country has become, but have no desire to call any other nation your home. It's THE song if you love New York City, but hate the way it is nearly impossible to live here without becoming obsessed with money and status, whether you have it or not. It's THE song if you're ambivalent about being part of a hegemonic culture, but secretly fear a shifting international status quo that may increasingly marginalize you and your experience over the rest of your life. It's THE song if you want to fight, argue, and create, if just to prove people wrong about you and your people.

—and Clap Clap took the ball and ran with it, breaking the lyrics down verse by verse and really examining what’s being said. Interesting stuff, since I’m personally someone who usually analyzes lyrics insofar as they’re intelligible. I rarely pull out the lyric sheet unless I get the sense that something truly important and poetic is being said. (Surely, I suppse, I miss a lot that way.)

Fluxblog also pointed to older posts by Marathonpacks about “All my Friends” and Derek Miller’s post about “Someone Great” at Stylus. Personally, my favorite song on Sound of Silver is “Us v. Them,” which I think captures what I like best about LCD Soundsystem all on one track (an mp3 of which I supplied to you, dear reader, in this recent post). James Murphy is an interesting personality on record; he can shift fluidly from winking amateurism to pro pop attitude. Half the time Murphy sounds like he has little ability to sing at all—his voice cracks, he’s well aware of the humor, the idiocy of dance music for hipsters—but then he can shift into real, un-self-conscious performance: harmonies, bold voice, range. He does it on the album’s opener, “Get Innocuous,” and again here. The man could be slick if he wanted, but that would be less interesting.

Part of what kept me from embracing LCD Soundsystem in the past is what I think of as Brooklyn Irony—that self-aware disavowal of earnestness, in deference to fashion. You can’t make a point without being funny, or believe in something without acknowledging the stone-throwers before they cock their arms. But as Clap Clap and Fluxblog have both pointed out, Murphy slides in his observations right underneath those winks, nudges, and beats, and at some point you realize the guy is a lot more astute than his dumb dance music might have you believe. 

My Listening Hours: Looking Forward

Surprisingly, there’s not a whole lot to look forward to in the next few months. Now that fall is upon us I would have expected a slew of releases looking for a stocking-toe to warm. But according to this list, the next three months only see a whopping four albums that pique my interest.

Beirut, Flying Cup Club (10/9)
This album comes on a wave of hype but I’m keeping my expectations in check. I only picked up Gulag Orkestra a few months ago, and I found that album to be intermittently brilliant and occasionally overblown. My favorite tracks were the two or three that leaned more heavily on electronica and eased up on the Eastern European stuff. The Old World material works, but to my ears only in moderation. Based on the one song I’ve heard so far ("A Sunday Smile"), I’m optimistic that Flying Cup Club will be a more rewarding effort from beginning to end.

Radiohead, In Rainbows (10/10)
I don’t even really know what to say about this album other than… I’m curious, in lowercase letters. Having only announced the album’s release this past weekend, all the music blogs have been obligated to force the requisite amount of hyperbole into a short span of time, so that they can be properly fatigued and prepared for backlash by, say, October 11. My giddiness for Radiohead has waned in recent years, though I remain intrigued by them and would never presume to discount their ability to awe. Apparently there are live versions of the new songs floating around on youtube—if you’re interested, you’ve probably already seen them—but I’m going to ignore them. I have not been anticipating new Radiohead, and now that it’s suddenly cropped up I think I’d like to quietly give it a listen and appreciate on its own, expectation-free terms. I'm approaching this album for what it is: a pleasant surprise, not an earth-shattering game-changer.

Sigur Rós, Hvarf/Heim (CD) and Heima (DVD) (11/6)
I’ve been faithfully buying each Sigur Rós album ever since Aegitus Byrgun blew my mind seven years ago. And while I think they’ve gotten progressively less interesting with each release—Takk came and went in my iPod—I remain optimistic that there is at least one more brilliant album in their future. (What I’d really like to see is the band make some more radical choices in the studio; I’d like to hear something more raw, more rough). I don’t think Hvarf/Heim is going to be that album, though my still pick it up, faithful dog that I am. The two-disc set is a collection of unreleased b-sides (Hvarf) and acoustic versions of songs from their previous four albums (Heim). The latter actually intrigues me more than the former, if the intention is to reveal the humanity behind the band’s otherwise ethereal sound. Meanwhile Heima is a live DVD, directed by none other than the guy who made Lilo & Stitch! I’m usually not one for concert films, though the trailer looks nice.

LCD Soundsystem, 45:33
I didn’t pay attention to this when it came out earlier this year as a Nike-sponsored iTunes exclusive—mostly because the phrase "Nike-sponsored iTunes exclusive" is a major bummer. Also, I didn’t become a true convert to LCD Soundsystem until after I’d owned Sound of Silver for a good two or three months. Now that I’m more interested in the band, and the workout mix is being released as a CD with bonus tracks (also, I think Nike’s name is no longer attached to it), the whole thing seems a little more beguiling. Plus, I totally joined a gym this week. Kismet.

And… that’s it. That’s all I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year—and two of them are only a week away! Maybe I’ll use the time to catch up on the few 2007 releases I missed but am still curious about: Iron & Wine, PJ Harvey, Battles, Tied & Tickled Trio, Okkervill River (I really want to like these guys, but…), Panda Bear (ditto), and Rufus Wainwright all come to mind as albums I’d buy if the right stars aligned. Or maybe I’ll just buy more Byrds albums.

How about you? What are you looking forward to?

My Listening Hours: The Best of 2007 So Far

My top ten of the year is, so far, just a top six. But in my book that means 2007 has been a pretty fantastic year for new music. Thus far, only my #1 pick seems unassailable; the remaining albums are all still jockeying for final position; I reccomend them all equally.

I won't bore you with more longwinded posts. Today, just a list, an mp3, and links to things I've said previously. Check back tomorrow for a look at what's still to come before 2007 is over.

1. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apochrypha. [mp3: "Heretics"]
See also my album review, or this post, which includes an mp3 of "Scythian Empires"

2. New Pornographers, Challengers. [mp3: "All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth"]
See also the post from earlier this week, which includes an mp3 of "Challengers"

3. Peter Bjorn & John, Writer's Block. [mp3: "Lets Call it Off"]
See also this post, about accessibility vs. experimentation, which includes an mp3 of "Roll the Credits"

4. Feist, The Reminder. [mp3: "So Sorry"]
See also my album review, my suggested resequencing of the album, and this post on "Adult Alternative," which includes an mp3 of "Brandy Alexander"

5. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. [mp3: "Don't Make Me a Target"]
See also the post from earlier this week, which includes an mp3 of "The Ghost of You Lingers"

6. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver. [mp3: "Us v Them"]
Sorry, I got nothin'.

And you? What's your best of the year so far?