listlessnesslessnesslessness

(albums edition)

[but first, a metacritic update: and their refinement of the decline dropped from #2 to #4 thanks to the addition of this justifiably incredulous but still horribly written 1.5/5 review (presumably underweighted.) i still haven't heard it (though i want to) so not sure why i'm so keen on reporting about it, except that i want to make up for my initial skepticism of tired sounds of. (i have now heard untrue, or at least most of it, and am not entirely convinced.)]

i don't really believe in compiling finalized year-end lists until at least the end of the year. but it is certainly time to start getting my thoughts together, for mix-envisioning purposes (really not sure about that, but i do have an ostensibly working optical drive now), or if nothing else for the twin critics polls, which both have next friday as their deadline (a relief, as i'd thought one was this friday.) don't want to end up with another 2005 on my hands.

still, stuff's tough. years are just too long, for one thing, and this year feels especially poorly defined, both personally and musically. it's hard to even know what counts as '07 sometimes.

technically '06 albums i'll probably count anyway:
sally shapiro, disco romance (released dec '06 in europe; oct '07 in canada - dunno about u.s.)
joan as police woman, real life (released in uk/feted online '06; released us '07)
long blondes, someone to drive you home (similarly)
keith urban, love pain and the whole crazy thing (released november '06, so it's fairly questionable, but i didn't hear it until early '07 and loved it.)

albums that i considered for '06 (and mostly didn't like at the time) and therefore don't seem like they should count (even though i like several of them a lot more now) although they were released here in '07 (in what felt like a total onslaught):
the pipettes, we are the pipettes
peter bjorn and john, writer's block
lily allen, alright, still
amy winehouse, back to black
i'm from barcelona, let me introduce my friends
fujiya and miyagi, transparent things
cornelius, sensuous (the only one i'd consider possibly including, since i may have given it an unfair shake last year.)

some of my favorite albums of the decade (that have never been on my year-end lists) which i could probably fudge as '07 if i wanted to, even though it would be totally unfair:
robyn, robyn (sweden release '05. uk release april '07. uk re-issue august '07. us release december 4th, allegedly???)
rachel stevens, come and get it (uk release '05. american itunes-only release june '07 wtf.)
marit larsen, under the surface (norway release '06. but for some reason i didn't fall head-over-heels for it/her until this year. and it is maybe possibly maybe going to get a u.s. release sometime maybe soonish? probably not in '07 though i guess. maybe '08?)

other '06 albums that i only heard/got in '07 and would otherwise have listed:
aberfeldy, do whatever turns you on (but nobody heard it. amg review forthcoming)
extra golden, ok-oyot soundystem
sid and susie, under the covers, vol. 1
hot chip, the warning (i know, i blew it.)
regina spektor, begin to hope (ditto)
justin timberlake, futuresex/lovesounds (heard '06; loved '07 - by dint of the singles one could theoretically decide to count it, but actually i refuse to even count the '07 singles.)
nôze, how to dance (pretty left-field - but i'm diggin' it.)

additional confusion:
radiohead, in rainbows (okay, it was "released" in '07. and is indisputably an '07 album, perhaps the zeitgeistest of them all. but it's also an '08 album, since the u.s. physical release date is january 1.)

as for albums which i can't actually invent qualms about voting for, well, i can at least wring my hands about comparing apples with oranges whose appeal stems from totally different places. (and don't tell me oranges don't have stems and apples don't have peels.) roughly in order of preference in each category:

indie (rock?) about which i give at least a damn:
low, drums and guns (a strong #1 contender - it's old and lived-in now, but that shouldn't count against it too much.)
okkervil river, the stage names (i tend to give them too short a shrift, but they still haven't managed make anything as immediate and pleasurable as the wonderful don't fall in love with everyone you see again - i get the sense they haven't really been trying.)
the national, boxer
the clientele, god save the clientele
lucky soul, the great unwanted

(indie?) rock, about which likewise:
spoon, ga ga ga ga ga
pop levi, the return to form black magick party
the new pornographers, challengers
maxïmo park, our earthly pleasures
the ark, prayer for the weekend
arctic monkeys, favourite worst album title

some sweet-ass hipster dance albums:
lcd soundsystem, sound of silver
justice, †
m.i.a., kala
simian mobile disco, attack decay sustain release
a-trak, dirty south dance
bonde do role, with lasers

electronica or something like it (mostly listeny, not dancy)
caribou, andorra
pantha du prince, this bliss
gui boratto, chromophobia
strategy, future rock (just got it, but really liking it so far)
the field, from here we go sublime

rootsy/folky/country/soul/ABM ladysingers:
devon sproule, keep your silver shined
alice smith, for the lovers, dreamers and me
miranda lambert, crazy ex-girlfriend
patty griffin, children running through
feist, the reminder
bettye lavette, scene of the crime
mirah and spectratone international, share this place
sharon jones and the dap-kings, 100 days, 100 nights (eh...to be honest i'm kinda getting over the whole dap-thing. hopefully seeing sharon on friday will re-excite me.)
taylor swift, taylor swift (haven't actually really listened to the album, but i think i know i'll like it)

[why no menfolks? you tell me. mostly my listening prejudice - haven't given much of a fair shake to iron and wine, donnie, nick lowe, or other possible contenders here. though these categories fudge and bleed anyway.]

sentimental favorites from back in the day (an auspicious category):
tracey thorn, out of the woods
the good the bad and the queen, the good the bad and the queen
they might be giants, the else/cast your pod to the wind
the apples in stereo, new magnetic wonder (it feels like a guilty pleasure just when i thought i was immune to them. i think they planned it that way.)
jarvis cocker, jarvis

[elliott smith's new moon probably ought to be on here, but for some reason i didn't listen to it all that much.]

jazz?
the bad plus, prog (?)
jason moran, artist in residence (?)
floratone? nels cline singers?
(oh, what the hell: )
battles, mirrored
the budos band, ii

rap?
hmm. not sure. lethal bizzle (the new sway for '07)? devin the dude? aesop rock/el-p? yeah, ok whatever. should listen to dizzee and weezy and jayzee s'more.

so far that's all well and good, but it really gets confusing when i try to rank those against pop, which is getting to feel like a fundamentally separate interest, with separate tendencies and listening habits from the kind of music that other people who think they like music think they like. hm hm.

pop albums that are better than their singles
aly & aj, insomniatic
the veronicas, hook me up
hilary duff, dignity
will.i.am, songs about girls

pop albums that may well be at least as good as their singles
britney spears, blackout
linda sundblad, oh my god
roisin murphy, overpowered
sophie ellis-bextor, trip the light fantastic
kylie, x

pop albums that aren't as good as their singles, but are still pretty great (and/or the singles are so good it doesn't matter):
r. kelly, double up
rihanna, good girl gone bad
amerie, because i love it
skye sweetnam, sound soldier
amy diamond, music in motion
sugababes, change
avril lavigne, the best damn album title
katharine mcphee, katharine mcphee


fairly disappointing but still somewhat interesting albums that i wish i liked more, and should probably listen to again, just to make sure:
tunng, good arrows [=not as good as their first two albums]
patrick wolf, magic position [=not as good as its singles]
shins, wincing [=really not as good as their first two albums]
of montreal, hissing fauna [eta: actually, this is a lot better than i gave it credit for.]
sondre lerche, phantom punch
colleen, les ondes silencieuses [really wanted to like this but no dice]
bjork, volta [really wanted to like this...it works better when i'm not trying so hard]
jens lekman, night falls on kortedala [omg what was he thinking?]
von südenfeld, tromatic reflexxxions [omg what was i thinking?]
chemical brothers, we are the night [...yawn...]

sparks & spears & sophie & so on (cont.)

a couple more things, still riffing on jordin sparks.

first, to correct an oversight (you might want to read the last post first if you haven't...if you care...if you dare): even though it was mentioned on the teenpop thread, i neglected to note/recognize that "see my side," which i mentioned as by far the sweetest (almost wrote sweedest, ha) of the recent bloodshy/avant crop, was written not just by karlsson/winnberg and åhlund, but also by r. carlsson. which is of course (not me, though i am also r, carl's son!) but robyn, of robyn fame. (of whom discogs has more images than it has credits - well, under that version of her name.) (sorry tapestore - is that someone i know? - but i'm pretty sure the connection probably came via bloodshy and windbag, er, i mean, since apparently they'd already submitted the track to britney. nice thought though - let's keep working on that.)

which, come to think of it, makes perfect sense, because it has an extremely similar sensibility to robyn's heartbreaking closing trilogy, particularly "eclipse" and "anytime you like" - it's not quite as achingly gorgeous as those two, but it's close, and i can imagine robyn doing a pretty stunning rendition of it. (actually, as long as we're getting particular, robyn didn't write "eclipse" - she didn't write "robotboy" or "handle me" either; åhlund did. she does have the third co-credit on "anything you like" with two people i don't know - how significant do we think order of credits is? but the point holds.)

meanwhile, "young and in love" is (in addition to b&a and their frequent crony h. jonback) by cathy dennis, who is a bona fide legend in this game - behind hits from basically everyone in uk chartpop starting with spice girls and s club 7, peaking with kylie, and recently sugababes ("about you now" - with dr. luke!), sophie ellis-bextor ("catch you") and roisin m. (non-album tracks only) and a legit artist in her own right. her previous co-writes with b&a include rach stevens' "sweet dreams (my lax)" and, oh yeah, "toxic."

besides jordin's album, i've been following the links and connecting the dots for sophie la-bex's trip the light fantastic and for kylie's x, both of which i've only started to listen to recently, and about which i feel much greater capacity to care. which is partly because they're almost certainly better albums; partly because i have a much better sense of who sophie and kylie are, as artists and people - tho you can blame that on the no tv if you like i guess. how much those two factors are linked is a crucial question i want to get into a little bit later. anyway, trip has cathy dennis/greg kurstin (who till has no wiki entry, amazingly), pascal gabriel and hannah robinson, xenomania, the guys from sneaker pimps, the feeling, and the b-52s...though, imporantly, sophie has a co-credit on every song except the dennis/kurstin "catch you." x, with minogue credits on just over half the tracks, has dennis, hansen/jeberg, calvin harris, freemasons, karlsson/winnberg with karen poole (of alisha's attic), kurstin/minogue/poole, and, if wikipedia is to be believed, which i doubt, kurstin producing a bloodshy/avant/poole/minogue/quant co-write.

also kat mcphee's album, which in stark contrast to sparks' has no scandinavian names - and the difference is quite audible - but does have six kara dioguardi credits and six nate hills credits (five overlap.) and "open toes" is written/produced by the clutch (along with those two and kat herself), who also did "ice box," "like a boy," dave's two favorite keke palmer songs, and blackout's "radar" and "freakshow" (the latter, interestingly, britney's only writing credit on the album)... both of which are bloodshy/avant tracks, not danja tracks.

which is interesting, because it means the scandinavians electro-pop crew were working together with the american r&b crew (the clutch, which seems to be a slightly loose collective, are timbaland proteges or something; at least they include keri hilson.) though knows how directly they were working together - actually, the liners reveal that all of the bloodshy tracks were recorded partly in the states as well as in stockholm. well whatever.

it's really hard to say what any of this means. how do these songs get written? how much of the way credits are presented is based on legal/contractual considerations that don't necessarily accurately reflect the creative process? in the vast majority of the cases i've been looking at, the producer or producers are credited as among the writers of a given song. which in plenty of cases probably makes sense, especially for sonically inventive/electronic-based music where so much of the song's essence comes from the production rather than the writing per se. but to what extent are songs usually finished before they go into the studio; or to what extent do "'songs" sometimes get fleshed out after the creation of the beats and backing arrangements (which counts as "production.")

i've been fairly focused on songwriting credits lately, in my amg pieces as well as these posts here - calling attention to it, for various reasons, in my reviews of albums by the veronicas, rachel stevens, skye sweetnam, and marit larsen - and while it makes sense as an interpretive key of sorts, it also feels strange to be so fixated on. i do feel in some ways that my interest in pop has been taking a turn for the academic ... that at least a lot of the recent stuff i've been listening to hasn't managed to excite me quite as much on a musical level as some things in the past - or, certainly, to engage me on an emotional level.

indeed, as much as i enjoyed listening to and familiarizing myself with the skye and 'ronnies albums for review - and i stand by my (respectively) generally positive and enthusiastic assessments of them - neither has shown exceptional sticking power. certainly neither has compelled me (so far anyway) to keep listening and re-examining the way rachel and marit's albums have (in both cases i came to fundamentally new shades of understanding in these most recent revisitations.) meanwhile there's been this whole series of teen-pop and dance-pop albums - most of which, admittedly, i only have as itunes playlists - that i've been enjoying, to a greater or lesser extent, but that have so far largely failed to stand out as especially distinctive. that'd include the new ones by sugababes, roisin murphy, keke palmer, ashley tisdale, amy diamond, vanessa hudgens, and the aforementioned sparks, mcphee, kylie and sophie e-b, and aly + aj (though that one is making major strides - probably shouldn't be on this list anymore.)

admittedly many of these will require more listening, though some are simply not going to be worth the effort - my overwhelming impression of a lot of this is that it's, well, overwhelming - just too much, too fast, that's all impressively good but not quite great. and though of course there are some stylistic distinctions among these various albums, i'm struggling to distinguish them more fully. so i guess i may be delving into the minutiae of credit information, in part, as a shortcut to understanding them.

but i'm also on some level trying to link these lackluster impressions to the effect of having too many cooks, as it were. as fascinating as it is to realize how incestuous and intertangled the world of mainstream pop/r&b/dance/etc. can be - especially when the behind-the-scenes players intermingle internationally (well, across scandinavia, the u.k. and the u.s.) even though the public personas often don't - it grows increasingly harder to know what to make of all this prodigious cross-collaborative output, let alone to keep the endless but recurring array of practitioners straight.

many of the albums i listed above have quite a hodge-podge of writers and producers working on various tracks, as i've sort of demonstrated in exhaustive detailed. insomniatic is a clear exception, and is decidedly stronger for it - as are the veronicas and skye album's (though the latter is pretty scattershot even with the same producers/writers on 9/12 tracks) - though it should be noted that all of these are much more pop/rock than anything else on the list, despite their dancy frills. (same goes for ashlee's two albums, primarily the work of the sorely missed simpson/dioguardi/shanks trifecta.)

some other (slightly less recent) albums that are primarily written and produced by the same people: linda sundblad's oh my god [all songs sundblad/karlsson - a different one - with a couple adding others - max martin on one, klas åhlund on "lose you"], sally shapiro's disco romance [the possibly fictional sally herself doesn't write anything, but mr. johan agebjörn wrote all but two songs and produced everything], and the work of bertine zetlitz, especially her last two albums, which were produced entirely by fred ball [aka pleasure] and written entirely by zetlitz/ball. (two people...made the whole album? is that even possible?) the shapiro album and zetlitz's rollerskating are two of my absolute favorite albums at them moment - and the sundblad's pretty great too - i'll hopefully have reviews for all three up on amg shortly.

so those are some scandinavians (there's also annie and robyn, both of whom are starting to get seriously overdue for new albums - but though they do co-write most of their material, neither of them write all of it, and both of their celebrated albums had a fair range of different producers involved, which is interesting to note in light of how auteurist their public personae tend to be.) then there's madonna's confessions on a dancefloor [all madge co-writes; all with stuart price and/or mirwais except for two bloodshy/avant tracks] and hilary duff's dignity [a handful of producers, including, hilariously, richard "humpty" vission, but 12 out of 14 cuts are by dioguardi/duff, often with the producer as a third co-credit] - both solid if not amazing, but certainly stylistically cohesive.

and then there's blackout. it's telling that this album has, by far, fewer producers (or, maybe more relevantly, fewer production teams) than any of spears' albums since her debut - either five or six, depending on how you count the clutch, but basically only two for 3/4 of the album. to recap: four tracks are produced by bloodshy and avant (two with the clutch co-producing) and five are produced by danja. that leaves one by the neptunes, one - "heaven on earth," very possibly my favorite track - with music by onetime (?) ambient electronica duo freescha and vocal production by kara dioguardi, and one - consensus weakest-link "ooh ooh baby" (though i kinda like it; possibly too bad they didn't actually sample the turtles) by dioguardi and "fredwreck" nasser, who also did something on the mcphee album. anyway, as i think i've established, it's quite cohesive sonically and consistent song-wise, and, well, it just keeps growing on me, even though my interest in it has relatively little to do with britney herself.

i'm happy to continue absenting myself from the controversy over the extent of her actual involvement, as fascinating as it is. as far as i'm concerned, as long as the job is done and done well, i'm not going to complain - and whoever it is that's behind blackout has accomplished something pretty remarkable, just by virtue of creating an album that stands out from this season's teeming pack. i will point out, however, that there is only one person listed as executive producer for this album. and that's britney, bitch.

one disclaimer, and one final question. just to be clear, i certainly wouldn't want to contend that a record needs to have a reasonably consolidated writing/production crew to work well as an album. my review of rachel stevens' come and get it - which just might be my personal yardstick for the entire genre - should make that evident enough (even though it's definitely not the album-iest album.) similarly, kylie's fever - an obvious touchstone of an '00s pop album if there ever was one - is cobbled together from a surprising array of talent (truly, surprising - i'd always assumed it wasn't so much, because the sound is so consistent, but nope.) and then, of course, i'll always have paris ... the presence of many sets of writers and producers did little to stop me from erecting a grand glittering interpretive edifice to its conceptual perfection. and i don't think i need to say any more about that.

but as a general rule - and as one would imagine - albums with fewer writers and producers do tend to hold together better as albums. the exceptions generally have some other overarching unifying element - a clear shared stylistic approach, or a front-person with enough individuality, vocal/lyrical distinctness, or sheer force of personality to make everything hold together.

so my question is this: what is the historical context for albums with songs by many different writers and producers? i know it's a longstanding pop tradition in some ways (tin-pan-alley, brill building, motown, what-have-you), but it seems like there's been a resurgence and an intensification, probably just within the last 15-20 years, and possibly increasingly over that span. it seems at least partly related to the rise of hip-hop and r&b (and even in those genres it has gotten far more pronounced - even when the black album came out it was a big deal that each track was by a different producer, which i guess would still be noteworthy today, but i think less so.) if there are discernable trends along these lines, can we link them to other trends in the nature of pop albums?

and, more broadly, what else can be said about the historical development of the pop album? admittedly, it's a somewhat academic, limited question - in pop, albums will always be secondary to singles and songs - but as both a confirmed poptimist and albumist, it speaks to a very present tension in my musical exploration, and as year-end album list time grows ever nearer, it's also timely one - and i'm gonna keep on teasing it out.

it's poppin'

okay, liveblogging as i listen to jordin sparks' self-titled first album for the first time. and browse wikipedia musing on the tangled connections in the pop universe. 'cuz, why not.

first track/first single "tattoo" - written/produced by stargate, the same norwegian team behind "so sick" and "irreplaceable" and "hate that i love you" (and three more songs from good girl gone bad) and it sounds exactly like those songs, which makes me realize how much they sound like each other. (stargate also did mis-teeq's "scandalous" which sounds most different from these of anything i recognize in their discography.) it's not bad - the title metaphor (he's written on her heart like a tattoo) sort of continues the trend somebody pointed out of everyday objects (lip gloss, open-toed shoes, vans i guess) taking prominence lately over namechecking big brand names.

doesn't feel like it should be the first song on the album - it's probably not good enough for one (though, i haven't heard the rest of it yet), but it has that kinda epic vibe that comes on too strong off the bat. irreplaceable (from which the drum groove is lifted verbatim, with added open hat or two) was track 9 on b-day (b'day, get the punxuation right) until the bollixed deluxedition when it was moved to track two (after new track beautiful liar, which is also by stargate. think they're hot right now or something?

scanning the writing credits, every song except for maybe three has at least one writer with a conspicuously scandinavian name.

track two - "one step at a time" - really love the footsteps sound for the beat - surprised that hasn't been done more often. especially before the rest of the beat kicks in, but i like how it's still audible throughout. lovely lilting harp riff very reminiscent of ryan leslie's production for cassie. (i guess i'm thinking of "just 1 night" in particular.)

ok, good, production credits here. (should discogs and wiki merge?) (they're my top two resources for amg bio research.) so the producers/writers are jonas jeberg, who also has credits on vanessa hudgens' V (under the name Jay Jay) and mitch hansen, aka cutfather, who hasn't done much since the new jack era, apparently, when he used to work with soulshock (aka carsten schack), the dane best known as half of the duo behind, well, all kinds of things, including more recently-ish, leave (get out) and some jamelia stuff. [eta: and skye's "kiss a girl"] and also robbie nevil, an american who's apparently been around forever (had a song on the cocktail soundtrack) but doesn't seem to have much connection to current stuff. jeberg and hansen also worked together on a track for kylie's X (working their way from the end of the alphabet i guess?)

"no air," duet with chris brown, about whom i have managed to remember nothing so far, though i guess he's supposed to be important somehow. his name sure sucks. producers/writers are eric "bluetooth" griggs, who has no other credits that i can find, but does have a good name, and the underdogs (whoa, harvey mason's son!) who have been around and worked with lots of r&b names, and pink, britney, and kat mcphee in case they don't count.) ok whatever. not norwegians.

"freeze" is by stargate again. not too impressed.

"shy boy" on the other hand, is neat-o, with snaky synths snaking all over the place (sometimes into midi-ringtone arpeggiator territory, but that's cool) and bleeps and vocals and whatnot. and a minimal (hyphy-ish, i guess) boom-bap and processed vocals. it's by bloodshy and avant.
produced by them; written by them (aka christian karlsson and pontus winberg, whose name sounds like pompous windbag) and the bassist (?) j honback, and klas åhlund of teddybears.

bloodshy and avant are half of the reason i decided to write this in the first place. they are responsible, of course for ("toxic" as well as) four of the key tracks on blackout, the album that's been fascinating me more than most these days. (åhlund also has a co-credit on "piece of me," which means another coup for the robyn/teddybears camp, although i haven't yet been able to notice robyn's b. vox on that song.) according to their very interesting wiki article, B&A wrote more songs intended for blackout that were rejected and subsequently given to sparks (three songs including "shy boy") and to jennifer lopez (the title track of her new album brave)
and to kylie (two of them appear on X - a-ha, another connexion - the very ones tom ewing complained about in pitchfork as sounding like nu-britney. er, also the one he said sounded like ol'-daft punk.)

yeah, bloodshy & avant (what names, right?) have a knack for smashing productions that almost totally obscure the artist "fronting" the track in the process. "toxic" never really sounded like britney to me one whit, i can barely even recall what she sounds like on it. actually of this recent crop j-lo may fare the best - she sounds reasonably like herself on "brave," which makes sense since she possibly has the strongest (in character, not quality) voice of the four. also there's enough harmony in the song that it doesn't feel as frosty as many of the others.

of the jordin tracks - actually of all ten in this crop - "see my side" stands out as the most sweetly touching - music-box harp lines, simple melody, gently pleading "see my side and i'll see yours better." the chorus has funny big boom-bap beats that don't quite fit but don't quite disrupt it either. "young and in love" is more in line with the other tunes - it frankly sounds like a blackout reject. need to hear it more to know if there's anything worthwhile in it; doubtful.

i've jumped ahead and gotten off my album-sequence reportage schedule. which is okay, because i never really cared about the album in the first place. the other half of the reason i'm writing this, in case you were curious, is that two of the tracks were co-written by espen lind, a one-time tourmate of one-time norwegian idol finalist alejandro fuentes (chilean-born, unlike josé gonzález who's only argentinian by parentage), who i don't care about really but i was gonna write a bio on him for amg. but i didn't because i wrote this instead. oh yeah - lind co-wrote "irreplaceable" too (and a ne-yo song, and an elliott yamin song), and stargate produced one of these two songs; the other one was produced by 'espionage' which i'm guessing is lind's producer-hat moniker.

okay, just for the sake of completeness: two of the other tracks, "next to you" and "permanent monday" were produced by one emanuel kirakou (what kind of name is that?) who did two songs i don't remember for kat mcphee and one ("love me for me") for ashleey tisdale, and were co-written with an l. robbins who's connected to people whose names are vaguely familiar (melissa o'neill, anastacia.) and the last song is by a friend of hers, which might be worth paying attention to, but i don't have time now.

i guess the thing to get to, eventually, is the question of what all of this does to the identities of pop artists and pop albums. it's no shocker and no news that albums are (often) cobbled together from the work of multiple songwriters, producers, etc. and hence often don't have a lot of personality - that's where the weakness of a sparks or a mcphee comes through; not having enough force of personality to make a record cohere when there's nothing otherwise coherent about it. i guess having a good executive producer or whatever has to be important, but you never hear anything about that.

but when the individual producers and writings have such strong styles - and especially when those styles are as dramatic iconoclastic as bloodshy & avant's recent work - that you recognize them as they crop up again in lesser and lesser variations across the albums of second- and third-tier artists, we end up with a handful of interchangeable albums that are familiarly, systematically piecemeal.

"toxic" sounded fairly out of place on in the zone; the producers of blackout were savvy enough to run with b+a for much of the album, so that the style ("sliced up" vocals, among other things) is now, already and probably inevitably, shorthanded as "nu britney," since we heard it there first and best and most. and, better, they aligned those tracks with the sympathetic style of danja + co (who do essentially the r&b take on the same basic premise), and a few other producers who seem to be on board with the general concept. i don't know how it came about, exactly, but clearly there was a concerted effort to put together something stylistically cohesive and fresh-sounding. the fact that the style they came up with for it is also has this curious and unsettling effect of distorting the singer (to the extent that she becomes enmeshed within the production rather than riding on top of it) is either convenient or consciously confundatory or both. it's tremendously provocative either way, and blackout is almost certainly the most innovative pop albums of the year, as well as one of the most enjoyable.

jordin sparks on the other hand, frequently sounds fantastic...but leaves me with next to nothing. scandinavians are magic, as is well known. but even magic can only do so much.

plug tuning, pt. 2

i'm not enitrely ready yet to commence the year-end listing, and all the soul-searching, self-imposed self-conscious listening that entails - to say nothing of the year-end mixmaking - though bedbugs' fairly comprehensive '07 teen-pop round-up makes a good inspiration/starting point. but here goes i guess the last mix-tape i made in regular season play this year, which will stands as a sort of informal beginning to that process, since it rounds up many of my favorites from the first two-thirds of '07 (and the last half or so of '06); and i'll use it as a way to begin commenting on those artists/albums/tracks, as seems appropriate.

it's possibly the most 'conventional' mix i've made in ages, which is to say that, even more than its mood-based predecessor (which drew from a wider array, temporally speaking) it has no especial theme or organizing principle other than to survey recent highlights in a way that makes an enjoyable, relatively cohesive listen.

Title: Musician Plugs II (subtitle: paren(t)heses)
Format: 2 CDs
Date: September 2007
Packaging: similar to the design of the original, with inserts made from that same calendar, but in a long, DVD-size jewel case (the fancy kind that allows two discs to fit on the spindle.) this time it's ingrid bergman on the front/inside cover, and humphrey bogart on the back cover, and for some reason i decided the track listing on the calendar squares should be upside down with respect to the numbers. so it's pretty hard. i won't even bother showing you a picture of the track list for the first disc (which is in the tray, underneath the cd) - look down to see the list for the second disc (which is inside the 'booklet'.)

incidentally, the critics have been raving:

"Your musician plugs covers are works of genius."

- my dad

DISC ONE

1. LCD Soundsystem, "Someone Great"
2. Caribou, "Sandy"
3. Patrick Wolf, "Overture"
4. The New Pornographers, "My Rights Versus Yours"
5. Battles, "Leyendecker"
6. Keith Urban, "I Told You So"
7. Miranda Lambert, "Guilty in Here"
8. The Blow, "Parentheses"
9. Spoon, "Finer Feelings"
10. Pop Levi, "Flirting"
11. The Long Blondes, "Weekend Without Makeup"
12. Okkervil River, "Black"
13. Hot Chip, "No Fit State"
14. The Ark, "Let Me Down Gently"
15. Gui Boratto, "Xilo"
16. Aberfeldy, "Hypnotized"
17. M.I.A., "Paper Planes"
18. Oakley Hall, "Living in Sin in the USA"
19. Patty Griffin, "I Don't Ever Give Up"
20. Feist, "1 2 3 4"

DISC TWO

1. Low, "Hatchet (Optimimi Version)"
2. Margaret Berger, "Naive (16)"
3. Lauryn Hill, "Lose Myself"
4. Junior Boys, "Count Souvenirs"
5. Regina Spektor, "Better"
6. The Good, The Bad and the Queen, "Behind the Sun"
7. Maxïmo Park, "Books From Boxes"
8. The National, "Fake Empire"
9. They Might Be Giants, "Climbing The Walls"
10. Arctic Monkeys, "Flourescent Adolescent"
11. Andrew Bird, "Heretics"
[alternate selection: Joan as Police Woman, "Eternal Flame"]
12. Joanna Newsom, "Cosmia"
13. Ellen Allien + Apparat, "Way Out"
14. Tracey Thorn, "Falling Off a Log"
15. Amy Winehouse, "Tears Dry On Their Own"
16. The Hold Steady, "You Can Make Him Like You"
17. The Gothic Archies, "The World Is A Very Scary Place"
18. Beirut, "Scenic World"
19. Barbara Morgenstern, "The Operator (Single Edit)"
20. The Bird and the Bee, "Again and Again"
21. John Vanderslice, "New Zealand Pines"
22. Jarvis Cocker, "Black Magic"
23. Marit Larsen, "Solid Ground"

[stay tuned for commentary on the tracklists]

metastatic

or, stars of the burial field, and their untrue refinement of the sublime

i've got a question, it's serious as cancer. ok, it's not, but it's mildly interesting: why are the top three slots on metacritic's best-reviewed albums of 2007 list occupied by three obscure electronica albums? one german, one american, one british. all decidedly obscure to the general public, as compared to for instance current top-five runners-up robert plant and radiohead. and all relatively unheralded, at least until recently, even in online music circles; only one of the three even has an amg review yet. (whoa - it was a billboard #2 new age album.) (and, admittedly, i've only heard one, though i know essentially what the others sound like.) so what's going on here?

is 2007 a banner year for techno? has last year's impressive showing of support for the knife's silent shout blossomed into a full-on resurgence of interest in electronic music. possibly so - did i actually get around to trumpeting the return of big beat? (more vulgarly known as electro-house or blog house or, i guess, new rave - yknow, justice and simian and dgtlsm and that?) cuz i'm pretty sure nobody else did.

but this is something else anyway - atmospheric, minimalist, not really dancey at all. nobody uses the term IDM anymore (almost nobody?) - which is a good thing - but it used to be synonymous with "ambient." "minimal'"s become meaningless (and is something else again.) john schenk and the kölnizers call it pop ambient, bedbugs calls it naptime, and i've been taking a cue from lullatone and thinking of it as pajama pop. pajambient? [i really enjoy the notion that this kind of music could be "pop" despite not foregrounding melody, harmony, or even rhythm.]

apart from the motley reigning trio - and if you want to get specific, burial's technically dubstep; stars of the lid are truly minimalist drone artists; and the field could reasonably be called trance or some hipper modifier thereof - eluvium's copia (#21 on the metacritic list with a metascore of [84]), pole's steingarten ([82] - it recently fell off the top 30), and pantha du prince's this bliss all occupy this general genrescape. (copia's probably the least similar - it's essentially non-electronic music made by an electronic artist. on that note, susumu yokota and colleen also released records this year.) the boundaries are blurry, but then so is the music.

but i'd contend that these kinds of electronic or electro-acoustic mood music, ambient/drone/what-have-you, are always around, as it were, in the background - or have been for decades, anyway - albeit only occasionally attracting attention. they were never likely to find mass appeal - a trend of widespread popular interest in them would just be illogical, although i suppose "new age" had its heyday. and it's such personal, intimate music (almost always made by individuals), and so subjective anyway in terms of quality, that it's difficult to construe in the context of a movement or a socially significant scene. if there is a phenomenon afoot - which i'm definitely skeptical about, even though i have personally been taking more notice of this stuff recently myself - it's hard to imagine it as anything more than an incidental waxing of critical interest.

which is of course all that metacritic intends to represent anyway. after all music guide and wikipedia, meta (as my bookmark shortens it) is probably my third most frequently visited site in my insatiable quest for music-related knowledge, even if the actual information it contains is relatively limited. if the other two take their authority from self-declared expertise and the democratic process, respectively, metacritic's is founded on something close to science (with a side helping of the other two.) unlike that other mathematically-calibrated barometer of critical consensus, the more credible but less idiosyncratic pazz'n'jop poll (and its new doppelganger, the idolator critic's poll, nee jackin' pop), metacritic bases its aggregate rankings on actual reviews as they come out, rather than critics' pre-meditated, self-mediated year-end lists.

which makes it a lot more unpredictable, and generally less beholden to tastemaker consensus - it sometimes reads as less relevant, but who's defining that anyway? and it fluctuates constantly. my austinite erstwhile roommate and i will occasionally track and discuss the shifting rankings as if they were sports statistics - for a long time we were debating whether anything would manage to upset from here we go sublime, which a firm lock on the #1 spot for over six months, peaking at [95] if i remember correctly. gradually, additionally overwhelmingly positive reviews (in the 90 range) diluted that down a few points, and then and the refinement of their decline was added to the list, months after its april release, holding the top spot until untrue's unearthing a couple weeks ago. (incidentally, the only overtly dance-based electronica album i can remember even touching the top 30 is justice's opposite-of-ambient † [81] - unless you count lcd soundsystem.)

my inkling at the time was that the metacritic method skews towards niche albums - records in genres with a supportive core audience but that are unlikely even to be reviewed by critics without a specific interest in the genre. it's a reasonable bias, and even a desirable one (vs. p'n'j's tendency to favor least common denominator), which helps to highlight forms with limited audiences, like underground electronica (is there any other kind left?) and world music (such as last year's #1, ali farka touré's savane.) but it also, maybe counterintuitively, favors more broadly palatable, "adult"-leaning selections of the sort i sometimes call ABM or dad-rock, which the hipper blogs and 'zines will often ignore - hence strong showings this year from patty griffin, richard thompson, suzanne vega, and nick lowe, among others. it's a narrow line - albums must be reviewed in a sufficient number of publications even to appear in the database, but once included, they're all on roughly equal footing regardless of the number of reviews - and fewer reviews can often be an advantage.

burial [92] and stars [91] have 11 reviews each, as did farka toure [94] last year; the field [90] still only has 14. radiohead [88] have 40 - obviously it's not always a disadvantage. there were no electronic albums on last year's top thirty - has the entrance policy consciously diversified to allow this crop in? - although '05 had isolée's wearemonster at #3 [89] with 12 reviews, and also kraftwerk, the books and konono no. 1, if any of them count.

based on the admittedly rough indicator of percentage overlap in their top tens, metacritic has become an increasingly accurate predictor for pazz'n'jop over the past seven years, possibly because the burgeoning blogosphere has helped to consolidate critical consensus - there were five overlapping picks last year and six in '05, but only four the two years before that, and three from '00-'02.

at this point, i'd say it's unlikely that more than three - maybe four - of the top ten overlap with pazz'n'jop, or jackin' pop (though those two will surely overlap substantially, especially since they're both calling for ballots early this year.) frankly, the metacritic top ten is a bit of a mess right now - the top three are causing a collective freakout in the user comments, les savy fav feels bizarrely fluky, and the upstart physical release of lcd soundsystem's 45:33 upstaging its own artist's actual '07 album by six places is simply poor form. it was much neater up until a month or so ago; more plausible when radiohead, the arcade fire, and sound of silver were among the top 3, and at least more interesting when patty griffin, miranda lambert, battles, and panda bear were.

but hey, a weird year for critical consensus could well indicate a great year for the critical community, and for music in general. i certainly have no complaints; even as i find myself looking farther and farther afield for contenders for my own list, i'm already sitting on a pile that it will be somewhat torturous to choose among. and i better get on it... it's getting to be that time. meanwhile though, i've been painstakingly polishing off reviews of many of my favorites c. 2005-06, for amg - hopefully i'll make it through that batch soon too and can start tossing things off with somewhat less excruciating care. see you soon.

plug tuning, pt. 1

Title: Musician Plugs
Format: CD
Date: 2002, it must have been. april i think?
Packaging: in a jewel case with inserts made from a time-life "faces of the 20th century" calendar meredith gave me from back in the 20th century. half of greta garbo upside-down on the cover; the other half rightside-up inside. clark gable on the back. the calendar part (from the back of the pictures) is in the interior tray and i traced it onto the cd itself too:



also, calendar inside the 'booklet,' forming the numbers (mostly) for the tracklist:

1. super furry animals • some things come from nothing

2. boards of canada • roygbiv
3. wilco • radio cure
4. damon albarn, afel bocoum, toumani diabate, et. al. • kela village

5. the mountain goats • horseradish road
6. aphex twin • {siding nails}
7. empire state • bugs in the system
8. califone • trout silk
9. infectious organisms • city limits
10. tortoise • equator
11. spoon • take the fifth
12. rjd2 • {here's what's left}
13. yo la tengo • autumn sweater
14. {the} beck • paper tiger
15. hrvatski • gemini (early)
16. john vanderslice • from out here
17. plaid • new family
18. the chemical brothers • the sunshine underground

i made this mix for my parents. the concept was to plug some musicians to them that i thought they might enjoy (males, i guess, specifically, as a counterpart to the highly successful "chicks" series of mixes for my mom.) musician plugs is what audiologists call custom-fitted ear plugs for people who want to retain their hearing and also hear clearly when exposed to a lot of loud noise. mine are purple and live in little a neon yellow case.

it didn't really work out too well for that purpose - for one thing, i don't think they listen to it much, maybe because it's got a lot of electronica. also, it maintains a pretty consistent mellow mood, meaning the songs don't really stand out that much, so it doesn't do a very good job of plugging the individual artists. (spoon's awesome "take the fifth" taking pride of place as the lone high-energy cut providing a release and a contrast to the rest of the moodery.)

on the other hand, i think it is a nice li'l mix, for those very reasons - i like how it sustains that mood while covering a decent amount of genre territory including hip-hop [9] and "world" [4]. though most of it is indie and electronica of various stripes, or some combination. it has some of the classic examples of a particular type of gorgeous synthesized portamento chordal sequence that just makes me melt - i'm thinking especially of [1] (which used to be my radio show theme song), [12] and [15]. (another one would be squarepusher's "journey to reedham") i sometimes refer to these bits as "keening," though i'm not quite sure what that means.

anyway it's a pretty listen, and an interesting snapshot of what i was listening to at the time - some of these artists i haven't given much thought to in the past five years (empire state, infectious organisms, hrvatski), though there are also many of my perennial favorites on here.

real is the old fake

this just in:

full speed ahead
rock and roll is dead
the girls and boys from the mickey mouse club
clocked it in the head

those are the opening lines of "fake is the new real," one of the more immediately arresting songs on the recent debut release by soul/r&b/pop songstress alice smith. the album, for lovers, dreamers & me, is pretty good - it might be great after a few more spins. it might be offering a genuinely new perspective (and perhaps one way forward?) for the whole soggy morass of neo-soul/adult-contempo-r&b/singer-songwriter pop, though it might also just be those same things again, particularly well-executed.

but i mostly bring it up to tussle with those lyrics for a minute. in case you didn't guess, the tone of the song is flatly disapproving of the state of affairs ("we're living in phony times," etc.) the predictable rockist party-line of course, though conceivably it could have been a celebration of the teen-pop revolution...(did anybody ever write a celebratory song about rock and roll being dead? that would be awesome. and how glad they were not to have to rock out anymore?) more interesting is that it seems several years out of date - not that such a sentiment is unpopular in 2007 (in time, we can only hope...) - but, hey, the mickey mouse gang aren't boys and girls anymore.

it's an excellent, succinct summary of some major trends in pop music c. 1997-2003, but the story doesn't end there: as of 2004-06, rock is back in pop again in a major way. granted, it may not be the kind of rock and roll to which the song presumably means to refer; and it's hardly made an incursion against hip-hop/r&b - but the lyrics don't complain about those things. come to think of it, isn't it a little funny that an artist in smith's genre-cluster is bemoaning the death of rock, and complaining about teen-pop? what's it to her? (well, it's a society/lifestyle issue too, but whatever. )

in fact, it turns out that the song, which was written by imani coppola, dates back at least to 2002, when it was on coppola's independently released little red fighting mood (about which the internet contains almost no information.) her other contribution to for lovers, the funky, show-tuney "woodstock," is also recycled, from another '02 indie album, whose title - post traumatic pop disorder syndrome - may tell us something about her mind-state at the time. [eta: album title correction, from the horses mouth - also, "fake" is on both albums. let's reflect on how the correct title affects the implications i had insinuated.]

imani hails from the class of '97, probably somewhere near that cardigans/beck(/cibo matto/cornershop/etc.) funky alterna-pop realm i was just discussing, possibly with more of a neneh/lauryn hip-hop vibe, possibly more fiona/paula cole songwriter territory. i get the sense that the word "quirky" shall be applied liberally.

[project: somebody needs to come up with a name for this music/phenomenon, the late '90s artsy, eclecticist pastiche party pop/rock vanguard, which was in some ways a great failed hope for the fusion of art and commerce - people don't make records like this any more, or if they do they certainly don't sell. hint: i've definitely used the collage/college pun before to invoke this stuff.]

i haven't actually heard chupacabra, or any of coppola's music, which i probably should if i'm going to talk about her. but basically, she had a major-label debut that for whatever reason didn't lead to a major-label career; dropped out of sight (but not out of music, apparently); just released her second reasonably-available album, which sounds "difficult" (hard to say if that's in the interesting way or the boring way.) i'd had the impression that she had done more songwriting for other folks, like pop folks, in the interim, apart from this smith album, which has plenty enough indie integrity (and soul integrity to boot) to be a perfectly sensible match. but i may have been confusing her with chantal kreviazuk, about whom i also know nothing.

ok, well it would have been more interesting if i could link imani more directly to the kind of industry-approved teen-pop that she attacks so pithily (not sarcasm: i really like that stanza!) but come to think of it she was a kind of teen-pop herself - she was only 19 when her debut came out, and she got an mtv hit out of it if nothing else. no big shocker though that she's joined the ranks of the failed-star music-biz disaffected (aimee mann, brie larson, plenty other major-label dropouts that i'm having trouble thinking of) and seems to be doing the fringy artsy indie cult-following thing á la ani difranco and [sorta?] me'shell ndegeocello (or jane sibery to name somebody less multi-racial - or, sorry, issa, wtf.)

i guess this was a mostly failed attempt to continue the game of drawing links between '00s (teen)pop and '90s alterna/rock/songwriter/etc. (wow, look at that comment, dave; we were so gushy then!) (oh right, we still are.)

speaking of mia doi todd - oh whoops, we weren't, but she certainly fits in here - bertine's 1999 debut album, morbid latenight show [from before she started using her surname - tho with a name like zetlitz why would she wait?] turns out to be surprisingly close to what i had expected the golden state to sound like. bit of a trip-hop thing to it (think morcheeba); definitely "pancultural" as heather puts it, and generally jazzier, loungier than you'd expect from her later work - though it is still dance-pop, more or less. but it doesn't seem like "diva" territory to me, much more auteurist - she writes all her own tunes (!) - and not too far off from that the self-consciously hip, eclectipastichepop posse. neat. [eta: actually, she didn't write all of the tunes - amg lied, and eventually i went downstairs and looked at the liners. but, she wrote all the lyrics, and wrote or co-wrote almost all of the music.]

stop-gap song-gab

just taking a little break from writing about music for that other place (most recently a bio and two reviews on sway - not yet pubbed but watch that link) to write about music here for a change. sidebar updated to include links to the old podcast posts. (i'd almost forgotten i'd started to do that. never fear, i've already got an idea for a new one: expect it later this week! ha, i mean decade!) also, some new links that i won't have time to fully follow, and a ish-ton of new titles in the acquisitions dept. flick, did i really buy/earn/acquire forty-seven new records in october? what the christ?! no wonder it's eternal! so you can see why i haven't been able to think of anything to write about here lately.

and that's not counting my prodigal/prodigious itunes/download influx lately - i'm still in the midst of processing new/ish albums by [in stupid lacitebahpla order] tunng, tmbg [bonus disc], the veronicas, the mitchell brothers, the clientele, the avett brothers, susumu yokota, sugababes, studio, sloan, skye sweetnam, royksopp, roisin murphy, radiohead, pole, paramore, pantha du prince, panda bear, minor majority, lucky soul, lil wayne, lethal bizzle, les savy fav, kompakt, kathy diamond, jens lekman, jay-z, iron + wine, helios, colleen, cassius, britney spears, black milk, beirut, amerie, aly & aj, aesop rock, and 65daysofstatic. er, among others. (and that's just the '07 stuff: new years' coming soon y'all - have you got your listing brain in gear?) (and a couple of those emboldments are based on a single serious listen, or even less - many of the others i've barely begun to graze.) back to the racket, basically. but it's been good to me, thistime, thusfar. guess i'll be reporting back on these... all in due time.

i have in fact managed to process more of that october overload than you might be imagining, though there's certainly a ways to go - i thought i could point to a few recordings that have stood out in recent weeks enough to achieve some prominence in my headspace - many of them, as it happens, on the older side of things. i'd post mp3s but i've been at a total loss for a decent server lately (free or otherwise, just so long as it works - let me know if you have suggestions.) couple youtube links tho:

"been it" - the cardigans
i know, it's pretty ridiculous that i didn't own first band on the moon until now (after all, it's officially a 1st-tier album by a 1st-tier band within the swedish pop/rock category - shhh i don't own any ace of base either, but that's also nothing a 99¢ bin somewhere isn't just waiting to fix.) guess everybody else had their fill of it about a decade ago (!), whereas i, c. 1996, was about a month late in jumping on the odelay bandwagon, which meant i lost out on the chance to catch the cards' opening slot on that beck tour which easily makes my missed-concert-regrets top 5. (this is in 8th grade mind you.) had things been different, my swede-tooth phase might have arrived significantly earlier - or not. actually, i was hepped to life a few years later, via "carnival" and "gordon's gardenparty" on my first girlfriend's first mixtape (aw), but never fully completely embraced it past a few songs.

so anyway, i had a pretty good idea of what i was in for when i finally snagged fbotm (for only 50¢!) at circle thrift the other week, but i don't think i fully anticipated just how much unmitigated poptastic brilliance it contains. of course i knew and loved "lovefool" for the perfecto-popslice it is (covered it in a college band, even, and no-way ironically), but it's almost diminished in its album context: among its less polished peers, it's so seamlessly shiny that it sounds sarcastic, revealed to be the snide euro-pop caricature it obviously always was - albeit note-perfect enough to outclass the genuine article even as it mocks it. but it's the weird, complicated, elegant, almost grotesque, blissfully jaded constructions - "losers," the "iron man" reinvention, "your new cuckoo" - that elevate this disc to the height of pop/rock in the most literal sense of that usually glossed-over term - or, better - art-pop, wherein not one iota of the pop is sacrificed, and yet it just bleeds archly artless artifice.

most of all, it's "been it" - perfectly perfect pop, with about four times its share of hooks, but more than that, so inventive in every direction - i could dissect practically every second and come out gleaming and beaming - it's like the breeders "cannonball" like that - but, i hazard, better? just a couple - that indelible opening, synch'd bass and bass-drum pick-up fill before it bursts into full-on cooing pop. the varied hesitations in the deceptively arhythmic verse riff [0:35]. fake-out slope-rhyme of "sister" with "mistre-ess." the alarm clock at [2:13]. the seemingly antithetical verse (crunchy rock sparseness) and chorus (fleshy pop swoon) unexpectedly merging [3:20] for a tantalizing moment (rok gtr + pop vox) before the entropic, unspiralling breakdown. whew. and all of it, of course, lofted heavenward by nina persson's gossamer croon, the band's truly unshakable asset, in finest feather here.

this has been my dishwashing album of choice lately (along with in rainbows), and that's the one that keeps sending me back for the replay button. the feel-good dishwashing hit of the fall! yeah i know it's old news - shut up. at this rate i'm going to have to actually investigate those later-day cardigans records that i'd always passed over dubiously...until then, though.

"one sound" - knife in the water
awright. already wrote about this one. maybe you didn't notice though, plus i thought it belonged in this round-up. could've come up with another of their tunes to write about - the album keeps going and growing on me; "seat of pity" has been in my head plenty, and i went and got earned myself their later cut the cord album too, which promises to be just as enthralling. but this'll save me some work. here's what i wrote:

"dusty semi-country minimalism. nine minutes plus. same progression just repeated and repeated, sometimes with verses. organ harmonizations just so-slightly off, never quite resolving they way they should, but growing familiar enough that you almost don't notice - the unsettling rendered inconspicuous through desensitization. 'i want to fall right back to sleep/to dive back in the sheets.' hypnotic."

and it's still just as powerfully intense. between these guys, okkervil (new album very nice), and spoon (obv.), i'm cultivating some major affection for austinites lately, and looking to expand - def. intrigued by what i hear about future clouds and radar (and cotton mather, of which that's an offshoot.) go tx!

"can i change my mind" - tyrone davis
got this a few months back but it just keeps getting better. totally my serendipitous soul find of the year - and not from one of those collector-cheatin' rare-groove compilations i'm so ardently ambivalent about neither - just a budget-quality reissue i stumbled across in a random $2.99 bin in boulder. the whole album's sweet - "knock on wood" gets reinvented as a ballad, the arrangements throughout are consistently stellar, even when the songs sometimes dip below that mark - but it's plain to see why the title cut was the single, and apparently a respectable hit, though mostly lost to history, at least for folks like me.

it locks right off into a loping, almost mellow funk groove, with a nimble, rubbery bassline and chunks of guitar hittin' on the 2 so fat you could slice 'em - plus another guitar licking out effortlessly spidery spangles. and the horns - a single unison swell, repeated once up an octave, and then retreat, to make room for mr. davis' achingly langorous entrance on the vocal. the way he yawnily slides into that opening line - "...aaw, she didn't bat an eye" - is just priceless. ditto his smooth semi-crack on the word "time" at [1:14]. aw shucks. so gooey.

an intriguing premise too - it's nothing new under the soul sun for him to be lamenting his lapses that lost him his love, realizing it only too late - but the way he asks the title question, so innocently, as though he'd be doing her the favor, when clearly it's her mind that would need the changing. sly, kinda, but seductive. ooh, and check the reggae version by mr. mittoo, too.

marshall crenshaw - marshall crenshaw
part of my ongoing campaign to get more comfortable or at least better acquainted with the [non-synthpop, non-talking heads] 1980s, partially sparked by my reading of this fascinating, smartly-written book, whose most substantial contribution to my understanding of the t-heads was a historical contextualization by means of occasionally interjected news-headline highlight reels, pop'n'politics anecdotage, and downtown-scene local color. also part of my ongoing campaign to get more familiar with more singer-songwriter types, if nothing else so that i can have more coherent things to say (and examples to give) in situations like that knotty wrangling with folk songwriting i was doing a few posts ago.

the same (the former, esp.) is true of the feelies [crazy rhythms, 1980] and aztec camera [high land, hard rain, 1983] albums i also picked up recently, and scritti politti before that - of that bunch, crenshaw is clearly the least post-punk (ergo least punk) and most songwriterly - not sure if he quite fits into the "new pop" rubric with which i'm haphazardly lumping the others, but whatever. i've known for a long time that i would like this - it's just been a question of whether i'd go with the readily available original release or hold out for the spennier rhino bonus-tracks reissue: i didn't. actually i don't think i really knew who he was until tara mentioned him, with vague disinterest, as somebody her dad liked - even though i feel like my dad might have one of his albums, maybe even this one.

right, so it's very obviously dad-rock - there was probably no disputing that even at the time - but let's not forget that it's still rock (it came out in 1982, the year of my birth - according to amg "a brief, exhilarating moment in between the fall of disco and the rise of MTV, when the eternal verities of real rock & roll broke through once again.") it reminds me, more than anything, of the likes of joe jackson and graham parker (and oh yeah robert gordon duh - elvis c. was never this prosaic), though not as punkily disaffected as either of them ("cynical girl"'s lyrics notwithstanding) - especially the way he talks about 'girls' (might as well spell it 'gurls') girls girls, walkin' down the street [q.v. "pretty girls," "local girls"], feels like a direct lineage from the beach boys and big star. is it just me or do people like this no longer get away with making reference to 'gurls' anymore in such a flip, factual manner?

anyhoo, peep it it pops. (obviously, btw, what this really is is power-pop, 'nuff said.) i couldn't choose a favorite track to single out for this - "rocking around in nyc" has one of the nicer unanticipated harmonic moves (the "...she's facing disaster" bit); the groovy "there she goes again" has been known to course through my head in the mornings, compelling me to put the album back on; "someday, someway" is a perfectly sensible single choice with swell harmonies - though in general i like the rootsy-cutesy rockabilly cuts less than the more straight-forward rockers (although honestly the best thing on here might be the cover of arthur alexander's "soldier of love," because that song is just so awesome and it's a pretty good cover.) which, ultimately, is kind of the problem - marshall crenshaw is a triumph of formalism, and everything on it shines with wholly admirable, consistent craftsmanship, but not with the spark of truly inspired, individuated songs-qua-songs. still craftsmanship is something - you certainly don't get it this good too often. remember, i like formalism.

[eta: if only marshall crenshaw were a brit (bloody sounds like one innit?) he would get some coolness points for being pub-rock, which is clearly what this is, except that it's american. nevermind that pub-rock is like the most dad-rock thing conceivable, it's still cool because it begat brinsley schwarz who nick lowe who begat elvis costello, or something like that. right? i need to investigate it more, but first somebody needs to make the early nick lowe albums available/affordable. obviously it should/would be yep roc, who are his current label and who just reissued robyn hitchcock's catalog and billy bragg's before that. ok?]

transient random-noise bursts with announcements - stereolab
i don't have anything to say about the music on this yet, except that it's slightly underwhelming so far (tim sendra don't fail me now), but now that i've finally got it, which means i've now completed my collection of classic-era (i.e. pre-cobra) 'lab proper full lengths (groop's an ep rite?), which for a long time didn't really seem possible (though as it turns out there are only five)...i thought i'd be justified in asking a question that has always bothered me about this album:

is it "[transient random]-[noise bursts with announcements]"

or is it "transient [random-noise] bursts with announcements"?

i like the latter better, i think, as a theoretical description of music (that there would "random-noise bursts", which happened to be transient, as the primary feature, followed by the announcements.) but the former kind of seems more likely? can't tell.

as far as more current stuff goes, well i will admit that skye sweetnam's "music is my boyfriend" (awesome video too), roisin murphy's "overpowered" (ditto), lethal bizzle's "police on my back," britney spears' "heaven on earth" (yeah, "piece of me" too but that's old hat) and the veronicas' "untouched" all remain pretty righteous. but y'all knew that right?

as rumored, the bonus disc to they might be giants' the else, entitled cast your pod to the wind, is pretty phenomenal ("why did you grow a beard," "brain problem situation," "i'm your boyfriend now," "employee of the month" = future classics), though despite being fluffier and fresher, it'd be hard to say it's actually better than the album proper. which is also quite good by the way.

oh yeah, and did i mention that i rather like this devon sproule character?

i love amg. (so much more than bmg - that was always just a marriage of convenience, while it's lasted, but they're hardly the kings of convenience these days...) i love stephen thomas erlewine's catholic tastes and generous yet authoritative tone; i love thom jurek's exhaustive, opinionated, lovingly detailed, forthright essay-reviews (even when i don't completely agree with them) [but apparently lots of people don't] - and i especially adore tim sendra's [first record bought: monkees greatest hits - hey me too!; favorite magazine: highlights for children] gleefully tweeful indie-pop crushes. (and i like the other reviewers too - andy kellman on electronica; marisa brown on hip-hop; john bush on assorted things but i associate him with earlier techno for some reason...everybody on everything really, which is part of what makes the site so great - you get the sense that everyone involved has at least a decent familiarity with basically any kind of music that comes up.) btw: all of the reviews i linked above played a substantial role in convincing to pick up the albums, in certain cases without any other information.

i love the sense i've gleaned of what many of the reviewers/editors must be like, even though i of course have no idea - i particularly like when the gang gets together to dish about recent pop singles or, like, how hot kat mcphee is. it's a little like getting to hang out with your favorite professors (or maybe your camp counselors) in an incongruously informal social setting; slightly awkward but revealing. (wish they were still doing that - i haven't quite warmed to this new blog format yet, though it seems promising; it's nice to have comments, and it seems like it'll be easier to keep track of things. actually, it fills in some of the gaps left by stylus' departure.)

i love the monthly new release lists (though they're only up for three months) which are the handiest memory guides that always seem to include not just the best releases (as they claim) but pretty much every notable release from the month period. which brings me to the key point that amg somehow manages to give at least marginally positive reviews to an unlikely majority of records, without seeming unduly gushy or indiscriminate - they rarely deliver pans, even to controversial records, always patiently exploring the positive aspects of records while putting them in perspective. and the reviewers convey a sense of individuality and personability without ever letting themselves get in the way of talking about the music. which is understandable enough, since it's supposed to be an authoritative, encyclopedia-style publication; it's just impressive and inspiring how much creativity passion the writing still manages to convey, within those restraints.

most of all, i love and hate how easy it is to just get sucked into the web of all music guide: starting with their often-intriguing album of the day, or the notable releases of the week on the sidebar, or just looking up the records i just heard, or just bought, or saw at the record store and wasn't sure whether to buy (a total personal ritual), or was just thinking about...and then end up following hyperlink after hyperlink, constantly learning new things even when i thought i'd explored a particular strand to its furthest extent . there's so much music! and these guys think they can contain all of it!? (it's like something i said the other day to somebody who offered to lend me a book: thanks, i'd like to read it - i just have to finish the internet first.) no question, i spend more time on allmusic.com, on a daily basis, than any other website.

and now.....

OMG! OMG! OMG!

yup, there i am... just joined the team, as an "expert" (or something like that) on uk and scandinavian pop. of which there are some mildly surprising gaps in amg's coverage, which i am thrilled and honored to be filling. there are certainly a bunch of albums and artists - including many of my recent favorites - that i'm looking forward to covering for them. the pieces i've done so far - bios and album reviews on richard x, margaret berger, and amy diamond - have given me the opportunity to revisit some favorites and in most cases come to some new realizations and reflections about them. (well not that new...mostly just how bizarre amy is, and how amazing rich and marble are.)

i'm keeping a running list of absent bios and reviews i want to write - not just in those genres, since i'm hoping to be able to write about other stuff for them as well - let me know if you come across something that they're missing. and then, of course, there are many more (inevitably) other artists in my "area of expertise" that i haven't even heard of - my editor just tossed me a short list of them the other day - "artists who've been charting recently in scandinavia." so there's plenty to explore there. which is good - it'll encourage me to write quickly and efficiently about the ones i don't care about/can't find enough information on (seeing as how i can't read swedish); and it'll keep me from wanting to write nothing but raves. may have already discovered a new keeper this way too - norwegian folk-pop band minor majority. (hm, maybe a little too earnest and maudlin though. we'll see.)

anyhow. that's the news. hopefully i can get myself some discipline. (and not spend hours composing silly blog posts like this one, so i can get to actually sharing insights about music. er something.) so far, anyway, i feel like this is going better than my past attempts at holding down music-scribing gigs. hey hey hey!

go! power at halloweentime

pullet with dragonfly wings

i don't typically associate halloween with great music - not being a misfits fan (or a goth), the pool of season-appropriate standbys runs surprisingly shallow - but i have happened to see a number of great shows on hallows-e'en past: most memorably elliott smith at the beacon theatre in 2000 (hm, well apparently on or near) (he played "don't fear the reaper" as an encore), and the roots at the electric factory in '01 (all-out in dapper pimp attire.) ok, and for that matter i guess that particularly memorable tmbg show in '01 as well. (i do remember the moldy peaches being in costumes.) anyway. the go! team concert at [the venue f.k.a. t.l.a.] this past wednesday wasn't quite up to those levels, nor was it the euphoric dance-dance-revelation à la this past st. paddy's' junior senior show that i'd secretly hoped for. BUT it was pretty fun nonetheless, and a nice break from not going to any concerts b/c i didn't have sufficient interest or anybody to go with.

i just went by myself b/c i didn't have anybody to go with. which woulda been more fine if the show had started at 8 as advertised - instead it was doors at 8 show at 9, so i ended up seeing all of the 'support' band's set (good choice for halloween, but their handmade book+cd album packages were much more extraordinarey than the actual music) and then waiting for a full 50 minutes for the 'team... i mean, i know that's not all that unusual of a delay between sets (though it srsly should be - but save unprofessionalism rant for another day), but it can substantially drain one's energy level to have nothing to do but stand there for almost an hour, vaguely jockeying for position, vaguely eavesdropping, vaguely nodding to the boards of canada (?!) on the sound system but not so much as to seem like you're trying to attract attention to your familiarity with it. so once they finally showed, ninja [that's her above, with the wings - thnks flckr] and company had some work to do get me back into it. and they weren't helped out by the sound - it was loud and indistinct enough that it was often hard to make out the melodic/harmonic content of the music, with or without earplugs.

yet slowly but surely, the goodvibes pulled through. not sure if it was my ears getting acclimated or just my resolve to revel firming up, but after spending the first half of the set debating leaving early, i finally started acquiescing to ninja's exhortations (hands in the air! jump to the beat! ladies go like this!), um like i meant it. by the point, two-thirds of the way in, when she declared "(sorry, but) this is the go! team, and we're not going to accept anything less than all-out, sweaty, shakin-yo-booty, dahncing, from everybody in this room!," the crowd was ready to get really into it too, so we had ourselves some right good, jumping, almost-abandon. helped that they played some of their best tunes then ("ladyflash" i think was what they launched into - definitely the high point.) "bottle rocket" also around then (though i have to admit i'm not very good on the names of their songs.) the horn parts and such were never as loud as they needed to be, which meant a lot of the hooks got lost - but even so, my impression remains that they have just a handful of great songs, and a lot that are sort of undistinguished. the show didn't particularly make me want to check out their new album either. but, y'know, that's ok.

hum. actually, i think what really made me want to post about halloween-night music was the djing i heard at silk city slightly later on. (some of it apparently - maybe? - by one of the guys who was in liquid liquid.) there was too much unexciting house/minimal stuff that never went anywhere interesting - and there was definitely not nearly enough room to dance. but it was all worth it for a couple of selections that it just tickled me to hear. first (right when i got there) that weird frankie valli pilooski edit - hearing it actually played out at a club made me instantly much more appreciative of its existence, even though it's still a complete wtf? dunno if the crowd knew what they were hearing (is it actually getting successfull?) but they seemed to be playing along. later there was an airing of that ross of love insta-classic "kick out the chairs," and an uncanny recreation of the peak moment of my own halloween dj set ("crescendolls" > "thriller"), but best for sure was hearing "late in the evening" - oh man! totally unexpected, brought me such a smile...i sang along with the whole thing (esp. the horn parts!) he looped the intro groove for a really long time before starting the song too - made me wonder if it was a sample...has anybody done that?

anyway. that made me happy about djs. and wondering if maybe having my binders pre-packed (rather than starting fresh every gig) is tending to make my sets staler and less inventive, less likely to pull out unexpected chestnuts like that - and what effect mp3jing would have. (ha! coinage?)

oh, btw: i guess i should mention that i went to a concert last night as well - the çudamani gamelan, from bali, at lang at swarthmore. i went in hoping but not expecting to have my generally low level of interest in gamelan changed - and it wasn't, particularly, but i did enjoy the first few numbers, especially, more than any gamelan i've seen in the past (which has basically just been the swarthmore gamelan. who do not play nearly this fast or precise.) after a while it did all start to get indistinct - the pieces seemed to be less form-based, with fewer quick, dramatic shifts - but probably i was also just having trouble continuing to pay attention. liza argues that i should dig this stuff because i like steve reich - which is true, to a point - my problem with a lot of it is that it's noisy and aggressive in addition to being harmonically and structurally minimal. um. but i like the stuff that's less noisy all-the-time. and there's no question that this group had some seriously astounding technique - especially the xylophone lines that were split up between multiple players alternating beats. so wow for that.