Thursday, August 31, 2006

The Wonderful Sounds of NIN

"The Fragile" didn't come close to meeting expectations, but the tour was a hit and so was the eventual DVD. Nobody bothered to listen to all 893 hours of that double album, but overall, the CD was still something of an event (expect essays in approximately 20 years that hail it as a misjudged masterpiece, the alterna-generation's very own "Tusk"). But one year later, it feels as though "With Teeth" didn't even happen. This tends to happen when you insist on spending five years between album releases throughout your entire career. Sure, the long wait builds anticipation and turns the eventual release into a big event, but the shtick gets old after fifteen years and the law of diminishing returns rots into the picture. You can only make so many grand comebacks and expect people to keep caring.

But no matter what he does, Trent Reznor always finds a way to make his music sound great while doing it. He's our very own Eric Clapton, sort of. Everything he touches (outside of the Marilyn Manson crunch-rock portion of his career) sounds fantastic, filled with layers of moody chords, sizzling distortion, and hummable melodies. It all sounds so big, so cavernous, so meant to be played on gigantic speakers. "With Teeth" is an underrated record that could have been a classic if Reznor hadn't tried to ruin significant parts of it with underproduced crap like "Only". I can only assume that he felt like dabbling in blues and wanted to make the most of Dave Grohl's drumming talents. But the best tracks on this record, most notably the pulsating, mind-numbing "Beside You In Time" easily rank high among his back catalogue.

Admittedly, that may be damning Reznor with faint praise -- I haven't even felt the need to listen to "The Downward Spiral" (sans the indispensible "Closer") in years.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Songs in heavy rotation ...

Sometimes the brilliance of certain songs doesn't hit for you months, or even years. Everybody is familiar with this concept, right? Here are some songs that fit the bill for me, all of them are currently in heavy rotation on my iPod:

Broken Social Scene, "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Day)". "You Forgot It in People", as great as it is, feels like a time share, where each member's former (or current) band gets their proper allowance of recording tape. The songs could have carried subtitles straight out of "Friends", i.e. "KC Accidental (The One That Sounds like Do Make Say Think)", "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl (The One That Sounds Twee, like the Cranberries Back When They Were Good)", and "Shampoo Suicide (The One That Is Supposed to Sound Like Reggae, but not Rocking in that Zeppelin-y Way)".

Finally, here is a song that justifies the need to have five guitarists among the twelve people onstage from seven different bands. It truly sounds like all those bands mashed into one song, with guitars wailing like vacuum cleaners over what passes for the tune, a vocal that demands for you to shout along with it, and just when you think they can't throw any more madness into a five minute track, along comes a horn-driven ending that kicks everything up a level (the ending could use another two minutes, one of the only weaknesses of the song). The loudest and best thing they've ever done, possibly. Too bad most of the album that followed it was indulgent, overly long, similarly overproduced junk (note: this is probably the reason that it took me so long to come around to this song -- I couldn't bear to sit through the entire album).

Michael Jackson, "Billie Jean". One of my all-time growers -- I didn't start liking it until I dunno, the late 90's? What was I thinking? All the child molesting allegations in the world can't dampen this song's funky sheen. Even the notion of Michael being slapped with a paternity suit in 1983 can't make this the least bit laughable (although I suppose the sex is implied, not confirmed, in the song's lyrics).

Bangles, "Manic Monday". For those who don't remember the 80's, Prince was essentially Pharrell + Radiohead + Christina Aguilera. He needed an airline hangar to contain his critical acclaim, he could rock, he could funk, and he could raunch. He played, wrote, and performed on big hits for several other artists, all of which owed a large part of their success to him. I heard "Sexy MF" a couple of weeks ago for the first time in ages, and while thinking about how easily its lyrics could be incorporated into contemporary hip-hop (why haven't the Ying Yang Twins covered this yet?), I realized that I'd forgotten that Prince, when he wanted to, could write 60's-style girl group songs with the best of them. Of course, this being Prince, there has to a line about getting busy ("He tells me in his bedroom voice / C'mon honey, let's go make some noise) but otherwise this is bittersweet pop at its finest.

Bardo Pond, "From the Sky". Most often, one isn't in the mood to sit through a 31-minute song. That's what kept me at arm's length from the final track on the "Cypher Documents" compilation, but the song absolutely crushes, like the vocal-less middle section of "Destroying Angel" stretched out for another half hour.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Lisa Germano, "In the Maybe World"

Her 1993 album "Happiness" starts with more than a minute of shredding, echoing guitar noise that could have been lifted straight off a Cocteau Twins record. Well, the album *was* released on 4AD so maybe it was all part of her plan to make herself feel at home on the label. Fifteen years into her solo career, those hazy, otherworldly qualities can still occasionally appear in Germano's music. But it's not much more than window dressing on the devastating, heartbreaking feeling one gets from listening to "Too Much Space" on her newest record. Neo-shoegazing = window dressing? Yes, it's just that damn sad.

In the morning without a sound
And the stirring of dreams around
then you wake up -- he wasn't there again


Of course, it's the slight pause before the word "again" that strikes the final, unrecoverable blow.

On the way home you feel it there
cuz your heart needs to be somewhere
but you wake up to too much space again


There's an even subtler pause before the world "somewhere", but I'm sure it's mainly my imagination (wishful thinking, perhaps).

Drugstore's Isobel Monteiro makes a strong case for the sexiest female voice in contemporary music, but Drugstore haven't made a record in five years so I'm tempted to hand over the title to Lisa Germano. There are a lot of similarities between the two -- the soft, husky whisper and the way they seem to purr instead of sing when they're performing at their best. With their penchant for semi-acoustic ballads/lullabies, they're even similar as songwriters. But even though either one of them could convincingly sing the other's entire ouevre, the overall tone of these switcheroo works would be strikingly different. That is, these two singers might be similar, but they are far from interchangeable. Pixie-like Monteiro is the naughty sex kitten, the girl whose voice you lust over but whose heart you can tolerate breaking. Sure, you might feel bad about it eventually, like if you heard "All the Things A Girl Should Have" a few years later. You would trick yourself into thinking that she was a sweetheart all along, but then you'd hear the vindictive "I Know I Could" and quit feeling sorry for her altogether. One minute she's moaning your name and the next minute she's that crazy bitch who made a voodoo doll of your likeness and plans to put it on her album cover. Who needs her? But Lisa is the starry-eyed quiet girl next door, the person you want singing you to sleep every night.

"Happiness" is a schizophrenic record. Half of it is caught in this weird suspension between early-90's teenaged alt-rock and late-90's adult-oriented wannabe alt-rock. Semisonic and Matchbox Tw20enty would have been thrilled to have some of these songs on their first hit records ("Energy" or "Anyone's Victim"?). The other half consists of charred, fragile beauty, epitomized by the gorgeous closer "The Darkest Night of All"). But "Geek the Girl", released the following year, feels like an overreaching stab at fitting in with post-grunge, post-"Loser" slackerdom. Despite some fantastic songs ("Cancer of Everything"), only in 1994 could a song try to pass off "Oh no, I'm not too cool" as a credible chorus. In 1996, she inched close to her forte with the gentle "Excerpts From a Love Circus" and with 2003's aptly named "Lullaby For Liquid Pig" she perfected her "lullabies for adults" formula (bedtime stories about alcohol, loneliness and depression). She continues to exploit this formula in fine fashion with this year's "In the Maybe World", and I'm selfishly hoping that she never stops being miserable (or sounding like it on record).

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Goodnight

Following a somewhat uncomfortable and fairly disturbing sleep, I woke up, flipped on the TV, and saw a man with a 70's porn star moustache tucking a giant crow puppet into bed. He was singing the Beatles "Goodnight" in Hebrew (the orchestral backing music was quite faithful to the original) while the video faded in and out from a very lo-tech marionettes-in-front-of-a-blue-screen display of stiff little angels coasting through the stars. The whole thing was simultaneously worse and better than any scene from "The Wall" -- better because it held my attention more acutely than anything from that movie, and worse because this was supposed to be a children's show.

My brain instantly melted but I've been having a pretty good day ever since.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

I've told myself so many times before. But this time I think I mean it for sure. We have reached a full stop. Nothing's gonna save us ...

... from the big drop."

[full lyrics here]

What they meant was: Israel feels that it's been more than tolerant of Hezbollah's growing power and influence in Lebanon, not to mention their formidable military capabilities; and in this light the current confrontation was inevitable.

Reached our natural conclusion
Outlived the illusion
I hate being in these situations
That call for diplomatic relations


That is, Israel feels that the illusion of peace (in the abscence of a large-scale conflict like the one we're seeing now) along its northern border has been shattered, but that the need to keep up appearances in the international community are preventing her from conducting the current military campaign in the manner that she would most prefer.

f I only knew the answer
Or I thought we had a chance
Or I could stop this
I would stop this thing from spreading like a cancer


If Depeche Mode had the magic formula for peace in the Middle East, they might have spoken up and tried to prevent the events of the past few weeks, but alas, the Israel-Hezbollah confrontation was likely inevitable.

What can I say? (I dont want to play) anymore
What can I say? Im heading for the door
I cant stand this emotional violence
Leave in silence


Therefore, citing a need to remove themselves from the drama and retain a neutral perspective on the conflict, Depeche Mode had to cancel their wildly anticipated first ever concert in Israel.

Understandably, Depeche Mode's Israeli fan club is extremely upset. The world has been robbed of the oppurtunity to see tens of thousands of Jews singing "Personal Jesus" and "John the Revelator" in the Holy Land. Damn you Hezbollah! Why, Ehud, why?

This story has spread around quite a bit, from the NME to Jewish blogs to the evening news on Israel's channel 1. Well, this story happened to break on the day of the most pronounced lull (from both militaries) since the conflict began, so it was a slow news day.

I guess we'll never know the true reason why the show was cancelled ... officially, it was safety concerns cited by the tour crew, and I can't blame a group of unionized workers for not wanting to set up lights and video screens in a possible war zone. OTOH, that explanation would provide a perfect cover for the band's own apprehensions in playing the show at the current time. Remember, it doesn't matter who wins the actual war in real life, it's the propaganda war that really counts.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Johnny Cash, "American Recordings V"

It's probably not realistic to talk about this album without acknowledging one's obvious bias toward the recording, that is, it's impossible not to know that the songs were assembled long after Cash's death. With that in mind ... there something plastic, overly polished, and fake about some of these songs. Cash's "American Recordings" series are known for their no-frills, rootsy, back-to-basics approach. The first album was little more than one man and his guitar. Subsequent albums gave greater prominence to extra guitars and piano but the overall feel remained very stripped-down and basic.

In short, Cash's voice doesn't sound up to the task throughout the record. His voice (and health) progressively and precipitously worsened over the last ten years of his life, which might have added poignancy to the song and video for "Hurt" but gradually depleted the quality of his recordings in an overall sense. Here, his weak, gravelly voice is coated over clean, chiming guitar picking, which practically advertises the fact that he wasn't in the same room (or, uh, planet) when the music was being recorded. A voice that weak doesn't feel credible leading such a polished-sounding band, and the juxtaposition of the two is very out-of-step with most of Cash's back catalogue. "Back on the Chain Gang" is a more classic sound for Cash, as his voice recedes into the mix, in short, it sounds like raw and unprocessed Cash. "On the 309" is a great rustic country song in the vein of "Tennessee Stud" (AR1) or "Country Trash" (AR3) but it's badly in need of a singer that doesn't sound exhausted on every verse. Ditto "Rose of My Heart", which is a pretty tune nearly ruined by Cash running out of breath at the end of nearly every line.

On "Four Strong Winds", his voice protrudes over and above the recording. It sticks out too much, possibly because they protooled him up to make a low quality recording (or vocal performance) sound better. It just doesn't sound like him. Similarly, I have to mention "If You Could Read My Mind", partly because I think it's one of the most beautiful songs ever written, partly because Cash's AR cover songs are probably the most well known recordings in the AR series (Hurt, One). Cash prided himself on learning these songs until they became his own -- indistinguishable from a Cash original if you had never heard the source recording. Again, the voice is too high in the mix, coming across like overly digitalized Cash. Over intricately picked acoustic guitar (very Lightfoot, but very un-Cash), the song proceeds at a slow, crawling pace, as if Cash is too weak and out of breath to keep up and needs the song slowed down for him.

Still, there is a fragile beauty in the weakness and vulnerability of Cash's voice, making "American Recordings V" a pleasant (but not the least bit arresting) listen. But unfortunately, it really and truly sounds like the end.