The Ugly: Robbie Williams, "Rudebox".
In late 2003, there were some weird stories swirling around concerning Robbie Williams. I read that he wasn't handling his Knebworth comedown very well. In one interview, he claimed he was retiring. Elsewhere, he began speaking about altering his persona to that of a freakier, more zonked out character named Pure Francis, whose music would dabble in strange forms of electronic squiggliness.
After devouring Chris Heath's "Feel" earlier this year, I discovered the real truth. He did retire, but his retirement ended as soon as the interview ended, i.e. he meant it only during the literal moment that he said it. Hey, we all get pissy sometimes. The Pure Francis character wasn't a reaction to the comedown from Knebworth, but rather, a way to avoid the pressures of it. Messing about in Stephen Duffy's cramped studio proved to be a welcome distraction from rehearsal and the general realization that he was about to play the biggest gigs in UK history. It's too bad that Pure Francis never came to be, and the fruits of the Duffy collaborations (the "Intensive Care" album) were fairly indistinguishable from the music Robbie had been making for his entire career up to that point.
Along came 2006, and the re-invention finally came to pass on "Rudebox". Williams shook up his normal work routine and decided to work with a bevy of producers instead of just one. Somewhere along the way, he ditched stadium pop and decided to become a dancefloor diva.
At this point, even if you'd been closely following his career, you'd be forgiven for rolling your eyes at the prospect of Robbie going disco, chasing the electronica boom roughly ten years after Eric Clapton did. And why? For a laugh? Just because he can? Because he no longer gives a fuck? Fortunately, none of those three fears would turn out to be true, but before moving on, let's pause to examine how NOW magazine churned out, as they often do, the worst review in the universe. I hear that 1995 called and it wants its Britpop Review Spreadsheet back, because as you can clearly see from Evan Davies' writing, apparently any and all English artists are cheeky pop pranksters that are in it only for the laughs and for making delightfully naff videos. The notion that anybody might take them seriously as genuine artists who mean something to real music fans is nowhere in the vicinity of the radar.
Is it a great album? Far from it, but it's easily Williams' most inspired album to date, chiefly because he cared enough to try to craft a bonkers epic masterpiece without caring about whether he'd succeed or not. "Rudebox"'s closest recent contemporary is Smashing Pumpkins' "Adore" -- another case where the artists in question sold a zillion albums previously but still chose to release something weird and challenging in lieu of something they were certain would sell, made the album too long by about 25-30 minutes but still forced you to sit through it all because as everyone knows, becoming bored at times is essential for truly "getting" any epic piece of music; "went electronic" and succeeded far beyond expectations in four or five styles that they'd never attempted before but failed miserably with another two or three, and finally: produced some sensational piece of music but dragged down the overall product with the bad songs. Unfortunately, the latter group will likely define the album in the long run in the minds of casual (or is it cynical?) listeners.
Songs like "Dickhead" are fairly inoffensive, in that they were *clearly* done for a dumb laugh and can be easily ignored. But early in the album, the cover versions start piling up and nearly kill the record straight out of the gate. "Bongo Bong and Je Ne T'Aime Plus" is brutal (and a terrible song to boot), "Kiss Me" is fun but is a karaoke experiment that never needed to see the light of day, and "We're the Pet Shop Boys" (featuring the Pet Shop Boys) seems to last forever and is far too concerned with preserving it's own sense of self-irony than in being an entertaining song. It's strange though, that these bad covers rub shoulders with a home run version of Human League's "Louise", coupled with the tender "Burslem Normals" which isn't a Human League cover but could easily pass for one. Adding to the contradictions is the Pet Shop Boys -- after failing miserably with their other aforementioned "Rudebox" production -- who, with their spectacular "She's Madonna", brilliantly mimick the classic funny/sad moments of their peak period singles. "Never Touch That Switch" is a highly addictive piece of warped electro-funk that has to rank #1 on the list of things you never thought could be written about a Robbie Williams song.
Best of all is the pairing of "The 80's" and "The 90's", a couple of autobiographical sketches that are delivered in a passable Mike Skinner-style rap. The lyrics are simple but touching, and the little musical touches on "The 90's" (coming off as a cross between Matchbox 20's jangly guitar pop and "Great Escape"-era Blur complete with trombone solo) are really what make the song so great.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
RIP Tony Wilson
Just a few things that made Wilson so great:
1. That batshit moment in neworderstory when he talks about Ian Curtis' death, and he states, completely plainfaced, that Joy Division would have been "as big as Pink Floyd if he'd lived."
2. That other batshit moment in neworderstory when Barney Sumner yells "you ruined my career!" at Wilson in a semi-ironic manner on a mock game-show but you can just tell that he was sort of serious about it and all Wilson can do is look sheepish.
3. Allowing himself to be immortalized by Steve Coogan in "24 Hour Party People" ... the movie is so-so but as a series of snapshots of Wilson's remarkable life, it couldn't be a better tribute.
4. Opening the Hacienda against all good sense and sanity, having it blossom into a cultural touchstone for 80's dance music (albeit never a profitable one), then romanticizing it at every opportunity. See also: Happy Mondays, signing and promoting.
And that was what made Wilson so entertaining -- he was the eternal optimist that you couldn't bring yourself to hate. He might have been irrelevant to the industry once Factory imploded (and the complete invisibility of the follow-up label, Factory Too, really hammered the nail in deep) but you could always could on Wilson to pop up in the middle of an NME news item, giving his two cents on some new band or controversy. There is a generation of Mancunians -- among them Mark E Smith and Peter Hook -- who were slightly bonkers (at least in quotes) but whose reputations had reached a certain level of immunity. That combination made them a bottomless source for good press, which is a tough combination to pull off consider how easily pop stars can become boring / the public can become bored of them. These guys could always say anything they wanted at any time and people would always tune in, not necessarily out of reverence, but for simple curiosity. I always got a kick out of reading Tony Wilson's two cents on something. And why not? He used to run the coolest music label on the planet.
1. That batshit moment in neworderstory when he talks about Ian Curtis' death, and he states, completely plainfaced, that Joy Division would have been "as big as Pink Floyd if he'd lived."
2. That other batshit moment in neworderstory when Barney Sumner yells "you ruined my career!" at Wilson in a semi-ironic manner on a mock game-show but you can just tell that he was sort of serious about it and all Wilson can do is look sheepish.
3. Allowing himself to be immortalized by Steve Coogan in "24 Hour Party People" ... the movie is so-so but as a series of snapshots of Wilson's remarkable life, it couldn't be a better tribute.
4. Opening the Hacienda against all good sense and sanity, having it blossom into a cultural touchstone for 80's dance music (albeit never a profitable one), then romanticizing it at every opportunity. See also: Happy Mondays, signing and promoting.
And that was what made Wilson so entertaining -- he was the eternal optimist that you couldn't bring yourself to hate. He might have been irrelevant to the industry once Factory imploded (and the complete invisibility of the follow-up label, Factory Too, really hammered the nail in deep) but you could always could on Wilson to pop up in the middle of an NME news item, giving his two cents on some new band or controversy. There is a generation of Mancunians -- among them Mark E Smith and Peter Hook -- who were slightly bonkers (at least in quotes) but whose reputations had reached a certain level of immunity. That combination made them a bottomless source for good press, which is a tough combination to pull off consider how easily pop stars can become boring / the public can become bored of them. These guys could always say anything they wanted at any time and people would always tune in, not necessarily out of reverence, but for simple curiosity. I always got a kick out of reading Tony Wilson's two cents on something. And why not? He used to run the coolest music label on the planet.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Newish albums: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly III
The Bad III: Do Make Say Think, "You're a History In Rust". DMST picked a great point in their career to careen into a sideways shift in their sound. Another album like the last two could have sent them down a path of jam band predictability, but "You're A History In Rust" sees them exploring not one, but two new avenues. The far more interesting one is the high-density, speed-fueled barrage featured in "Executioner Blues", and most spectacularly, "The Universe!". With eighty or so musicians, it's about time they cranked the volume a bit higher, and the furious anger of "The Universe" could almost be mistaken for speed metal at times.
The other half is what drags down the album as a whole, namely the folksy parts with vocals. I'm struggling to understand their internal logic when it comes to approaching vocals, and I'm really not getting it. The down-home feel of the title track almost demands vocals but doesn't deliver, whereas "A With Living" (for example) sounds more or less what they usually do on their other albums and yet the vocals simply show up without warning. It's as if they pre-decided that there would be vocals in certain places and were determined to shoehorn them into their songs no matter what.
In addition -- and this isn't the sort of thing that normally gets on my nerves -- the record would benefit tremendously from better sequencing. They missed an opportunity to start slow and mellow and build up to something loud and explosive at the end, but instead all of the sonic palette I discussed here is schizophrenically strewn all over the album.
The other half is what drags down the album as a whole, namely the folksy parts with vocals. I'm struggling to understand their internal logic when it comes to approaching vocals, and I'm really not getting it. The down-home feel of the title track almost demands vocals but doesn't deliver, whereas "A With Living" (for example) sounds more or less what they usually do on their other albums and yet the vocals simply show up without warning. It's as if they pre-decided that there would be vocals in certain places and were determined to shoehorn them into their songs no matter what.
In addition -- and this isn't the sort of thing that normally gets on my nerves -- the record would benefit tremendously from better sequencing. They missed an opportunity to start slow and mellow and build up to something loud and explosive at the end, but instead all of the sonic palette I discussed here is schizophrenically strewn all over the album.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Kanye West, "Stronger"
It's been a while since I had one of those "awestruck by pop music" moments, but a couple of days ago my jaw dropped open when I saw Kanye West's "Stronger" video for the first time. Goth clubs probably wouldn't have the guts to play this song even though the glistening keyboards and industrial-strength backbeat likely smoke just about anything else they'd normally play. I could claim that Kanye has made good on Derrick May's 20-year old futuristic utopian vision of black music (even though he had to sample Daft Punk in order to do it), but that would be going a little bit overboard (and willfully ignoring a bunch of old Wu Tang videos). Let's simplify things: the electrode-plugging, body-scanning stuff just reeks of stale pre-millenial paranoia, but screw it, Daft Punk are IN THE VIDEO, looking like cool as fuck alien svengalis, and are about to make a billion zillion dollars off this song's can't-miss success.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Big Sellers
Articles like this don't appear nearly often enough. With catalog sales accounting for 40% of all physical music sales and 64% of download sales (according to the article), you'd think that there would be a lot more ink devoted to the hows and whys behind this aspect of the music business.
The sizable, year-in and year-out sales of many twenty and thirty year-old albums lends support to my "discount theory" of music sales, that is, the notion that people will gladly pay money for albums if the price is right (as opposed to downloading them for free from file-sharing networks). Classic albums routinely go on the sale racks at large retailers like HMV as part of a "buy three discs for forty bucks" display or some numbers to that effect. It's easy to be cavalier with one's money when you're buying an twenty-year old album that you know will be great, particularly when it costs far less that a new release that you may or may not like now (or twenty years from now!). We're long past the point of baby boomers re-purchasing their old vinyl collections. People making these catalog purchases are 1) buying music that they know very well but never got around to buying, 2) finally checking out an album that they always heard was great but somehow never heard, 3) younger fans who are starting to build their collections or simply want to check out what all the fuss is about with an album that's older than they are, 4) any of the above groups of people who know that twelve or so bucks isn't a lot of money so what the hell, why not spend a bit of cash on some older music, 5) ...
It's a bit bizarre that normally bankable artists like REM and Mariah Carey don't sell many copies of their debut albums. I chalk this up to turnover of their style and fanbases. Most of REM's catalogue sounds a lot different than the music they were making in 1982. The new fans they picked up over the next ten years stuck with their newer sound, and many never looked back to investigate the older one. "Everybody Hurts" and "Losing My Religion" probably get 100 times more plays that "Radio Free Europe" on radio and VH1, so it's not too shocking that the albums containing those songs are the ones that still sell.
Mariah's career pulled an about-face when she split from Tommy Mottola and began making music for kids instead of music for adults. It's little wonder that not many of her fans care to return to the outdated style of her shlocky debut, even if it was a huge seller at the time. This notion is enforced by Mariah's bumpy career path: becoming the biggest-selling female artist ever, followed by the Glitter/psych ward/label-dropping debacle, only to stage a remarkable comeback and become bigger than ever thanks to the top-selling album of 2005. Fans seem eager to forget her past in favour of whatever she's doing at the moment, and in doing so they further distance themselves from the music she made at the beginning of her career.
Although it's worthwhile to wonder why some recent classics sell ("OK Computer", "The Soft Bulletin", Pavement re-releases) while others don't ("Loveless"), there's a much larger elephant in the room: why are AC/DC still shifting so many units? "Back In Black" might be widely known, but it's not the type of album that fans and critics (even those who are strong devotees of classic rock) would regularly rank high on "best ever" lists. And yet somehow, "Back In Black" now finds itself among the top ten best selling albums ever, and much like the similarly eye-popping sales figures for "Eagles Greatest Hits", these numbers really sneaked up on people.
Neither band ever had the Beatles/Stones/Zeppelin honour/stigma of being the "anointed band", and therefore never reached a level of overexposure and oversaturation that those bands did. When I was in high school, those were three bands that were passed down to us from our parents and were anecdotally acknowledged to be part of the musical canon that you simply had to be familiar with. AC/DC didn't have to be the greatest ever, they were simply a very good band that played balls-out rock and roll, which for 99% of the populace is far more important than who was the most influential or most innovative.
The sizable, year-in and year-out sales of many twenty and thirty year-old albums lends support to my "discount theory" of music sales, that is, the notion that people will gladly pay money for albums if the price is right (as opposed to downloading them for free from file-sharing networks). Classic albums routinely go on the sale racks at large retailers like HMV as part of a "buy three discs for forty bucks" display or some numbers to that effect. It's easy to be cavalier with one's money when you're buying an twenty-year old album that you know will be great, particularly when it costs far less that a new release that you may or may not like now (or twenty years from now!). We're long past the point of baby boomers re-purchasing their old vinyl collections. People making these catalog purchases are 1) buying music that they know very well but never got around to buying, 2) finally checking out an album that they always heard was great but somehow never heard, 3) younger fans who are starting to build their collections or simply want to check out what all the fuss is about with an album that's older than they are, 4) any of the above groups of people who know that twelve or so bucks isn't a lot of money so what the hell, why not spend a bit of cash on some older music, 5) ...
It's a bit bizarre that normally bankable artists like REM and Mariah Carey don't sell many copies of their debut albums. I chalk this up to turnover of their style and fanbases. Most of REM's catalogue sounds a lot different than the music they were making in 1982. The new fans they picked up over the next ten years stuck with their newer sound, and many never looked back to investigate the older one. "Everybody Hurts" and "Losing My Religion" probably get 100 times more plays that "Radio Free Europe" on radio and VH1, so it's not too shocking that the albums containing those songs are the ones that still sell.
Mariah's career pulled an about-face when she split from Tommy Mottola and began making music for kids instead of music for adults. It's little wonder that not many of her fans care to return to the outdated style of her shlocky debut, even if it was a huge seller at the time. This notion is enforced by Mariah's bumpy career path: becoming the biggest-selling female artist ever, followed by the Glitter/psych ward/label-dropping debacle, only to stage a remarkable comeback and become bigger than ever thanks to the top-selling album of 2005. Fans seem eager to forget her past in favour of whatever she's doing at the moment, and in doing so they further distance themselves from the music she made at the beginning of her career.
Although it's worthwhile to wonder why some recent classics sell ("OK Computer", "The Soft Bulletin", Pavement re-releases) while others don't ("Loveless"), there's a much larger elephant in the room: why are AC/DC still shifting so many units? "Back In Black" might be widely known, but it's not the type of album that fans and critics (even those who are strong devotees of classic rock) would regularly rank high on "best ever" lists. And yet somehow, "Back In Black" now finds itself among the top ten best selling albums ever, and much like the similarly eye-popping sales figures for "Eagles Greatest Hits", these numbers really sneaked up on people.
Neither band ever had the Beatles/Stones/Zeppelin honour/stigma of being the "anointed band", and therefore never reached a level of overexposure and oversaturation that those bands did. When I was in high school, those were three bands that were passed down to us from our parents and were anecdotally acknowledged to be part of the musical canon that you simply had to be familiar with. AC/DC didn't have to be the greatest ever, they were simply a very good band that played balls-out rock and roll, which for 99% of the populace is far more important than who was the most influential or most innovative.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Newish albums: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly II
The Bad II: Apparat, "Walls". I don't understand why more producers these days seem to be influenced by Orbital's poppier, later phase (in particular "The Altogether", but perhaps to a greater extent the bright, optimistic bleepiness of "Middle of Nowhere") instead of their mellower, brooding, prog house peak phase ("In Sides", "Snivilisation"'s epic, paranoid world view ... even the Brown Album, although it was banging dancefloor stuff, is half euphoric, half something of a darker mood entirely). Apparat's "Walls" has followed me around for weeks -- on my iPod, various times of the day, as background music for a dinner party -- but for the most part it has failed to make a lasting impression. Its best function was the last of these -- it's a bridesmaid album, always in the background but rarely stands out in the foreground. Once in a while I was caught humming a tune or two, but it was always the grimier, Death In Vegas-y stuff like "Hailin From the Edge" or "Hold On". The more abstract tracks like "Fractales" are engaging and offer new twists with every listen, but for the most part I'm simply not amused by the album's relentless bouncy cheer. Ellen Allien brought some thump to this kind of material on last year's terrific "Orchestra of Bubbles" collab, but once most of the dancefloor elements are removed, my attention span vanishes along with them.
The (very, very) Good: Matthew Dear, "Asa Breed". His earlier vocal effort, "Leave Luck To Heaven", was a great idea in theory but not so much in execution. Vocals meandered on top of a Montreal minimal blueprint, and although the combination seemed fresh at the time, there wasn't any need for these two components to be stapled together. These songs didn't need vocals, they were simply there for the sake of being there, and on virtually every track the beat was the star and would have been improved had the singer simply stepped aside.
"Asa Breed", however, might be the first true minimal pop record. Artists like Luomo have received a lot of credit for bringing pop and soul into a largely stoic, mechanical genre (minimal techno) but Dear actually went out and made what is first and foremost a pop record. It so happens to be chock full of weird, warped, minimal elements. With an uncanny resemblance to late-70's Bowie, Dear's voice intones strange, twisted tales over funky minimal numbers like "Don and Sherri" and "Pom Pom" -- both of them being abrupt, three-minute pop gems. Darker corners and bizarre sounds abound in the album's freer, more experimental tracks ("Midnight Lovers", "Give Me More"), and the druggy blues of "Vine To Vine" finely accentuates the record's dark, cagey perspective.
The (very, very) Good: Matthew Dear, "Asa Breed". His earlier vocal effort, "Leave Luck To Heaven", was a great idea in theory but not so much in execution. Vocals meandered on top of a Montreal minimal blueprint, and although the combination seemed fresh at the time, there wasn't any need for these two components to be stapled together. These songs didn't need vocals, they were simply there for the sake of being there, and on virtually every track the beat was the star and would have been improved had the singer simply stepped aside.
"Asa Breed", however, might be the first true minimal pop record. Artists like Luomo have received a lot of credit for bringing pop and soul into a largely stoic, mechanical genre (minimal techno) but Dear actually went out and made what is first and foremost a pop record. It so happens to be chock full of weird, warped, minimal elements. With an uncanny resemblance to late-70's Bowie, Dear's voice intones strange, twisted tales over funky minimal numbers like "Don and Sherri" and "Pom Pom" -- both of them being abrupt, three-minute pop gems. Darker corners and bizarre sounds abound in the album's freer, more experimental tracks ("Midnight Lovers", "Give Me More"), and the druggy blues of "Vine To Vine" finely accentuates the record's dark, cagey perspective.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Newish albums: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Bad I: Ulrich Schnauss, "Goodbye". I used to hyperventilate while reading pre-release hype for the latest guitar-IDM-electronic twee-MBV knockoffs. No really, they said, this is the 21st century successor to "Loveless", this is what it would have sounded like if they'd used keyboards instead of guitars, etc. You get the drill. These days, I don't even flinch. M83's "Run Into Flowers" was probably the closest anyone got to making good on those descriptions, and even they left that sound well behind after their second album.
Schnauss' "A Strangely Isolated Place" was an exercise in electronic lush, which is why I was a bit shocked to catch him live a couple of years ago and discover his keyboard-prog tendencies. Great, here comes ear-splitting keyboard solo chorus #25, sounds a lot like #14 and #23, so let's get on with it. With "Goodbye", all the MBV-ish hype turned out to be something far less grandiose -- he simply went goth. There's absolutely nothing wrong with going goth, but if you've heard nearly any release from Projekt Records in the past 15 years, then you've heard "Goodbye".
Schnauss' "A Strangely Isolated Place" was an exercise in electronic lush, which is why I was a bit shocked to catch him live a couple of years ago and discover his keyboard-prog tendencies. Great, here comes ear-splitting keyboard solo chorus #25, sounds a lot like #14 and #23, so let's get on with it. With "Goodbye", all the MBV-ish hype turned out to be something far less grandiose -- he simply went goth. There's absolutely nothing wrong with going goth, but if you've heard nearly any release from Projekt Records in the past 15 years, then you've heard "Goodbye".
Selfish Thoughts
I'm oddly fascinated with the recent war of words between Avril Lavigne vs Chantal Kreviazuk. Part of me would love to see a reprise of the 1995-6 Elastica "Name That Tune" game, with Avril subbing for Justine Frischmann, and part of me thinks about what all the non-Canadians are thinking, namely "who the hell is Chantal Kreviazuk"? Chantal could do worse than plying the route of Controversy Creates Cash, maybe then she'll get a bit more publicity for helping to write other people's songs.
The new Die Hard movie is tremendously entertaining, although once it was over I found myself remembering the original movie more fondly, in lieu of any real yen to see the new one ever again. What's more, the computer hacker hero had an awful taste in music, getting off on goth metal like Evanescence and dissing CCR. This put me in a very unfortunate frame of mind -- wanting to see the fucker get blown up for his shitty taste but resigning myself to the need for tolerating him for the two hours that followed. Now compare this to "War Games", and to a lesser extent, "Hackers". The "Hackers" gang made computer nerdiness seem cool, and the movie had a cool soundtrack to boot. Really, that should have been the last word in movies about evil computer geniuses causing mischief. And let's be serious -- the terrorists in "Die Hard" might have caused havoc on a local level (car crashes, power outages, etc.), but Matthew Broderick nearly started a nuclear war in "War Games". Worldwide nuclear war with everybody dying is a tad more serious than a few traffic jams. Also, IIRC, Broderick's character was big into punk and new wave. A true hero! "War Games" really was the template. Now *that* is what these hacker-action movies need -- a slick late 70's/early 80's soundtrack of new wave, geek rock, electronic pop, and krautrock. I guess we need some Television, probably Devo (I'm not a huge fan of either, but nobody will argue if that stuff is included), Feelies, early Human League, maybe some Japan if some dark/atmospheric moments are required, Cluster during the scenes when somebody is downloading a lot of data and numbers are streaming across the movie screen like in the Matrix, and so on.
The new Die Hard movie is tremendously entertaining, although once it was over I found myself remembering the original movie more fondly, in lieu of any real yen to see the new one ever again. What's more, the computer hacker hero had an awful taste in music, getting off on goth metal like Evanescence and dissing CCR. This put me in a very unfortunate frame of mind -- wanting to see the fucker get blown up for his shitty taste but resigning myself to the need for tolerating him for the two hours that followed. Now compare this to "War Games", and to a lesser extent, "Hackers". The "Hackers" gang made computer nerdiness seem cool, and the movie had a cool soundtrack to boot. Really, that should have been the last word in movies about evil computer geniuses causing mischief. And let's be serious -- the terrorists in "Die Hard" might have caused havoc on a local level (car crashes, power outages, etc.), but Matthew Broderick nearly started a nuclear war in "War Games". Worldwide nuclear war with everybody dying is a tad more serious than a few traffic jams. Also, IIRC, Broderick's character was big into punk and new wave. A true hero! "War Games" really was the template. Now *that* is what these hacker-action movies need -- a slick late 70's/early 80's soundtrack of new wave, geek rock, electronic pop, and krautrock. I guess we need some Television, probably Devo (I'm not a huge fan of either, but nobody will argue if that stuff is included), Feelies, early Human League, maybe some Japan if some dark/atmospheric moments are required, Cluster during the scenes when somebody is downloading a lot of data and numbers are streaming across the movie screen like in the Matrix, and so on.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Spice Girls Reunion
The rumour mills have been swarming for months, and Simon Fuller's recent announcement has all but officially confirmed it.
I am loving it for many reasons. Of course, I am always eager to add new data points to my Everybody Reunites theory. When you've got Robbie Williams occasionally appearing on stage with a reunited Take That, then it's safe to say that Everybody reunites. Robbie also made up with longtime producer/collaborator Guy Chambers. Now it's the Spice Girls' turn.
The SG's were on my mind last week when I wrote that Robbie Williams was a great performer and a great artist despite not having a catalogue of great songs. In contrast, I thought, the SG's had nothing but great songs, and many outstanding singles. Their personalities and off stage antics far outstripped their actual on stage presence, but the songs were so great that it didn't matter if their dance routines weren't up to snuff, or that they did very little during big numbers other than run around spontaneously.
Is it time for the SG's to get their due? I expect that we'll see a recycling of all the old ridiculous critiques, such as 1) "Girl Power" is a stupid catchphrase (not true), 2) they're not the prettiest girls we've ever seen (so what? who cares?), 3) they're not the greatest singers in the world (neither are 99.9% of all pop stars), 4) they're manufactured (why does this matter?), 5) they rely on their producers to help write songs and shape their sound (as does every person working in music today ... with the rise to fame of Neptunes, Timbaland, the Matrix, and all the other production geniuses who are currently fawned over by both critics and casual fans, this silly and baseless SG criticism has been thoroughly debunked and discredited in the years since their breakup), 6) they're not good role models (most pop stars aren't, and I still maintain that the SG's emphasis on individualism did make them positive role models), and many more that I've long since forgotten.
I am loving it for many reasons. Of course, I am always eager to add new data points to my Everybody Reunites theory. When you've got Robbie Williams occasionally appearing on stage with a reunited Take That, then it's safe to say that Everybody reunites. Robbie also made up with longtime producer/collaborator Guy Chambers. Now it's the Spice Girls' turn.
The SG's were on my mind last week when I wrote that Robbie Williams was a great performer and a great artist despite not having a catalogue of great songs. In contrast, I thought, the SG's had nothing but great songs, and many outstanding singles. Their personalities and off stage antics far outstripped their actual on stage presence, but the songs were so great that it didn't matter if their dance routines weren't up to snuff, or that they did very little during big numbers other than run around spontaneously.
Is it time for the SG's to get their due? I expect that we'll see a recycling of all the old ridiculous critiques, such as 1) "Girl Power" is a stupid catchphrase (not true), 2) they're not the prettiest girls we've ever seen (so what? who cares?), 3) they're not the greatest singers in the world (neither are 99.9% of all pop stars), 4) they're manufactured (why does this matter?), 5) they rely on their producers to help write songs and shape their sound (as does every person working in music today ... with the rise to fame of Neptunes, Timbaland, the Matrix, and all the other production geniuses who are currently fawned over by both critics and casual fans, this silly and baseless SG criticism has been thoroughly debunked and discredited in the years since their breakup), 6) they're not good role models (most pop stars aren't, and I still maintain that the SG's emphasis on individualism did make them positive role models), and many more that I've long since forgotten.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Free Music
While slowly (and somewhat unenthusiastically) getting caught up with some of 2007's new releases, I've been putting a lot of listening time into some live gigs from around the internet.
Eluvium, April 2007. Eluvium (Matthew Cooper) is one of my most-listened-to artists of the year. But his anodyne new album "Copia" really doesn't prepare you for the shoegazey power of his recent live shows. Gentle, repetitious piano and guitar licks slowly rev their ways into huge roars, and that's a trick that never grows old on me. I've long since accepted the fact that the North American concert calendar is surviving quite fine without me, but missing out on the Explosions In the Sky/Eluvium double bill really hit me hard.
Kristin Hersh, "The Thin Man", May 2007 It was already the best track on her new album, but this gentle, slinky live take actually improves on the recorded version. Kristin's voice is totally shot these days, but she still sounds sexy as hell if confined to a whisper. You have to pick your spots with this gig, as things can turn to shit in record time due to her fading, raspy voice. The encore version of "Me and My Charms" is particularly depressing. She literally can't hit a single note during the chorus, exuding not much more than a pained, hissing croak.
Low, "When I Go Deaf", May 2007. Somehow I'd never noticed that some 50 Low gigs had piled up on the Live Music Archive. Even though they wimped out on the dinner party-friendly version of "Violent Past", they made up for it by closing the show with a sensational rip through "When I Go Deaf", a perfect ending for a "Great Destroyer" fanatic like me who thinks that Low are at their best when they play and sing with urgency and guts, as if they're about to suck their final breaths.
J Spaceman, "Anything More / Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space", November 2006. I'm picturing Jason Pierce on stage, running through what has to be the 3830th career reworking of "Walking With Jesus", not to mention reinventing nearly every other song in his live set yet again. More accurately, he overhauled and rearranged the entire contents of his live set from start to finish, punctuated it with a spate of fantastic new tunes, and brought "Let It Come Down" back into the fold (it's about time). And I have to remind myself that he nearly died not too long ago, but is now back on stage doing all the things I just mentioned, almost as if nothing had ever happened. Enough tears for now, save them for one of the many highlights of these recent acoustic shows, particularly "Anything More / Ladies and Gentlemen". Even after many listens, I can suspend my disbelief and not know the changeover is coming, and the segue is so heartbreaking that I still get a lump in my throat even when hearing it for the millionth time. Hearing the crowd roar in recognition and starting to sing along merely cinches it. Jason said he was a gospel artist all along, right back to the Spacemen 3 days. We didn't believe him, but check out what he's done with "Amen", for instance, and feel your stomach melt into goo during the wrenching finale of "Goodnight / Funeral Home".
Arcade Fire, "Windowsill", March 2007. "Neon Bible" (a near-perfectly sequenced album) brilliantly positioned this as its penultimate song, occurring one right near the end of the record's gradual buildup toward it's triumphant, concluding ode to escapism ("No Cars Go"). Obviously, I am assuming that the black eye that is "My Body Is a Cage" doesn't exist. So what a disappointment it is to hear such a flat, lifeless version of "Windowsill", wedged nondescriptly in the mid-set doldrums. Recorded during the same week that "Neon Bible" was released, it starts magnificently with "No Cars Go" (yeah, they've tacked the album's natural end to the set's beginning, but somehow it works) but grinds to a halt starting with, of all things, a Gainsbourg cover. "Windowsill" pops up in this middle third, and all this is reminding me of the time I saw American Music Club in 1994, when "I Broke My Promise" wound up as a victim of the mid-set blahs even though I'd pre-convinced myself that it would anchor the set due to (like with "Windowsill") its general awesomeness and similar placement toward the end of "San Francisco". Arcade Fire get their second wind with "Neighbourhoods #3" and suddenly, it's a great gig once again.
Robbie Williams, "Come Undone", Knebworth, August 2003. I'm reading Chris Heath's "Feel", so what better time to check out arguably the pinnacle of Robbie Williams' career. I'm not simply referring to the Knebworth gigs, but this specific performance. Witness Robbie on the verge of breaking down before, during, and after the song (although this happened countless times at Knebworth). Witness the most adoring, frantic, going apeshit-for-the-man's-every-move crowd you'll ever see. Witness 125 000 people singing along to the single that helped lead to collaborator Guy Chambers' departure from the Williams camp. just because he hated it so much and didn't want his name associated with it. Witness Robbie get to second base within seconds of bringing a girl on stage from the crowd.
Robbie is a lot like Iggy Pop. A survey of his career reveals plenty of good songs but few truly great ones. Nevertheless, he's such a great performer that it scarcely seems to matter. The key ingredient in Robbie and Iggy songs are Robbie and Iggy, the music itself is usually secondary. Same goes for the gigs -- music is simply a vehicle for getting people out to the shows to see the performer they paid their money to see. The similarities don't stop there. For the "Come Undone" video, Robbie recreated a wild LA party in a series of flashbacks, hired real porn stars and models for the shoot, and had scorpions and cockroaches crawling on their faces and out of their mouths. This makes Robbie more punk than ... well, anyone really.
Eluvium, April 2007. Eluvium (Matthew Cooper) is one of my most-listened-to artists of the year. But his anodyne new album "Copia" really doesn't prepare you for the shoegazey power of his recent live shows. Gentle, repetitious piano and guitar licks slowly rev their ways into huge roars, and that's a trick that never grows old on me. I've long since accepted the fact that the North American concert calendar is surviving quite fine without me, but missing out on the Explosions In the Sky/Eluvium double bill really hit me hard.
Kristin Hersh, "The Thin Man", May 2007 It was already the best track on her new album, but this gentle, slinky live take actually improves on the recorded version. Kristin's voice is totally shot these days, but she still sounds sexy as hell if confined to a whisper. You have to pick your spots with this gig, as things can turn to shit in record time due to her fading, raspy voice. The encore version of "Me and My Charms" is particularly depressing. She literally can't hit a single note during the chorus, exuding not much more than a pained, hissing croak.
Low, "When I Go Deaf", May 2007. Somehow I'd never noticed that some 50 Low gigs had piled up on the Live Music Archive. Even though they wimped out on the dinner party-friendly version of "Violent Past", they made up for it by closing the show with a sensational rip through "When I Go Deaf", a perfect ending for a "Great Destroyer" fanatic like me who thinks that Low are at their best when they play and sing with urgency and guts, as if they're about to suck their final breaths.
J Spaceman, "Anything More / Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space", November 2006. I'm picturing Jason Pierce on stage, running through what has to be the 3830th career reworking of "Walking With Jesus", not to mention reinventing nearly every other song in his live set yet again. More accurately, he overhauled and rearranged the entire contents of his live set from start to finish, punctuated it with a spate of fantastic new tunes, and brought "Let It Come Down" back into the fold (it's about time). And I have to remind myself that he nearly died not too long ago, but is now back on stage doing all the things I just mentioned, almost as if nothing had ever happened. Enough tears for now, save them for one of the many highlights of these recent acoustic shows, particularly "Anything More / Ladies and Gentlemen". Even after many listens, I can suspend my disbelief and not know the changeover is coming, and the segue is so heartbreaking that I still get a lump in my throat even when hearing it for the millionth time. Hearing the crowd roar in recognition and starting to sing along merely cinches it. Jason said he was a gospel artist all along, right back to the Spacemen 3 days. We didn't believe him, but check out what he's done with "Amen", for instance, and feel your stomach melt into goo during the wrenching finale of "Goodnight / Funeral Home".
Arcade Fire, "Windowsill", March 2007. "Neon Bible" (a near-perfectly sequenced album) brilliantly positioned this as its penultimate song, occurring one right near the end of the record's gradual buildup toward it's triumphant, concluding ode to escapism ("No Cars Go"). Obviously, I am assuming that the black eye that is "My Body Is a Cage" doesn't exist. So what a disappointment it is to hear such a flat, lifeless version of "Windowsill", wedged nondescriptly in the mid-set doldrums. Recorded during the same week that "Neon Bible" was released, it starts magnificently with "No Cars Go" (yeah, they've tacked the album's natural end to the set's beginning, but somehow it works) but grinds to a halt starting with, of all things, a Gainsbourg cover. "Windowsill" pops up in this middle third, and all this is reminding me of the time I saw American Music Club in 1994, when "I Broke My Promise" wound up as a victim of the mid-set blahs even though I'd pre-convinced myself that it would anchor the set due to (like with "Windowsill") its general awesomeness and similar placement toward the end of "San Francisco". Arcade Fire get their second wind with "Neighbourhoods #3" and suddenly, it's a great gig once again.
Robbie Williams, "Come Undone", Knebworth, August 2003. I'm reading Chris Heath's "Feel", so what better time to check out arguably the pinnacle of Robbie Williams' career. I'm not simply referring to the Knebworth gigs, but this specific performance. Witness Robbie on the verge of breaking down before, during, and after the song (although this happened countless times at Knebworth). Witness the most adoring, frantic, going apeshit-for-the-man's-every-move crowd you'll ever see. Witness 125 000 people singing along to the single that helped lead to collaborator Guy Chambers' departure from the Williams camp. just because he hated it so much and didn't want his name associated with it. Witness Robbie get to second base within seconds of bringing a girl on stage from the crowd.
Robbie is a lot like Iggy Pop. A survey of his career reveals plenty of good songs but few truly great ones. Nevertheless, he's such a great performer that it scarcely seems to matter. The key ingredient in Robbie and Iggy songs are Robbie and Iggy, the music itself is usually secondary. Same goes for the gigs -- music is simply a vehicle for getting people out to the shows to see the performer they paid their money to see. The similarities don't stop there. For the "Come Undone" video, Robbie recreated a wild LA party in a series of flashbacks, hired real porn stars and models for the shoot, and had scorpions and cockroaches crawling on their faces and out of their mouths. This makes Robbie more punk than ... well, anyone really.
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