Time and circumstances will prevent me from watching Super Bowl XLV this weekend. It's not the first time I've skipped "The Big Game" (as it's known in scores of electronics stores and supermarkets for legal reasons) - a couple years ago I passed on Steelers-Cardinals in favor of a trip to Disneyland. But this year I get the added benefit of missing the Black Eyed Peas performing the halftime show.
The last time I actively enjoyed a halftime show, I think, was U2's performance in 2002. I actually taped that one since I watched the game at a relative's house and while everyone would quiet down for the commercials, there was precious little interest in watching Bono show off the American flag sewn into his jacket (why a company of Boy Scouts and American Legionnaires didn't detain him after the game remains a mystery). To be honest, I recall watching the counter-programming more often than the halftime show. I'm a sucker for Celebrity Deathmatch and the Puppy Bowl. And the Bud Bowl, for that matter.
Prince was alright too, especially his sick burn on the Foo Fighters. Everything else is meh.
The Automatic - Not Accepted Anywhere
a.k.a. "The Automatic Automatic." Though I have a weakness for anything Welsh, this is pretty generic dance punk. They sound a lot like Kaiser Chiefs if those guys routinely forgot to write a third verse and just repeated the chorus a few more times. "Raoul" ain't bad though.
"Monster" was the big U.K. hit because...it had an a Capella breakdown? I'm still not sure why. I guess if you really hearing like the word "monster" over and over (and are not aware of Kanye West) this is your jam.
Also, I feel like it's my duty to report that most of The Automatic's songs have a whiny Linkin Park-sounding guy contributing background yelps. PASS.
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
I always felt like I was torturing my KSCR co-host, "Mellow Mike" whenever I asked him to participate in my many misbegotten attempts at gaining publicity for our show. One night I decided that we needed to post short bios of ourselves to our show's Facebook page. After 20 minutes we had about four sentences for Mike. I promised him we could stop if he could give me a few of his musical influences. He stared at me for a few seconds and said, "The Avalanches."
It makes sense now, because by name-checking the Australian electronic group he was essentially saying "everything." 1999's Since I Left You is a wall-to-wall samplefest, predating Girl Talk by 5 years. It's a fascinating stew of bits from obscure funk and soul songs, repetitious dialogue from old movies, and the smooth electronic sheen of a silkier Daft Punk. Tracks such as "Frontier Psychiatrist" are like weird, arty loops of black and white cartoons, deadpan and detached yet still fun and whimsical.
The Avalanches have a truly astounding grasp of rhythm, and this record would be essential if I were some kind of superior turntable mixologist. But I'm not. For me, it's something that's probably most effective to play when I'm waiting for the next act.
Average White Band
Yeah, everybody knows "Pick Up the Pieces" since it's the bigger hit, but "Cut the Cake" is way similar and better IMO - zippier and some of the more unusual lyrics conflating food and sex.
Between this and Van McCoy and Walter Murphy and Giorgio Moroder and Meco...well, we really loved our disco-funk instrumentals, didn't we? Or rather, our parents did.
And yes, they really were white...most of them. Like a lot of out-of-nowhere hitmakers in the 1970s, Average White Band was formed by a bunch of no-name session players with names like Chuck Berry and Eric Clapton on their résumés. This is a phenomenon that I find intriguing and I will definitely revisit it and it deserves a tag.
The Avett Brothers - I and Love and You
I completely forgot about alt-country back when I was demeaning country music! How rude of me. Country and its close relations now comprise 0.9% of my library, up from 0.2% (margin of error 1 - 3%).
I kid. The Avett Brothers have been at this for more than a decade, and they're pretty good at it. Being from North Carolina, the home of Southern iconoclasts (that is, in terms of how Northern culture defines "Southerner"; not in terms of being fire-eating, secession-loving Yankee-baiters), has something to do with how they keep their sound so evergreen.
"I and Love and You" is a great closer that also works well as the album's first track. It's about a dusty vagabond who just wants to get back home to the sleepy burg of Brooklyn, New York. You might say that this fiddles with the country paradigm. When Johnny Cash famously sang, "I've been everywhere, man," I'm fairly certain he added, "except with those emaciated youths in Williamsburg."
Variety is a strength of I and Love and You, from the sweet, romantic "January Wedding" to the authentic hoedown stomp of "Laundry Room." My favorite is "Kick Drum Heart" - raw euphoria like this in rare in country, at least without a "Yee-haw" or a reference to shoving your footwear into your enemy's rectum.
Charming amateur music video for "Kick Drum Heart":
Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
From the very first KSCR Fest to SXSW - not bad for a couple Long Beach high-schoolers. They're a little shoegazey for my tastes, though they coax quite a wall of sound out of each other on Avi Buffalo.
If you're 19 and have a record deal, you apparently write a lot about teenage sexuality. Write what you know, etc. "What's It In For," "Five Little Sluts," and "Summer Cum" are good examples of this form, full of madness, vulnerability, barely concealed excitement and nervousness. They make me feel old.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Aretha Franklin to Autograph
Aretha Franklin - "Respect"
Can we hear so many inferior versions of this that we forget how remarkable it truly is?
Nah.
Art Brut
This is the type of band that is harder to get into than, say Animal Collective. Those guys just make weird sounds. Art Brut, however, appeals to a narrow audience with thorough knowledge of old alt-rock lyrics. If you don't get outsider art jokes or puns like "Cool your warm jets/Brian Eno," then proceed at your own risk.
Your typical Art Brut song has the literary depth of a 15-year-old's Twitter feed. The following is a random sampling of Art Brut lyrics, all delivered at the same level of enthusiasm in Eddie Argos's speak-singing voice. The man is easily excited:
"I love public transportation!"
"Modern art makes me want to rock out!"
"I'm considering a move to L.A.!"
"I can't believe I've only just discovered The Replacements!"
"I've seen her naked...twice!"
Argos's geeky sincerity is ingratiating and strategic. He seems to find the act of singing pretentious and admits it upfront on "Formed A Band" - "And yes/This is my singing voice/It's not irony/It's not rock 'n roll"
But for all their anti-intellectual posturing ("I can't stand the sound/Of The Velvet Underground" insists "Bang Bang Rock & Roll"), Art Brut are secret deconstructionist pranksters. Their 2006 debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll pokes fun at the banality of garage rock prematurely couched in the packaging of a Penguin Classic.
2009's Art Brut vs. Satan extends this theme, exploiting punk rock detachment to talk about tremendously dorky things. Most bands aren't likely to express an arrested development complex with a song called "DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake." Likewise, the conundrum of secondhand records (cheaper!) versus reissued CDs (extra tracks!) has never been expressed as poetically as it is on "The Replacements."
Art Brut's second album, It's A Bit Complicated, is comparatively somber. All of their music leaves the impression that Argos is slightly ashamed of being smart, but Complicated is thoroughly frank about the mistakes and heartbreak that even he can't avoid. Though Satan also has a dark streak, Art Brut doesn't get more crushing than "Post Soothing Out."
Asia - "Heat of the Moment"
Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio"
A deliciously overwrought prog-rock ballad, "Heat of the Moment" has a secure place in the pop culture pantheon. It is the perfect amount of '80s - catchy, but you can laugh at it. And think cocaine wasn't pervasive back then? Look at this: it's an Asia video, for crying out loud!
"Turn Up the Radio," on the other hand, is too '80s, a bland Def Leppard ripoff reminding us that "things go better with rock."
Interestingly, Autograph frontman Steve Plunkett has built a fruitful post-glam career as a songwriter and producer of original songs for television shows. Nothing says "living the dream" like going from touring with Van Halen to writing and performing the theme to 7th Heaven.
Can we hear so many inferior versions of this that we forget how remarkable it truly is?
Nah.
Art Brut
This is the type of band that is harder to get into than, say Animal Collective. Those guys just make weird sounds. Art Brut, however, appeals to a narrow audience with thorough knowledge of old alt-rock lyrics. If you don't get outsider art jokes or puns like "Cool your warm jets/Brian Eno," then proceed at your own risk.
Your typical Art Brut song has the literary depth of a 15-year-old's Twitter feed. The following is a random sampling of Art Brut lyrics, all delivered at the same level of enthusiasm in Eddie Argos's speak-singing voice. The man is easily excited:
"I love public transportation!"
"Modern art makes me want to rock out!"
"I'm considering a move to L.A.!"
"I can't believe I've only just discovered The Replacements!"
"I've seen her naked...twice!"
Argos's geeky sincerity is ingratiating and strategic. He seems to find the act of singing pretentious and admits it upfront on "Formed A Band" - "And yes/This is my singing voice/It's not irony/It's not rock 'n roll"
But for all their anti-intellectual posturing ("I can't stand the sound/Of The Velvet Underground" insists "Bang Bang Rock & Roll"), Art Brut are secret deconstructionist pranksters. Their 2006 debut Bang Bang Rock & Roll pokes fun at the banality of garage rock prematurely couched in the packaging of a Penguin Classic.
2009's Art Brut vs. Satan extends this theme, exploiting punk rock detachment to talk about tremendously dorky things. Most bands aren't likely to express an arrested development complex with a song called "DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake." Likewise, the conundrum of secondhand records (cheaper!) versus reissued CDs (extra tracks!) has never been expressed as poetically as it is on "The Replacements."
Art Brut's second album, It's A Bit Complicated, is comparatively somber. All of their music leaves the impression that Argos is slightly ashamed of being smart, but Complicated is thoroughly frank about the mistakes and heartbreak that even he can't avoid. Though Satan also has a dark streak, Art Brut doesn't get more crushing than "Post Soothing Out."
Asia - "Heat of the Moment"
Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio"
A deliciously overwrought prog-rock ballad, "Heat of the Moment" has a secure place in the pop culture pantheon. It is the perfect amount of '80s - catchy, but you can laugh at it. And think cocaine wasn't pervasive back then? Look at this: it's an Asia video, for crying out loud!
"Turn Up the Radio," on the other hand, is too '80s, a bland Def Leppard ripoff reminding us that "things go better with rock."
Interestingly, Autograph frontman Steve Plunkett has built a fruitful post-glam career as a songwriter and producer of original songs for television shows. Nothing says "living the dream" like going from touring with Van Halen to writing and performing the theme to 7th Heaven.
Monday, January 17, 2011
The Archies to Arctic Monkeys
The giant puddle of drool that was the Arcade Fire post is finally cleared up and I'm ready to get back to business as usual. Let's get started, shall we?
The Archies - "Sugar, Sugar"
Today this would be a straight-up promo for candy, but back in the 1960s and 70s people couldn't get enough of fictional bands on television - especially in cartoons. The Archies were the house band of 1968-69's The Archie Show (Archie had a bit of an ego, it seems) and boast the only #1 single by a "virtual" artist, unless you count that Crazy Frog thing from a few years back.
(Here's the song as performed by Ron Dante, the "voice of the Archies"; video is not embeddable)
For television filler, "Sugar, Sugar" is a surprisingly well-written song with a great shelf life, the product of a pop songwriting dream team: it was penned by bubblegum vets Andy Kim ("Rock Me Gently") and Jeff Barry (co-writer of dozens of pop hits including "Leader of the Pack," "Do Wah Diddy," and "Cherry, Cherry"). It's best played loud on the most joyous of occasions.
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
It's difficult for me to listen to Architecture in Helsinki and not think about I'm From Barcelona or Tilly and the Wall or Still Flyin'...somebody in this equation is definitely getting ripped off.
In Case We Die finds AiH attempting to out-twee all of the above and, as luck would have it, they're pretty good at that. The record's hit, "Do the Whirlwind," is a bratty slice of suburban hip-pop with some clumsy sitar, and "Wishbone" is as creepily sexual and non-sexual as an MJ slumber party ("Should we make believe/You're in bed with me?"). "The Cemetery" is the peak of the band's wide-eyed enthusiasm, a song that sounds like it was played entirely on Casios and harmonicas and anything else left in the toybox, and manages to make a trip to a graveyard seem like the Funnest Thing Ever.
(Not the most effective video, but a really cool one regardless)
Architecture in Helsinki is so inherently childlike and playfully naive and really might not be comparable to I'm From Barcelona at all; they're more like They Might Be Giants stripped of all cynicism and irony.
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys have always seemed better to me in theory than in practice. I feel I should have more interest in/appreciation for the standard-bearers of evolutionary Britpop, but perhaps I discovered them at a point when I felt that I had personally exhausted the genre. If I prefer Razorlight to Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, it's not only a matter of taste but also timing. Also, I misspelled "Arctic" on a fifth-grade spelling test, a psychological trauma that still impedes my cognitive process whenever a hard "c" is involved.
"Fluorescent Adolescent" is one of a handful of Monkeys songs that brings back those warm, fuzzy memories of Cool Britannia, breezy and bitterly nostalgic. Alex Turner's charmingly relentless vocal only adds to the song's knowing, weary mood.
But when I think of Arctic Monkeys, I think of a general sound instead of a particular song or album. I think of crooning over surf-tinged guitars, a motif I've dubbed "secret agent swing." I think of throwaway ballads. I think of loud and blistering music with a level of polish that's slightly off-putting when you begin to notice it. I think of thoroughly British album titles (Favourite Worst Nightmare; Humbug). I think of Pulp with less cheek and darker humor. And I think that "Dangerous Animals" sounds kinda similar to the theme from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
The Archies - "Sugar, Sugar"
Today this would be a straight-up promo for candy, but back in the 1960s and 70s people couldn't get enough of fictional bands on television - especially in cartoons. The Archies were the house band of 1968-69's The Archie Show (Archie had a bit of an ego, it seems) and boast the only #1 single by a "virtual" artist, unless you count that Crazy Frog thing from a few years back.
(Here's the song as performed by Ron Dante, the "voice of the Archies"; video is not embeddable)
For television filler, "Sugar, Sugar" is a surprisingly well-written song with a great shelf life, the product of a pop songwriting dream team: it was penned by bubblegum vets Andy Kim ("Rock Me Gently") and Jeff Barry (co-writer of dozens of pop hits including "Leader of the Pack," "Do Wah Diddy," and "Cherry, Cherry"). It's best played loud on the most joyous of occasions.
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
It's difficult for me to listen to Architecture in Helsinki and not think about I'm From Barcelona or Tilly and the Wall or Still Flyin'...somebody in this equation is definitely getting ripped off.
In Case We Die finds AiH attempting to out-twee all of the above and, as luck would have it, they're pretty good at that. The record's hit, "Do the Whirlwind," is a bratty slice of suburban hip-pop with some clumsy sitar, and "Wishbone" is as creepily sexual and non-sexual as an MJ slumber party ("Should we make believe/You're in bed with me?"). "The Cemetery" is the peak of the band's wide-eyed enthusiasm, a song that sounds like it was played entirely on Casios and harmonicas and anything else left in the toybox, and manages to make a trip to a graveyard seem like the Funnest Thing Ever.
(Not the most effective video, but a really cool one regardless)
Architecture in Helsinki is so inherently childlike and playfully naive and really might not be comparable to I'm From Barcelona at all; they're more like They Might Be Giants stripped of all cynicism and irony.
Arctic Monkeys
Arctic Monkeys have always seemed better to me in theory than in practice. I feel I should have more interest in/appreciation for the standard-bearers of evolutionary Britpop, but perhaps I discovered them at a point when I felt that I had personally exhausted the genre. If I prefer Razorlight to Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, it's not only a matter of taste but also timing. Also, I misspelled "Arctic" on a fifth-grade spelling test, a psychological trauma that still impedes my cognitive process whenever a hard "c" is involved.
"Fluorescent Adolescent" is one of a handful of Monkeys songs that brings back those warm, fuzzy memories of Cool Britannia, breezy and bitterly nostalgic. Alex Turner's charmingly relentless vocal only adds to the song's knowing, weary mood.
But when I think of Arctic Monkeys, I think of a general sound instead of a particular song or album. I think of crooning over surf-tinged guitars, a motif I've dubbed "secret agent swing." I think of throwaway ballads. I think of loud and blistering music with a level of polish that's slightly off-putting when you begin to notice it. I think of thoroughly British album titles (Favourite Worst Nightmare; Humbug). I think of Pulp with less cheek and darker humor. And I think that "Dangerous Animals" sounds kinda similar to the theme from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
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