Rock musicians typically don’t know how to age. The first time they see a shock of grey in their styled-to-look-mussed-up hair, they either double down on their denial and make music that proves they “still got it,” or go off the “reinvent myself” deep end. Which just adds to the pure pleasure of listening to Nick Lowe in the 21st century. With The Old Magic, the 62-year-old pub rock/new wave legend gives us his third straight offering of gently smirking tunes about loving, losing, and getting older all the while. It’s beautifully written material from an artist who’s comfortable in his own wrinkled skin, and a production that keeps its genre jumping to a minimum – relying mostly on soft vocal jazz arrangements and sprightly Buddy Holly shuffles to support Lowe’s curious, cooing voice. Because when you’ve got metaphors for failed love that are as wonderful as “Stoplight Roses,” you don’t need much else.
Stevie Wonder – In Square Circle (1985)
In my younger, stupider days, I would say things like “NOTHING good came out of the ’80s,” accompanied by the requisite eye-roll. I don’t like to think about me being an ignorant dick, but albums like In Square Circle demand this kind of personal reflection. Stevie Wonder fully embraced the synthetic production values of the decade here, something that would’ve once inspired my passive-aggressive scorn. Thankfully, now I actually listen to albums before judging them, and while Wonder’s 20th record doesn’t possess the warmth and grandiosity of his ’70s earth-shakers, it’s darn close to a pop masterpiece. Two jaw-dropping ballads are the biggest highlights – the scorned-lover-as-missing-person weeper “Whereabouts” and the classic unrequited love song “Overjoyed” – but the minor synth groove of “Part-Time Lover” and the staccato, drum machine funk of “Spiritual Walkers” are also fantastic listens, despite sounding very much like they were recorded in 1985.
Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes (2011)
Lykke Li made her first splash with the 2007 single “Little Bit,” a simple declaration of love that stayed with you, no matter how silly it looked on paper. And the singer continues to explore the same chilly neo-soul territory on her second album, digging deeper into her vocabulary to express love and devotion. Wounded Rhymes does possess the ruminative quality implied by the title, but it’s in the atmospherics more than the songs themselves, resulting in an album that sounds like Portishead after a fruitful therapy session. “I Know Places” is six-minutes of lo-fi folk strumming, an instrumental track that just might be coma-inducing – if it weren’t for Lykke Li’s light, bluesy vocal. When she sings, “I know places we can go, babe/Comin’ home, come unfold, babe,” the song goes from a slog to a spiritual.
Hey, list fiends. Halloween is creeping around the corner like a scary ghost. Which means it’s time for a list about being scared about stuff. Last year we counted down the “funnest” horror movies of all time, exploring such feel-good titles as The Gingerdead Man and Sleepwalkers. This year, we analyze some pop culture that isn’t supposed to be scary, but still manages to make me pee in my pants a little.
1. Unexpected Cookie Monster
John Lennon, “Hold On”
When I fell in love with John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, I was doing a lot of driving – my incredible girlfriend (now my wife) was going to school an hour and a half away, and I sped my Dodge Neon down there every chance I got. On one of these voyages, I heard “Hold On” for the first time. A sparse, sauntering lullaby, “Hold On” is a quiet moment on an album informed by scream therapy. But at the 1:08 mark, just as you start to settle into the song’s aesthetic, a gravelly voice flies out of leftfield, stating “Cookie.” When I first heard this, I whipped my head around in the driver’s seat, fully expecting to see a wild-eyed drifter in the back, making to stab me with a rusty switchblade. Turns out that was John himself, imitating Cookie Monster for reasons I still don’t understand. But that moment has stuck with me – when he sings “It’s gonna be all right” on the chorus, I’m not convinced.
2. The Famous Amos Penis Scene Burlesque
There’s not much that isn’t frightening about Burlesque, the 2010 musical about a wooden small-town girl who flees to the L.A. of an alternate universe, where one can become a huge star as a burlesque performer, because the general public cares about burlesque. Christina Aguilera wanders through the shots like a lobotomy victim, Cher looks like a Madame Tussauds monster, and the songs are horrible, but those things are to be expected. Not so the scene where Aguilera’s excruciating flirtations with love interest Cam Gigandet come to a head – Gigandet does an extended strip tease that’s intended to be cute (enter the bedroom fully clothed, come back into the living room under some pretense but a little more naked, repeat). Then, just as we’re lulled into a catatonic acceptance of this sequence’s “romantic” endgame, Gigandet walks up to Aguilera with a box of Famous Amos cookies covering his dong. “Wanna cookie?” he asks. It’s gross. It’s nonsensical. It’s not even the funniest box of cookies that one could use to conceal their genitals (Otis Spunkmeyer, anyone?). When you’re done screaming, this is the kind of insult to your intelligence, and your sweet tooth, that lives on in your nightmares.
3. Arnold Knows Best Commando
The daddy-daughter montage during the opening credits of Commando is intended to be the brief calm before the storm – because like any brilliant action film, this 1985 Schwarzenegger classic knows to get the character development out of the way as quickly as possible, and get right to the ass-kicking. But nothing in the ensuing shoot-em-up is as frightening as the beginning of this sequence, which finds an especially bulgy Arnold chopping wood. A shadowy presence approaches, and the music implies that this must be a bad guy. Arnold sees his enemy in the reflection of his axe, and at the last second, he spins around and … grabs his daughter Jenny, laughing and shaking her awkwardly. Is this a game they play, where the kid tries to sneak up on her father while he’s wielding an axe? It doesn’t matter, because now they’re goofing around at ice cream stands and feeding fawns in the wild. Still, although the entire premise of Commando is that Arnold loves his daughter so much that he’d annihilate an island nation to save her, you’ve gotta wonder if she’d be safer with the terrorists.
4. You WHAT into me? Dave Matthews Band, “Crash Into Me”
Like most Dave Matthews Band ballads, “Crash Into Me” meanders along inoffensively, pairing pleasant open chords with loving sentiments like adult contemporary hits are supposed to. It’s exactly the kind of tune that shouldn’t have a chorus about having unprotected sex with Dave Matthews. “Crash into me/And I come into you,” Matthews warbles, making for one of the most uncomfortable and messy-sounding come-ons in rock history.
5. Boohbah
As if the concept of tripping human-animal hybrids with TVs for stomachs wasn’t creepy enough, Boohbah ups the ante on grotesque, oddly fascinating programming for babies. The Boohbahs are furry, fluorescent-colored creatures who look like mauled genitalia – bumpy oval heads peeking out of big furry sacks. When they’re not chanting “Booh-bah” like a children’s choir, they’re bobbing their heads up and down and making fart noises. Saying their names in a certain order is a surefire way to raise the dead – Humbah, Zumbah, Zing Zing Zingbah, Jumbah, Jingbah …
6. America’s Sweetheart Has A Seizure Steel Magnolias
Southern women are sassy and strong. That’s basically the plot of Steel Magnolias. Even when one of them dies tragically, it only serves to underline the point that these ladies are more resilient than a million Tom Skerritts. So when Julia Roberts has a horrifying diabetic seizure in Dolly Parton’s salon chair, with Sally Field and Olympia Dukakis watching, it’s a harrowing chink in the armor of these superhuman Southern belles. But that’s not necessarily scary. What is scary is that Roberts looks like a tapeworm monster in this scene. Which probably explains why I curl up in the fetal position when I hear the words, “Drink your juice, Shelby.”
7. Did you kill my son? Changeling
Some of the scariest sci-fi stories involve the alien takeover of human consciousness, from Invasion of the Body Snatchers to The Thing. How else can we explain how Angelina Jolie behaves in Clint Eastwood’s underwhelming 2008 period piece Changeling? She plays a woman whose child is kidnapped, only to have the authorities try to pass off some other kid as hers. You’d think there’d be some righteous fury here, something to give the audience the sense of catharsis that results in Oscar nods. But Jolie is bewilderingly robotic. When confronting the man who she thinks is her son’s murderer, the script requires her to ask the question “Did you kill my son?” about 400 times. And while Jolie tries to mix it up, first asking politely and then yelling it in the guy’s face, there isn’t a trace of human emotion to be found – by then, the pod people had completely taken over.
As we get ready for a year’s worth of politicians explaining why the rich should get richer, we get an album from two of the most talented beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts. And when you consider that on Watch The Throne, Jay-Z & Kanye West reach some spine-tingling heights on the backs of some crazy-expensive samples, this makes for a quintessentially American success story in 2011. Sure, it’s probably unfair that West might be the only producer out there with the clout to license “Try A Little Tenderness,” but there’s no use whining about it, because he also happens to be the best person for the job. The resulting cut, “Otis,” is a magnificent swash of braggadocio that boldly reframes Redding’s theme – in the place of a tender lover making life “easier to bear,” we now have obscene wealth. Both MCs egg each other on, resulting in some propulsive egomania (e.g. “Welcome to Havana/Smoking cubanos with Castro in cabanas”). It’s the precise formula we hoped for with this pairing – huge, luxurious productions, and a palpable sense of one-upsmanship on the microphone. The best example of it might be the RZA co-production “New Day,” which finds Jay and ‘Ye pleading with their hypothetical future children over a haunting beat that runs Nina Simone through AutoTune (!!!). It’s not a track by track masterpiece a la My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy(the mix of pseudo-feminism and rock star hedonism on “That’s My Bitch” just wasn’t thought through), but on Watch The Throne, these superstars spread the wealth so generously, trickle-down economics almost starts to make sense.
Check out “New Day”:
Queen – Sheer Heart Attack (1974)
Everybody knows that Queen could do bombast better than anybody. But it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that they could straight-up shred, probably because the unbridled adrenaline that fueled this, its third album, would take a back seat to grander production flourishes on later masterpieces. As a result, it might be the least polished record of the band’s oeuvre, and my favorite. Every aspect of the band’s personality is here in its rawest form – towering vocal harmonies, vaudevillian freakouts, proto-thrash exercises and earworm-infested pop gems. From the Moet & Chandon melody of “Killer Queen” to the muscular arena rock of “Tenement Funster,” the halcyon balladry of “Lily of the Valley” to the bloody-fingered metal of “Stone Cold Crazy,” Sheer Heart Attack proved that Queen could do it all, and do it better than your band.
Here’s the harrowing, record execs-are-the-devil rocker, “Flick of the Wrist”:
Tyrone Davis – “Can I Change My Mind” (1968)
This is an idyllic R&B confection that gives credence to that classic advice women get when they want to make a man interested – act like you could give a shit about him. Davis, a singer I hadn’t heard of until I stumbled across this song, shows that he should’ve been in the conversation alongside the Motown and Stax greats of the time. Over a clear-as-day guitar riff and some punchy horns, he gets every drop of regret out of the lyric, with an effortless delivery that’s firmly in the tradition of Davis’ Chicago soul forefather, Sam Cooke. “But y’all, the girl, she fooled me this time,” he sings, going on to explain his emotional discovery to us – he thought he wanted to leave his woman, but he just wanted to get a rise out of her. He’s unsuccessful, of course, which clears the way for the beautiful plea of the chorus.
Last week saw the release of Rave On Buddy Holly, a lovingly slapped together collection of artists interpreting the work of one of rock history’s most enduring phenoms. Which got me thinking about where these covers rank alongside other great versions of classic tunes. Here’s my list of the top 10 oldies covers of all time (we’ll classify “oldies” as stuff originally released in the ’50s and ’60s). One Rave Ontrack moved me so much, it threatened to be #1.
10. Elliott Smith – “Because” (1999)
Of all the crimes that American Beauty has committed (portraying women as nagging psychos, portraying homosexuals as murderous psychos, etc.), slapping this heartbreaking performance from Elliott Smith over the end credits is one of the worst. (If you aren’t sure if Sam Mendes takes himself too seriously, here’s your proof.) “Because” might be the most “spiritual” song in the Beatles catalog, one that asks huge questions in the humblest ways. But Smith, a patron saint of loneliness in pop music at the time, delivered these lines with less wonder and more existentialist dread. While the mid-song instrumentation is loyally aped, it doesn’t provide much of a catharsis. Because at the core of it all is Smith, building four-part harmonies all by himself, singing gorgeously into the void.
9. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – “I Can’t Stand Up For Falling Down” (1980)
There’s usually nothing more throwaway than a punked-out version of a slow-burning oldie. But there’s nothing usual about The Attractions, whose caffeinated take on Sam & Dave’s 1967 torch song is one of their most aggressively catchy recordings. Factor in Costello delivering those man-scorned lyrics in his beautifully bitter tenor, and you’ve got a cover that’s the opposite of disposable.
8. She & Him – “I Should Have Known Better” (2008)
You could argue that a Beatles cover is actually the coward’s way out – if you nail it, then you’re a genius who can reinterpret The Beatles. If you flub it, it’s a Beatles song, what did you expect? On their debut album, She & Him might’ve played it safe with this dreamy hula cover of my sixth-favorite Fab Four cut. But boy did they nail it. It’s a recording that’s perfect for the seaside, but thanks to a slower tempo and some shoegaze vocals, it never crosses over to the twee-side.
7. The Black Crowes – “Hard to Handle” (1990)
When the Black Crowes released this fiery sendup of an Otis Redding gem as the third single off its debut album, the mix of ’60s soul and Southern bar band boogie inspired me to make Shake Your Money Maker the first compact disc I ever bought. Considering that my earlier purchases included Natalie Cole’s “Pink Cadillac” cassette single, this cover will always sound like a profoundly new experience to me.
6. Nina Simone – “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” (1971)
One of the finest interpreters of popular music takes a typically hazy Bob Dylan song – a guy goes to Juarez at Easter time, gets tired of making oblique literary references down there, and decides to go back to New York City – removes the jocular sneer, and replaces it with a gentle, sympathetic tone. Over light percussion and delicate jazz guitar, Simone digs deep, turning some of Dylan’s more sarcastic lines into deeply tragic moments (e.g. “My best friend the doctor won’t even say what it is I got.”).
5. David Bowie – “Let’s Spend the Night Together” (1973)
On this Aladdin Sane highlight, Bowie manages to make one of the Rolling Stones’ perennial come-ons sound even more coked-out, combining frantically mashed piano chords and blast-off synths with a lightning tempo. The hypercharged arrangement makes the narrator sound less confident, more desperate, and leagues sexier.
4. Cat Power – “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (2000)
Much like Simone did to Dylan, Cat Power does to the Stones, turning their iconic ode to unquenchable desire into a stripped, vulnerable folk song, exposing the constant pursuit of happiness for what it really is – a symptom of sadness and isolation.
3. Gram Parsons – “Love Hurts” (1973)
Before Nazareth screeched all over this tender Boudleaux Bryant original, people didn’t think of it as a regrettable one-night stand they had in the ’70s. The Everly Brothers captured its ache accordingly on its first recorded version. Roy Orbison crooned it over swelling strings and cooing backup singers, in the way only he could. And Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris did it best, accompanied by a light acoustic arrangement that allowed their ragged, magnetic vocal chemistry to carry the day.
2. Patti Smith – “Words of Love” (2011)
Rave On Buddy Holly includes plenty of mimicry and experimentation, and as usual, the latter approach is more rewarding. But the finest moment of the compilation falls squarely between those two categories – Patti Smith’s delicate take on “Words of Love.” The artist had Holly’s greatest melody to work with, yet opted to deliver it simply and directly, over a dreamy, meditative soundscape. It’s a work of stunning beauty, and a clever one at that, fading out to the reassuring whirr of crickets in the evening.
1. Klaus Nomi – “Lightning Strikes” (1981)
It’s easier to appreciate something truly unique when it’s placed in the context of something we’re already comfortable with. Such is Klaus Nomi’s cover of this 1965 Lou Christie smash. The original’s melodramatic delivery was a bit of a guilty pleasure, and its narrator was a straight-up sexual deviant. But Nomi transforms it all into a refreshing blast of avant garde pop, shifting between heavily accented song-speak and delirious bursts of falsetto over a chilly new wave beat. From note one of this cover, there’s no doubt who the original artist is.
[Oh, and for the record, the worst song in this category is James Taylor’s version of “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You),” which manages to suck all of the joy out of the Marvin Gaye original, leaving behind a polished corpse of naptime folk. If Taylor can’t sound lovestruck with such generous source material, he must think a gift of drugstore perfume is guaranteed to get him laid.]
Today’s the first day of summer! Here are some tunes that’ll be perfect for that unforgettable summer car trip – you know, where you go to Home Depot to buy an air conditioner, so you can close all of your windows and watch reruns until the leaves start to turn.
1. Nicki Minaj – “Super Bass”
It’s no contest. This is the song of Summer 2011 – masterfully syncopated verses from one of the most creative rappers around; soaring, shiny synth hooks, and an infectious onomatopoeia (“boom-ba doop boop, boom-ba doom boop, yeah!”).
2. Prince – “Play in the Sunshine” Worried that the world’s going to shit and you’re never gonna find true happiness? Take a page from the Prince playbook, and dance your way to enlightenment to this exuberant blast of synth pop – “Some way, somehow, I’m gonna have fun.”
3. Gordon Lightfoot – “Carefree Highway” This makes me want to drive drunk.
4. Kylie Minogue – “Get Outta My Way” A beautiful summer day can make you feel invincible. Add an irresistible dance song with defiantly independent lyrics, and you might try to walk on water.
5. Lil Wayne – “Best Rapper Alive”
Speaking of bouts of egomania, this straight-faced claim of greatness from a pre-superstardom Weezy is guaranteed to get the adrenaline flowing while you mow your parents’ lawn.
6. The Velvet Underground – “Who Loves the Sun” What would the summer be without that crippling moment when you realize that all the good weather in the world won’t keep you warm at night?
7. Led Zeppelin – “The Ocean” “Singing in the sunshine/Laughing in the rain.” Not the most bad-ass lyrics in Zeppelin’s oeuvre, but when you throw in Page’s gnarly riff and Bonham’s massive beat, you’ve got something earth-shattering.
8. The Beach Boys – “Busy Doin’ Nothin'” Forget “California Girls.” This beautifully arranged cut (woodwinds!) about forgetting somebody’s number, then remembering it, then calling them and getting no answer, then writing them a letter, perfectly captures the vibe of a lazy summer day.
9. Outkast – “Skew it On the Bar-B” Whether you’re an old school player or new school fool, this cut showcases Andre 3000, Big Boi and Raekwon at the top of their game – it’s guaranteed to make your barbecue sizzle.
10. The Zombies – “Time of the Season” A sexy hit single from a British Invasion band previously known for expressions of towering wussery, this song’s percussive “ahhs” and “Who’s your daddy” pick-up lines could be seen as a relic of the late-’60s. But when the warm weather hits, that groove sounds like it was meant for today.
I’m a sucker for a singer with a deep voice. And with his third solo effort, Apocalypse, former Smog leader Bill Callahan’s pipes are so entrancing, he’s got a better chance of laying me down by the fire than Barry White ever did. This seven-song arc of sparse, haunted folk connects the dots between the stately isolation of cattle drivers and touring musicians, compares lost loves to wildflowers, and gives guilt-ridden Americans a mantra to soothe their bruised patriotism – “Everyone’s allowed a past they don’t care to mention.”
R. Kelly – Love Letter (2010)
I’m sure R. Kelly’s reasoning for the concept of his 10th album – a squeaky-clean collection of retro-minded love songs – wasn’t purely artistic. But although you can feel the fingerprints of his publicist all over Love Letter, from the “I’ll be loyal and true” message of every track to the Kelly-as-Ray Charles homage on the album cover, the music here is exceptional. Freed from the silly posturing and cringeworthy innuendo of his earlier work, Kelly just focuses on singing here – and his voice isn’t just supremely silky, it’s versatile, aping MJ’s pop outbursts on “Not Feelin’ the Love,” carrying the ’70s Motown balladry of “Just Can’t Get Enough,” and cutting loose at just the right moment on the staggering “When A Woman Loves.”
The Everly Brothers – The Everly Brothers Sing Great Country Hits (1963)
You could make the argument that this isn’t an essential Everly Brothers album. It was a bit of a contract fulfiller, recorded during a time when the duo couldn’t get access to material from Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, their songwriting muses who were responsible for most of their timeless hits. But separate these sessions from the history, and you get one of pop music’s all-time great interpreters of country & western, tackling a dozen gems of the genre. Phil and Don’s harmonies are as transcendent as ever over the light rockabilly of “Just One Time,” the bar band balladry of “Please Help Me I’m Falling,” and the soaring “Sweet Dreams” – a tune they were meant to sing if there ever was one.
Easter pales in comparison to Christmas – it’s Jesus’s comeback album, which, while enjoyable, just can’t compare to his debut. But one thing that Easter does have over the Yuletide is a lack of musical accompaniment. Without a “Rockin’ Around the Butter Lamb” to dominate our stereos, we can play whatever we damn well please. Here’s what I plan on spinning this Sunday:
Mark Morrison – “Return of the Mack”
“And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, upon which it became clear. The mack hath returned.”
A Tribe Called Quest – “The Hop”
Just drums, a standup bass loop, some light electric piano and the effortless flow of Q-Tip and Phife Dawg. One of the most addictive cuts from one of history’s most addictive groups.
Jefferson Airplane – “White Rabbit”
Dude, that fucker on the PAAS box is looking at me. He knows something, man. It’s like I’m naked. He can see everything. HE CAN SEE EVERYTHING!!!!!!
Beastie Boys – “Egg Man”
A way better theme for an egg hunt than the stupid-ass bunny hop, this is the only song I know of that’s cool enough to sample Curtis Mayfield and reference Pink Flamingos.
A song about the beauty and fragility of sexual intimacy, or a metaphor for kids searching for baskets filled with shit from the drugstore?
Peter Tosh – “Legalize It”
It’s time to decriminalize Easter grass, people. Shredded plastic is processed from oil, which is all natural, man.
Chumbawamba – “Mary Mary (Stigmatic Mix)”
As you know, this was on the Stigmata soundtrack, a movie that was ironically full of plot holes. It appears that the song isn’t available on mp3, but I imagine it’s about how Jesus got knocked down, but then got up again.
Subtlety is pretty non-existent in Tim Heidecker’s most well-known work, the wee-hour bong-hit variety show supreme, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! So when fans take Heidecker & Wood’s debut album for a spin (the other half of the duo is Tom Goes to the Mayor and Awesome Show music director Davin Wood), its relatively serious yacht rock underpinnings will come off as shockingly soft. But once the surprise wears off, Starting From Nowhere reveals itself as both a meticulously crafted homage to ’70s sensitive guy music and a calmly ridiculous bit of comedy. Take “Cross Country Skiing,” which opens the album. There aren’t any notable one-liners on the lyric sheet, but it’s an earnest folk song about a patently unexciting white person sport, and that’s funny. H&W employ the same quality melody/silly lyric formula as Tenacious D or Flight of the Conchords, but the comedy band duo comparisons end there. Heidecker’s delivery is soft and genuine, enough off-key to tell you he’s more comedian than vocalist, but bereft of any “hey, I’m being funny” elocution. This record is stuffed with clutch examples of bad lyric writing (my favs at the moment: “What are the questions we ask when we’re asking questions?” and “A canyon and a man can live in peace”), but they’re rarely spotlit, making them easy to miss the first time around. And that’s just fine with these guys. After all, Wood’s arrangements and melodies are such accomplished homages to Chicago, Steely Dan, Air Supply and Crosby Stills & Nash, chances are you’ll be humming along before you’re laughing out loud.
Simon & Garfunkel – Wednesday Morning, 3 a.m. (1964)
With Heidecker & Wood on the brain, I was inspired to revisit this album, undoubtedly the cheesiest, most uneven effort of Simon & Garfunkel’s rarely flawed partnership. (The inclusion of “Bleecker Street” on a season 4 episode of Mad Men also contributed to this unexpected urge.) Missing the literary folk boom by a couple years, the album tanked initially, going clang with an audience that was already following Dylan to bold new territory. And it would be understandable if anybody didn’t get past the first track, a cornball run-through of the hymn “You Can Tell the World” that’s exactly what Christopher Guest was making fun of with The New Main Street Singers. But the balance of the record holds up better than I remembered, from the endearing innocence of “Bleecker Street” to the harmonic showcases of “Benedictus” and “Peggy-O.” And, of course, the original, acoustic version of “The Sound of Silence,” whose elegance is evergreen. On the whole, Simon’s writing still needed a bit more polish, but it’s all too evident here that the duo already had wuss rock lightning in a bottle.
Eels – Electro-Shock Blues (1998)
To round out what has become the softest Discman trilogy yet, it’s the second and arguably best effort from Mark Oliver Everett (aka “E”). After losing both his mother and sister in a short period of time, the one-man phenomenon behind Eels made a record that was understandably cynical and sad. And while Electro-Shock Blues might’ve been an open vein lyrically (e.g. “My life is shit and piss”), its music provided the balance necessary to make it a valuable document of the human condition. Among the many gorgeous acoustic ballads here, there’s the lurching Tom Waits rhythms and found sounds of “Cancer for the Cure,” the dance-folk Beck breaks of “Last Stop: This Town” and the sexy Morphine rumble of “Hospital Food.” Hence, by the time E admits to finding a new appreciation for being alive on the closing “P.S. You Rock My World,” you’re not only far from depressed – you’re wishing the whole beautiful thing wouldn’t end.
The cover of James Blake’s debut album is a nice bit of synesthesia – a portrait of the artist soaked in icy blue undertones, his face blurred to the point where he’s looking at you from two different places at once. It’s the perfect visual interpretation of Blake’s voice on this record, a silky, soul-inflected alien in a purely electronic world. On “The Wilhelm Scream,” it’s rich and full, dancing lightly over atmospheric synths; on “Lindesfarne I,” it’s distorted and chilling, comparing hope to kestrels through washes of pitch correction.Blake pines for happiness throughout, over distant, subterranean electronics that belie his optimism. It’s a Sade album for a Terminator future, where a singer clearly has soul, and the machines try to strip it from him every step of the way.
ZZ Top – Eliminator (1983)
The trio of Gibbons, Hill and Beard were always thinly veiled rip-off artists, but they tended to be damn good at it, fusing John Lee Hooker’s riffs and attitudes with the kind of classic rock hooks that fit snugly on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. On Eliminator, those mainstream tendencies completely took over, and it was a blessing. By polishing up their guitar sounds and throwing some love songs into the mix, ZZ Top found the balance they needed to make a great record. Instead of sounding like a guy who’s bullshitting his buddies, a la “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide,” Billy Gibbons sounds sincere in his appreciation of legs, suits and TV dinners, letting his guitar do the bragging with one indelible riff after another – “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Got Me Under Pressure” and “Sharp Dressed Man” is one of the strongest opening sequences in ’80s rock.
Das Racist – Shut Up, Dude (2010)
The second mixtape Das Racist released last year, Sit Down, Man, was a Discman constant for me, along with the Wallpaper remix of their corporate homogenization novelty song “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.” Now that I’ve circled back and picked up their debut mix Shut Up, Dude, it’s crystallized in my brain – few things are more fun these days than listening to these guys. The lyrics might be delivered with a stoner’s irreverence, but they’re meticulously packaged blasts of verbal candy, delightfully off-kilter (“We can eat gruyere as if we care/We can eat Roquefort, or we can kick it like Rockport”) and rich in pop culture (references include Saved By the Bell, Tim Meadows, The Land Before Time, Look Who’s Talking Now and Jake Gyllenhaal). And given that it’s a mixtape, Das Racist can rap over anything, whether it’s a choice Madlib beat or a hyped-up slice of Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out.” The result is mischievous, way smart and party ready, and a reminder of how much fun rap is when it doesn’t have to worry about intellectual property law.
To the people out there who love complaining about the Grammys (and shooting arrows at the broad sides of barns, and shoving unhip kids into lockers), take a gander at some of the winners from last night’s ceremony: The Black Keys (pictured here, looking inspirationally dorky), Cee-Lo Green, Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, John Legend & The Roots, Jeff Beck, Eminem, Rihanna, Esperanza Spalding, Bruno Mars, La Roux, Neil Young, Them Crooked Vultures. If you wanted to make a list of quality mainstream artists in 2011, you could do a lot worse.
Admittedly, I’m not a big fan of the event. I didn’t watch last night’s broadcast. But after reading Trent Reznor’s recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, in which he continues his long-running attack on the Grammys by calling them [gasp] “out of touch,” I had to share my fed-up-itude with such misplaced snobbery. The Grammys have never been about being tuned in to the underground. It’s an industry event that tries to honor artists that are both artistically significant and financially viable – a major feat that’s only getting tougher. If you don’t like pop music, then you’re going to think it’s pointless. But seriously, you don’t like pop music at all?
Yes, it’s unsettling to learn that Train won for a live recording of the thoroughly terrible “Hey, Soul Sister,” especially when you realize that the original was released in 2009. But you’ve gotta face facts – millions of people love that f’n song. If you want to bitch about it, take it up with them.
Me? I’m going to crank up “Just the Way You Are” and sing along like an idiot. And it’s going to feel good.
Nick Lowe – The Old Magic (2011)
Stevie Wonder – In Square Circle (1985)
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