The legend is that these were improvised home recordings that were never intended to be released, created just for the amusement of the Flemion brothers and their friends, but who can say? There's a lot of mythology around this strange, beautiful bedroom pop gem.
Let's dodge the elephant in the room and talk about the music for a sec: the melodies are hooky and airy and brilliant, the songs full of delightful swerves and details that surprise every time you listen. It's a free, buoyantly lo-fi album; The Frogs are up there with Guided By Voices in their generous distribution of perfect moments captured to tape.
That elephant: this is a legendarily gay album, with lyrics in every song about men and having sex (and more!) with men, all cocks, balls, cum, assholes and the occasional "watermelon seeds up your snoot-snout", and as the references pile up and up...is it meant to shock straight-laced straights? To celebrate homosexuality? To make fun of it? To make fun of people who make fun of it? How does the fact that the brothers are presumed straight affect the question? Discuss.
On some level the album manages to be all of those things and none of them. Could anyone trying to be overtly pro-gay make a song as ridiculous as I Don't Care If U Disrespect Me? Could anyone trying to be overtly anti-gay make a song as poignant as Homos? The subject matter is engaged with too deeply to be done for novelty, too joyfully to be done out of homophobia, and yet seems engaged in some sonic, sexual version of blackface.
I'm reminded of a dinner where a seemingly-homophobic man was claiming that "buttsex" was inherently morally wrong. A few liberal-types were trying to diplomatically find a common ground, trying to rephrase his sentiment in less-judgmental terms, but he pushed back harder the more they tried, and the situation grew tense. I said out loud, to no-one in particular, "Buttsex is like skiing..." and noticed with dismay that everyone had stopped talking to listen to me, and that I sincerely had no idea where I was going with this, but finished "...some people like it, and some people don't".
Maybe it was the fact that people were expecting a joke, what with all that "A is like B" windup, but it but it got some laughs, some groans, and some ribbing, and managed, surprisingly, to defuse the situation. Maybe The Frogs don't want to gear anyone up about much of anything. Maybe they just made the gayest album they could, with no particular malice in mind, and the joke is on us for trying to deconstruct it 4.5/5
Friday, July 13, 2012
#525 Lemon Jelly - 64'-95'
I refer to things as "good work music" a fair amount on this blog.
On one hand, that's backhanded, implying that something is inoffensive and undemanding; that it isn't worth really listening to.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about music that operates subconsciously, that provides mood without demanding your focus: architecture can be great art, even if it operates subconsciously. Some of the best rhetoric operates best when the listener doesn't understand what its trying to achieve.
Also, I work a lot. Music that I can listen to while I do that it pretty good to have around.
This album is about perfect as work music, packed with slowly evolving acid house that shifts from tone to tone and style to style seamlessly, alternating driving beats and ambient segments, but never veering too far in either direction. It is simply expertly produced music, silky smooth, but with a pulse. The closest comparison I can make (as someone who's not a real genre aficionado) is The Chemical Brothers' Surrender, a similarly housey turn from a band that didn't previously specialize in the style.
It seems strange to rate an album that is actually kind of unadventurous so highly, but it does what it does well, fitting the niche to a T, earning the low end of 4.5/5
On one hand, that's backhanded, implying that something is inoffensive and undemanding; that it isn't worth really listening to.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about music that operates subconsciously, that provides mood without demanding your focus: architecture can be great art, even if it operates subconsciously. Some of the best rhetoric operates best when the listener doesn't understand what its trying to achieve.
Also, I work a lot. Music that I can listen to while I do that it pretty good to have around.
This album is about perfect as work music, packed with slowly evolving acid house that shifts from tone to tone and style to style seamlessly, alternating driving beats and ambient segments, but never veering too far in either direction. It is simply expertly produced music, silky smooth, but with a pulse. The closest comparison I can make (as someone who's not a real genre aficionado) is The Chemical Brothers' Surrender, a similarly housey turn from a band that didn't previously specialize in the style.
It seems strange to rate an album that is actually kind of unadventurous so highly, but it does what it does well, fitting the niche to a T, earning the low end of 4.5/5
#524 The Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania
For a while there, the Pumpkins were the most overtly adventurous of the 90's alt-rock heavy hitters: Mellon Collie was a kaleidoscopic jaunt through more styles than any album of the era, and Adore's stark iciness was, if nothing else, a bold move. But then came the lukewarm Machina, and a strikingly samey comeback album in Zeitgeist. By the time Oceania dropped I'd more or less given up on Corgan and his increasingly dippy excursions into mesiahdom, but I decided to give it a chance. Heck, I'll listen to anything once.
The result is a good balance between Machina's forgettable messiness and Zeitgeist's forgettable saminess, which is actually kind of a good thing. The beats are crisp, the guitar parts shimmering as huge as they did on Mellon Collie, its a perfectly good album to have on in the background: it's all quite listenable, and rarely boring.
But its instructive that I sent this to Geoff and he commented that there weren't a lot of memorable moments. And he's right, after it was over I couldn't hum a single melody, repeat a single line, had no standout track I was dying to return to. This is partially to a powerfully overproduced sheen: raw grit has rarely been the Pumpkins' strength, but more so than usual everything is gelcap smooth. I guess the Cut/Copy bounce of One Diamond, One Heart is noteworthy, but I can't say its my favorite track on the album. Better than could be expected, but this is coming from someone who's spend a decade or two lowering expectations 3.5/5
The result is a good balance between Machina's forgettable messiness and Zeitgeist's forgettable saminess, which is actually kind of a good thing. The beats are crisp, the guitar parts shimmering as huge as they did on Mellon Collie, its a perfectly good album to have on in the background: it's all quite listenable, and rarely boring.
But its instructive that I sent this to Geoff and he commented that there weren't a lot of memorable moments. And he's right, after it was over I couldn't hum a single melody, repeat a single line, had no standout track I was dying to return to. This is partially to a powerfully overproduced sheen: raw grit has rarely been the Pumpkins' strength, but more so than usual everything is gelcap smooth. I guess the Cut/Copy bounce of One Diamond, One Heart is noteworthy, but I can't say its my favorite track on the album. Better than could be expected, but this is coming from someone who's spend a decade or two lowering expectations 3.5/5
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
#523 Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
Vaguely pretty, vaguely mushy, vaguely swooning pop crooning falling somewhere between Belle and Sebastien and The National, with a slightly artier edge, full of dissonant little touches and orchestral flourishes. The occaisional rollick, as on Fake Palindromes, inject a little bit of urgency, but for the most part things just lilt along, lithe but bloodless. The Thom Yorke nasality of Bird himself doesn't help, nor do forced little flourishes, like the whistling on Masterfade. This is an album that throws a lot at you, but for me, not a lot stuck 2.5/5
#522 Twin Shadow - Confess
Twin Shadow is probably the most successful of the vanguard of 80's revivalists out there these days: managing to build nostalgia for times that never existed via sounds that never quite actually have ever been made.
Even more so than on his debut, George Lewis weaves sounds that shimmer and beat and waver like nights come to life. The desperation and resignation evoke a real person behind the worlds and bristle with hope.There's a lynchian knack for seeming simultaneously familiar and uncanny, both for reasons that you can't quite grasp, in ways you're not even quite aware of. Suddenly you wake as if from a dream. This is never more true than on I Don't Care, which spins a staggering hallucination of a tale. I don't have much use for this particular angle, for this particular sound, but its the kind of album that will be some peoples favorite, like, ever, even if just for a month or two 3.5/5
Even more so than on his debut, George Lewis weaves sounds that shimmer and beat and waver like nights come to life. The desperation and resignation evoke a real person behind the worlds and bristle with hope.There's a lynchian knack for seeming simultaneously familiar and uncanny, both for reasons that you can't quite grasp, in ways you're not even quite aware of. Suddenly you wake as if from a dream. This is never more true than on I Don't Care, which spins a staggering hallucination of a tale. I don't have much use for this particular angle, for this particular sound, but its the kind of album that will be some peoples favorite, like, ever, even if just for a month or two 3.5/5
Monday, July 9, 2012
#521 Dire Straits - Making Movies
Here The Dire Straits make straightforward rock and roll songs stretched out to epic length, evoking Dylan and Springsteen in their ragged balladry, while the production is Steely Dan smooth and the sentiment is Steely Dan quietly-disaffected. The guitar sound is clean and the ballads full of a certain aching pathos, but the whole thing never quite goes for the throat, nor quite reaches for the stars (the solo at the end of Tunnel of Love being an exception, mabye). A quietly agreeable album that looms as large and ethereal as a cloud 3.5/5
Sunday, July 1, 2012
#520 Psycosis - In My G4 Over Da Sea
Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea meets raps. Call it the indie rock Grey Album. Will it transcend that overrated mess's legacy?
A desperately low percentage of two-song mashups have enough groove power and ideas to stay listenable for their entire running time: usually there's at most nice synergy between two particular parts of two songs, and that's it, at which point just Girl Talk 'em for a few bars and move on.
Half of these songs really transcend that: managing to actually bring rock power and pathos to otherwise one-dimensional boastfests / slapping some petty tight raps over even the most meandering NMH moments, giving them an irresistible shot of energy. Psycosis knows when he needs to bend the songs out of shape, when he needs to break out of their structures, and manages to deconstruct the songs thoroughly enough to make them work without betraying their nature.
But some of these songs just aren't meant to work, never settling into a groove, never working as rap or indie rock or mashup or anything.
A decidedly uneven album that somehow both disappoints and works better than it reasonably should 3/5
A desperately low percentage of two-song mashups have enough groove power and ideas to stay listenable for their entire running time: usually there's at most nice synergy between two particular parts of two songs, and that's it, at which point just Girl Talk 'em for a few bars and move on.
Half of these songs really transcend that: managing to actually bring rock power and pathos to otherwise one-dimensional boastfests / slapping some petty tight raps over even the most meandering NMH moments, giving them an irresistible shot of energy. Psycosis knows when he needs to bend the songs out of shape, when he needs to break out of their structures, and manages to deconstruct the songs thoroughly enough to make them work without betraying their nature.
But some of these songs just aren't meant to work, never settling into a groove, never working as rap or indie rock or mashup or anything.
A decidedly uneven album that somehow both disappoints and works better than it reasonably should 3/5
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