Female singers mewling out inflected confessionals is one of my least-favorite trends in modern music, and this is the earliest example of that basic style I've found. Everyone from Joanna to Adele to that mealy-mouthed warbler from the Heineken commercials* owes something to Mitchell. Heck, its not even just the girls; the Smashing Pumpkins' Adore certainly owes something to this album's bogdeep moonlit soul.
Mitchell herself, though, mostly pulls it off, riding a certain earnestness and some funky chords and tones to victory. It's not my scene, and her high notes grate on my brain, but I respect the bare sentiment and the Nick Drake nightworn wonderment and fear 3.5/5
* Clairy Browne, sez Google. Is that not the perfectly over-inflected name for an over-inflected mewler?
Friday, December 28, 2012
#676 Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
Funky is the word for it, a silky, nuanced album dominated by Wonder's voice and wonderfully warm, wobbly bass. The rhythms are irritable (particularly the unstoppable roll on Jesus Children of America), everything syncopated enough to keep you forever tripping forward, building up to an album-scale high, higher and higher. The only missteps are the few overslow songs, like the criminally second-sequenced Visions, which kill the momentum.
There's something unplacably futuristic about this record, evoking Hancock circa headhunters, Beck at his smoothest, and Squarepusher at his most listenable. And by futuristic, I don't mean ahead of its 1973 release, I mean ahead of now, ahead of all time. There's a confidence here that can only be found in fearlessness, a fearlessness that can only come from knowing what's next. Stevie's a seer. He's seen the future and everything's going to be fine. As Stevie says, don't you worry about a thing 4/5
There's something unplacably futuristic about this record, evoking Hancock circa headhunters, Beck at his smoothest, and Squarepusher at his most listenable. And by futuristic, I don't mean ahead of its 1973 release, I mean ahead of now, ahead of all time. There's a confidence here that can only be found in fearlessness, a fearlessness that can only come from knowing what's next. Stevie's a seer. He's seen the future and everything's going to be fine. As Stevie says, don't you worry about a thing 4/5
#675 The Smiths - The Smiths
The Queen is Dead is an undeniable masterpiece, but The Smiths' debut shows little signs of the magic to come. This is purely the Morrissey show, his warbling gravied generously over some pretty thin, largely forgettable guitar jangle. Oftentimes the tremulous crooning seems altogether disconnected from the actual song. For example: album closer Suffer Little Children sounds like a hastily tracked demo, like some proto-indie mashup where Morrissey wanders over beats intended for another song altogether that chime on and on aimlessly. It's emblematic of the problem with the entire album.
The first few songs show some structural chops and punk bristle, but the dominance of that hyperinflected moaning is numbing before you know it, the second half of the album almost impossible not to accidentally tune out. Absent the relentless guitar energy and texture and tunefulness that marked their masterpiece, replaced instead with more and more and more Morrissey, this is a flat, often annoying album. Influential, sure. Brave in its subject matter, probably. Hastily underestimated and ill-served by my first-impression format, possibly. But a first listen and a half wasn't any fun at all 2/5
The first few songs show some structural chops and punk bristle, but the dominance of that hyperinflected moaning is numbing before you know it, the second half of the album almost impossible not to accidentally tune out. Absent the relentless guitar energy and texture and tunefulness that marked their masterpiece, replaced instead with more and more and more Morrissey, this is a flat, often annoying album. Influential, sure. Brave in its subject matter, probably. Hastily underestimated and ill-served by my first-impression format, possibly. But a first listen and a half wasn't any fun at all 2/5
Thursday, December 27, 2012
#674 Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
It's not that I mind inflected vocals, reverbey arpeggios, (slightly) tweaked rhythms, and synthy washes, its just that those are so often crutches for really boring music that has nothing else to offer. Washed Out and The Drums are the most obvious recent offenders that come to mind, but there are dozens of bands making the same indistinct, mushy, sub-Animal-Collective stone soup without bringing anything new to the table.
So as Alt-J's album unfolded, I felt the hammer cocking in my mind as each trope received its checkbox in turn. But then, lo and behold, the band actually did something interesting with those parts, building a completely different model than the Indie Kit instructions dictated. The dynamics are back in indie rock, with parts dropping in and out for dramatic effect, setting the stage for moments of fearless clarity. Finally a band bold enough to put a melodic line out there and shine a light on it, to darken the entire house and hit a key moment with a blazing spot, to give musical moments their close up instead of hiding them in a bustling ensemble cast.
Which isn't to say this isn't busy, but it's more The Life Aquatic, with its awe-inspiring setpieces, than the comparitively muddy, plotless Tenenbaums that other similar bands put on offer*.
Hooky, inventive, surprising: remember when this stuff was common in indie rock and roll? Maybe there's a little life in the old girl yet 4.5/5
* I've surely retained less than 10% of people with that, losing the 50% who don't know those movies well enough to get my point, and the 40% who inexplicably prefer Tenenbaums to TLA.
So as Alt-J's album unfolded, I felt the hammer cocking in my mind as each trope received its checkbox in turn. But then, lo and behold, the band actually did something interesting with those parts, building a completely different model than the Indie Kit instructions dictated. The dynamics are back in indie rock, with parts dropping in and out for dramatic effect, setting the stage for moments of fearless clarity. Finally a band bold enough to put a melodic line out there and shine a light on it, to darken the entire house and hit a key moment with a blazing spot, to give musical moments their close up instead of hiding them in a bustling ensemble cast.
Which isn't to say this isn't busy, but it's more The Life Aquatic, with its awe-inspiring setpieces, than the comparitively muddy, plotless Tenenbaums that other similar bands put on offer*.
Hooky, inventive, surprising: remember when this stuff was common in indie rock and roll? Maybe there's a little life in the old girl yet 4.5/5
* I've surely retained less than 10% of people with that, losing the 50% who don't know those movies well enough to get my point, and the 40% who inexplicably prefer Tenenbaums to TLA.
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
#673 Mary J. Blige - What's the 411
Big-beat, big-synth R&B, full or full-throated yearning and a small cast of male guests, many of whom seem to be there to lavish affection on Blige and lend legitimacy to her effort. Yes kids, she's a girl, but we're boys, and we approve, so its ok. Like her! The endless, tuneless, endless, endless intro in particular is the greatest offender, just a bunch of people saying how great the album you're about to hear is.
Can't a record just stand on its own, rather than containing its own marketing campaign? Maybe not. Maybe that kind of complaint is a crass failure to understand the plight of a female R&B artist in the 90's. But if you had to do that to get the record sold, that's not my problem - I've got to listen to what you put on wax, and the album itself is weirdly self-conscious, like the arrogant-but-insecure guy at the party that drops the names of all the people he knows and all the countries he's visited and the mountains he's summitted.
As for the actual music? The production's spacy and inventive, the actual singing is good, but the subject matter is too one dimensional to keep my attention: love love love, want it have it need it get it, love love love, baby baby baby, love love love.
Not my scene. I'm sure this is influential, it might even be good, but given the substantial distance in culture, age, space, time, gender, race, priorities and interests between Blige and I, I just can't relate to her as a person, and if all we're going to talk about is love, I need to relate to you and your quest for it. On one hand, this is my failing; its a failing to step outside myself and reflect upon this work as an objective reviewer. On the other hand, I don't feel like Blige makes any attempt to meet me halfway, to expand her message beyond love love love, baby baby baby, love love love. If your subject matter is that one-note, you risk missing someone who wants something more, and then 2/5
Can't a record just stand on its own, rather than containing its own marketing campaign? Maybe not. Maybe that kind of complaint is a crass failure to understand the plight of a female R&B artist in the 90's. But if you had to do that to get the record sold, that's not my problem - I've got to listen to what you put on wax, and the album itself is weirdly self-conscious, like the arrogant-but-insecure guy at the party that drops the names of all the people he knows and all the countries he's visited and the mountains he's summitted.
As for the actual music? The production's spacy and inventive, the actual singing is good, but the subject matter is too one dimensional to keep my attention: love love love, want it have it need it get it, love love love, baby baby baby, love love love.
Not my scene. I'm sure this is influential, it might even be good, but given the substantial distance in culture, age, space, time, gender, race, priorities and interests between Blige and I, I just can't relate to her as a person, and if all we're going to talk about is love, I need to relate to you and your quest for it. On one hand, this is my failing; its a failing to step outside myself and reflect upon this work as an objective reviewer. On the other hand, I don't feel like Blige makes any attempt to meet me halfway, to expand her message beyond love love love, baby baby baby, love love love. If your subject matter is that one-note, you risk missing someone who wants something more, and then 2/5
Monday, December 24, 2012
#672 Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Tarkus
This is kind of what's wrong with prog. I like prog, but this is reaching for bombast, nothing humble and human about it, looming theatrical and distant, arrogance blinding you to actual appreciation of actual virtues.
The shorter, jauntier songs like Jeremy Bender fare better, but the album is dominated by the impression left by its 20-minute opener and the (titular?) batshit Armadillo-tank that graces its cover. And what's going on with are You Ready Eddy? a song so stripped down it seems almost like a sarcastic sneer in the direction of good old-fashioned rock and roll.
Attitude matters. Again, I like prog, and I even like ELP from time to time, and this is complex, sometimes-compelling music, but it crosses some line, failing the "band I'd like to be in" test with a thud, and the result almost is no fun at all 2.5/5
The shorter, jauntier songs like Jeremy Bender fare better, but the album is dominated by the impression left by its 20-minute opener and the (titular?) batshit Armadillo-tank that graces its cover. And what's going on with are You Ready Eddy? a song so stripped down it seems almost like a sarcastic sneer in the direction of good old-fashioned rock and roll.
Attitude matters. Again, I like prog, and I even like ELP from time to time, and this is complex, sometimes-compelling music, but it crosses some line, failing the "band I'd like to be in" test with a thud, and the result almost is no fun at all 2.5/5
#671 Augustus Pablo - King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown
Normally I can't get into reggae at all, just finding it too listless, to repetitive, too narrowly composed to be all that interesting. This manages to make the core instrumental dub sound fresh though, Pablo's melodica infusing it with sunny energy, dusting in just enough changes over time to keep the proceedings from waxing soporific. Shortish song lengths help too, keeping the pacing lively. Surprisingly enjoyable 3.5/5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)