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The Last Word From

FIRST TAKES/SECOND OPINIONS


A Pop Music Blog

Anthony M. Verdoni
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION Forward As Farewell PART I: POP SINGLES Pussy Riot, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out Ke$ha, Die Young The-Dream, Slow It Down The Smiths, Still Ill Kendrick Lamar, Backseat Freestyle Guards, Ready to Go The Rolling Stones, One More Shot Waxahatchee, Coast to Coast Justin Timberlake, Suit & Tie Phoenix, Entertainment Bob Dylan, Roll On John Solange, Losing You Kurt Vile, Never Run Away Bruno Mars, When I Was Your Man Raekwon, Mic Flips Deerhunter, Monomania

PART II: NOT POP SINGLES Dead-Blogging the Grammys: A Pop Post-Mortem The Strokes, Comedown Machine Savages, Silence Yourself Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION Forward As Farewell These are Last Days, of what or whom I cant say. Blessed with such happy ignorance, Im compelled to check my speculative properties at the door, along with my pride. The best course is to surrender to the soft tyranny of the calendar, which will soon get the better of August and, with it, the season that the poets and the pop stars strain to glorify. The End-of-Summer gangplank is one walked by even the most hesitant of mutineers. And though I take the plunge without regret, Ill be damned if we dont commemorate the months that recently were, if only in a gross tribute of wrong words and spotty grammar. My mutiny is one committed against my own person. Or at least my own blog. After two-odd years of bumble and bombast, First Takes/Second Opinions has gone to its grave. Ive put it there, mind you. And the dirt of burial that now stains my hands will not wash off easily. When one commits to something, he ought to see it through. The conclusion can be logical, sudden, or tragic, so long as its honest. This is not to announce an intention to get all Ernest Hemingway on my reader, whereby stark prose is commissioned as the weaponry for some sort of moral argument. Im afraid I dont have the talent for so brave an enterprise. But I do have the wisdom to know when a going entity has run its predetermined course. Better to put it out of its misery than to soldier on at diminished capacity. (Thats a philosophy that Mr. Hemingway identified with all too well.) The 20 essays that follow are both a farewell to arms and a call to action. Though the fire has ceased, the passion remains. This passion is for thrilling music, keen criticism, aesthetic curiosity, and various other intrigues that dare not be mentioned in good company. First Takes/Second Opinions was always something of an outlier. Music blogs typically trade in sound and picture, the text being necessarily subordinate to the audio and video. Rather foolishly, I took an alternate route. In my petty kingdom, three-minute pop singles regularly provided the fuel for five to ten pages of heedless editorializing. Indulgent? Yes. Lazy? No. I always tried, and tried hard. Theres some virtue in that, regardless of the quality of the returns. But why talk of me? Im just the vessel in this sordid endeavor, careening forward with my customary lack of regard for whats proven or popular. Whatll hold up is the
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music, which, in my final tip of the cap to Papa Hemingway, can be described as a moveable feast. Good songs stay with you, both literally and figuratively. Were now in a time and place where the whole of our musical libraries can be stored, retrieved, and played on a gadget that barely leaves a dent in ones trouser pocket. The content is not just moveable but malleable. We shape it to fit our momentary appetites, to fulfill our knee-jerk requests. Though I think this arrangement is a net positive, I caution every engaged listener not to be fooled by the putative technological utopia. Theres occasionally a poverty in abundance. Sheer number can reduce a vital resource to dry points of data. We can get caught up in curation and comedy, stringing together opportunistic lists and quick-hit copy the kind of material thats easy on the eyes but difficult to take seriously. BuzzFeed, for instance, is all carbs. It exists to spike your blood-sugar level, not to quell the yearning in your viscera. Theres no shame in such provocation, but the ostensive youth media would do well to move beyond the dawdle and the patch. Eventually, one grows tired of the temporary. He begins to feel that microblogs are perhaps not the best forums in which to address macro-concerns. 140 characters? Tolstoy conscripted more Tsarists in War and Peace. Objects of genuine import demand scale, a scale that the impatient Internet surfer is understandably loath to countenance. Time is at a premium. So, too, is the lean of the language. Here I speak of temper as well as size. To return to my Last Days theme, what I consider imperiled isnt the longread, per se, but the style thats historically imparted proud postures to classicist composition. What I lament is the trending epidemic of anti-heroic prose, particularly on the pop-culture beat. Not every song review need be an Iliad of stunning scope or poignancy. But we can do better than the breezy half-sentence attached to the smirking conversational aside. If First Takes/ Second Opinions had a thesis, it was that music is heroic and should be treated accordingly. The tone of the writing is at times jocular, but rarely flippant or insincere. The prose aims to defer to its subject and often fails. But this is a failure of the author, not the item under review. In a perfect world, Id be equal to the art I choose to expound upon. In the realm of the real, however, my shoulders arent quite wide enough to support the Internets high tonnage of sonic wonder. The irony is that this burden is weightless. In truth, its no burden at all. Its pleasure disguised as business, and it pays as one might expect. That, my friends, is why I keep my day job.
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And that day job now calls. So lets bid farewell to this forward, along with summer and the intemperance it breeds. As for First Takes/Second Opinions, how about we end on a high note? How about we negotiate a viable Third Way? Instead of saying goodbye to its future or hello to its past, lets acknowledge the blogs perpetual present. That is, lets celebrate the songs and albums that made this collection possible. The Table of Contents is more or less a chronicle of the catalysts. Take the time to visit (or revisit) a few of the specimens named therein. Who knows? You just might enjoy yourself, provided youre into that sort of thing. I wont be alone in thinking that the music profiled in subsequent pages is better than the writing it inspired. So if youve made the decision not to read on, please consider listening, if not to the selections Ive highlighted than to whatever material suits your fancy. Thats the Last Request of these Last Days that you keep your ears occupied. What you hear is a matter for another author.

All the best, Anthony M. Verdoni Asbury Park, New Jersey August 25, 2013

Notes: 1) Each essay in this collection was pulled live from the Internet. All hyperlinks are left intact, so as to allow the reader to pursue the captive clusters of audio, video, and copy. You are hereby encouraged to follow any links of interest or intrigue, as the material summoned will help contextualize the authors frequently indefensible positions. 2) The first essay, dedicated to Pussy Riots Our Lady, Push Putin Out, appeared in a prior First Takes/Second Opinions compendium. The editing was so poor, however, that the author has reissued it here, with a bit more care. For better or for worse, Putin and Pussy Riot are still in the news. We therefore lose little in the way of topicality. 3) On the matter of editing, the author can offer nothing but an apology. The process of publishing this collection has been infernal. Computers have crashed and been replaced. Microsoft Word has been updated, but not without leaving some scars. Paragraphs have been knocked askew or glued together. Line breaks have been unceremoniously fissured, only to be restitched with a spastic efficiency. Spell check has failed its exams with a flair normally reserved for a remedial student. Most of all, so-called widows and orphans now dot the manuscript with insidious regularity, like petty casualties of a long war. The author did the best he could. (Really.) He only asks that you do the same.

PART I: POP SINGLES Pussy Riot, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out In the marketplace of contemporary pop music, souls sell with greater frequency than the latest device from Apples sordid line of iProds. Each charting artist is both a brand and a billboard, alternately purporting to stand for something unique and eager to reproject the messages of his advocates. (If youre not prone to seizure, take a look at Justin Biebers Twitter feed. Its essentially a Chinese fire drill of savvy swag and aw-shucks pandering.) Even the supposed avatars of alternative Pitchfork refreshed by Vitamin Water!; Stereogum styld.by Gap! are corporate and corporatist, as beholden to their sponsors as Exxon is to its shareholders. Im not implying that ad buys engender a cooling effect on these blogs; in fact, the implication is just the opposite: Pitchfork and Stereogum grant Vitamin Water and Gap a certain currency of cool, weaving them into the hipster tapestry of the happening. This finely knit coverall was once overtly hostile to Big Business. Now it is a big business. Perhaps this is OK. Perhaps its harmful. Whats significant is that its here to stay. Here refers to America, the U.K., and all points where Western values hold sway. Of late, Ive been continually flummoxed by our news medias ability to repackage revolution as consumption, as if freedom were just another word for a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Even the music press no, especially the music press likes to use its rebels as a means of moving paper or juicing site stats. Check out last weeks edition of NME, which featured a cover story on the late Joe Strummer. Joe was given a prominent position on the magazines various front pages, from print to web to mobile. His black and white photo stood facing the reader, adorned by the quotation, Dont write slogans. Write the truth. Inspiring stuff. So inspiring, as it were, that NME saw fit to reaffirm the ad campaign that CBS Records launched for the Clash some 30 years back, in particular the line, The Only Band That Matters. What was it that Joe said about writing slogans? And why was it so conveniently forgotten by means of a single click or several turns-of-page? Far be it from me to take a holier than thou attitude. I must confess to being an ad writer by trade, my daily purpose consumed with the arts of subtle influence. I write many a slogan, with little knowledge (or interest, really) as to whether each constitutes the truth. My field is beverage marketing. I have faith that the wines and spirits which I promote are of above-average quality and value. In all candor, however, I dont know how to go about setting a normative standard of quality or value. I just try to bequeath to each bottle an attractive package and a pithy pick-up
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line. This, hopefully, will keep my lights on and my water flowing while I endeavor to do something more socially meaningful. Call this ethic what you will. Equivocation seems to suit it just fine. Punk, on the other hand, does not. And this is a source of considerable shame. Years ago, I left a good job in pharmaceuticals after three of the products Id worked with were unceremoniously recalled, their side effects having been found to include everything from dry mouth to death. I wasnt comfortable being party to such misadventures, however far removed from the laboratory or the prescription pad I might have been. Besotted by the faulty oxygen of the moral high ground, I set out to make a good and honest living, and promptly fell flat on my face. If I knew then what I know now i.e., how litigation-prone the modern investor is, how difficult it is to collect receivables, how deferential small LLCs must be to major conglomerates I would have held onto my purple pills with all the grip of a fanatic. Without friends in high places or a cushion of cash to fall back on, professional conscience can prove a mighty risky commodity. In America, disruptive ethical action can cost you your career. In Russia, though, it can cost you your freedom. This brings us to the ladies of the hour, Pussy Riot, a Russian punk collective whove exhibited an anarcho-progressive courage that U.S. bands simply cannot match, owing to factors of context. American artists such as Ted Nugent and Dave Mustaine can, respectively (if not respectfully), call President Obama a piece of shit and claim that he orchestrated the recent shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Oak Creek, Wisconsin, merely to set the preconditions for a neo-fascist gun ban. For their efforts, they might receive a few harsh words from the liberal media or an exploratory visit from the FBI, the latter framed by Fox News as an incursion into civil liberties. Suffice to say that, as regards the severity of such encroachment, Vladimir Putin might beg to differ with Roger Ailes. In his neo-imperial Russia, oppositional journalists turn up dead with alarming regularity, and protests of the Tea Party tenor are virtually nonexistent, perhaps because theyd provoke truncheons and tear gas rather than Dont Tread on Me flags. Outside the West, Dont Tread on Me isnt a protest lodged by citizens; its a command issued by the sitting government. Break it and you just might get hurt. Or, if you happen to be Pussy Riot, you just might be detained on dubious charges for six months, then sentenced to two years in prison, with the whole world watching and the Kremlin not really giving a fuck. I dont write for Foreign Affairs or The Economist, so please dont view this piece as a primary source, designed to dole out astute lessons on geopolitics. Pussy Riot interest me because theyre prisoners of conscience. But they fascinate me because theyre punks. Ive long felt that the two conditions should be one and the same: to be punk should be to stand for something, even if that for is, due to extant
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circumstances, tempered into an against. The snot-nosed pop-punk played by the likes of Blink-182 and the Offspring has its place, but the real punks are those who set a moral example, like Fugazi, Minor Threat, and the bands that followed Ian MacKayes banner into the straightedge scene. Hardcore is often cited, retrospectively, as a moral bulwark against the more uncharitable aspects of Reaganism. But, really, what do we know about oppression in this country? Unless you land on some God-forsaken list, be it germane to COINTELPRO or the more onerous sections of the Patriot Act, you neednt worry about the Feds showing up at your door with loaded automatic weaponry and a pair of handcuffs. Thousands of U.S. citizens actively and publicly challenged Ronald Reagan during his presidency, the list of accusers including everyone from Mario Cuomo to Jello Biafra. The first man got to deliver an epic speech at the Democratic National Convention, and retained his New York governorship; the second was permitted to run for the mayoralty of San Francisco, and was never constrained from continuing his gonzo antics as frontman of the Dead Kennedys, a band name that should rankle the cankles of Democrats and Republicans alike. My point is as follows: Despite our countrys myriad flaws disparity of wealth, hording of opportunity, proclivity to war, predilection towards frivolity we, as ordinary citizens, have it pretty good in the civil liberties department. (To be clear, this is an historical and strictly relativist observation, not declaration of satisfaction with the status quo, where technology has enabled a surveillance state.) My more immediate point is, well, more immediate: Just yesterday, three members of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison. Outrage in the social media is robust and heartening, but perhaps less robust and heartening than the enthusiasm that sat attendant to Invisible Childrens Kony 2012 campaign. The video that viralized Kony was released in March, the same month in which Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested for public hooliganism. Now nobody is talking about Kony. And six months from today, I fear that very few people will be talking about Pussy Riot. Accordingly, its important that we use the fierce urgency of the moment to give these girls their due, both musically and socially. Simply put, Pussy Riot is a punk rock double-whammy: an affront to both Church and State, executed in three chords and less than two minutes. The group are what the Sex Pistols pretended to be and what Bikini Kill aspired to be: a loose gang of caustic youths fighting to change the world precisely where it needs changing. And theyre being punished for it, harshly. The trial, to me, seems a classic case of activism vs. revanchism, with both actor and reactor being indispensable. Pussy Riot have delivered a strong and abrasive reformist message thats the action, which they could control. What they couldnt control and what, indeed, has made them a trending topic is the reaction (that is, the incommensurate response of the
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authorities). Behavior which is chided or mocked in the West is demonized in Russia with prosecutorial disdain. Needless to say, the prosecution is often a little spotty. Lets take a look at the tale of the tape. The song that sparked the current affair is called Our Lady, Chase Putin Out (a title which, I imagine, is a rough translation from the Russian, as Ive seen alternate titles, including the wonderful Virgin Mary, Put Putin Out). It was performed as a punk prayer at Moscows Christ the Savior Cathedral on February 21, to protest the Orthodox Churchs fawning support for Putin, who can be said to traffic in behaviors that are decidedly unchurchly. The song accuses Russian Patriarch Kirill I of putting his belief in the Russian President above his faith in God. One wonders if the ladies arent mistaking belief for fear. All too often, church leaders are more concerned with issues of institutional perpetuation than matters of true conscience. But, regardless of the contextual read, the story didnt proceed particularly well for Pussy Riot. Shortly after their punk prayer, Putin was re-elected President of Russia, taking over for Dmitry Medvedev, the small, none-toocharismatic man whod held the presidency while Vladimir played Prime Minister. On March 3, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were arrested for their unsightly, but not technically illegal, performance at Christ the Savior. On March 16, Yekaterina Samutsevich was detained as well. They were kept behind bars at length, subject to trumped-up charges of public endangerment and religious insensitivity. When the trial finally came, in July, it was mostly for show an intrepid piece of political theater to match the drama staged by Pussy Riot in February. The defendants were kept in stylized cages, as if they were circus animals in repose or wayward Mongols in capture. (See Kathleen Hannas aptly titled blog post, Seriously, They Are In a Fucking Cage.) And while such degrading images served to spark international interest in the Pussy Riot saga, they engendered precious little support in Mother Russia itself. A majority of the state did not regard the lady punks as political prisoners; the reigning sentiment appeared to be more along the lines of, These girls have done something silly, and they should pay for it. As it happens, the three defendants are now officially convicts, slated to pay for their ostensible crimes with two years in prison. Im no student of the Russian judicial system, but Id wager that Putin let it be known that an acquittal simply wouldnt do. He now holds Pussy Riot as an ace in the hole. If, in six months or so, the domestic reform movement should question his heavy-handed rule, Comrade Vladimir can release the ladies on a whim, thus showing the world his kind, merciful heart. The man is a remarkable manipulator of power, not to mention a master of the martial arts. Whether or not hes a tyrant is, unfortunately, a question that dare not be answered by the going pantheon of world leaders. The West likes to point and pivot, but, ultimately, Russia isnt beholden to the civil liberty supplications of the United States

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or Amnesty International. Show Putin a candle of solidarity and hell quickly stanch its flames. This is a man concerned with minerals and resources, not hearts and minds. If youll forgive my Romantic oversimplification my very own pointing and pivoting toward a convenient topic this is exactly why punk rock remains vital. Music that aims to change the world doesnt sound like Bon Iver; it sounds like Our Lady, Chase Putin Out. Its vain, vulgar, and violent, as all meaningful iconoclasm should be. Bear in mind, of course, that here Im describing the music, not the musicians. Pussy Riot maintain their moral authority by being executrices of heady but peaceful disruption. Their weapons of choice are neon tights, garish dresses, startling balaclavas, and low-rent YouTube videos. They are, in a sense, cartoon crusaders a comic-book crew knee-deep in the real stuff of heroism. In the States, we have a collective thats similarly painted and arrayed. Theyre called the Juggalos, and they largely pass their time in Faygo-fueled frenzy, showing that freedom means nothing if it cant be wasted in hedonic juvenilia. What Pussy Riot have in mind is an order of magnitude more admirable: meaningful reform catalyzed by seemingly nonsensical action. Not everyone in Russia (or America, for that matter) will understand or support what these girls are up to. But thats what makes their stance so brave the foreknowledge that crime will beget punishment, just as Dostoevsky prescribed. From the perspective of a music critic, Im bound to hear Our Lady, Chase Putin Out as an instance of the East outclashing the Clash. Remember that NME cover story on Joe Strummer? Well, here we see its seeds in full flower. Pussy Riot have written the truth, not a slogan. Theyve created revolution rock that stands a chance of triggering an actual revolution. Punk doesnt need a plurality to leave its thumbprint on the annals of social history; it simply needs a resolute message, voiced by a messenger that will not bend or break. Pussy Riot have shown that theyre up to the task, that theyre not fucking around. Shortly after the galloping troika were found guilty of hooliganism driven by religious hatred, the unchained members of Pussy Riot released a new single, called Putin Lights Up the Fires, via U.K. newspaper The Guardian. The collective clearly isnt going anywhere. The question is whether our attention span is too short to accommodate their long-haul appeals. Again, it wasnt too long ago that the media and its observers were clamoring for the seizure of Joseph Kony. Prior to this rare interest in Africa, progressive circles were agog in the Occupy Wall Street protests, just as their conservative counterparts were loud in the movements denunciation. Today, I can walk through Zuccotti Park without seeing a single remnant of the Occupiers or their cause. Time tends to make minions of us all.

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Should the attention devoted to Pussy Riot fade with the summer season, lets not forget what the incident at Christ the Savior Cathedral, and its subsequent legal drama, have signified: Thirty-five years on, weve finally gotten our white riot. This was a clash between entrenched power and ascendant power, and the rioters are considerably worse for the wear, as I presume they expected they would be. You dont challenge Putin flippantly. Hes crushed formidable rivals before, with nary a concern for First World opinion. Pussy Riot never stood a reasonable chance outside of our cheery imaginations, where bravery is a civic virtue, to be rewarded with honor. In the real world, men and women alike are cowards, prone to encircle whats theirs and keep several arms distance from anything that might connote trouble. This, I think, is why the Pussy Riot controversy will grow substantially less riotous as the calendar flips forward. Obama will eke out a slim electoral victory, or Romney will color certain swing states red, and march to Washington in his sacred underwear. Either way, the media will be transfixed by the transformative power of the American ballot, and then the fiscal cliff on the years horizon. Our Lady had better chase Putin out, because we sure as hell arent going to do it. So, to quote the phrase used to describe the Rolling Stones during one of their myriad drug trials, are Pussy Riot anything more than butterflies being broken on a wheel? Yes, they are. But, in the days to come, theyll likely remain agents provocateurs, whom Paul McCartney can Tweet about and whose cause Madonna can champion via body art. In the West, were good at showing support, not in demonstrating steadfast conviction. This is in no way a damning criticism. By and large, were aware of our limitations, aware that Pussy Riot is ultimately Russias problem, and one that will be dealt with internally. But where the West is good, particularly at this deft moment of social networking, is in getting a problem on record. Before something can be changed, it has to be acknowledged. And, as of press time, untold millions are belatedly aware of Pussy Riots plight. Thats probably cold comfort for Misses Alyokhina, Tolokonnikova, and Samutsevich, but I think that gestures of worldwide solidarity impart some heat as well as light. Just to know, however temporarily, that were in this together is an exhilarating thought. I dont have any friends or associates in Russia, but Im acquainted, quite closely in some cases, with Soviet emigrants. Most are from the Ukraine, and speak only haltingly about their relationship with the realities of the Perestroika-period USSR. Where I engage them most eagerly is in the discussion of pop music. While living on the flip side of the Iron Curtain (and, lets be clear, the Curtain had rusted a bit by the time my Ukrainian friends came of age), American culture was tacitly treated as a corrupting and thus forbidden commodity. Still, little echoes of America would slip through, frequently in the form of a pirated cassette

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tape of a pirated cassette tape of a pirated cassette tape. What the songs lacked in sound quality they more than made up for in incitement to animation. Recently, I had the privilege of attending a Bon Jovi concert with a couple of Ukrainian expatriates. Under normal circumstances, you wouldnt catch me within a country mile of such a show, but an extra ticket was available and a request for a warm body was put forth. As the lights went down, I offered some feigned enthusiasm and tepid applause. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, went absolutely apeshit. They sang along to virtually every song, often with faulty lyrics, but never with false regard. Midway through the show, one of the girls asked, desperately, When are they going to play Johnny used to work on the dogs? I said, You mean, Living On a Prayer, not having the heart to correct dogs with docks. She replied that, in the Ukraine, American rock songs were named by their first line, since the pirated cassette tapes bore no titles or liner notes. I later learned that the children of a given village would regularly gather around a communal boom box to listen to the latest musical arrival en masse. This, to me, was more punk than any political single dropped by Green Day or Rage Against the Machine. And I like Green Day and Rage Against the Machine. Its just that in different spheres, there are different stakes. A piece of music will inevitably mean more to those who are proscribed from playing it. Pussy Riot have learned this lesson the hard way. Their antics may be considered juvenile, but their agonies will not be shouted in vain. I cannot see the big picture, and I dont know whether the rights Pussy Riot have petitioned for will be granted them in a years time or only after the motions of a generation. First, people have got to hear the pirated cassette tape. Then theyll find their own meanings and weave their own narratives. Maybe this ends well, with the rioters released and the Russian judicial system inheriting some of the compassion that generally comes with liberalization. But even if it ends poorly, with women imprisoned at length and forgotten in short order, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out has done a noble deed. On the scale of worthy protests, it probably sits somewhere between Kanye Wests George Bush doesnt care about black people and Sophie Scholls nonviolent opposition to the Third Reich. Yes, Im being a touch facetious. But heres something to take in earnest: At just the right moment, Pussy Riot have reminded me that punk is innately political. And, by extension of the entrenched American mentality, I cant help but take the political as personal. What results is a something of tautology: Im a little ashamed that no American punk band has levied a protest quite as ballsy as Pussy Riots. But Im also kind of proud that no American punk band has had to. In the end, there are democracies and there are democracies, justice and justice, punk and punk. Its a privilege to be able to tell the difference between the two, and a joy to be able to write freely about the resonance of the distinction. The fact that the
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civilized world protects this privilege as a right is a cause for celebration. So, too, are Pussy Riot. As such, Ill simply offer my unqualified applause and keep my ear to the ground. May the ladies emerge from this drama with their souls intact. I see no need to question their motives. As for their orthodoxy, Im inclined to go with the plurality of the evidence, and declare that its above reproach. Pussy Riot have written the truth. Its our duty to read it, and to read it well. No slogans are necessary, just patience and conviction. (August 18, 2012) Ke$ha, Die Young Allow me to debunk an ugly misconception: One cannot, in fact, catch a venereal disease merely by listening to a Ke$ha single. The worst outcome possible is a urinary tract infection, and this occurs in only the rarest of cases, when one consumes a Ke$ha creation without regard for proper protection. Heres a course of prophylaxis that Ive found helpful: 1) Apply your headphones carefully, making sure they dont slip off or slide down in the midst of your listening session; 2) If tuning in via stream, keep your anti-virus software on high alert, and dont click on any phishy links; 3) If you have even a vague interest in objectivity, realize that Ke$ha is a type, not a character, and that every piece of music she releases must align with her sleazy, seedy, squalid, and shameless brand. Thats a lot of s words, and I havent even gotten to the kicker: skanky. This adjective, above all, describes Ke$has sound. And I dont wield it as a criticism. I feel compelled to offer a brief primer on my feelings toward Ke$ha, from her dawn to her decadence (provided you see a distinction between the two states). Suffice to say that the story of these feelings is in their evolution, with outright detestation giving way to grudging respect and, eventually, guilt-free advocacy. When Tik Tok debuted, some three years back, I was more or less convinced that the apocalypse was upon us. The beat struck me as cheap, the vocals as phoned in, the overall ambiance as asinine. I figured Ke$ha was cashing in on the incipient Lady Gaga phenomenon, and would quickly be forgotten, like the Stacie Orrico of digital dance. Her follow-up single, Blah Blah Blah, only hardened my resolve. I became acutely allergic to the Ke$ha brand, and largely shifted my leisure writing from film to pop music to evangelize against the rising specter of ditzy disco. Then, at the height of my counteroffensive, came Your Love Is My Drug, a song which I found oddly infectious, perhaps even socially acceptable. Sure, it was almost insultingly stupid. But the melodic build was astute, the chorus utterly undeniable. I gradually and grudgingly decided to drop my guard, and let Ke$ha be Ke$ha, undisturbed by my smear campaign.
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This is not to say that I went all-in on skank pop, and started distributing copies of Animal on busy street corners. I simply opted to leave well enough alone, and focus on the music I admired rather than the music I despised. Lifes too short for negative reviews, particularly when they all strike the same note. How often can you call something ignorant without betraying your own lack of critical intelligence? At press time, Ke$has greatest asset is her wild popularity a popularity which, interestingly, seems to be growing among the very cohorts who once cursed her name. Her most recent single, Die Young is her eighth Top Ten hit. Its also her best song, by some distance. The instrumental is less ramshackle, the singing more resonant, the refrain nothing short of mesmeric. It comes as no surprise to me that the track was co-written by Nate Ruess of fun. The deft use of drums, along with the tendency to set the chorus in stark relief, is something of fun. hallmark. Ke$ha is skilled in these arts as well, and here she shines a light on her mastery of tension and release. The opening is an obvious bite of the riff from Taio Cruzs Dynamite, followed by a peppy uphill climb to the central keyboard ripple. Die Young adheres to the bass-drop logic thats ruled popular music for the last year or two. Actual bass isnt necessary; the songwriters task is to get the listeners head to go from nod to bang. About a minute into the affair, the track must explode, offering an aural excess that overwhelms the defenses of the mass audience. You cant beat it, so you join it. Thats what I did, at least. To be clear, Die Young is unlikely to occupy an enviable spot on my year-end Best of list. My purpose today is merely to salute its hooks and note its conspicuous craft. Its now beyond reasonable doubt that Ke$ha is adept at constructing solid, au courant pop songs. She has her finger on the pulse of the market. And insofar as that market can speak, its speaking in her favor, as her digital sales will attest. I much prefer her skank pop to the swag pop of, say, Chris Brown. (Have you heard Everyday Birthday? If so, how did you withstand the urge to jab your cochlea with a butter knife?) Ke$ha is, by any honest assessment, an industry staple, meaning she collaborates with revered figures in myriad genres and, most importantly, writes hit songs for her colleagues. Im sure youre familiar with Britney Spears Till the World Ends. Well, thats a Ke$ha original, buffed, polished, and auctioned off through the machinations of one of her first champions, Dr. Luke. This calls to mind another strikingly successful female solo artist who loaned a song to Britney: Lady Gaga, who optioned Telephone to the covetous Ms. Spears, only to have it fortuitously returned to sender.

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One could argue that Ke$ha is negotiating a Gaga-like career arc, with an early signing leading to years on the vine, only to be harvested late, via a spectacular sonic reinvention. Once Gaga hit, she landed with the force of a titan. But I think the notion that she arrived fully formed is absurd. Her first two songs, Just Dance and Poker Face were, to my ears, nothing special. The craft started to show with the slow-mo intensity of Paparazzi. Then Bad Romance set a standard that Gaga, despite her world-conquering profile, has yet to revisit. Die Young is not as good a song as Bad Romance, but it might signify Ke$has Bad Romance moment, where the holdouts stop worrying about the sleaze and skeeze, and finally give in to the musics underlying infectiousness. Ive certainly taken the track for a few spins, and Im likely to take it for a few more before I park it back in my long-term garage. Amidst this praise, I must present an essential criticism. Ke$ha ought to strike one tainted spice from her list of ingredients: the talking raps that cheapen her fare. Of course, to deny our subject her white-girl rhymes would be to inexorably change her musics chemistry. I say, So what? Ke$ha has already tempered her rap stylings to the point where theyre present but not intrusive. Die Young is mostly proper singing, with a verse or two of juvenile flow. Now, juvenile flow is excusable to a certain extent when the name of your song is Die Young the theme of youth untethered green-lights the questionable impulse. Moving forward, however, Id like to make Ke$ha a proposition: She should consider making her songs consist entirely of shouted choruses and hummed hooks. Drop the rapped verses entirely, as they reside in a position that sits beneath contempt. Sing like Lou Reed if you have to, adopting a street-smart, intuitive cadence. What matters is that all your disparate elements cohere in the refrain. People like soaring choruses, not fast-tracked verses. (For an object lesson, see your collaborator, Nate Ruess, whose We Are Young won heaping piles of glory on account of its stop-start midsection, not its callow lede.) Ke$ha is doing just fine without my advice, and I dont expect her, or her handlers, to take it. Ultimately, her strength is in the seamless meshing of club music, hip-hop, and straight dance pop. The wub-wub of modern disco pauses for a few brief interludes of staccato delivery, only to ramp up again toward altitudes commensurate with the heavens. I understand that this works. Furthermore, I get that Ke$ha has a brand that she must maintain under fear of penalty. The nose-ringed nonsense, the glitter astride the gutter, the painted face of lurid desire, the salty smirk of freshly fucked satiety all are key to Ke$ha, Inc. But if the business is going to grow, the business is going to have to grow up, just slightly. I think the foul temptress can keep her righteous stank without succumbing to the easy melody of weak rhymes. This is not some sort of slutshaming, where I hold Ke$ha to a standard that I wouldnt apply to a male artist.
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(I also wish Flo Rida and Pitbull would stop rapping, and I consider their talents to pale in comparison to Ke$has.) A performance artist must perform, but, as long as shes writing the script, the role neednt be rote or one-note. Im imploring Ke$ha to be a character, not a type to operate in several dimensions, not just one. Perhaps her forthcoming Warrior LP will indicate a step of progress in this brave new direction. Some artists die young because they live too dangerously, others because they fail to adapt. I dont wish either predicament on Ke$ha. The only thing that needs to be killed is the low-hanging portion of her shtick. When this dead weight is cut, Im confident that shell rise to the most elite echelon of modern pop. Shes three-quarters of the way there already. Nows the time to finish the job. (November 11, 2012) The-Dream, Slow It Down To indie rock bloggers on the R&B beat, let me say this: The only thing more cowardly than writing a requiem for The-Dream is not writing a requiem for The-Dream. Should that make little to no sense, please hold your noses as I offer a truncated and somewhat contemptuous lesson in recent musical history. Five years back, R&B was a peripheral genre in the alternative universe, essentially limited to R. Kellys incantations from the closet and one-off singles from artists of dubious voice. At the time, The-Dream was known primarily as a songwriter and producer for charting pop stars, among them Britney Spears (Me Against the Music), Beyonc (Single Ladies), and Rihanna (Umbrella). When he went solo, he did so to muted applause, particularly from the musical omnivores on our side of the aisle. (Our side being the slim-shouldered, pouty-lipped protectorate known as indie.) While Dream crafted the album cycle that would comprise his Love Trilogy, we wrote long, adoring posts about the Hold Steady, Cut Copy, Lil Wayne, and Hercules and the Love Affair. Not until 2010 did our foremost avatar of good taste, Pitchfork Media, get around to reviewing a Dream LP. Love King, the Trilogys final installment, was the first to be recognized as an artistic achievement on par with, say, the least vapid of Das Racists smirking collection of mixtapes. Initially undersold, Dream was afforded a sudden and substantial overcorrection. This took the form of a boisterous end-of-year victory lap, in which the indie community pretended to have been Dreamers all along. This phenomenon is known in the vernacular as white kids playing catch up. When we miss something big, we casually gloss over the elision and issue retrospective praise so effusive that it drowns out any questions regarding the agency of our office. Indie rock has always loved The-Dream, just as Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. The motivation for so galling a statement is less doublethink than CYA. We have no intention of actively manipulating our audience; were just hoping to place a
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halfway convincing fig leaf over our thin sprig of shame. In the end, the leaf wilts with reliable efficiency, and our tiny privates are laid bare to the world. Thankfully, were pretty good at scaring up a suitable distraction. The eyes and ears that might be made to take in our failures are instead directed to the next headline or video feature. We escape proper punishment by inducing a happy amnesia. This amnesia now seems to be afflicting its authors. With indie R&B climbing to ever-higher levels of prominence Frank Ocean at the Grammys, Miguel on Ellen, the Weeknd gaining traction on the iTunes sales charts the very bloggers who goosed the idiom have gone conspicuously silent on one of its progenitors. Through The-Dreams semi-new single, Slow It Down, arrived with its bells and whistles in fine working order, it hit the Internet with something resembling a thud. I say semi new because the track has been out for nearly a month. And I say something resembling a thud because the song didnt receive hisses and jeers so much as a total lack of attention. Ive been waiting, patiently but a little unnerved, for a comprehensive dissection of the catalysts behind last years R&B jailbreak. Such a survey would mix the way-back with the vaguely contemporary, noting that 2012s bounty didnt burst magically from a series of vacuum-sealed studios in L.A. and Montreal. I dont want to read another version of the breathless hagiography normally lorded upon Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Michael Jackson. We all know how great they were and are. The reflexive encomia churned out by the nostalgia industry only function to coat each mans music in a shroud that inspires religious devotion rather than here-and-now applicability. What Im pining for is a narrative that transcends the Old Masters, lending space and light to the Love Trilogy, Janelle Mones excellent The ArchAndroid, and Erykah Badus decades-long tenure in avant-R&B, among other flashpoints and personalities. Frank Ocean, Miguel, and the Weeknd are tremendous talents, packing hefty quotas of curb appeal. But wed be remiss if we ignore the pump priming from which theyve so generously benefited. Each crooner dabbles in what might be called futuristic R&B. This future was created by artists like The-Dream, just as The-Dreams future was lent credence by artists like Prince. When we ignore an animating force in this sonic continuum, we do a disservice to the laws of physics. The object in motion wasnt born that way. It had to be pushed. And I think the backs of last years most illustrious R&B albums ought to be dusted for The-Dreams fingerprints. Writers who specialize in the vicissitudes of hip-hop and R&B could plausibly claim that Im overestimating Dreams influence. Thats fine. Im simply asking that these writers emerge from the shadows and put forth their arguments. This is the concern I levied at the top of this essay, when I referred to a requiem for The-Dream. My feeling is that this requiem has been implied, but not written. The indie blogs have
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placed a bizarre embargo on Slow It Down, perhaps because they think it unworthy of our general attention, but probably because theyve tilted toward more esoteric fare and regard The-Dream as slightly pass. I consider this non-coverage to be at best a severe oversight, at worst an unconscionable flash of cowardice. In a year replete with celebrated high notes from the pure pop of Justin Timberlake to the shimmering electro of Autre Ne Veut cant Pitchfork throw a bone to the artist who sang Falsetto? Why hasnt Slow It Down been accorded the courtesy of a review? If it doesnt fit the form of Best New Music, why cant our tastemakers say so? Is it a matter of too many songs, too little time? Or have we reached the equal and opposite reaction to 2010, wherein white kids milk the clock, hoping that the lay public makes up its mind on The-Dreams new material before the bylined contingent is obliged to print its formal opinions? I know what youre thinking: Too many questions, issued with far too much heat. I realize that Im an intemperate statement away from aligning myself with the going consortium of Truthers and Birthers. So let me make plain my stakes: There are real problems in the world. The passing over of a strong R&B single isnt one of them. Still, to those who take comfort in the gleaming inventories of pop, even a small injustice can sting. I see the Slow It Down proscription, whether intentional or coincidental, as the sort of minor travesty that unwittingly taints the critical profession. At this time last year, Father John Misty was in the midst of a qualitative tear, releasing single after single of compelling product. Pitchfork was slow to buy into his sound, probably because the rockist stomp of Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings rhymed with subgenres that had fallen out of favor. Mistys work was always noted in the news, but never rightly acclaimed, as the initial tag of mildly interesting folkie was never removed from the artists garments. Critics hate to admit that theyve missed a winner, and theyll go to great lengths to cover up an earlier lapse of judgment. (Again with the fig leaf.) Whats unfortunate isnt the occurrence of human error, which is inevitable, but the conversations that never take place because these errors arent corrected. Pride gets in the way of progress. At this intersection of pride and casualty, we come to The-Dreams Slow It Down. The songs title refers to the pace of contemporary club music, but could just as easily be directed at the major indie blogs, which move so fast and furiously that they can give the leisurely reader whiplash. Most pointedly, the slow it down instruction could prove useful to this very essay, what with its speedy tangents and mercurial asides. Ultimately, a comprehensive study of the influences and outcomes of Nu R&B is beyond the ken of this author. I can only tell you that Slow It Down is a damn fine pop song as good as anything The-Dream has written since Love King. It whets all healthy appetites for the Love Trilogys first formal sequel, IV Play, which is scheduled to be released on May 7. Here, Dream indulges his evergreen stock in
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trade: infectious vocal melodies set astride pulse and ripple instrumentals. In some ways, its the logical extension of the Love Trilogys last track, Love Kings Florida University. (Read that as a thinly veiled kiss-off: F.U.) Slow It Down, betraying its title, has the same pep and ebullience. Dream bobs and weaves athletically until he settles into an honest entreaty for the reigning masters of the audio mix: DJ you know you wrong/Enough with the muthafuckin dance songs/You gotta slow it down. This being a Dream number, the protagonist isnt yearning for a communion of souls so much as a commingling of genitals. I made a statement to this effect in an earlier essay, calling out The-Dream for his perennial obsession with ass. Bear in mind that I issued my lukewarm objection nearly three weeks back, figuring that Slow It Down would soon become ubiquitous in urban and indie circles. As it happened, the single didnt stick, and, in a fortuitous case of symmetry, neither does my criticism. By Dream standards, Slow It Down isnt especially lecherous. Its refrain features a pairing of stark confessions I came to see that thang pop/I came to see that thang rock, the thang being a ladys hindquarters on both occasions. But the culprits behind the Explicit Lyrics sticker are those old chestnuts of urban lore: n**ga, shit, and two or three acrobatic variants of fuck. For a contemporary Atlanta songwriter, Slow It Down is admirably chaste. Dont label it NC-17 until youve had a conversation with a group of actual seventeen year olds, preferably the kind so fraught with foul language that you rise from the bargaining table with your ear hairs singed. All told, The-Dreams designs are carnal but not criminal. Hes not in league with R. Kelly of the infamously overactive bladder or Chris Brown of the hotter-thanPhoenix temper. At bottom, Slow It Down is one of the sweetest songs youll ever hear about a mans devotion to strippers. Dream places himself in a club of the age restricted variety, promising to keep throwin money til this shawty gon touch her toes. Amazingly, Dream sees some nobility in his commitment to the ATLs stacked roster of exotic dancers. His sweet music derives from both the pounding of keys and the plucking of G strings, reconfiguring the sparsely clad woman before him as a portal to revelation. Ill never put a million records before you, he assures her, all while making it rain with greater precipitory passion than El Nio. The chivalry in such an arrangement may not be 100% pure, but I get the sense that Dream considers himself the Shakespeare of the Champagne Room. Slow It Down is simply his latest love sonnet. Lest you take issue with my interpretation, and see fit to organize a NOW picket line outside of Radio Killah Records, lets remember The-Dreams odd dichotomy. The man born Terius Nash has written more anthems to female empowerment and womanly vindication than anyone this side of Carole King. Beyoncs Single
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Ladies, Run the World (Girls), 1 + 1, Countdown, and Love On Top; Mariah Careys Standing O and H.A.T.E. U; Mary J. Bliges Feel Like a Woman and Grown Woman; Rihannas Umbrella and Lemme Get That all were sprung from The-Dreams pen. His professional discography is a streaming contradiction: fiercely independent sisters and strident calls for mutual respect in one corner; promiscuity, infidelity, and the downward-tilted male gaze in the other. To reconcile these seemingly intractable camps is a task worthy of a seasoned diplomat. For the rest of us, the operative course is to take the bitter with the better, and to realize that The-Dream is a creature of the open market. Hes writing for a wide variety of audiences, and this broad canvas gives him the implicit freedom to have it both ways. Its important to remember that neither angle is necessarily more acute or less obtuse. Theres ignorance in The-Dreams lyrics, but, just as often, theres wisdom, inspiration, and comedy. Personally speaking, I dont listen to The-Dream for his lyrics. Im all about the gestalt of the arrangement, whereby melody, words, and studio wizardry cohere in a freshly minted jam. Slow It Down is textbook Dream, packing synths that purr like Lamborghini engines, Prince-style clicks and clacks, and, most notably, an intrepid vocal line. Dream is singing from the drop, tossing around a few bars of casual harmonizing before getting into his proper cadence. Once he locks in, hes smooth, savvy, and unshakable. The problem, at least from a thematic standpoint, is that hes not slow. Slow It Down actually moves rather quickly, particularly in the verse, which Dream croons with a sprinters velocity. This leads to a certain incongruity with expectation, but not one that puts up a barrier to enjoyment. Taken as a whole, Slow It Down is The-Dreams best single since Yamaha. To the unbiased listener, its a sprightly hybrid of mellifluous keys and inviting vocals more of a conventional pop song than anything on Love King, which was buoyed by pneumatic lifts and grounded by concept-album intrigue. Dream has successfully married his 80s influences with a contemporary chic. I dont understand why the track isnt more popular. This returns us to our original item of contention: the tacit indie embargo on The-Dreams new material. Perhaps this is all a matter of natural taste cycles. Rock, pop, and R&B generations turn over with remarkable quickness on the indie boards, as a surfeit of product begets an endless parade of new faces. To my eye, indie is slowly but surely putting some space between itself and the duly laurelled Class of 2012. Ocean, Miguel, and Weeknd have had their vogue; now the spotlight is trained on AlunaGeorge, Jessica Ware, Katy B, Charli XCX, and other Anglo-pop movers and shakers. Whats sexy about this crop of artists is not just their music, which is categorically respectable, but their lack of a debut LP (at least in America). Each act

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can therefore be deflowered in the blogs, effecting the journalistic equivalent of a virgin sacrifice. Dream has already run the circuit that connects the obscure to the essential. Three years ago, he was a new fascination on Pitchfork; now hes old hat, and thus deprives indie R&B writers of the glory of a scoop. The alternative blogs want to shape taste, not affirm it. Accordingly, they propel their readers into social media rump states that have the smell of novelty or exclusivity about them. Of course, this novelty and exclusivity are illusory, especially after the work in question has made the Twitter rounds. Check these stats: As of this writing, AlunaGeorges official video for Attracting Flies, released on Monday, has over 150,000 views on YouTube. Earl Sweatshirts video for WHOA, released just yesterday, has already garnered 826,000 views on the same platform. Yet The-Dreams lyric video for Slow It Down, which has been streaming on Vevo for a full week, can boast of only 21,000 views, a quarter of which are probably directly attributable to yours truly. This just goes to show that coming strong and correct isnt enough anymore. To make it pop, youve got to go viral. If nothing else, The-Dream deserves credit for understanding the rules of the game. The first line of Slow It Down reads I know they aint gonna play this on Top 40 radio. But, hey, they arent playing AlunaGeorge or Earl Sweatshirt on Top 40 radio either, and those artists are cleaning up in the page-hits sweepstakes. In this peculiar case, I think The-Dream is a casualty of his age and his previous success. Those who follow R&B closely will remember the pink-rare beef that was sparked many months back between Dream and Abel Tesfaye of the Weeknd. Last March, Dream was playing S.O.B.s in New York. Commenting on his prolonged absence from the stage, he said, I havent done a show in close to two years. And ever since then theres like four n**gas that sound like me. Through an Internet-mediated echo chamber, Tesfaye heard this statement as an accusation, and he did what all twentysomethings do when theyre peeved or blunted: He wrote about it on Twitter. Weeknd memorably called Dream a ham burglar lookin ass n**ga, adding you get at me, i get at you. Dream responded with notable reserve, imploring Weekend to Say ur peace son before claiming a kind of victory. (Dream named no names at S.O.B.s, so Tesfaye, in his retaliatory anger, was more or less outing himself as an acolyte.) Dream ended his initial series of tweets with an offer to crush the sizzling hamburglar patty: Now ima leave it at that. Ill call ya phone if you wanna chop it up... I mention this dead beef for two reasons. First, I love to quote the Twitter feeds of second-tier hip-hop and R&B personalities, as the testimony is frequently as colorful as it is ungrammatical. (If Beyonc gets in a tussle over, say, lip-syncing the national anthem, shes not going to post morning-after tweets that read anything like
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The-Dreams. Heres a sample of what the man thumbed out after supposedly leav[ing] it at that: Selfmade, I built it ground up, you bought it renovated.; Seek knowledge at all times; Machiavelli the art of war has nothing to do with a Gun.; Dont Take my Sweetness for a Weakness! This is fantastic stuff!) Second, the beef I cite may not be entirely dead. By squaring off with an indie favorite, The-Dream unwittingly placed himself on the wrong end of the age divide. He won the battle of words, but lost the war of perception. Machiavelli has nothing to do with a gun. Its about making sure The Prince is both loved and feared above all, respected not merely a claimant to some hypothetical throne. When you beef with your juniors, the teen contingent loses the thread of the argument and simply hears an old man yelling Get off my lawn! Even in victory, youre defeated. This is perhaps an artful way of saying that The-Dream became demonstrably less cool last year, and that this chilled his profile in indies boiler room, which runs on heaping nuggets of the hip. Slow It Down should have turned the tide, reminding the leading bloggers that proven songcraft is preferable to an asymmetrical haircut or a maverick make-up team. The single sparkles, but it just hasnt popped. Fortunately, Dream can survive the lean returns, as hes got more tunes in the hopper, and should get a major-label promotional push for IV Plays May release. (Note to Radio Killah/ Def Jam: You might want to delay the release another week or two, so as not to go fang to fang with Vampire Weekends third LP. White people are corny, but they still buy your records.) Ima leave it at that, with one quick addendum. Slow It Down is worth your time as either a snappy one-off single or as a prism through which to view the entirety of modern R&B. Its both The-Dream writ small and The-Dream writ large, by which I mean it covers the artists most emblematic impulses and his genres most powerful trends. Ironically, the essential summary of Dreams oeuvre arrives in a guest verse from New York rapper Fabolous. Fabs keystone couplet stands as Cliffs Notes for The-Dreams sensual novel: Pants on her, slim fit/Lights in the room, dim lit. Thats Dreams solo work reduced to its fundamentals in just over 10 words. But, as I said, with The-Dream text is always subordinate to texture. Hes a seminally important songwriter and producer because he dared to dabble in R&B future while the music industry was doubling down on the neo-Soul of folks like Raphael Saadiq. His Love Trilogy presaged the Sex & Drugs Trilogy that the Weeknd dropped last year. This is not to say that a theft occurred or that I champion one singer over the other. (For the record, both are great.) Its merely to note that Dreams future allow ed alternate futures to ascend from the ether. Dreams Abyss is a credible precursor to the complete contents of Weeknds Trilogy, chronicling doped-out bad romance through the machinations of a faultless falsetto. Each artist presents libidinal overload,
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but the landscapes they adorn are decidedly different. Dream opts for emotional pain; Weeknd, dire anguish. Dream puts forth girl problems; Weeknd, existential anxiety. In the end, Dream conjures a future that reads like a tragedy but plays vaguely like a party; its one that we can live with (and in). Weeknd, on the other hand, takes a dark view of mankind in general and the woman animal in particular. We dont make it through his Trilogy without leaving a little flesh on the vinyl. The artist makes no real accommodations for pop. This distinction is what makes The-Dream exceptional. Unlike his juniors, and despite what he might have written on his lyric sheet, Dream can still get played on Top 40 radio. You have to seek out tracks like Wicked Games and High For This. But songs like Umbrella and Single Ladies find you. Theyre utterly ubiquitous, and they frame pop culture conversations for months at a time. Consider this: If Dream hadnt written Single Ladies, Beyonc wouldnt have made her acclaimed Single Ladies video. And if Beyonc hadnt made her acclaimed Single Ladies video, Kanye West wouldnt have been able to pull his indefensible mic snatch on Taylor Swift. This incident helped beget Swifts victim complex, which remains very much in evidence, most notably in her bank account. It also forced Kanye into the wilderness, where he composed his best record to date, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. In short, Dreams songs have ramifications. He doesnt need indie. But Id argue that indie needs him to provide some Top Ten cachet, some mentoring on hooks and melody, some big-tent ballast. If IV Play is as good as Love King, our side will look small for sleeping on Slow It Down. Thats a big if, of course, but I remain convinced that Dreams lead single will get some sort of re-up. Maybe itll come with the albums release. Maybe itll come with the end-of-year retrospectives. All I know is that it damn well better come. Otherwise we will have been derelict in our duty, and not for the first time. (March 13, 2013) The Smiths, Still Ill This post is being written in exile, not in absentia. Which is to say that Im fully present and accounted for, at least in faculty. Where Im dispossessed is in a spot less serious but perhaps more substantive. At the moment, Im forbidden from occupying my place of residence, for fear of flood, fire, frostbite, and sundry other unfavorable predicaments. Five days back, I was liveried some 50 miles north from my home, which sits along the New Jersey coastline and had to be rather abruptly abandoned thankfully because of power problems and minor cosmetic damage, not because of
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outright uninhabitability. Power should be restored sometime between Election Day and Thanksgiving. Until then, Im afraid Im fated to correct the work of Tom Petty: Yes, Tom, I do have to live like a refugee. But America being the First World, and New Jersey being one of the Unions wealthier states, refugee status isnt particularly bad. Currently, Im sharing a comfortable two-bedroom apartment with six other adults. Space is tight, but food and water are not. The heat is on, as are the lights. And, clearly, I have Internet access, which affords me two privileges: The ability to attend to ample portions of my paying job, and the opportunity to share my idle thoughts with essays such as this one. True, nobody within 10 square miles of me seems to have more than a single gallon of gasoline. And the congestion on local roads, both vehicular and human, is just about consumptive. But I neednt travel any great distance until Tuesday, when Ill ostensibly be casting my vote in a town without electricity, fuel, or discernible instruments of government. How Im going to get there, I have no idea. But Im confident Ill get there nonetheless. This is America, goddammitt. Well get the ligh ts on and the pumps primed. I just hope we dont kill each other in the process. More immediately, I hope none of my roommates takes a shot at me before an outsider can try his hand at a similar task. I imagine Ive learned many things over the past five days, but central among them is the fact that Ive changed as drastically as the climate. I was once a no-nonsense urban type, hip to shared spaces and mass transit. Now I like my distance, emotional as well as physical. I fancy myself a writer, even if the evidence argues otherwise. And what is a writer if he doesnt have a room of his own, to think, to meddle, to muddle, to fail? Im typing this during a welcome lull from the noises of close cohabitation. My cousins, uncles, and aunts have gone out for coffee and bagels, leaving just me and my sister to guard the homestead. Were quiet people. And the silence deafens the stunted conversations that have been going on in my head all week Who has a car?; Who has gas?; When am I going to be able to go home?; How in Gods name am I supposed to resume my living and my livelihood when my section of the state, and its attendant infrastructure, is as battered as a punch-drunk heavyweight? These questions will answer themselves, I presume. There are limits to individual agency, and theyre mostly territorial. Yesterday, I walked five miles to get a carton of eggs, some toilet paper, and a shitload of rice. Even the well-lit portions of New Jersey are in the business of sustenance, not heroism. To make a genuine difference right now, youd need to be among the privileged; that is, those with transport and supplies. The rest of us are just walking the streets, like Vladimir and Estragon, waiting on a systemic change we cant effect. For the majority of the world, this is life: The mobility you pursue is basic and ambulatory, not social or upward. Thats
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fine, provided its the deal youve struck with your Maker. Were a bit spoiled in America. We feel entitled to ambition. (Its essentially written into the Co nstitution, as a three-word descriptive, falling right after life and liberty.) My ambitions have slackened to fit the situation. I cant work a normal shift or get in touch with the majority of my clients. I cant throw on my gladiator gear and pop into to the gym for a strenuous workout. And, as befits this blog, I cant listen to new music without taking a ribbing from my family. Like I said, Ive changed, as has my taste in music. Whereas once I could throw on a Wu-Tang record and keep it spinning for months without significant interruption, now Ive become accustomed to fresh and arty fare, dispatched more or less on a daily basis. A few hours into exile, I fired up a mixtape of Stereogum-curated cuts, letting my laptop stream like the mighty Hudson. This decision went over like a lead balloon. Thirty seconds into the first song, I heard several What is this shit?style statements coming from the peanut gallery. Track skipping didnt help. Pretty much every mp3 was deemed unfit to listen to, particularly in our cramped and cranky quarters. Then, in a gesture as ill-conceived as it was ill-timed, I set in motion a Smiths playlist, thinking I had a few minutes respite while my relatives caught a smoke. No such luck. Just as the lead cut, Still Ill, was reaching its chorus, a cousin of mine, who shall remain nameless, burst back into the apartment and greeted me with a look of bald stupefaction. This is what you listen to? he said. Whos this howling homo? From that moment forward, my family has referred to my iTunes library as howling homo music. Id be offended were the honorific not so humorous. And, dare I say, appropriate. Morrissey does sound like an effete crooner, and my playing of Still Ill projected shattered romance at a time that called for sanguine realism. So let me get real with you. I love my family, but somewhere in the mid-1990s they took a right and I hung a left. They frequently have no idea what Im talking ab out, and they cant wrap their heads around the notion that one might aspire to write for a living, even in the commercial spheres of advertising and PR, where I ply my trade. To them, Im soft and a little bit queer. My taste in music just confirms what theyve already suspected. To be clear, Im not queer as it pertains to sexual orientation. One of the few pleasures of recent days has been to walk through parts unknown, marveling at the attractiveness of the local girls, all of whom seem to be beauticians or tanning salon attendants. As to the charge of being soft, however, I think I have to plead guilty. In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, virtually everyone I know has been pushed into an uncompromising position. Burdens have had to be shouldered, obstacles jumped. In my family, at least, everyone stepped up and did their fair share. Most came out the other end none the worse for the wear. I, though, have developed an irregular cough,
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which tends to worsen during the evening hours. This means that Im involuntarily interrupting the sleep of my roommates. And that means that Im getting my balls busted. So heres a stark declaration of status: At press time, Im a howling homo with a hacking cough. Family members have threatened to kick my ass if I get them sick. Theyre kidding, of course, but the impulse behind the pronouncement is genuine. The situation is dire enough as it is. We dont need illness to add fuel to the fire. (Although fuel of any sort would be nice.) For the record, this cough didnt manifest itself while I was in the midst of emigration. It had started last week and slowly dissipated, only to begin anew. Accordingly, Im not necessarily ill. Im still ill. This is a holdover malady, which was kind enough to accompany me from the Jersey Shore to Essex County. Id hoped the damn thing would run its course with Usain Boltlevel speed, but it appears to be competing in a marathon, not a sprint. Listening to the Smiths, I wonder if the cough isnt psychosomatic unease causing disease. Heres Morrisseys clinical query from Still Ill: Does the body rule the mind or does the mind rule the body?/I dunno. Neither do I. But Id be willing to settle for perfect health in either sphere. Whats struck me is the hard steel that helped forge Morrisseys soft contemplation. Ive been exiled to a town that borders Newark, which, like the Smiths native Manchester, was once a booming industrial city. Factories abound, many of them empty. There are docks and rail yards, drab tracts of land that house the heavy material of a so-called service economy. The local neighborhood is tightly coiled. There are no lawns and few driveways; space is at a premium, as is patience. This is the sort of place in which I grew up, the kind of town that shaped my disposition. In recent years, Id put such places behind me, even as I used my various tours of duty to bolster my bona fides among the suburbanites and learned folks with whom I commingle. Writers are frequently traitors to their own class, or at least profiteers from the stasis of their fellow man. Those of us whove escaped from rough corners feel compelled to cite them ad nauseum. Im talking corners metaphorical and actual, intersections found both in the mind and on the map. My own is Westside and Virginia, and I imagine I need the neighborhood that these streets grace to stay depressed. Otherwise, what have I escaped from? What sort of mobility have I attained? What kind of toughness can I claim to demonstrate? Nobody takes a rapper from Malibu seriously. Hes got to be from South Central or Compton, even if hes not. The persona is as important as the person; often, theyre one and the same. Ive seen this in pop music, politics, advertising, PR, and many other public arts. Ive seen in it my own situation as well. Posturing has frequently
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become more important than performance. If you dont cut the right figure, youll be taken advantage of, or at least mocked. A week ago, I was swaggering through Asbury Park, a North Jersey guy with little to hide and less to prove. Now, Im a howling homo with a hacking cough, easily the softest member of my suddenly extended household. (Yes, that includes the women, who have been absolute battle axes.) My weakness, however, is strictly relative. I wont show it outside of this room, outside of this post. Why the false persona?, you might ask. Well, let me give you Morrisseys answer: Ask me why and Ill spit in your eye. Writers are by their nature deceitful. Our aim is to create a simulacrum of a lived experience the falsity is baked into our product. So if I need to step out onto the street and act like I belong here, I can do it. Remember how Pablo Picasso described his profession. He said, Art is a lie that tells the truth. As am I. I try to be as honest as possible, but, ultimately, I traffic in stories and opinion, neither of which can be verified as entirely objective. I caught the confabulist bug years ago. And Im still ill. Which brings me to whats real. Hurricane Sandy is real, just like the gas rationing, the methane fires, and the two-on-the-bed, three-on-the-floor sleeping arrangements that have followed in her wake. The hacking cough is real, though I hope its realness is subject to a countdown clock (as does my family, who are a nighttime disruption away from banishing me to the bathroom). The howling homo that is, the voice of art is false. Its a luxury that exists apart from the material needs of the moment. But it makes those needs, when lacking, all the more tolerable. I cant ap ologize for art, for Morrissey, for my hacking cough. Theyre forces of nature, just like the storm thats placed me in exile. As clichd as it sounds, out of the clouds has come some clarity. Ive learned that the concept we call civilization is balanced on a razors edge, and that the blades of chaos are flashed with precious little warning or mercy. Moreover, Ive learned that Im a ridiculous person: an American plebe who writes in the style of the British patrician class. And Im perfectly OK with that. The tortured language, the adjectives used to excess, the allusions I may not fully understand all are for the good, the better, the best. Theyre my version of the sweaty brow and the calloused hand (though Im not altogether unfamiliar with those qualities in their physical iteration). They imply effort, pride, a sincere yearning for improvement. Perhaps the kindest description I can give them at the moment is unnatural. Having seen the state of nature perhaps the state of nature on steroids, if the climate scientists can finally be heard I want no part of it. For me, the human experiment is one concerned with the attenuation of our natural programming. Not every instinct is indulged. Not every impulse is muscled to its bloody conclusion. For a primer on the state of nature, see
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Hobbes. Or Seaside Heights. For an example of happy unnaturalism, see the Smiths. Or the New York skyline. Or this post. To write a protracted essay in the shadow of cold, crowd, and displacement is objectively absurd. But civilization defends my right to do it. And if civilization is a disease, I dont covet the cure. May the illness linger so long as the patient shall live. Ive seen the alternative, and its something nasty, short, and brutish. (November 4, 2012) Kendrick Lamar, Backseat Freestyle Today is, officially, Kendrick Lamar Day. The good favor that the Compton MC has sustained through the better part of 2012 has now amped up into a critical crescendo, with top blogs and the social media canonizing Kendrick as hip-hops latest savior. In part, this is a calculated and cynical act the shapers and signifiers of opinion co-writing a predictable script, in which the under-the-radar star finally gets his due. Mostly, however, its an honest recognition of a bright young talent, an MC who prefers embattled raps to rap battles. Lamar is probably as conscious as a commercial rapper can be. His crossover single, played on both Fallon and Conan, spun by Funk Flex and wispy-haired white boys alike, was called Swimming Pools (Drank). By title alone, it might appear to be a party song liquor and lovely ladies, asplash in puddles of id. But when actually listened to it provides documentary footage on the ills of alcoholism, including those that have historically afflicted the Lamar family. There are notions of lineage, inheritance, and influence, most leaning toward the negative but none so powerful as to make redemption impossible. Ironically, Lamars lament doesnt call to mind the image of his idol, the great Tupac Shakur. For me, the track brokered a genre flip, and thrust me face to face with the catholic wisdom of my idol, the great Bruce Springsteen. Concurrent with Swimming Pools (Drank), I heard the Boss Adam Raised a Cain: Youre born into this life paying/For the sins of somebody elses past. The beauty of pop music is that it allows many avenues of manumission, of debt relief. One can sing socially and specifically at the same time. Or, in Lamars case, one can rap personally and politically without conflating the two into a hodgepodge of backpacked consciousness. (My apologies for placing conscious and its various conjugations in parentheses. I just dont like the term, as it perpetually conjures Commons wack-ass rhymes about gun violence or Mos Defs simplistic histories of race and nation.) Where Kendrick stands apart from his colleagues and contemporaries is in his versatility. He moves fluidly between forms, tipping his hat to gangsta while bowing graciously toward pop. His friends and advocates include Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Drake, and Lady Gaga. All have worked with him in some shape
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or form, even if several of the collaborations have yet to see the light of day. What these artists hear, I think, is a talent that can jump from idiom to idiom. Im not talking about a Nicky Minajtype rapper, wholl roll over and play nice at the mere echo of a Top 40 beat. Im talking of the rap games Frank Ocean that rare up-andcomer who has a vision thats wide enough to incorporate icons, but focused enough to tell its own tale. good kid, m.A.A.d. city, Lamars debut LP, is the falls Channel ORANGE, showcasing the glorious arrival of someone who was heretofore regarded as the Next Big Thing. That, in short, is why today is Kendrick Lamar Day. After a trailer and a tease, Kendrick is finally here, and we all want a piece of him. Older listeners get to claim that the MC has arrived fully formed, as if any artist of genuine merit would show all his shapes on a debut record. Meanwhile, younger hip-hop fans get to champion a rapper whos not defined by his most recent tattoo or most shiny piece of jewelry. Lamar isnt your typical mixtape minion, hoping for a garish, major-label ride. Hes unlikely to succumb to a Minaj makeover, where ones nails are polished up and filed down, to serve the baser gods of the market. Kendricks been rapping for quite some time; his first mixtape was released nearly a decade ago, when he was a 16-year-old high school student, known as K-Dot. His rise was slow and choppy until, rather suddenly, it became meteoric and inexorable. I wont trace this ascent in great detail, but I will note that Lamar has been among the few credible rappers to get hipster buy-in. This summer, Pitchfork booked him for their annual music festival in Chicago. And, just today, the site offered good kid, m.A.A.d. city an inevitable Best New Music designation, awarding it 9.5 out of 10 possible points. Thats precisely the same rating that Pitchfork gave Channel ORANGE, back in July. One could be forgiven for thinking that the site treats black music as conspicuously promoted ballast. Insofar as Pitchfork follows rap, its largely to lend some grit and girth to the pencil-necked material that typically sets the hipster heart aflutter. I realize that this is not the most generous of appraisals, but I think it holds the virtue of being true. Hipsters, admittedly a diffuse term for a diverse population, derive their value from being cool, from having impeccable taste. This requires the occasional dive into the swimming pools of urban sound, if only for a quick immersion in the moments hot liquid. As it turns out, not only can you lead a jackass to water, you can also make him drank. I pick on the hipsters because theyre the ones whove given Kendrick more buzz than my living room radiator. Too often, they evaluate new music hyperbolically and deductively; e.g., Kendrick Lamar is a genius, so his new record must be genius as well. Truth be told, Ive heard most of good kid, m.A.A.d. city, and its a very strong record, not an out and out classic. Id argue, however, that the rapper behind the album has a classic in him, and that it could manifest sooner rather than later,
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provided he doesnt get caught up in the mixtape arms race. As I see it, Lamars greatest asset is his multidimensionality. He can shift between backpack and boom rap as if they were peripheral gears, connected by mere dexterity of hand. Swimming Pools (Drank) straddled the borders of each sub-genre. For all it said, the song was kind of understated, flashing a synth-heavy beat, electric and eclectic but not sonically arresting. Kendricks latest single, Backseat Freestyle, is a bit more of a boomer. Its central sample, arranged by Hit-Boy, sounds truncated, in the manner of, say, A Milli. The track gets its power from the beats stark repetition and hypersyncopation; it gets its character, though, from Lamars unique ability to cut over, under, around, and through the instrumental. Backseat proves that Kendrick is a virtuoso rapper, packing the croak of Wayne, the speed of Eminem, the control of Drake, and, when necessary, the wildcat shambolics of Busta Rhymes. He comes at us from all angles, first nasal and blunted, then growling and angry, and, finally, smooth and slick. The single is a portrait of chest-out ambition, starting and ending with a bellow of Martin had a dream! Kendrick have a dream! Thats mighty heady company for a young man from Compton. But the invocation of Dr. King doesnt imply an equivalence with Dr. King, moral or otherwise. It merely suggests that Lamar is thinking in terms which transcend matters of the flesh. That said, Backseat will not be mistaken for a modern version of the I Have a Dream speech. Its chock full of expletives and nut flexes, naked pleas for status and material comfort. At times, Lamar takes a journey into the downright absurd. Heres a line thats repeated with each refrain: I hope my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower/So I can fuck the world for 72 hours. I dont know which wish is more laughable the Eiffel Tower length or the 3-day endurance. 72 hours? Who is Lamar aspiring to be? Sting? Where Kendrick triumphs is in his refusal to domesticate his muse. He choreographs Backseats tantric dance, but isnt so set in his ways as to rely on old, overly practiced steps. Each verse brings a new voice, a new wonder. This isnt a freestyle in a rap sense, where rhymes are spit on the fly; this is more of a swim-meet freestyle, where athletes can go with whatever stroke they choose, each honed to a condition approaching perfection. In places, Lamar sounds like Comptons own Eazy-E, laidback and lackadaisical. Then hell motormouth the next 12 bars, scorching the tape on which his vocal treads. This is some General Sherman shit: Not just claiming victory, but burning his enemys path to supplies and safe retreat. He offers no quarter, no way out. Whats set in motion by Backseat is a showdown, with a clear winner and loser. Those whove doubted Kendrick are exposed as fools, while those whove had his back from the get-go are congratulated for their prescience. The single is a proud proffering of credentials, pasted atop an extant rsum of skill and savvy. It reminds me of Drakes The Motto, the song that finally convinced me that Drizzy could rap,
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and was not simply the beneficiary of friends in high places. Only Drake needed Lil Wayne to stud his track. Here, Lamar goes it alone, and ends up no worse for the wear. Of course, rap battles are not real battles. Blood isnt spilled, nor are actual lives lost. Still, the specter of gunplay and soldier loyalty continues to haunt and, in many cases, catalyze the rap idiom. The best MCs have always had a killer instinct, an Im the best insistence, to be challenged at ones peril. Hip-hop is a cruelly capitalistic form, tied up in big money and head-to-head competition. Like virtually all music, it starts as live music, meaning that the MC isnt raised in a studio, surrounded by engineers and producers. The rapper must make a name for himself, usually on the street, at a decidedly local level. If hes remarkably good, or remarkably lucky, he gets a sponsor, who might provide him with a recording contract. Kendrick Lamar is the man of the hour because he was able to telescope this process. After years on a parochial scene, he caught the ear of Dr. Dre, and can now boast of an Interscope insignia on his breakout LP. This is all good and well. (And also very important.) But what makes Lamar a hipster favorite indeed, what separates him from promising upstarts like A$AP Rocky and Chief Keef is the idea that he could be a game changer. Most of the music that knowledgeable fans are passionate about falls under the rubric of independent or underground. Every so often, a minor label phenomenon goes major label, and is thus provided the means to influence the larger pop conversation. A provincial sound filters into the mainstream, and colors the airwaves in new shades and patterns. Only very rarely, however, does an underground movement, by sheer force of will, grab the mainstream by the throat and rearrange its DNA. These pivot points come just once or twice a generation. It could be said that James Brown took the mainstream black, or that Nirvana took the mainstream punk. I wont relitigate old arguments. What I will say is this: Expectations are high for Lamar. He, like Frank Ocean before him, represents a new hope that pop music will stop its idol worship and get with the genuine issue, that the mass audience will learn that new releases are not limited to teen glitz and corporate country. This yearning for truth and talent is almost religious in its intensity. It imagines a blessed inheritance, with sins redeemed and vice pushed aside by virtue. It presupposes that a tainted figure can be remade, wholly, in one fell swoop. Allow me to let you in on a little secret: This isnt going to happen. The music industry, now a husk of its former self, doesnt turn over anymore. It simply lies in place, like a rock, blockading any vain surges against its reigning avatars. The best that someone like Kendrick can hope for is second-tier stardom the assumption of the noble savage mantle that the white media likes to impart to black artists. (See
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Wayne, Busta, 2Pac.) What Kendrick should do, I think, is keep making music that hints at the avant garde. His aesthetic could filter into Top 40 fare, much the same way that the Weeknds sound has infiltrated modern R&B, most evidently in Usher. The era of G Thangs and California Love has passed. Now the spotlight for the working rapper is smaller, but no less hot. This statement isnt meant to be sad, just honest. As I said earlier, today is Kendrick Lamar Day. Hes front-page material on most well-respected music sites; at press time, hes even trending on Twitter. And all this means next to nothing. Why do I say that? Well, ask your mother if she knows who Kendrick Lamar is. Better yet, ask your boss. Even at their high ebb, the artists who create genuine excitement in the blogosphere rarely factor into the truly elite chatter, the talk that can be marked up and monetized. Kendrick Lamar is multidimensional and multitalented. He will not, however, go multiplatinum. To some, this is a shame; to others, a blessing. To me, its a no-brainer. And I wont insult your intelligence by arguing otherwise. (October 23, 2012) Guards, Ready to Go The universe began with an explosion and will likely end the same way. This statement represents a liberal arts majors attempt at a working cosmogony, and its applicable to music only in that this particular liberal arts major likes songs that spontaneously combust. For me, the central elements of a good pop single are tension and release. First, gravity is built, carefully; then, gravity is suspended, suddenly. The lift is the thing that makes the enterprise glorious. We shift from Chaos to Cosmos in the span of seconds, often with little more fuel than a hot riff or a vocal harmony. As the sound coheres, the stars align, and were left with a validation rather than a void. Whats validated?, you might ask. Well, Im going to go with the whole of the human experiment. These are some high stakes, for sure. But just such a context has allowed U2 and Coldplay to become millionaires. The lay audience likes to be reminded that its a beautiful day, that, when youre suffused with despair, someone, somewhere will try to fix you. Indie tastemakers generally find these avuncular assurances a little garish. Redemption can be implied, but not stated outright. A little subtlety, please. An indie band of recent fascination, Guards, are not much for subtlety. This is not to say that theyre without nuance; its simply to note that they aim to please, without
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apology or misdirection. Guards will drop their debut album, In Guards We Trust, next month. Until then, we have a series of singles to tide us over, each of which seems to make good on the LPs title. I only became aware of the ensemble at the tail end of last year, when Coming True was shared for our listening pleasure. This is a song that slinks forward until, in a stirring swirl of crescendo, it struts. The hand that rocks the tracks cradle goes from open and relaxed to clenched and fiery, abruptly changing the terms of the affair. Here, tension and release are writ small, but not too small. Its not Bono and the Edge, yet it still manages to complete an extraterrestrial orbit. Guards are about as big as indie is willing to get without being ironic in its use of straight pop textures. The bands latest single, Ready to Go, doubles down on its predecessors heady instincts. It, too, shows a penchant for spontaneous combustion, albeit from a slightly faster cruising speed. Ready to Go starts full and warm, reels back just a touch, then charges ahead with a mighty ring. Consider its profile to be a mutation of the Pixies classic loud-quiet-loud approach, in which factors of volume alternately lure you in and shove you back. To be clear, Guards dont sound like the Pixies. They do, however, have a Nineties affect. In their work, shoegaze becomes stargaze, and the rockets red glare colors its earthy canvas beautifully. If youve read any of the early blog posts about Guards, youve likely learned that the groups front man, Richie James Follin, is the brother of Madeleine Follin, vocalist for Cults. Were they not signed to Columbia Records, Id be inclined to call Cults an indie rock band. They specialize in melodic but alternative timbres, the sort that plays well in the less doctrinaire districts of Brooklyn and Echo Park. Guards are party to the same ethos: They view accessibility not as a vice, but as a calling card. By all rights, they should be a commercial band. And they might have been in, like, 1996. What I mean to imply is that popular music has changed, not the tenets of pop songwriting. Im a fan of both Guards and Cults because they display a practiced 0-60 Factor. They know just when to hit the gas pedal, just how long the engine rev should be sustained. Among the two groups, the best example of sheer acceleration is found in Cults Abducted, which goes from hollow to whole in the snap of snare drum. Ready to Go doesnt pack the same whiplash intensity, but it does shift its gears up and down with enviable dexterity. The song shows the friendly, buzzy countenance of Wilcos Im Always in Love, along with a celebratory take on the signature riff from David Bowies Heroes. Its rich sounding lush in a way thats become rarer and rarer in indie. Pitchforks Larry Fitzmaurice rightly describes the track as polished indie pop that plays to the rafters. I couldnt have put it better myself. (Thats why Im citing his words.)

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One minor quibble, though. For Guards, I feel the rafters are not enough. They want to burst through the roof and play to the sky. In this way, Guards are tied less to Cults than to the chorus-attuned bands of the Nineties. For some reason, Spacehogs In the Meantime comes to mind, perhaps because the track flutters before it soars. Of course, this description is applicable to any number of songs, from maudlin power ballads to quivering indie confessionals. Ultimately, Ready to Go works because its ready to wear. You dont need to fiddle with its collar, adjust its hemline, or canonize its design team. You simply put it on and take joy in its all-enveloping comfort. At the opposite end of joy sits the judgments that have recently been wrought regarding indie rock that aspires to a mainstream audience. I harp on this note only because, earlier this week, Pitchforks Ian Cohen loosed an absolute hatchet job on Free Energys Love Sign. I dont take issue with Cohens writing in fact, his prose is as strong as anything Ive read in the cultural press this year. But a well-worded argument doesnt excuse a faulty premise. Cohen starts with the notion that bands like Free Energy, who effectively repackage sounds of a previous vintage, are terribly divisive. Well, maybe in the one Red Hook apartment block that houses the gaggle of preening reactionaries who determine the criteria for indie cool. Outside of this radical fringe, however, the bands wares sound like affable stoner rock. Im neither affable nor a stoner, but I buy what Free Energy is selling, because it sounds good. A similar methodology can be applied to Guards. They dont represent a brave new world. Instead, they stand as a happy continuation of a royal line, in which chords shimmer between tension and release. Pop music has a high enough ceiling to accommodate the likes of Free Energy and Coldplay, of U2 and Guards, in the same general room. Not every sound is created equal, but none deserves to be written off before its properly heard. At this point, I feel Ive heard Guards at the appropriate decibel level. That level is loud but not deafening. One should make an honest effort to take in the bands nuance, if not its subtlety. Ready to Go is a shining composite of pop virtue, finding space for both the tolling of bells and the strumming of power chords. The first ring like the chimes of freedom; the second trigger a triumphant refrain, in which Guards pose, unwittingly, that the world is not enough. This is a band that needs to push beyond the rafters, to soar through the ceiling. Ready to Go thus aligns, at least thematically, with a song of the same name, the ubiquitous Republica banger from the mid-Nineties. On that track, vocalist Samantha Sprackling sings, imploringly, On the rooftop, shout it out/Baby, Im ready to go. Guards Richie Follin offers much the same message, just with a little less bombast.

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Both iterations of Ready to Go come together in the annals of anthemic songwriting. (See the alternative section.) The tracks surge, reach out, set themselves aloft. The rules of tension and release demand nothing less. Spontaneous combustion is achieved in part by measure, in part by matter: The artist colludes with the notes to make a great noise, but only after a basic sense of yearning is rendered possible by the very atoms of sound. That is, the potential for explosion is baked into the product. The musicians job is to dream up the best formula for showcasing the blast. This impulse can be suppressed, but it shouldnt be ignored. One neednt look further than Langston Hughes to find out what happens when dreams are deferred. And one only need listen to Guards to learn that the explosion can be redemptive. As I said above, we started with a Big Bang and will likely end with another. In the meantime, a little pop will do us just fine. (January 18, 2013) The Rolling Stones, One More Shot Seeing as this space self-identifies as an indie music blog, lets skip the heavy lifting associated with the construction of a proper dinosaur rock joke and proceed directly to the punch line: The Rolling Stones! Man, are these guys old! The band is not just gray of hair but brittle of bone, bereft of the very prides and pigments that communicate youth. To ignore them is not enough. So long as they push on, and celebrate sordid anniversary after sordid anniversary, were obliged to treat them with sheer contempt, to fire up a disdain thats as public as it is pure. We need to invade their songbook, to correct the work of the titlist, to perform a smirking version of the cosmetic surgery thats usually reserved for Bianca Jagger or Jerry Hall. Shake Your Hips becomes Break Your Hips. Hey! You! Get Off of My Cloud becomes Hey! You! Get Off of My Lawn! And Cant You Hear Me Knockin, that erstwhile journey through junkiehood, is provided with a parenthetical answer: (No, I Cant Hear a Goddamned Thing!) In our quest for kicks, not even the Stones hearing is spared. Hatred of the Rolling Stones is as confounding as it is inevitable. The hip media leads the charge, painting their criticisms crimson with writerly rage and Twittery humor. Stones tossing is thus a participatory sport rather than a spectator extravaganza, which is to say that the original material is generally limited to 140 characters or less, both in text and tissue. Its about the barbed wit of elite tastemakers, not the genuine substance of the argument. A small coterie of hacks creates something resembling a meme, which is shared, rehashed, and retweeted until it asserts its place as common knowledge. Only common knowledge as cited doesnt always align with common knowledge as practiced. Yes, the Stones late-period music is usually nothing special.
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But, in making this point, indie blogs have a knack for undermining their theses. They treat these ostensibly vacuous mp3s with extraordinary derision the type one might normally accord, in a moment of weakness or alcohol-fueled bravado, to figures of world historical import, like George W. Bush or Barack Obama. And that kind of makes the Stones point. Even when theyre criticized, theyre criticized in the language of the gods, in words which understand and unwittingly communicate the gravity of their subject. To turn the Stones into a punch line is to lazily clip at their wings from some exalted, but decidedly junior, height. Participation in this passing fancy should come equipped with a warning: Enjoy your jabs as they land or miss. Because this is a band that hits back. And when the whip comes down, its going to leave a mark. I didnt come here today to issue threats of bodily harm. Those of you who dislike the Stones are free to revel in this dislike, to keep depicting Mick as wrinkled and pompous, Keith as fossiled and absurd. Just realize that, however clever your punch line, the joke is ultimately on you. The Stones have simply been too good for too long to be undone by a lowly scribe, regardless of his scheme or angle. They wrote Sympathy for the Devil, Stray Cat Blues, Gimme Shelter, and Honky Tonk Women (essentially in the same year!). Youve written feckless think-pieces on Bon Iver and Grimes, and figured youd scored some cool points for doing so. (I have, too!) Wed be wise to regard the Stones juggernaut with a wary eye and a generous ear. Bands like this dont come around often. In fact, Id contend that they only come around once. To me, the Rolling Stones are the very quintessence of rock and roll. Theyre also, undoubtedly and indisputably, the Greatest Rock and Roll Band of All Time. Note the caps and the syntax. This is a big, bodacious title, and I bestow it with a cynical asterisk in mind. The Beatles, perhaps the only group who cast a larger shadow than the Stones, are pushed clear of the fray by a happy technicality. I consider them, at bottom, to be a pop band. The Beatles are therefore the Greatest Pop Band of All Time, chest-deep in the privileges the honorific affords. Feel free to assail my ranking mechanisms. Just bear in mind that theyre flavored by a judicial philosophy thats alternately sweet and sour. Everybody gets a trophy, but nobody gets a pass. Again, Ill admit that the Stones late-period material say, Steel Wheels onward cant hold a candle to the music that the band made in its prime. But neither can 99.9% of rock and roll, commercial or underground. Between 1968 and 1972, the Stones were more or less infallible. Several groups have produced an album as fine as Beggars Banquet. Few have followed it up with an LP as brilliant as Let It Bleed. And no group, not even the Beatles, had records as awe-inspiring as Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street positioned next in the queue.
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This five-year run of near perfection is as impressive a feat as pop culture has witnessed in its modern iteration. Yet even as we gasp for air amid the heady altitudes of its peaks, we can look both backward and forward to mountains of similar height. Aftermath should not be climbed without lungs full of oxygen. As for Some Girls and Tattoo You, Id advise you to book a Sherpa and pray for warm weather. Though the shape of the music had changed, its core was still the blues, be it caked in river mud or cocaine residue. It was the stuff of substance, controlled yet uncontained. We wont take the guided tour from the banks of the Mississippi Delta to the V.I.P. rooms at Studio 64. My goal is not to exhaust you, but to engage you. And the pursuit of this objective calls for a quick declaration of purpose. With this piece, I seek not to settle old scores or engender new fault lines. I simply want to offer a defense of the Rolling Stones that isnt afraid to go on the offensive, to issue an apologia with no apologies. Central to this campaign is the concept of elision. At this point, articles about the Rolling Stones, along with the bands myriad greatest hits collections, are defined by what they leave out rather than what they include. Theres too much data to compress into a workable proof, so we underscore and cherry pick, retelling the tales we like or loathe, ignoring the testimony we find extraneous. The Stones business model, arguably the envy of the industry, follows precisely this pattern. Its not a spotty free-for-all, in the manner of the Grateful Dead, but a well curated exhibition. The vast majority of the pictures on the wall are acknowledged classics the music that scored a generation (though not mine). On occasion, a few new tunes are tucked into the mix, just to keep the spectators off balance and the critics on high alert. What Id like to do is to view the current astride the classic, to demonstrate that a sonic connection still exists, however tenuous the thread. First, a couple of wide-reared war horses, All Down the Line and Brown Sugar. I select these two songs because they illustrate what I like best about the Stones the casual tug between script and improvisation. Each tune is expertly crafted, and generally adheres to standard patterns of build: Grab the listeners attention with the lead riff, reel him in with the first verse, then smack him over the head with the chorus. The rest of the track is reserved for recovery from the aural onslaught. This is both glorious and potentially harmful glorious because the audience loses itself in the music, harmful because the audience might miss the trees for the forest. Good rock and roll should trigger a kind of synesthesia, where disparate senses and dispositions cohere. But hew too close to the pulses and rhythms of All Down the Line and you might not catch its moment of genius. It arrives with a start in the songs final quarter, as Mick and the colored girls sing Wont you be my little baby for a while? Just after the question is posed, Keith sneaks in with a white-hot
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mutation of the tracks elemental riff. Its a jangly five notes, cranked out in one of Richards signature open-G tunings, and it positively makes the song. I consider it to be the albums highlight. And, trust me, Exile on Main Street is not starved for gold. Brown Sugar is probably the more popular single. Its a decorated veteran of the classic rock radio circuit, bringing more pleasure to more burnt-out DJs than anything short of ripple wine. Rolling Stone magazine, as grizzled in its tastes as the beard of a lifelong mountain man, positioned Brown Sugar at number 490 on its list of the 500 Greatest Rock and Roll Songs of All Time. While theres honor in the mere inclusion on such a compendium, Ive always thought that this rank was, well, rank. Id put the track in or near the top 5 of my rock and roll list, which Ive yet to publish, owing to the utter inanity of such a subjective affair. My criteria run the gamut from the silly to the serious, and I think the Stones win pride of place for their inimitable combination of the two, of high stakes and low brow. Brown Sugar takes as its subject the very story of rock and roll: miscegenation. The scarred old slaver cannot resist the baser allures of his office. He doubles down on his abominable abuse of power, seeking sexual congress with one of his slaves. Drums beat cold. English blood runs hot. And the rest of the story writes itself, with a nod and a wink to the wonders of imagination. This is where the Stones often get themselves in trouble. In Brown Sugar, something amounting to a sexual assault indeed, a rape is used to score a celebration. The track is upbeat and flesh forward, all groan and thrust. As a pop song, its absolutely thrilling. From a narrative standpoint, however, its almost indefensible. Still, it can be defended, under the banner of truth. Here, Jagger doesnt yearn for evasion or a free pass. His implication is European complicity in a crime against humanity. Notice that he doesnt say American blood runs hot. The blood in question is English, in fitting with the ethnic makeup of most Southern planters. One can intuit that Mick was calling attention to the fact that, with rock and roll, the Old World and the New World were once again cast in a troubled collision. The Beatles and the Stones imitated, idolized, and stole from the original American blues masters, just about all of whom were black. They took this dark essence, wrapped it in the Union Jack, and sold it back to Caucasian America with a sleeve and cover. Brown sugar never tasted so good. Nor was it ever so profitable. This is clearly a truncated history. But I think we do ourselves harm when we characterize Mick Jagger as a priapic chauvinist, keen to penetrate groupies (or David Bowie) rather than grand topics. Songs like Sympathy for the Devil and Brown Sugar demonstrate his commitment to cause, to issues larger than the Billboard charts. Not for him were the bowdlerizations and white-washings. He stabbed at the heart of the matter, at the marriage of master and slave, which, try as we might, cant be struck from the American record. Jagger was able to do this because he had
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Keith Richards at his side. Nobody has been able to distill the agony and the ecstasy of the blues better than Keef. There are better, more technically adept guitarists. But no one, from Clapton to Hendrix to Page, has shown an in-game talent comparable to Keiths. The best analogy I can conjure comes from the world of sport. Theres no doubt that Michael Jordan was a better basketball player than Dominique Wilkins. But when it came to delivering a thunderous slam dunk in the midst of an actual 5-on5 contest, Wilkins was untouchable. The pressed dubbed him The Human Highlight Reel. I think this nickname fits Keith Richards like a glove. This thread of thought is only mildly tangential to my analysis of the Stones oldies but goodies. I indulge its arguments for purposes of context, because I regard Brown Sugar as the singular highlight of Richards expansive highlight reel. Yes, Mick Jagger largely composed the song. His singing and his lyrics are stellar. But the tracks biggest blast comes courtesy of Keith. At the jump of the final verse, Richards remakes the songs killer lick, stretching its notes subtly but surely in every conceivable direction. Instead of a warm rollick, we get a headlong stab, Keith stroking up and down in accordance with the time signature in his head. This transition breathes new life into the song, providing a bawdy tent show with an encore fit for the angels. Here, Richards demonstrates what makes him the best big-game player in the rock universe: his ability to play to the page or to momentary impulse, his seemingly natural penchant for blending force and finesse. What can I say? The kid just has the touch. But the beauty of rock and roll is that the touch cannot be left to its own devices. Richards is not a solo act, strumming his six string to the pie-eyed revelers of Margaritaville. He has to make his instrument work within the constructs of a full band, with talents as diverse as the U.N. General Assembly. This is perhaps the first time this sentence has ever been written, but here goes: What makes Keith Richards great is his discipline. Rarely does he take minute-long solos or display jaw-dropping feats of virtuosity. His loyalty is to the song and the idiom, not his estimable ego. To me, the Stones were at their best when Mick Taylor was in the lineup. Taylor and Richards had a wild and wired chemistry, one plugged into the other, their sockets shared. Taylor was and is a great east-west guitarist; he could flutter across the fretboard with remarkable dexterity. Keiths genius was best written in the language of north-south, meaning the quick up-and-down stroke the stab I alluded to earlier, executed with the perfect amount of English. This is not to say that either Taylor or Richards had limited range. Its to congratulate them for sacrificing the personal pyrotechnics for the benefit of the ensemble. The playing wasn t the thing; the interplay was. When Taylor guarded the perimeter, Keith was free to rumble in the pocket. And when Keith tackled the bold, naked lick, Taylor was free to dress it as he pleased, with gorgeous, looping threads of tone and texture.
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Contemporary indie opinion despairs of the Stones because their camaraderie seems convenient rather than pure. New songs are regarded as money grabs, not an earnest flexing of well-conditioned muscles. Im sympathetic to this reading, as I feel that the late-period Stones have gone in two untenable directions: cocky and maudlin. In their classic iteration, the Stones had a world-beating capacity to marry power with poignancy. This union is what I intend to commemorate by citing All Down the Line and Brown Sugar. Its sanctified in micromoments of stunning concert, where Jagger and Richards, or Richards and Taylor, or Watts and Wyman, exchange vows of iron-clad fealty. My favorite nuptials are the ones Ive documented above the be my little baby twist of All Down the Line and the tent show queen shout of Brown Sugar. In my view, they represent not just the twin peaks of the Stones catalog, but the ultimate (and perhaps unscalable) pinnacle of rock and roll music. You are, of course, free to disagree. In fact, youre encouraged to counterargue, with copies of Low or Kid A in hand. Build your case as I strive to build some consensus, which I think starts here: The Rolling Stones new songs, Doom and Gloom and One More Shot, placed at the tail end of the groups latest career retrospective, the curiously named GRRR!, are missed opportunities. The first song brings the power, the second the poignancy, and never the twain shall meet. Doom is a Jagger affair, all cock-strut and throaty bombast. Mick is not happy with the lay of the land, and he lets us hear it. A strident, stomping, ZZ Top-style lick is garnished with lyrics like Lost all that treasure in an overseas war/Just goes to show you dont get what you pay for. I salute Mick for his topicality, but wonder if he might have arrived at that end with slightly less obvious means. There was a time when the Stones could signal a hundred years of doom and gloom with a 15-second instrumental passage think the opening chords to Gimme Shelter. It took me about 4,000 spins to figure out that Jagger started that songs first verse by singing, Oh, a storm is threatening my very life today. Luckily, word comprehension was entirely beside the point. The music told the story, as did the emotive screams of Merry Clayton, whose cries of rape and murder brought an extra charge to Richards magnetic riff and Jaggers impassioned vocal. Gimme Shelter wasnt a lecture. It was a plea for mercy. Doom and Gloom is less merciful than mercenary. The boys go through the motions with admirable spirit, but the magic just isnt in the mixture this time out. Bending to the tenor of the 2010s, the Stones throw in a couple of wub-wub-wub guitar effects, causing certain licks to explode like mortar shells. Jaggers heart is in the right place, but his taste is a touch off base. Instead of classic Stones, we get the sound of Shes got legs! rendered sinister. Only not quite sinister enough. Too much emphasis is placed upon the lyrics, which delve into income inequality, fracking, and famine, but,

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in an unintended irony, are ultimately starved for substance. Though I hate to admit it, the truth shines through: Jaggers food for thought is a beggars banquet. The real disappointment and, please, bear in mind that this disappointment is relative to the greatness of its authors comes from the waste of a forceful guitar riff. It packs torque and heat, but sprints upfield a bit too quickly, without the deft sidelong glance that the Stones used to employ to give their tunes an added gear. The interplay is whats lacking, that jarring juke and pivot. Such is par for the course with contemporary Jagger fare. Its not for nothing that Keef has rechristened Micks last solo album, Goddess In the Doorway, as Dogshit In the Doorway. This is a clash of sensibilities, not egos. One imagines that Richards finds Jaggers solo sound too slick, too glossily produced, absent of fang and testicle. Id second this emotion even as I defend the integrity (and the testes) of some of the harder Dogshit cuts, most notably Gun and God Gave Me Everything. When push comes to shove, however, I prefer Keiths aesthetic: down and dirty, leaning heavier toward silt than silk. But as regards new compositions, Richards in theory is far more ballsy and romantic than Richards in application. His fresh contribution to GRRR! is the short and swinging One More Shot. It begins with the call-to-action guitar chime that greeted us 40 years hence in Street Fighting Man. The riff rings resoundingly but at half speed, as if it were afraid to run. One could cite my earlier hallmarks, finesse and poignancy, but these virtues are undone by the thickly copacetic studio treatment. It seems like Jagger wants to sing over a bed of downy softness, so as to cushion his vocals from the strain that living brings. Richards, meanwhile, wants to trudge through gravel and sand, to leave cleanliness next to godliness, which, for him, is a long way off. In the end, the Glimmer Twins compromise, and end up with a likable muddle rather than the genuine article. Main Street, alas, is gentrified. The song is a noontime latte, not a midnight ramble. The One More Shot might as well refer to espresso. It doesnt, of course. Keef wouldnt be Keef without a high-profile heroin reference. Here, he puts it in the title, but makes sure its not pharmaceutical grade. Theres nothing dangerous or offensive about this track. Its melody is sweet and simple, its harmonies equally humdrum and hum-along. The lead guitarist is pining for that high, but he knows his body, ravaged by time, wouldnt be able to handle the junk. Theres something wistful about the arrangement. It plays like a confession, one which reads I miss my wayward youth. Late in life, we idolize youth not because we remember it as a currency misspent, but because we ache to waste it again to be profligate in ways that elude the elderly. This undertone, of ambition rather than nostalgia, is what makes One More Shot so poignant. The song is deeply flawed, what with its generic Stones riff and its too-quick, You Shook Me All Night Long cadence. Richards
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seems to pull a redundant open-G nut from his toolbox, and Jagger seems to sing without the wrenching heartache of his wonder years. Still, theres a poem trapped in this prosaic execution. I hear Tennysons Ulysses, retired to Ithaca, eager to to sail beyond the sunset, an eclipse that he knows is on a horizon of his Makers making. While he remains numbered among the living, Ulysses prays for some work of noble note, an achievement that will reaffirm his standing with the gods. With One More Shot, Richards, too, request a return to a more glorious state. My answer to his plea would be, Nice try. But better luck next time. In their aggregate, Doom and Gloom and One More Shot show flickers of promise but not the fires of unmistakable greatness. They alternate between force and finesse, between power and poignancy, but never negotiate a Church-recognized marriage. Theres some grumbling and some gumption, but precious little gospel. The blues dont penetrate the protective membranes of our souls, and the rock and roll doesnt lube our loins in the manner the genre requires at its truly elite levels. Whats missing is the miscegenation of black and white, of danger and desire. The Stones have a mighty hammer to drop, but it appears that they cant quite get it up without a prescription. The pills are dispensed from the studio, and the medical team has a hand thats a touch too heavy. I spot a few too many thumbprints on the acetate. Sticky fingers, indeed. With that caveat out of the way, I recommend both singles as worthy songs. Worthy of what?, you might ask. Well, how about your time and attention? Nothing more, nothing less. Give the Stones a six-minute interval, and theyll fill it with good, oldfashioned pop music. Which is precisely what angers the indie electorate. Few idioms send hipster mustaches atwitter like Active Rock, a programmer-invented category that seems to include Matchbox-20, Train, and any other white, multi-guitar ensemble featuring a lead singer over 40 years of age. Somewhere in between Bridges to Babylon and Santanas Supernatural, the Rolling Stones became an Active Rock band, the adjective doing the work the albums didnt. I think this is an unfair but probably inevitable relegation: Exiled on Mainstream, trading relevance for tour revenue. Shut your mouth and take a victory lap, say the arbiters of popular culture. And the Rolling Stones, never a group to shrink from a threat, respond in the only way they know how: with a protruding tongue. So go ahead and mock the Stones. They really couldnt give a fuck, largely because they know that, 50 years from their inception, any publicity short of accusations of pedophilia or incest is good publicity. You think youve got them in your cross hairs; in reality, theyve got you by the short and curlies. At various points in their career, the Stones have likely merited the contempt of your parents and your grandparents. Its only appropriate that, after five decades in service and untold millions in
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royalties, theyve managed to work their way down to you. Dont think that your megaphone scares this leviathan. Your blockheaded obloquy only encourages Mick and Keith to go on, booking more arena shows and pay-per-view specials than Justin Bieber. Writing new material, too. And that, in the final accounting, is the measure of the band: Mick and Keith, the Glimmer Twins, sketching the musical outlines that their brothers in arms fill in with full color. Mick is a superstar, a snakelike presence, running amok in the Edenic gardens of rock and roll. Hes not the temptation, but the tempter, making a sensual argument to drop the fig leaf and don the black hat. Richards is the junkie genius, both the parody and the platonic ideal of the rock star. His body is pocked by time and battered by drugs; his playing is maddeningly inconsistent; his persona long ago usurped his claims to personhood. But hes still an order of magnitude cooler than you, and always will be. The Glimmer Twins may err, but they never need apologize. Because while all that glimmers certainly isnt gold, Mick and Keith, on an enviable number of occasions, have produced art thats worthy of a metal stronger than platinum. Theyve earned the title of bluesmen. And they wear it well. One of our problems as a culture musical, historical, or otherwise is that weve forgotten what the blues were all about. The rock enthusiasts among us have probably seen faded photos of Robert Johnson, in his dime-store suit, or Son House, with his Colonel Sandersstyle bow tie. Weve pointed to the first as an inspiration to Eric Clapton, the second as a hero to Jack White. In doing so, weve made them peripheral and ancient, ghosts of the Mississippi Delta rather than thoroughly modern men. Let me make this plain: Robert Johnson and Son House were keen to make a buck. If their idiom hadnt been so limited and parochial, theyd have jumped at the opportunity to play for silly white boys with thick moptops and stuffed wallets. A bluesman had pride, but he typically wasnt weighed down by a surfeit of principle. He told tales of town and country, of the back alley and the front field, placing an emphasis on his gangsta lean and his sexual prowess. Bluesmen were arrogant sons of bitches. They were intent on fleecing the devil, putting one over on the boss man, and slipping some love to your ol lady, often in the same song. The blues were a product of the American South, where black and white, master and slave, raw power and sheer poignancy, commingled uneasily but to seismic purpose. Generally speaking, the black man was on the wrong end of civic exchange, not just during slavery but well into the 20th Century, when the separate but equal of Plessy v. Ferguson was overturned by the low courts of popular music. Jim Crow may have held sway in bathrooms and hotels, but he didnt stand a chance on vinyl. Thats where the Stones come in. They never forgot that bluesman were badass motherfuckers, and never brought undue restraint to a situation that called for outlaw
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logic. Britain in the 1940s and 50s was no Elysian Fields; London had been bombed to oblivion by the Krauts, and austerity was the buzzword (and governing philosophy) of the day. While America prospered, Britain muddled through, hoping that a dose of tough medicine would make the nation demonstrably healthier in years to come. Mick and Keith refused to swallow this Castor oil. They set their own course, dancing around a power construct they didnt fully accept. First, they covered the bluesmen of yore, to considerable acclaim. Then they began writing their own blues, stitching each track with elements of rock and pop, bringing a little glitz and glamour to a dusty, seemingly forlorn form. What the Stones knew, arguably better than the Beatles, the Who, and other contemporary acts, was that the blues wasnt entirely sepia toned. It was alive and well, still intent on sharpening its narrative. Stagger Lee shot Billy in the late 19th Century, but the gun was still hot in the 1960s. You just had to tweak the chords and change the lyrics. It was rock and roll, not rocket science. All Down the Line and Brown Sugar were nothing new. They were, and are, great songs derived from curious minds, etched by the fingers and brains of two yobbos whod sworn allegiance to the blues. With the Stones, I think you get the purest expression of rock and roll, of African polyrhythm grafted over the European diatonic scale. This purity, as it were, is defined by its impurity impure blood, impure thoughts, impure sounds. Its rank and dangerous music that nonetheless makes room for moments of stark deliverance. The be my little baby break and the tent show queen ramble are two such moments, folded into a discography that lends quarter to many others. Those choice segments of All Down the Line and Brown Sugar resonate with me because they extend beyond pop and engage with matters of the spirit. They reanimate energies youd thought youd surrendered to the ages, trigger spasms in muscles you never knew you had, be they near the heart or in the vicinity of the groin. This is what makes the Rolling Stones the Greatest Rock and Roll Band of All Time the mastery of miscegenation and the absence of taboo. The Beatles played phenomenal, generation-defining music; they made you feel it in the chest, time and again, with perfect taste and timbre. The Stones, however, make you feel it in the pants. They represent the spot where black and white merged, agreeing to disagree but get along, with competition and concert bringing out the best in each color. Miscegenation wasnt a nafs game. It had to be wrangled by the longhaired and the gimpish, who were willing to traverse corners that boys from good homes avoided at all costs. The blues werent pretty. But Mick and Keith made them beautiful. In doing so, they rendered a provincial sound a global commodity. To punish them for their success is to miss the point of the music.

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At long last, I return to the conceits of the indie mindset. Im as guilty as most in casting a jaundiced eye at the rock excesses of our parents formative years. Earlier this week, at the Thanksgiving dinner table, I protested the umpteenth playing of the Hot Licks of the 1970s compilation that my elders see fit to blast after consuming heroic quantities of cheap white wine. I even tried to slip The Weeknds Trilogy into the mix, just to outvibe the Boomers who were curating the cuts. (For the record, this effort came to no avail.) I dont enjoy the mindless repetition of tired favorites, sung poorly, by voices too drunk to contain the grace notes of embarrassment. My punk side rejects, with extreme prejudice, the notion of Its only rock and roll, but I like it! Because, with God as my witness, its not just rock and roll! For those of us in pop musics nonprofit sector, its the fuel, the fire, the force, the finesse, the power, the poignancy, the agony, the ecstasy, and every compound and curative in between. It is, in short, the sum total of the human experience the reason for being and believing, no matter what you might read in the biology or psychology journals. It pains me, therefore, when the rock and roll form skews decadent, as it does in the work of even its greatest bands. The Rolling Stones are no longer infallible. This point is freely admitted, so theres no need to waste ink on argument or rebuttal. Its easy to view Doom and Gloom and One More Shot with a predators gaze. The indie verdict is written before the jury reports, and it reads, Its only rock and roll, and I dont like it. Fair enough. But dont expect me to become as enamored of your snark as I am of the Stones classic material. Before you write the band off, listen to the micromoments of synergy that I alluded to earlier, to the charged particles of electric blues from All Down the Line and Brown Sugar. Ultimately, its this music, not my writerly pretensions, that gives this piece legs. Those slight seconds of sound tell me more about America than volume after volume of Tocqueville. They capture soil and street, sweat and tears, master and slave, sex and drugs, Saturday night and Sunday morning in the same steel trap, sequestering the insequesterable for all eternity. These passages provide me with something that the Stones, famously, havent been able to commandeer for themselves: satisfaction. Were Mick and Keith easily satisfied, they wouldnt be great. And if they ever called a stop to their pursuit of satisfaction, they wouldnt be bluesmen. Thats why Im pleased that the Stones press on, boats against the current, wind in their face, police and critics on their back. Theres still a chance that Stagger might resurface, and pump Billy full of lead, as the oracles decreed. Even a misfire is an opportunity taken, a bet placed with courage and conviction. If Keef wants one more shot, I say we give it to him. In fact, I think the Stones deserve a full metal jacket, a complete chamber of blues. Next rounds on us, boys. Your dues are already paid. And, even if they werent, wed be disappointed if you didnt try to skip out on the bill. (November 25, 2012)
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Waxahatchee, Coast to Coast Pop is in a fairly good place right now. Sure, such an opening statement, seemingly pulled from the ass end of this critics subjective cubbyhole, has a famous last words ring about it. But I wouldnt brandish its blade were the logic behind the opinion not sharpened by observable criteria. Take a look, and then a listen. Were in as strong a stretch for new music as weve experienced in quite some time, for reasons both qualitative and quantitative. Lets start with the qualitative. March almost always comes in like a lion, as it marks the start of the years serious release schedule. Its hunchbacked predecessors, jaundiced January and feeble February, serve as a depressurized release valve, allowing labels minor and major to void their bowels. Once the shit is flushed from the system, the year can commence in earnest, and pop can seek warmer climes. The reheated charms of Grammy-nominated material finally start to fade, and music flips its calendar, along with its intentions. Rather than squeeze every last penny out of the previous quarters cash cow, the pop apparatus aims to break new singles and trends. We begin to look ahead, not merely back. For better or for worse, the pop juggernaut suffers from no dearth of inventory. In years where our stars are crossed or our tasteful A&R reps are wintering in the Dominican Republic, some truly terrible fare can get a two-handed push into the mainstream. C-grade tracks from Flo Rida, Pitbull, or will.i.am might be catapulted into the Top Ten, where young girls and boys will cherish them, owing to a lack of grounding in basic aesthetics. But if you skim Americas current Top Ten, youll see a righteous posse of the Good battling it out with the Bad and the Ugly. The two Bruno Mars cuts are solid, as are the contributions from Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift. Hell, even the spontaneously combusted Baauer has stitched together a decent cut; what fraternities, ball clubs, office workers, attention whores, and Azealia Banks do with it is not his responsibility. The Harlem Shake will suffice until the next meme takes hold. More intriguing than straight pop, however, is its indie cousin which, truth be told, is still pop, just with the addition of ironic quotation marks. This is a sphere that never slows down, save for the last two weeks of every December, when its principals go on their annual holiday bender. The alt universe is staffed with true believers, each of whom is certain that his music or his playlist or his opinion needs to be heard. This evangelical enthusiasm is present even during lean months; now that March is upon us, the crusade for new content has reached a fever pitch. How can a gainfully employed individual keep up with this ever-advancing pilgrims progress? The short

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answer is that he cant. The longer answer is that he can visit the indie blogs, and click only on the links that stir his soul. Even from this position of reasonable, by-default selectivity, the task of staying informed remains something of a part-time job. Consider the last 72 hours in indie: Have you seen David Bowies fantastic new video? Heard Johnny Marrs freshly released LP? Streamed the compelling new Yeah Yeah Yeahs single? Kept up on Morrisseys animal-rights activism, Trent Reznors touring schedule, and Daft Punks business portfolio? How do you like the Replacements just-leaked cover of Gordon Lightfoots Im Not Sayin? And what do you think of the charity it was conceived to assist? Did you stay up to watch Kendrick Lamar on Letterman? How about Tyler, the Creator on Fallon? Finally, whats your take on the recent rumblings of party-down British youths, like Charli XCX and AlunaGeorge? Are they not being primed to invade 2013s Best-of lists? Or, by December, will they already be yesterdays sound? Pardon the pop quiz. Its equal parts obnoxious and necessary obnoxious because it demands a term of study that could addle an Ivy League student, necessary because pop culture is hopelessly voluminous, and staying ahead of the game requires a sixth sense for soothsaying. Recall that Harlem Shake was initially released last April on a BBC 1 Essentials collection. Something that emerges from the ether today could potentially become a world-beating phenomenon in the months to come. Are you really content to sleep on such promise? What are you in this for, if not the bragging rights of I heard it first!? Well, call me old-fashioned, but I imagine you might be in it for the music, which is frequently good, occasionally transcendent. So before I get to todays titular subject an excellent song shared by a talented artist I think itd be wise to conclusively affirm pops rising banner. This is where the qualitative and the quantitative intersect, where sound and sales coalesce. On the first measure, pop has never been better. Technologies that modulate notes and correct pitch are now so pervasive that even middle school students from rural South Dakota can produce semi-professional sounding music. To visit the iTunes store on a Tuesday morning is to be awash in heaping gigabytes of quality mp3s, most of which youre utterly unfamiliar with. The artists on display look like figures from a foreign canon, part of a Norton Anthology for a rival civilization. Who in Sam Hill are Hillsong United, Kacey Musgraves, and Bilal? And why are they positioned ahead of Johnny Marr on iTunes horizontal scale of relevance? This market is too ripe with fruit. Once you start sampling the merchandise, it can be quite difficult to pull your hand away. You really have to force a few feet of distance between yourself and your monitor, for fear of succumbing to a kind of Infinite Jest stupor. The music is just endless. And hopelessly
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entertaining. The digital buffet is the new opiate of the masses, sniffed and smoked by a billion unsuspecting souls. This elevated number is borne out in the data. In 2012, the recording industry registered 4.3 billion units in download sales. Thats a lot of units, even for a John Waters film. The total was adequate to reverse the receding tide in music revenues, or at least to stanch some of the bleeding. 2012 saw the first sales gain in product units in 13 years. This shows that the industry has taken a first step toward righting itself, finally managing a decent pivot from the decade-long Napsterization of its content. Market share is being re-won not only by shifting mores, but also by damn good promotional strategies. At long last, the record labels have figured out how to monetize their product: Stream the single on SoundCloud on Monday, then release it on iTunes on Tuesday, for a buck twenty nine. This is a delicate, time-sensitive art, and it requires genuine or coerced buy-in from the blogs and the social media. A lyric video on Vevo also helps. Above all, youve got to preemptively feed the forge, so as to brand while the iron is piping hot. Finally, we get to Waxahatchee and her lustrous Coast to Coast. Both the stage name and the song are the work of Katie Crutchfield, a 24-year-old indie rock veteran whos done tours of duty in her native Alabama, the prohibitively expensive Brooklyn, the marginally expensive Philadelphia, and, one can intuit, many duststrewn places in between. Her music has heretofore had an unambiguous DIY character. Crutchfields first band of note, the Ackleys, were essentially basement punks. Her second, the cleverly titled P.S. Eliot, were basement punks as well, albeit the type who might be able to afford some meager patch of insulation. When Katie assumed the Waxahatchee moniker her first album under that name, American Weekend, came out to little fanfare last January she sublimated the passion of punk, but placed it over muzzled, acoustic arrangements. Lindsay Zoladz of Pitchfork rightly noted that the LP possessed an isolated, off-the-grid feel. Only she noted this in January of this year. American Weekend was one of those records that fell through the cracks, owing to the continuous battery of headlines, leaks, and pissing contests. Cerulean Salt, Waxahatchees sophomore album, will not get off so easy. Its already being pegged a winner by a plurality of the blogs that matter, and will likely be awarded Record of the Week status in more than a few forums. Several news cycles back, the LPs first single, Peace and Quiet, landed with a splash, perhaps benefiting from the low returns of the early year fare. Coast to Coast builds on the momentum engendered by its forebear, demonstrating that Crutchfield has bulked up her sound while keeping her narrative voice taut and limber. I streamed Cerulean Salt last night; it went by in a snap, like a fleet-flowing river of humble parentage.
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The LP presents 13 songs in 32 minutes, each track connecting to its neighbors through general vibe and posture. This is lo-fi indie, committed to the kind of storytelling thats largely absent from mainstream pop. Though electric instruments thicken the sonic stew, Crutchfield is still telling deeply personal tales in a voice thats alternately vulnerable and self-assured. Its a good listen, from head to toe. The best track, though, is Coast to Coast. It stands out for being concise but complete, kinetic but not wayward. Imagine Dinosaur Jr meeting the Breeders at Ramones-style length, just without the guitar heroics of J Mascis or the detached cool of Kim Deal. This is to say that the song is pretty dense and viscous, but not the least bit weighed down. It takes only 1:46 to finish its circuit, and the last 20 or so seconds are devoted to the holding of a single guitar note, functioning as a poor mans rebuttal to the coda of A Day In the Life. This is more A Night In the Life. The action is decidedly nocturnal, set in motion by friends rolling down suburban streets, car in second gear and radio at the ready. Coast to Coast is the name of a radio program that, according to its official website, is concerned with UFOs, strange occurrences, life after death and other unexplained phenomena. Its the stuff of the wee hours, but Waxahatchee sobers it up for us daytime folk. You scan the AM for Coast to Coast, Crutchfield sings, Ill try to embrace the lows. This brings to mind the moody testimony of grunge-spiced alternative, specifically the lo-fi bonanza of the mid-Nineties. We have fuzz guitars and a melancholic, young-adult spirit, along with copious oohs and a double order of reverb. Coast to Coast travels east to west, romping from the get-go, aflutter in a direction thats best described as forward. But the journey, however brief, doesnt proceed in a straight line. The track has a bemused, spastic temper, and is regularly cut north-to-south by a supplementary guitar riff that recalls the sonic interloping in Televisions Marquee Moon, where Tom Verlaines stiff-backed chords are beset by a parallel dribble. This is not the most obvious or, perhaps, the most helpful point of reference. Waxahatchee sound little to nothing like Television, but they have the strength to go wobbly when all other indicators point toward a heady sprint. I say they because Crutchfield is assisted here, as she is throughout Cerulean Salt, by friends and housemates, Keith Spenser and Kyle Gilbride, who play in the Philadelphia band Swearin, co-fronted by Katies twin sister Allison. Such a profusion of names may spark confusion, but it shouldnt. All one need take from this collaboration is that Waxahatchee has some weight to its lineup. Moving away from acoustic balladeering has allowed Katie to summon the two-chord electric charge of a twentysomething in turmoil. Its sonic youth personified, at least for suburban white people.

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Speaking of suburban white people, particularly those of the youngish persuasion, they like nothing more than driving around in circles, typically at night, almost always to musical accompaniment. (When, as a teenager, I moved to the suburbs from the crumbling city of my youth, I was shocked to see that many of my contemporaries had cars, gas money, and functioning stereo systems.) Coast to Coast depicts this scene knowingly, with driver and passenger leaning on the radio to either break a bored silence or thin the drama of a troubled conversation. The scene is so conventional, so John Hughes and Kevin Smith, that it needs talk of UFOs, strange occurrences, etc., to render its mainstream ethic alternative. Crutchfield succeeds by injecting the paranormal into the normal. Or is it the other way around? At bottom, Crutchfield is a skilled songwriter, and Cerulean Salt is a work of carefully honed alchemy. Its louder than American Weekend, but no less poignant; richer in sound, but still pleading a form of emotional poverty. With Coast to Coast it seems as if Katie has combined two disparate influences, Bikini Kill and Morrissey, only to show that theyre not all that dissimilar. Both punk and the Smiths take as their subject a decided lack of satisfaction. The former chooses to fight; the latter to brood. The smartest move probably lies somewhere in the middle, with the protagonist picking her battles wisely, but never surrendering to the ghastly bullies of fear. Coast to Coast imagines a rapidly maturing rebel girl stuck on autopilot, riding shotgun on a road trip to nowhere which, on certain nights, is preferable to the various somewheres at your immediate disposal. Driving in your car/I never, never want to go home resonates across the Atlantic because alienation and self-pity are hallmarks of semi-enlightened youth. Crutchfield is enlightened, if not lite. She trades in heavy material, but molds it into a transparent vernacular. Morrissey wouldnt have been able to sing Ill try to embrace the lows; hed have to get bitchy and poetic, opting for something like The doldrums are all Ive left to pound. Katie doesnt need to peacock. She can paint a vulgar picture in a whispery voice, leaving the specifics of interpretation to her audience. This approach works because Crutchfield has a voice that sounds unequivocally true. You get the sense that she wouldnt lie to you, and this brokering of trust means a great deal. Cerulean Salt will be out next Tuesday, March 5. One would think that a veteran of a band called P.S. Eliot would release her bounty in April, so as to take advantage of that months inherent cruelties. Yes, Ive just made the most clichd allusion available to the annals of Western poetry, but its less a flash of wit than a questioning of my own credentials. The fact of the matter is that you can hear Waxahatchees latest effort as either a March-ridden augur of doom, keen to end with the sacrifice of the

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calendar-caged lamb, or as an April-attuned rebirth, chronicling the survival of a hard winter, the lead character anxious to bloom. I guess you get a healthy serving of each condition, both on the album at large and in its best song. What you wont get, I predict, is significant buy-in from iTunes, Twitter, or the ostensive music media. Rest assured that the key indie blogs will put their best female writers on the case, which cant help but trigger a feminine (if not openly feminist) interpretation of the LP. A series of quasi-universal stories will thus be unwittingly provincialized, to the detriment of all involved. Hey, if such a recourse is deemed necessary after the Oscars We Saw Your Boobs catastrophe, so be it. (Im still scratching my head at that one, and Im a reliable fan of crude humor.) But if we make Waxahatchee a Her or Him proposition, we more or less ensure that that the LP will never get heard outside the proud pockets of skinny-jeaned alternative. Only a fool harbors nostalgia for the Lilith Fair or boys-club hardcore. Meaningful music should be democratized, not merely argued about. As I said at the onset of this piece, pop is currently in a fairly good place. It would be in an even better place if it made room for Crutchfields work. The obstacle to climb is plainly commercial. Katie has a forge, but not a brand. Her fire burns, but its flames are kept a safe distance from the Hot 100. This is more inevitable than intentional, but a shame is defined less by malevolent design than blissful ignorance. The kids dont realize that a Katie Crutchfield walks among them, and they cant be asked to chase a void. Waxahatchees album is so shyly promoted that its not even listed on Metacritics ledger of upcoming releases. Thus, a victor in quality and substance becomes a casualty of abundance. And thats the way this analysis ends, not with a bang but a whimper. No need for sigh or a postscript. Just keep an open mind. (February 28, 2013) Justin Timberlake, Suit & Tie The last two weeks in pop music have been defined by a curious trend. Lets call it old favorites proffering new material, in each case after an extended period in the wilderness. Some of these comebacks were telegraphed to the tiniest detail, others arrived as shots in the dark, fired under the grey guise of a silencer. David Bowie struck first, releasing the plain and plaintive Where Are We Now? on the midnight chime his 66th birthday. This leak was a welcome surprise; the music, however, didnt quite hold up to the reputation of its maker. Now were made to wait for its follow-up, which we hope is a little more alive, a little less lachrymose. Destinys Child, set to reunite for the halftime show of this years Super Bowl, came second, dropping the tame and tired Nuclear amidst a harried PR tease. The track is
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nothing noteworthy; simply put, its a mercenary product cooked up for a blockbuster television performance, playing the free toy role in a larger Happy Meal. A tour may follow the stadium test, but Id be willing to wager my meager reputation that any proposed setlists would carve out a significant swath of territory for Beyoncs solo work. Industry Rule #4081: Queen Bey isnt going to agree to the same nightly take as Michelle Williams. Check the rhime. The outlier in this parade of prodigality is Justin Timberlake. His return wasnt a deep cover mission like Bowies, as it came equipped with an awkward countdown clock, which sat gamely on the official JT homepage. I say awkward because the countdown initially concluded with a somewhat underwhelming Im ready! announcement. The actual music didnt arrive for another 72 hours. And it was streamable only on JustinTimberlake.com, with a direct link to purchase via iTunes. I guess this makes the song, Suit & Tie, as mercenary as the Destinys Child number I mentioned above. Thankfully, the Timberlake single is an order of magnitude better than those lately brandished by the accounting firm of Bowie, Knowles, Rowland, and Williams. Suit & Tie is a sultry, high-energy single, adrip with the lusts and gyrations of Seventies disco. The exceptions to this description come at the tracks head and tail the former a ponderous Timbaland prelude that clumsily sputters forward; the latter a groove-breaking guest verse from Jay-Z. The song has too many chefs and too complicated a recipe. If it had been served without its garnish, it would have had a better, more concentrated flavor. If this analysis sounds a lot like blame the black men, let me immediately disabuse you of that notion. What makes Suit & Tie viable are myriad African-American reference points, from Al Greens Memphis simmer to Michael Jacksons faultless falsetto. Timberlake take his verses like Reverend Al on helium, then tackles his chorus like MJ with a touch more testosterone. The meat of the single that is, the middle three minutes, which features no rapping or heavy-handed delay effects could pass as an Off the Wall album cut. If I were sequencing, Id put it between Workin Day and Night and Get On the Floor, in the swing position of the LPs front side. Suit & Tie is not quite as frenetic as either tune, but it hits all the appropriate high notes and is spiced by a beat that wouldve played well on Soul Train. Which brings us to Timbaland. Its become almost de rigueur to write the man off as a has-been, what with his record of declining returns since his mid-aughts commercial peak. Beat making may indeed be a young mans game, but here Timba proves his meddle. He threads together a nice marimba roll, a charming glissando of strings, and a peppy horn blast. These elements allow the track to slink, to slide, and to turn around, respectively. Tim puts you in motion, then snaps you to attention. His
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instrumental is multivariate, re-tailoring Suit & Tie as Suite & Tie. The first suite is the lackluster intro; the second, the banging body of the track; the third, Jay-Zs unnecessary drop-by, which deftly folds back into a minute-long choral coda. Remove the preamble and the HOV lane, and youve got, arguably, the best pop song of the year. (Granted, its only January 21st, so that title doesnt signify much.) I hate to harp on missed opportunity, but I think Justin could have returned with a splash if hed, well, returned with a motherfuckin splash. If Suit & Tie had started with its first proper verse, it would have busted out of the box like a less esoteric Hey Ya! Instead, we have to muddle through 45 seconds of mood setting, each moment ticking by with deliberation. No, 45 seconds will not soon be mistaken for an eternity. But when you conscript the social medias various bells and whistles to announce your comeback, youd do well to come out with a haymaker rather than a jab. The onset of the first verse is so perfect (JT nails a Young Michael vocal as Timbaland melds a Marvin Gaye rhythm with an Isley Brothers bass line), that it might have scored an immediate knockout. That, ultimately, is what the track is missing: immediacy. It should run about 3:15, not 5:27. Also, there should be no guest stars to dilute the drank. Justin is a shooting star of stage, screen, and virtually any other environment you can conjure. Did someone really think he didnt have enough heat to carry his own track? The criticism will end there. All things considered, Suit & Tie represents a fine musical comeback, from a landmark talent in blue-eyed soul. Itll be chopped up by every two-bit wedding DJ with ready access to a reception hall, thus scoring untold hours of bad Caucasian dancing. (Listen for it tonight at President Obamas inaugural ball.) Its a song with hips and legs. Which is to say that Suit & Tie will be around for a while, whether you like it or not. This prediction is backed by Americas convincingly strong affection for Mr. Timberlake. Hes aged with far more grace and respectability than his exes in love and toil. Britney Spears is now a high-profile accessory, used to dress up middling cosmetics brands and B-grade singing competitions. As for the former members of N Sync, theyre nothing more than punch lines, albeit very wealthy punch lines. (They neednt ever want for food or shelter, as the nostalgia industry will keep their coffers full.) The class of Mouseketeers that dominated late-Nineties teen pop have, for the most part, lived fast and fallen hard. The only exceptions that come to mind are JT and Ryan Gosling, the first a bona fide triple-threat entertainer (sing, dance, act), the second a model of Anglo good looks and rom-com dramatic chops. Of the two, Justin has been in the limelight far longer. And this, I think, is part of his appeal: Timberlakes very presence provides an umbilical cord to the prosperity of the late Nineties. Things were simpler and less antagonistic back then. Yes, persons of a
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certain age and predilection always say this sort of thing. If only John Wayne were still here, Merica would once again be righteous and whole! What happened to good, old-fashioned family pictures, like Its A Wonderful Life? The Founding Framers didnt intend for gays to marry or for Xbox to put naked ladies in its video games! This line of talk is ripe for parody (as Ive just endeavored to prove, likely in vain). But in regards to the Nineties versus today, I think the lament rings true. Its not that theres more hate or contempt in the world; its just that the onerous elements are afforded greater volume. The same can be said of popular music. Its not the form thats deteriorated; its the mechanisms of broadcast. Dubious voices are played at such loud registers that it can be difficult to hear the call of the worthy artist. Timberlake is important because he has not only legitimate musical taste, but also a built-in megaphone through which to amplify his testimony. Suit & Tie was promoted as an event, not a mere single. When it dropped, there was a flurry of headlines, but nothing resembling the fanfare that surrounded other big-ticket releases from recent years, such as Lady Gagas Born This Way or Cee-Lo Greens Fuck You, both of which were inescapable from the second they hatched. Like I said, Suit & Tie will be around awhile. But, in terms of Tweet receipts and audience attention, has it already peaked? Though I cant be entirely sure, Im inclined to respond in the affirmative. These days, headlines come fast and furiously. To sustain your momentum, youve got to adopt the Rihanna model, and keep the media beast freshly fed with noise and gossip. Timberlake, clearly, is above the fray of the rat race. Hes had his Beatlemania period. Now hes on his suit and tie shit a grown man, acting the part. Perhaps he takes his time on his comeback single because hes taken his time with pop music as a whole. FutureSex/LoveSounds came out six and a half years ago. I remind you that this was the era of Chamillionaires Ridin and Plain White Ts Hey There Delilah, hits that arrived and departed before SexyBack had finished its gambol around the charts. Timberlakes music endured because it was simply better than its competition in the straight pop field. Suit & Tie takes that honor and raises it. At the moment, the song is as good as anything in the mainstream or the underground, even if this statement must be qualified with an acknowledgment of the early years slim pickings. The true challenge comes next. We need to determine whether Justins forthcoming LP, The 20/20 Experience, has a bench thats as deep as its predecessors. FutureSex commanded the present because it produced six singles, a series that was weaned out over a period of 16 months. 20/20 will have to adapt to the realities of 20/13: America isnt going to luxuriate in anyones album for a year and a half. (Adele notwithstanding.) There are too many tangents and distractions. The best thing you
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can do as an artist is to make a solid piece of music and hope that the market greets it kindly. I think JT will be alright. He has a knack for landing on his feet. Lets recall just how many places those feet have been. Justins sudden return reminds us that the Timberlake juggernaut has already tread over a million landscapes, from the TRL countdown to the red carpets of Hollywood. The kid came up in one of pops hazy periods of interregnum: post-grunge, peri-gangsta, pre-implosion of the recording industry. When he began his tenure with N Sync, the pantheon of recent Billboard stars was a bit of a rogues gallery. In rock, you had Kurt Cobain and his desperately hirsute successors. In rap, you had Tupac and his duly tatted retinue. Lou Perlman was a conniving son of a bitch, but he saw an opening for fresher, cleaner, lighter fare. In short, he saw an opening for a suit-and-tie act, young boys who could foppishly shake and wiggle alongside those in ripped denim and black hoodies. The suits and ties were strictly metaphorical at the time, nothing was squarer than formal wear, then regarded as the default uniform for those whod sold out but the buttoned-up, Astaire-and-Rodgers ethic held some potential. Fifteen years later, everyone from Jay and Kanye to Pitbull and Bruno Mars is wearing a jacket and slacks. Theres been a wardrobe change, and, despite his infamous malfunction with Janet Jackson, no one has been more instrumental is effecting the switch than Timberlake. (One can only pray that a similar oops-a-daisy doesnt ensnare Destinys Child during this years Super Bowl halftime show.) In the end, Justin is wise to have his suits cut in the style of Janets most famous brother. MJ remains an idol to JT, and Suit & Tie pays homage to this idolatry. Now Timberlakes task is to adorn his outfit with the right shoes and socks, the right belt and headwear. The first single is a win by technical knockout. The second and third will have to pack a similar punch, preferably with a little less bobbing and weaving. Keep the ebullience. Cut the languor. If Justin has the power to teach us anything, its an old and overdue lesson: Life aint so bad at all, when youre living off the wall. Lets keep the lectures coming, sooner rather than later. (January 21, 2013) Phoenix, Entertainment Somewhere in the North Atlantic, between the Great Hulin Rocks and the Island of Misfit Toys, sits the Sovereign Nation of Abandoned Essays. Many of its residents have emigrated from my own callow pen, seeking an honest asylum in a port less fraught with danger or shame. Given the low-cut immodesty of blogs, tweets, and other such subliterary emissions, my standards for quality and coherence are not particularly high. But, on rare occasions, I boldly conscript my faculties in the service
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of an ostensibly important piece, which seeks to unite theory with practice, past with present, and Israeli with Palestinian. This Monday, perhaps aflame with the fires of fallen presidents, I found myself in the grip of a certain mania. Work was slow and the office was empty. I was streaming the complete contents of my iTunes Recently Added playlist. Each song struck a compelling note, but one burned through the bubble of work-a-day languor and demanded to be heard. As it invaded my ear canal, I decided then and there to dedicate a few hours to its analysis. I would do the track and its various controversies justice, largely by doing something I long ago disqualified as a waste of time: proper research. As it happened, Id lately read a series of books, pamphlets, and propaganda pieces that touched upon the songs central theme: gender relations. My data were thus easily compiled, and a semi-coherent argument took shape with all deliberate speed. Within two hours, I had eight paragraphs of copy and a full column of statistics, ready to be wielded with a knights silver skill. Now thats the stuff!, I told myself. At least until I realized that the essay Id begun drafting was a classic case of heads-you-win, tails-I-lose. By trying to lay bare the shared sympathies of man and woman, Id unwittingly painted myself into a corner: While one sentence might mark me as a radical feminist, the next might thrust me into the camps of chesty chauvinism. After a rushed re-read of the extant prose, it became clear that my intemperate music blog was no place for a socially meaningful manifesto. In todays world, hot and bothered as it is for micro-content, the manifesto has more or less been bequeathed to overconfident undergrads and gun-toting psychopaths. I fit neither category, and therefore had to cut bait and reel up my anchor. It was back to Microsoft Excel for this poor scribe. Rows and columns are almost always preferable to rows and calumny, especially on a federal holiday thats normally devoted to the reluctant purchase of a king-sized mattress. At this point, I imagine you hold feelings that rhyme with or relate to the following query: Why, dear Sir, did you not exile yet another selection to your Sovereign Nation of Abandoned Essays? This is a fair question, but one that Im prepared to answer with confidence. Todays essay must stand because todays subject, the Franco American band known as Phoenix, are an avatar of sensible composition. Though its been nearly four years since their last formal release, the acclaimed Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, and though their lead singer had teased a shift from straight indie pop toward more experimental fare, Phoenix have returned with a song that aligns closely with their best known material. Entertainment isnt demonstrably different in overall make-up than 1901 or Lisztomania, meaning that it relies on the interplay of warm synths and upright guitars, each deployed according to the standard formula of loud-quiet-loud. We get a flourish, a jangle, and a buzz, all of which retreats gracefully before Thomas Mars unleashes his anticharismatic vocals.
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Mars sings his verse in his typical chirpy register, then allows the svelte clamor of man and machine to return. Phoenix songs have deftly fingered on and off switches. Dynamics are their game, a game thats at once friendly and utterly serious. Tempo and tone are to be played around with, but never fooled around with. Everything is completely under control, from cap to toe. This is to say that Phoenix have become a reliable, and somewhat predictable, band. Their age of abandon probably passed with a wise gesture of resignation; that is, shelving the bounce and funk of their early work for the quiver and hum of Wolfgang. As late as 2006, Phoenix were still trafficking in a form of groovy Euro dance rock a soft, rhythmic amalgam of the Strokes, Spoon, Hall & Oates, and whatever the DJs were spinning in contemporary Parisian discotheques. Their breakout album featured new levels of efficiency and angularity, granting fewer curves and tolerating less fat. Wolfgang was indie pop with swiveling hips and a computerized heart. There were pulses and plunks, strums and wobbles, amounting to a kind of ready-to-wear rock and roll, informed by both tradition and technology. For what its worth, I took in Phoenixs wares without succumbing to the general Lisztomania. I thought the album polite and professional, but not teeming with the sort of material thatd get bookmarked in the weightier annals of pop. Though the tunes were nicely arranged, I felt that Julian Casablancas, with Phrazes for the Young, and the Raveonettes, with In and Out of Control, had found more promising midpoints between garage rock and electronic music. I was likely wrong in this assessment, as Im reminded when I peruse the opinion pieces loosed by the more credentialed members of the indie commentariat. Dont get me wrong: Im not getting snippy here, nor would I presume to legislate taste. But I fear Id be derelict in my duty as a music fan if I didnt remark upon a micro-phenomenon which weve all observed in real time. Simply put, as Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix has become more and more distant in the rearview mirror, its authors have grown larger and larger in stature. To me, it seems as if Phoenix have been accorded Great Band status without going through the actual trouble of being a great band. I dont intend this statement as an insult. I like Phoenix, and I think they make pleasant, accessible indie pop. Radiohead, however, they are not. The band have one excellent record under their belt, which, although a notable achievement, is no cause for gold monuments or ticker-tape parades. It merits mentioning that Pitchfork ranked Wolfgang as the eighth best album of 2009, a position bordered by the likes of Girls, Japandroids, Real Estate, and St. Vincent to the north, and the xx, Dirty Projectors, and Animal Collective to the south. Since 2009, the former set of bands have returned with justly celebrated material, and have built formidable industry profiles on the strength of their new music. The latter set of bands took a great deal of
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time to release their follow-up albums. In each case, the return LP was adjudged to be a step down from its predecessor. I assume that these verdicts came with no ill will, but to call them objective would be laughable. Between 2009 and 2012, the xx, Dirty Projectors, and Animal Collective were slowly ratcheted up to the rank of demigod; as time ticked away, they ceased to be musicians making music and took on the shine of geniuses making opuses. A fever pitch surrounded their every action and announcement, establishing expectations that couldnt possibly be satisfied by human hands. However inspired the new releases might have been, they just werent inspired enough. Coexist was no xx; Swing Lo Magellan was no Bitte Orca; and Centipede Hz was no well, what in the Christ was Centipede Hz? My point is that certain bands look better through the critical kaleidoscope than they do under the Klieg lights of the here and now. The danger of leaving your fans wanting more is that this more must eventually manifest, to a chorus of hasty yays and nays. Phoenix are currently ascendant, still riding the crest of the wave engendered by Wolfgang. When their new album, Bankrupt!, debuts in late April, itd better be a work of unquestionable greatness. Otherwise, pikes will come out with insurgent menace and redundant frequency. Critics can forgive anything but the failure to live up to the false standards theyve unconsciously set. As for Entertainment, lets call it what it is: a safe and solid lead single. Novel is not an adjective that comes to mind. Theres a clumsy meme circulating on the indie rock message boards, stating some variant of the notion that all new Phoenix songs are merely well-edited hybrids of old Phoenix songs. Theres more than a modicum of truth to this rumor, although Mars and company certainly arent lone offenders on the mix-and-match front. Personally speaking, Id rather compare Entertainment to pop at large, not a thin sliver of Phoenixs back catalog. Here, I think I find a convenient fit: Entertainment is Siouxsie and the Banshees Hong Kong Garden crossed with Neon Trees Everybody Talks. We get a taste of postpunk, New Wave, hi-fi, garage rock, and mall pop, blended together via the mixing board used to create Michael Jacksons Thriller. (Im not being facetious; Phoenix actually purchased the studio console employed by Quincy Jones and MJ himself to produce the best-selling album of all time.) Mars and band mate Laurent Brancowitz went on record with the assertion that their ensemble considered calling their forthcoming album Alternative Thriller, either in deference to Michael or in an historically terrible lapse of judgment. Yes, Phoenix, youre a well-regarded band. But, however innocent your intentions, you dont want to be duking it out with the King of Pop. Perhaps the more interesting word in the prospective album title is not Thriller, but Alternative. Being a child of the Nineties, I have to ask the reflexive Billy Corgan question: Alternative to what? Phoenix dont counter a given idiom so much as extract
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its prime nutrients to incorporate into a multi-ingredient musical compound. As we drink the sonic smoothie, reference points beyond Siouxsie Sioux and the Neon Trees are not hard to come by. At first listen, I get the Cars and Passion Pit. Then I hear a spacecraft hovering above a late-model Strokes single. Phoenix coat their track in a beautiful shimmer, care of Brancowitzs dual facility with guitar and keyboard, both of which he seems to have melded into a single instrument. As for Mars, he sings like Julian Casablancas on a semi-aggressive regimen of caffeine and anti-depressants. Entertainment is peppy and alive, but not too peppy or alive. Above all, its a threeand-a-half minute grope for compatible common denominators. Phoenix want to achieve a proprietary middlesex, its anatomy a function of the unholy congress between electronic textures and rock and roll spirit. The sound they project is ethereal, but the knowledge they bear is carnal. So, what have Phoenix wrought? Id say a healthy first step toward a subgenre theyve already begun to embrace: arena indie. Remember that Mars is married to Sofia Coppola, daughter of the great movie director Francis Ford Coppola and an excellent filmmaker in her own right. The Coppolas are not a family that shrinks from the big picture; they aim to give you high art and generous box office returns at the same time. Sofia is among the most musically observant directors in Hollywood (or San Francisco, where her fathers production company is based). She put Phoenixs Too Young on her Lost In Translation soundtrack, seeing promise in a band that had yet to dent the popular consciousness. Her prescience has now stumbled into the realm of the mildly bizarre. Coppola effectively beat her husband to the title of Phoenixs new single, using a Gang of Four song from the groups debut album, Entertainment!, to underscore the inertia of her deliberately deliberate Marie Antoinette. This song was Naturals Not In It, and it contains the famous lines, The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure. This quandary applied to the ancien regime that Sofia depicted with such care. Now, it applies to Phoenix. In the context of great success and enviable status, how do you craft an encore thats worthy of the main act? How do you prevent yourself from succumbing to that reliable French totem, ennui? Phoenixs answer appears to be more of the same, only better. As to whether Bankrupt! will truly improve upon Wolfgang, Ill leave that up to the soothsayers with early access to the stream. Ill only posit that the LPs first single is a snappy tune thats quickly forgotten. Even as I type this sentence, I cant recall its melody, in part because this essay is much longer than it needs to be, but mostly because Phoenix issue same-sounding fare with wild abandon. What separates Entertainment from Entertainment! are the stakes inherent in their respective notes. The single is a friendly return to the center stage; the album is a class-baiting manifesto. Where Entertainment is intrinsically averse to controversy, Entertainment! is a boldly confrontational record. I dont know if Mars is making a mindful allusion to Gang of
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Four, but, if he is, the gesture seems absurdly out of place. Why reference the most uncompromising of postpunk bands when the music youre promoting is a nearperfect compromise of aesthetic impulse and commercial taste? Be content with being popular, good, and rich. You can brandish the accoutrements of the King of Pop or you can wheel in your guillotine, its blade still wet with the blood of the petty nobility. To pull both out of inventory is overkill, in every sense imaginable. So, Phoenix, dont attempt to trade in agitpop. Youve already risen from the ashes; now your challenge is to stay aloft. Entertainment shows that you havent abandoned the formulas that enabled your flight. This is a smart, if inglorious, move. What you do, you do quite well. Despite what you might read on the indie blogs, theres no shame in going the way of the Black Keys that is, in making music that the public wants to hear, without hubris, apology, or hiatus. Youre a band that seems destined to headline weekend pop festivals, not to re-enact the storming of the Bastille. Enjoy the applause of the masses. And dont try to twist their enthusiasm into something more sinister. Veiled gestures toward social commentary might seem brave or honest, but, in the end, naturals not in it. Simply come forth and collect your trophies. Even in these troubled economic times, theres plenty of gold to go around. (February 20, 2013) Bob Dylan, Roll On John Bob Dylan is an immense subject perhaps too immense for this particular blog, which is prone to grabbing ahold of a single theme and riding off into the sunset, however distant the destination. Through this lens, Dylan poses a risky protagonist, as hes not a single man but a singular man. Bob contains multitudes, some of which are ineffable, most merely hard to define. Just look at his staggering sweep of rsum: 50 years at the forefront of American popular music, in folk, pop, rock, and virtually any conceivable combination thereof; 35 studio albums, a dozen or so regarded as more sacred than Scripture; a towering assemblage of Grammys, Golden Globes, and Academy Awards, each earned for compositions that didnt bend to the tenor of the times; a freshly minted Presidential Medal of Freedom, laid on his neck by a clearly enamored Barack Obama; pride of place in more Hall of Fames than merit mentioning, all lucky to have him. And this highlight reel, impressive as it is, doesnt do the slightest justice to the man or his work. One imagines that Dylan cares little about his trophies, less about the petty scribes who list them without regard for context. Ultimately, Bob isnt a numbers guy. He covets mystique and mystery rather than popular acclaim and interpersonal connection. Its not for nothing that Dylan co-wrote a film called Masked and
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Anonymous, under the laughably absurd name of Sergei Petrov. Id say hes a confounding artist if I didnt consider him something more substantial. In my view, Bob is at least two people, possibly more. Think of him as a bipolar personality: acoustic hero and electric rebel; protest singer and bard of backwoods resignation; Robert Zimmerman and Bob Dylan; Jack Frost and Sergei Petrov; one of the most prolific songwriters of the rock n roll era, yet also one of the least scrutable. Hes been called Jesus, Judas, and just about everything in between. Its a credit to Dylan that none of the labels has proved sufficient. As a part-time writer of dubious credential, the prospect of profiling Bob Dylan intimidates me. To my mind, hes the only rock n roll act who can rightly be touted as a figure of world-historical import instead of mere music-historical import. True, the Beatles also meet this measure, but they were a gang of four where Dylan drove solo. Moreover, it seems obvious that Bob had a marked influence on the maturation of the Beatles music, theoretically by introducing them to marijuana and Great Books, but empirically by bashing at the borders of pop. Like a Rolling Stone was far more ballsy and ambitious than anything Lennon/McCartney churned out in their roaring youth. While the Beatles were writing teenage standards, Dylan was channeling the stakes and spirit of a grown man. The voice was not always adult, as adult tended to translate as square or conforming as characteristic of the very times that needed achangin. Bob managed to stiff-arm the strictures of schoolboy lust and schoolgirl crush by conjuring a vibe that rendered American Bandstand silly. This was that wild mercury sound, which not only predated rock n roll but also allowed its progression from dance-along diversion to worthy life pursuit. Dylans signature triumph was to make the rock singer respectable. This accomplishment permitted the Beatles to take album-oriented popular music to heights that have yet to be eclipsed. The Fab Fours records may be their own, but each was undeniably wind-aided, be it by Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, or Dylan himself. I cite the Beatles with a somewhat convenient design. My aim here today, if youll be kind enough to indulge it, is to conflate the two most esteemed personae in the annals of rock n roll, to make the Beatles spirit Bobs, and Bobs the Beatles. This task is daunting, and would be damn near impossible had Dylan not already done it for me. On Bobs latest LP, Tempest, sits a track called Roll On John. Its a fairly unambiguous paean to the martyred John Lennon, whose death, in 1980, marked the end of pop music for a healthy swath of Baby Boomers. In Don McLean terms, December 8th was the day the music died, along with a million dreams. If Dylan was existentially by his colleagues murder, he kept his feelings to himself. Bob doesnt seem to experience space and time like the rest of us; to him, stasis is akin to catatonia. One presumes that this is why hes still circling the countrys lesser arenas
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on his Never Ending Tour, why hes still on the road, headed for another joint. He cant kick the conviction that music is best when its played live. In a concert venue, the performer has a built-in friend and foil, namely his audience. The stage is the space on which Dylan is most comfortable. As for the time component, its a matter that Bob has long placed out of mind. Roll On John is seeing the light of day in the Year of Our Lord 2012, but, equipped with a different subject (say, Buddy Holly or Richie Valens) it just as easily could have been written 50 years ago. As a matter of fact, Bob Dylan did release a song called Roll On John 50 years ago. Only it was a traditional folk ballad with an indeterminate protagonist, detailing the toil of any old John, not the kid from Liverpool. The Roll On John redux is notable for its specificity. Dylan goes so far as to mention the Liverpool docks and the Hamburg streets; he even mentions the Quarrymen, Johns proto-Beatles ensemble. Theres history in the verse, along with direct quotations from such Beatles songs as A Day In the Life and Come Together. In the aggregate, Dylan offers seven short verses, each stitched together by an elegiac chime, like Forever Young disavowing its title. The song does indeed roll, from insult to injury and flame to fame. Bob sees in John a kindred spirit, a singer trapped and ambushed by the wages of idol worship. At least thats what I pick up after a few anxious listens. When one great man salutes another, were bound to find poetry where there is merely prose. Still, as Dylan gives Lennon his due, I cant help but hear Auden on Yeats: The words of a dead man/Are modified in the guts of the living. Which is to say that Johns music has taken on additional lives, perhaps too many to make sense of. Dylans objective is to inject some blood into a body thats deceased but not dormant. Thirty two years after his death, Lennon remains a fixture in the popular imagination. Hes an icon and an industry, sustaining many a moral argument and holding many an intrigue. When the London Olympics drew to a close, whom did the organizers commemorate? Chaucer? Shakespeare? Queen Victoria? No, first and foremost, they paid homage to John Lennon, whose face is kept in amber, forever young. Credit belongs to Dylan for not unduly canonizing Lennon. Bob and John were comrades and competitors, fellow evangelists in the service of rock n roll, each afforded a stature commensurate with his talent. Itd therefore be unbecoming for Dylan to look up to Lennon. The correct glance is the glance across, be it across the Atlantic or the universe. Bob clearly sees a bit of himself in John, not only as a musician but as a provincial phenomenon thrust into the Klieg lights of primetime. If you follow Bob Dylan, you know that he, to put it mildly, is an odd sort. Recently hes taken to visiting the childhood homes of songwriters he admires, among them Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, and, yes, John Lennon. He does this unannounced and unescorted, which sometimes results in serendipity, other times in trouble. (In July of 2009, Bob was detained by police in Long Branch, New Jersey, while trying to
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locate Springsteens erstwhile bungalow.) Dylan is truly a journeyman, out to satisfy curiosities visceral, intellectual, and whimsical. With Roll On John, one could posit that Bob is taking the ultimate journey, using Lennon as a prism through which to negotiate his own rendezvous with death. Is John merely a proxy for Bob? Is Dylan, that most unlikely rambler from the outskirts of the Mesabi Iron Range, projecting himself onto Lennon, another working-class kid from a second-tier city? Probably not. In fact, it may be just the opposite: We, the listeners, are projecting Bob into a narrative he didnt sanction, largely because we want a song to be a sacrament, rather than simple verse and chorus. Addressed without ulterior motive, Roll On John fits snugly in the Dylan songbook. Bob comes from the folk tradition, where a plurality of compositions deal with death and dying. Even at age 20, Dylan was firmly enmeshed in the dour language of the mortal coil. His debut album, released in 1962, contains songs titled In My Time of Dyin, Fixin to Die, and See That My Grave is Kept Clean. Surely, no one will ever confuse Bob Dylan with Justin Bieber. But, pop being the many-limbed animal that it is, the two men ply the same basic trade: Theyre performers, artists, musicians, singers. Though their voices couldnt be more different, they wear what amounts to the same uniform. Each man dresses for the stage, occasionally toting a guitar or some other intrepid instrument. Of course, Biebers rose is just blossoming, while Bobs is approaching its final bloom. The shadow of finality is what triggers the hazy speculation on Dylans connection to Lennon. Bob has written a send-off, and were inclined to read the fond farewell on many levels. Dylans new album is called Tempest, the same title Shakespeare gave to his final play. The Bards oeuvre ends with Prospero burying his spells, ritualistically renouncing his magic. Its perhaps inevitable that select members of the press will speculate as to whether Dylan is doing the same calling it a career, after a dizzying number of episodes, played by a full cast of characters. Let me put that notion to rest. Bob Dylan wont stop until a power greater than he commands him to. In his excellent Tempest review, Jody Rosen, writing in the New Yorker, notes that Dylan is the keeper of American musical memory. Hes an Alan Lomax figure who can compose like Irving Berlin and sing like Leadbelly; that is, hes a rare conflation of talents several artists in one voice. Far be it from me to pontificate on the origin of this polyglot genius, but I think his age and his relative isolation in youth account for much of his versatility. Bob was a product of the 1950s, and was thus just ahead of the Boomer barrage on popular culture. His childhood predated the rush of corporate sameness thats come to afflict every state in the union, begetting uniform products for carefully delineated demographics. Dylans formative years were not beholden to television, the supermarket, or the strip mall. In a recent Rolling Stone interview (totally worth reading, if you get the chance),
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Bob describes his youth as follows: The culture was mainly circuses and carnivals, preachers and barnstorming pilots, hillbilly shows and comedians, big bands and whatnot. What I find interesting is that Dylan is all of the above. Hes an original composed of myriad spare parts and forgotten stories. You dont look for Bob Dylan in one song or album; thats just a piece of him, fitted with a strict expiration date. To get at the whole, you have to cease being a detective and confront the hard fact that some things are unknown, others unknowable. Dont judge. Just listen. Having dropped my fair share of needles on Dylan-branded vinyl, Ive come to admire the artist for two things: essential truth and gleeful bullshit. Hes been putting one over on the press since the green days of his discovery, always adding a fake name or an unverifiable credential. In the aforementioned Rolling Stone interview, Bob positively flummoxes the magazine writer, hijacking the earnest Q&A by brandishing a book about Sonny Barger, the former leader of the Hells Angels. This tome, authored by a pair of brothers named Kent and Keith Zimmerman, contains a passage that chronicles the death of an Angel named Bobby Zimmerman, in a horrendous motorcycle crash. Dylan subsequently hints that he was transfigured after his own motorcycle accident, in 1966, ostensibly with/by/through the spirit of the previous Bobby Zimmerman. Its so crazy a statement that the reader, knowing Dylans penchant for the bizarre, is inclined to believe it. Or at least to believe that Bob believes it. Either way, it makes for great music journalism. Bob seems caught up in alternate outcomes, that double helix of What If. What if he hadnt heard early rock n roll music on the AM radio? What if he hadnt crashed his bike or encountered the Barger book? What if John Lennon hadnt been shot in the back, and remained among the living, to correct the many misstatements surrounding his art and his personality? With Roll On John, Dylan does Lennons work for him, picturing a Beatles life through a sympathetic camera. As Jody Rosen asks in his New Yorker piece, couldnt we just as well call the song Roll On, Bob? Well, yes and no. Sure, Dylan is accentuating the parallels between his life and Johns. But he isnt using an alternate past to summon an alternate future. Hes entrenched in the here and now, which can, of course, be jolted by left-field discoveries, such as the bizarro Bobby Zimmerman and his magical, mystical motorcycle. At bottom, Dylan remains inscrutable. Hes transfigured more times than I can count by plugging in at Newport, by stripping down in Woodstock, by being born again in 1978, by finding new musical avenues at the age of 71. I wont waste your time, or his, by editorializing on his latest metamorphosis. But I will say this: When listening to Roll On John, remember that Lennon beat Dylan to the business of peer modeling. In his own born-again track, God, from Plastic Ono Band, John peppers his parade of denunciations with I dont believe in
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Zimmerman! This was not an insult, just a burning off of heavy baggage, an exoneration from the fierce undertow of rock n roll. In the song, Lennon cuts his immediate ties with Elvis, Jesus, Kennedy, Hitler, Buddha, Bible, and Beatles all are named, and all are tossed upon the funeral pyre of childish things. With Roll On John, Dylan quells Lennons primal scream, and reconnects artist with artist, man with man. Its a simple, stoic tribute. Nothing more, nothing less. This admission may serve to disqualify the dozen or so paragraphs that precede its articulation. Still, if Bob Dylan affords a luxury, its the luxury of having it both ways. We can write off his songs as mere pop artifacts, soon to be displaced and forgotten. But we can also consider him our Moses, visited by some higher power, on some sacred mountain, and obliged to grace us with a truth were constitutionally unfit to hear. Personally, Ill never know what to make of Bob. At the moment, however, I see him as a portal of those What Ifs I referenced earlier. In past lives, Ive wondered, What if he hadnt gone electric? or What if he hadnt survived his motorcycle accident? Now I see Bob as something larger than himself; indeed, as an object athwart an idiom. When I hear his late-period music, the question that comes to mind is, What if Stagger Lee had missed? This query assumes a certain grounding in the Stagger Lee myth, and the many blues numbers its evoked. Simply put, rock n roll doesnt happen without Stagger Lee, without the badass pimp-gambler-don who shot poor Billy right between his eyes. Hes the avatar of the hot blues tradition, moreso than the great Robert Johnson, who famously walked with a pack of hell hounds on his trail. Yet Dylan, even when hes penning murder ballads, seems to place Staggers signature act outside his frame of reference. He writes as if rock n roll had never been rendered criminal by Staggers bullet. In fact, Bobs contemporary songs sound as if they predate rock n roll entirely. Roll On John, deftly transfigured from the song of the same name that Dylan cut 50 years back, is openly derived from the folk tradition. It doesnt defer to Stagger Lee because its the very force that gave Stagger Lee life. If Dylan wants to imagine that Stagger missed, or that murder is something to lament rather than champion, hes free to do it with impunity. Me, Im grateful for the stocked bounty that rock n roll has afforded. But I look to Dylan for a vision beyond inheritance, where tradition can imply progress as well as regress, liberty as well as obedience. Unlike John Lennon, I believe in Zimmerman. Bob Dylans not half bad, either. (September 19, 2012)

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Solange, Losing You If youre an aspiring pop singer, and your older sister just happens to be Beyonc, I imagine you spend much of your youth and young womanhood in the vain suppression of tears. Tears of envy, tears of rage, tears of feckless self-pity the individual variety is less important than the aggregate volume, which is, no doubt, historically impressive. To forever see your siblings branch dangling above yours on the family tree longer, stronger, thicker, more bootylicious must be downright imperiling to the soul. Forget the notion of role model. Here, we read the wages of rivalry. Only its not a rivalry; its a rout. The Beyonc/Solange dichotomy reminds me of the one shared by Michael and Larry Jordan. Michael is almost certainly the greatest basketball player of all time, a hero the world over. His brother Larry who, unlike Solange, has to bear the mortification of being several years older than his storied kin never progressed much further than the playing courts of Wilmington, North Carolina. His single star turn was a cameo in MJs legendary Come Fly With Me video, which chronicled Michaels rise from the peripheries of the Tarheel State to the most rarefied chambers of NBA royalty. Speaking of Michaels remarkable development during high school, the videos narrator tosses the older brother a bone, barking, It was [Michaels] daily battles in the backyard with his older brother Larry that fueled his competitive drive. The camera then cuts to Larry himself, a bit beefy and doe-eyed, who says, I always normally beat him. The words come with a stutter, as if brother number one cannot believe (or forget) that he once bested brother Number 23. Watching the video as a 10-year-old, I developed a sharp sympathy for Larry. My feelings were something along the line of, Oh, you poor, poor bastard. To be so close to greatness indeed, to be bound to it by blood but to never know its taste! You live your life as an asterisk, defined by your relation to another. It must be brutal. Back to Solange, who, one supposes, could easily bask in her sisters rays, settling into a regimen of salon visits and beach vacations. The economy being what it is, and Beyoncs touch being more or less on par with that of the King of Midas, the Knowles family could simply claim victory and bandy about like the Kardashians, using their extant fame to ensure future revenue. Only Solange doesnt seem to operate by such sordid principles. She has repeatedly denied the notion that she and her older sister are caught up in some kind of competition. The all-smiles veneer, seen as the Sisters Knowles scurry off to Grizzly Bear shows or promote the latest line of clothing from their House of Dereon label, appears to be more than just a surface trait. The girls share a surname and a family history, but they part ways at sensibility. Beyonc is probably the biggest-ticket voice in contemporary pop music. (Though Adele has had a wonderful 18 months or so, shed be the first to admit that she bows
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before Queen Bey.) Solange, meanwhile, marches a little to the left of Billboard. Heretofore, shes been a curiosity, mixing indie impulse with the kind of soul that owes more to Erykah Badu than, say, Mary J. Blige. Shes been known to consort with Kevin Barnes of Of Montreal, who, whatever you think of his music, is one weird-ass motherfucker. This association, among others, had the unfortunate effect of pushing Solange into the outskirts of the scenester category. Now, however, it appears that shes seen enough, and is swiftly trending toward revelation. Losing You, the first single off her recent True EP, is a near-great pop song, as good as anything Beyonc has released since Single Ladies. Thats the wrong comparison, of course. But its a striking compliment nonetheless. For a moment, we need to move beyond Beyonc to pop music as a whole. If you buy Losing You on iTunes, as I did, the platforms Genius application will recommend not just the elder sister Knowles, but also Sky Ferreira, Bat for Lashes, Rihanna, Tegan and Sara, and Grizzly Bear. Thats a fairly wide swath of purported colleagues, and it hints at the easy versatility of Solanges new music. Losing You, for instance, has more stamps on its passport than Hillary Clinton. The song is propelled by an enticing loop of Afropop percussion, akin to the kind of drum patterns that Rostam Batmanglij brings to Vampire Weekends more linear work. This robust thump is tamed by the deft balance of stereophonics, with keyboards and sound samples alternately softening and sharpening the track. Losing You succeeds by taking chances worth indulging, not by indulging in random chances. Its wild yet familiar. Or, perhaps, wildly familiar. Listening to its beat, I hear the upright snap of Bananaramas Cruel Summer, followed by the headlong swoop of Michael Jacksons Dont Stop Til You Get Enough. The first citation was almost ridiculously ubiquitous during my youth, but has lost some of its shine with age, owing to changes in fidelity. The second predates my conscious years but continues to loom large, standing as one of the few pop singles that can honestly boast of having inflamed a billion dance floors. Solange grabs DNA from both tracks and establishes a chill, slightly meditative groove. This is neither an uptempo number nor a garden-variety slow jam. Knowles has created something more subtle and nuanced. Losing You, true to its title, follows the path of the breakup ballad. Its trick is to take the road less travelled. The song keeps the fangs and the sobs in inventory, settling for an earnest drift down memorys bliss. If its a breakup ballad, its one that eschews the bluster of the typical breakup, and merely laments the gradual slackening of passion. There are no threats or hysterias, just a calm, even-keeled acceptance of the new reality. By keeping things on the level, Solange makes her song compulsively listenable. Losing You doesnt simply play; it insinuates itself in your listening environment
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and checks in for an extended stay. This outcome isnt accidental. Its a function of the songs carefully honed instrumental, which pulses and sways for nearly a minute before Solange cues her vocals. A single that clocks in at 4:22 thus seems to pass in a pop-standard two-and-a-half minutes. The melody is so arresting that you ignore the run time; indeed, you lose concern for all temporal parameters. This brings to mind Phil Spectors great packaging coup of 1964, when, fearing a radio boycott on any item over 3:30, he printed a label for the Righteous Brothers Youve Lost that Lovin Feelin that indicated a run time of 3:05, knowing full well that its actual length was 3:45. Spector duped Americas DJs, and his mendacity paid hedge-fund caliber dividends. Look at the returns: Lovin Feelin went on to become the most played song of the 20th Century. Clearly, Solange isnt angling to bump Bill Medley from his most-plays register. Losing You is a bit too eclectic to get exposure on contemporary FM radio, which features playlists as rigid as the Marine Corps honor code. Her coup is one of artistry to make weird music whistleable, perhaps in hopes that the public will eventually realize that the music isnt particularly weird. Indeed, in a more open and generous market, Losing You might be a Top Ten hit. But, given our rather narrow commercial horizons, were wise to distinguish between flesh and fantasy. Though Solange has issued a friendly gesture toward the mainstream, she is not a creature of its cages. Having been raised in a showbiz family, she understands the allures of straight pop. Consider her early recording career: As a teenager, Solange worked with such producers as Jermaine Dupri, the Neptunes, Linda Perry, and Timbaland. As she matured, she collaborated with Cee-Lo Green and Mark Ronson. Now shes releasing her material via Terrible Records, an imprint owned and operated by Grizzly Bears Chris Taylor. This is not the most reliable road to superstardom: to begin in the imperial capital, only to drive slowly and sedulously toward the provinces. But maybe Solange isnt gunning for that Number One spot. Maybe we should take her at her word when she says that she feels no competition with her sister, or, for that matter, with the other reigning divas of the day. I think she speaks the truth. Because Losing You sounds like the unposed testimony of an independent woman, not a cynical grope for MTVs laurels. Solange, in short, is not Ashlee Simpson. Of course, the Knowles-Simpson analogy is one predicated on an older-sister logic. Beyonc is an order of magnitude more talented than Jessica Simpson, so it seems to follow that Solange would easily eclipse Ashlees faded star. But this is the voice of the critic, straining for a juicy argument where there is merely an unfortunate coexistence. Where the Simpsons and the Knowleses truly align is in the sphere of overbearing fathers. Beyonc, Jessica, Ashlee, and Solange have each been managed, at least in the formative stages of their careers, by dear old dad. Mathew Knowles and Joe Simpson no doubt had their daughters best interests in mind, but they appeared
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far too eager to sacrifice principle for payment. While both men had a background in the Church, they soon turned their ministrations toward matters that might be considered unholy. To my mind, a touch too much emphasis was placed on Beyoncs booty and Jessicas boobs. Its not that I wasnt ready for this jelly; its just that the softcore sex was placed a little too high in the mix. Two Texas fathers, espousing deep holdings of family values, were thrusting their scantily clad daughters in our face, and the proceedings stunk of the profane. Another Texan, Win Butler, went so far as to write a song about it. Are you familiar with Arcade Fires Antichrist Television Blues? Its instructive to remember that the tunes working title was Joe Simpson. This tangent is notable only to the extent that Beyonc and Solange have danced beyond its undertow. The sisters are no longer represented by their father, and, for Solange at least, this means no more stints in films like Johnson Family Vacation and Bring It On 5. Shes free to pursue the art she enjoys, which, at the moment, is smart, sensuous R&B, stitched with the threads of indie pop. For me, this happy admixture that is, indie-accented R&B is 2012s breakout genre. Much of the years most essential music has come from folks like Frank Ocean, the Weeknd, and Miguel. (Hell, even the soaring, machine-mediated falsetto of How to Dress Well merits a mention.) To be accurate, Frank and Abel Tesfaye did their initial damage last year, via mixtape, and both men were impactful enough to make my 2011 Best-of list. (I was late on Miguel, by several album cycles.) With True, Solange begins the climb toward this vaunted company. Whether its the company shes fated to keep is something thatll be settled by the inexorable onrush of time and new records. For now, Solanges name has finally been dislodged from her sisters, and has landed on blogs usually visited by the alternative crowd. As Tom Breihan writes on Stereogum, If anything, Solange, like Frank Ocean or Miguel, is playing around with the R&B touches that have been showing up in indie-pop recently, showing you kids how someone with a real no-shit star-quality voice approaches this stuff. What Breihan proposes is something of a grand reverse: African-American culture borrowing from Caucasian-American culture a reappropriation of appropriation. Im twisting his thesis into odd shapes, of course. Breihan isnt indicating that a brazen theft has taken place; hes merely championing the eclecticism, the added tones and timbres, that is starting, however haltingly, to remake pop in indies image. This transition will be a long time coming, if it comes at all. But, by floating between scenes, Solange positions herself as an artist to watch. In ten years, she wont be in Beyoncs version of Come Fly With Me, talking about the games of Scrabble that she used to play with his sister, claiming I always normally beat her. Larry Jordan, she is not. A talent in her own right, she is. Losing You isnt entirely sui generis, but its different enough to keep Solange mononymous. The junior Knowles hasnt lost
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that lovin feelin, just the burden of an unfair, and ultimately untenable, comparison. Shes the child of an altogether different destiny. And shes just getting warmed up. (November 30, 2013) Kurt Vile, Never Run Away Todays post is a bit of an anomaly. Not in terms of the selection, which is reliably indie, smart, and tuneful, but as regards the conditions that enabled the ingress of these tired words onto this crumpled page. I am, at bottom, a working stiff, forever in thrall to after-hours email extravaganzas and 6 a.m. inventory calls. This morning was to be among the latter. I humped my Civic through hill and dale, hoping to beat the sunrise to my companys warehouse in exurban New Jersey. My feet reached the facilitys front entrance at precisely 5:57, only to find the door padlocked and a hunter-orange poster affixed to the glass. Apparently, the warehouse operators are some $75,000 in arrears to its landlord, and the building will remain closed until the debt is settled. I lament the height of this figure and the reality it has wrought. But, at 5:57 in the morning, full of shivers and Starbucks coffee, my main concern was a touch more selfish; i.e., Why the fuck didnt anybody tell me that the warehouse had been shuttered? Its not like I took the drive for shits and giggles. Thus reads the preamble to our anomaly. Im only writing today because a 6 -hour appointment with a spreadsheet and my counting finger has been indefinitely postponed. This is to the detriment of data collection, but to the gain of my appreciation for pop music. The unscheduled opening in my calendar allowed me to hit the music blogs with a reckless lack of reserve. I devoured news briefs and extended interviews, many whimsical, others mildly informative. What I took away from the study was that were about to enter a sustained period of new-release glory. On the near horizon lie LPs from the likes of the Strokes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, and, as was announced just yesterday, the National. This is a cause for celebration, at least among white people who still feel some intrinsic, vestigial connection to guitar-based music. But Im not interested in mere celebration. I want a measure of serendipity, as summoned by a quiet approach from the blindside. Now more than ever, the tracks that exceed expectations, that deliver a pleasant and unexpected surprise, are the ones worth writing home about. Consider this letter signed, sealed, and stamped. For flying just under the radar of the marquee releases is Kurt Viles Wakin on a Pretty Daze, an album that I had little interest in at the years break, but now await with baited breath. Many of you will be familiar with Vile from his Smoke Rings for My Halo LP, which was released to
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acclaim in 2011. That disc somehow managed to slip past me, and, in a typical fever of uncritical idiocy, I subsequently began to confuse Kurt with Cass McCombs. My knowledge of Viles work is therefore limited to two songs and several dozen music-blog headlines, the tracks both dating to 2013, the journalism covering various portions of the last 24 months. Kurts was a name Id heard but failed to listen to with proper respect. His first mp3 of 2013, Wakin on a Pretty Day, corrected this deficiency. Its certainly among the best songs of the year a nine-and-a-half minute epic of mood and melody, each passage linked by the authors even hand. True to its title, Wakin is half asleep, recalling a more slack, less shaky Neil Young. Its multipart but not conspicuously divided, leaning harder on the shoulders of Cortez the Killer than Broken Arrow. (Note: All Neil Young analogies are approximate, as the man is equal parts odd, essential, and inimitable.) When the song was released, it suffered from a surfeit of competition, most notably in the realm of protracted art pop. I speak not of David Bowie, whod unexpectedly returned with The Next Day, but of such contemporary acts as the Knife and Justin Timberlake, who pushed suitelength singles upon an unsuspecting public. Justins Mirrors (run time, 8:04) is a great big-tent R&B tune, as mellifluous and enchanting as the idiom will allow. The Knifes Full of Fire (run time, 9:17) is an industrial-strength electronic conflagration, poking holes in your psyche as it leaves lacerations on your cochlea. I imagine I listened to JT to feel of the moment and the Knife to get a glimpse of our dystopian future. Timberlake dispensed the balm, the Knife a serrated edge. I turned to Mirrors to calm myself down; Full of Fire to pump myself up. As it happened, my appetites were more charged than true. I still regard Mirrors and Full of Fire highly, but Wakin has outlasted that dynamic duo, largely by virtue of its leisurely insistence. Its a song for all seasons, enabling relaxation or engagement. The listener chooses his own adventure. Not because Vile has left things ambiguous, but because Vile is bilingual: He speaks slacker and striver alike, treating them as dueling sides of a native tongue. From this tongue comes a series of easy, breezy licks, which Kurt weaves together in a grand tapestry of sound. Wakin was replete with riffs and rolls, each cascading into the next with the soft force of a bays wave. Viles new single, Never Run Away, released just yesterday, is more immediate but just as beholden to the whoosh of a liquid swirl. If Wakin was Neil Young of the sands and the sky, all natural and fueled by a muted charisma, Never is Young ensconced in a kind of After the Gold Rush gloaming. Theres a torque to the track. Also a pop concision. Its as if psychedelic Neil met the Nirvana of Dumb and Polly and Drain You. Resonant chords circle, then crash into each other, creating a semi-standard verse-chorus-verse effect. In the verses, Vile is searching, yearning, affecting a confidence thats not really there. In the chorus, he sings, I know youll never run away, but youre hard pressed to believe him. If he were truly so certain in his conviction, he wouldnt need to repeat the phrase with such desperate frequency.
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This is what I like about Viles recent work its ability to have it both ways without making an imposition on its audience. Never Run Away sounds at once like a haunting and a plea. The subject of Kurts devotion is simultaneously anchored and in flight, simultaneously fixed and fleeting. You cant help but wonder just what Vile is singing about. His lyrics You met a young man who was a wild child/Who harmonizes keys in his droning mind would suggest a love interest. But is this love interest a girl or a melody? And is there a difference? Of course theres a difference. But, to the troubled songwriter, both present themselves as gifts. One is a muse, the other music. This may sound like the very picture of objectification I can already hear my female friends, all rather doctrinaire third-wave feminists, asking, So, were only good for inspiring the man of genius? but the grimaces my words engender shouldnt beget questions with tedious or defensive answers. Just as women are more than coal for, say, Kendrick Lamars rhyme book, surely men are something more than fodder for, say, Taylor Swifts lyric sheet. As an artist, you take your impetus from wherever you can find it, be it a holy agent of exchange or a strong cup of coffee. One can conflate flesh and blood with notes and figures, provided he or she can account for this dirty alchemy. Shall I compare thee to a summers day isnt a query so much as a set up. Shakespeare was going to do it anyway, even if he deferred to less daring, more temperate means. Vile doesnt flash the same brand of majesty as the Bard, but I take his song to be about the same subject: love. And, as Neil Young warned us, only love can break your heart. So, is Vile heartbroken? Im going to opt for a convenient half measure: No, but he might be soon. Thats the message I get from Never Run Away, which aspires to calm but leaves the dead skin of anxiety. Where Wakin on a Pretty Day was a soft meditation, Never is a steely mediation. Hope negotiates with fear, and were left in the purgatory between pleasure and pain. After first encountering Wakin, I wasnt sure if Kurt had the doldrums or was just a mellow-yellow kind of dude. I came to tilt toward the latter, and I remain there still, largely on account of the junior pep and pace that keeps Never chugging forward. This is very much a single, only about a third as long as its super-stretched predecessor. Wakin lumbered along like a gentle giant, aware of its path and its prowess. I use the word lumbered affectionately though the song purported to be party to a rise, it played like a comedown machine the Strokes would be wise to acquire. With its extended instrumental passages, the composition can be heard to resemble an outro to a Derek and the Dominoes track or the work of Jimi Hendrix on downers, his wah-wah pedal active but only a quarter engaged. To me, though, its the Neil Young influence that rings true. Vile doesnt subscribe to the virtuoso tendencies of a Clapton, Allman, or Hendrix. He earns his
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pay through resonance, repetition, and allegiance to his DIY instincts. Never stands out for mixing earnestness with abandon. The chords are simple and consistent, but the fingers that pluck them feel unsettled. This is where Never takes its leave from Wakin; the new song is more lively than its bigger brother, but also discernibly less friendly. That said, the relation is unmistakable. The two early releases from the Wakin album fit together like old friends of differing size; the gap in length is bridged by a shared sensibility. Ultimately, Never is yet another heir to the strum, stomp, echo, and warble of Neil Young. Vile slurs his words like Shakey, to the point where the crux of key lyric lines are lost to the ages. This doesnt bother us much, as the music and the vocal intonation carry more weight than the words. An anticharismatic delivery can be awfully charismatic, as Pavement and Beck have proved. Vile borrows bits and pieces from each of these artists, but a crafts a song that neednt apologize for its roots. Last year, Ty Segall was heartily cheered for his fist-first take on psych-rock revivalism. In 2013, Kurt Vile is offering the flip side psychedelic rock and roll with less volume and more poignancy. This sound may not be as sexy as, say, the Knifes, but Ill be damned if it doesnt cut just as deep. This morning, I awoke to a not-so-pretty day, made all the more ugly by the vicissitudes of petty commerce. Most of us are fated to be ensnared in other mens intrigues, driving the same roads over and over again, only to hit the obstacles of politics or debt. Kurt Vile may owe a hefty sum to singer-songwriters like Neil Young and Stephen Malkmus, but there are no politics to his debt. Hes taken an existing sound and fleshed it out, slowed it down, bulked it up, set it cycling toward tomorrows dawn. His singles are deft, dense, and generous. They augur one of the most important albums of the year. As other indie favorites go digital and deluxe, Kurt is keeping things druggy and lo-fi. This is a high-minded gesture, one which affords a firm platform for his marble-mouthed vocals and close-miced guitar. Viles sound may be shaky but his vision is clear. The 20/20 experience that Wakin and Never conjure is something that that both rockers and hipsters, both Boomers and Millennials, can get behind, provided they possess the requisite sonic curiosity. Such accessibility is an anomaly in 2013. Lets hope it becomes the rule. (March 22, 2013) Bruno Mars, When I Was Your Man Several centuries hence, when an esteemed panel of Afro-Asiatic scholars sits down to write the official American obituary, theyre going to produce a humbling, multi75

volume masterwork that nonetheless errs terribly on its subject of central concern. Decline and Fall require hinge points, you see, and historians like hard dates, weighty terms, and towering personae. So, after the proffering of endless credentials; after the gesture toward untold terabytes of assiduous research; after the raising of rushed toasts to Livy and Gibbon, our future chroniclers of the semi-distant past will focus, in arresting detail, on Vietnam, the Great Society, neoliberalism, Reaganomics, the peace dividend, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, 9/11, neoconservatism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the housing bubble, the national debt, climate change, and, in deference to the twists and tugs of human interest, the endless pockets of empty air engendered by the Internet. This will be a compelling read, but it will be written at too far a remove to provide an accurate depiction of the period it purports to cover. At bottom, the American tragedy is not dramatically different from its Greek predecessors. It calls for a distinctly personal fatal flaw. Even in treacherous tandem, bad government and nefarious business interests cannot topple an empire. In the ultimate accounting, Decline and Fall demand a defeated people. And America supplies this product with arch-capitalistic efficiency. I hope this lead paragraph hasnt caused you to choke on your Sunday morning coffee. Im not out to ruin your weekend; I simply want to get a few things straight, among them the importance of general feel and posture. Yes, weve long since entered the data-driven age, as the predictions regarding last years presidential election will confirm. (Nate Silver, Sam Wang, and their algorithms bested Dick Morris, Peggy Noonan, and their vibrations.) But, in assessing the grand American animal, I think wed be wise to quote one of our greatest novelists. In Ernest Hemingways The Sun Also Rises, a character named Mike Campbell, a banker, is asked how he went bankrupt. He replies, Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly. So it is with the United States, a country that suppresses alarming indicators be they slavery, leverage, or the Harlem Shake until they explode with atomic force. We allow too many easy, unchallenged ascents, in part because were occupied by more pragmatic matters, but mostly because we forget that the sun also sets. Again, I beg pardon for my sermonizing, but Ive spent the last five years living in a low-income pocket of central New Jersey. This is a tenure I wouldnt wish upon any man or beast, least of all an engaged reader such as yourself. What Ive witnessed here is a troubling intersection of macroeconomics and micropolitics. My county was heinously concussed by the recent (and ongoing) economic crisis, then mortally wounded by a series of monstrous storms. And though the loose gaggle of hack Hallmark writers who pen our nations political speeches forever insist that such traumas bring the American people together, I see overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For me, its not some unholy act of Congress or the market that finally pushed America over the edge; its the aggregated, everyday acts of civic discomity.
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When I stitch my countrys white flag of surrender, the fabric I use is composed of the following markers of disgrace: shopping carts left to idle in the dollar store parking lot; heavy doors unheld for elderly or indigent neighbors; communal spaces, such as gyms and movie theaters, treated alternately like romper rooms and vomitoria; tailgating so vain and violent that it could form the basis of a Quentin Tarantino picture; No Trespassing signs posted astride detached homes that harbor nothing of interest apart from second-hand motorcycles, unlicensed firearms, and amateur meth labs; customer service hotlines that are either wholly unpersoned or staffed by the sorts of knaves and rogues who ought to be spirited away to a Turkish prison. Somewhere along the line, someone stopped caring. Before we knew it, almost everyone followed suit. It happened gradually, then suddenly. I call it the absence of common grace the viral trend that dare not speak its name, for fear of offending the offensive. Assuming that the entirety of my readership is not now in a fetal position, I will proceed, rather expediently, to transpose this grey reasoning onto the vivid tableaux of pop music. Here, Ill take a rather selective view of pop, meaning that Ill limit my search to music that charts. (Or at least aspires to chart.) I like this brand of fare about as much as my colleagues in the mildly sentient thirtysomething cohort, which is to say well but not blindly. The idiom has its virtues, but theyre far too frequently obscured by cleavage, ego, or an overbearing commercial imperative. Gaga is a bit too garish; Ke$ha a touch too crude. Will.i.am. is hopelessly insipid; Taylor Swift endlessly in thrall to the cycle of breakup and make up. Jay-Z had to choose between fact and legend, and, in true magnate fashion, he decided to print the legend. His wife, the incomparable Beyonc, has pipes that could impress every plumber on Angies List. But she strikes me as being a bit too showy in her supposed humility. Beyonc knows shes extraordinary. When she attempts to communicate otherwise, she comes across as false. (Life is but a dream? Total horseshit!) South of Beyonc, and several tiers removed from fellow pop Amazons such as Rihanna and Katy Perry, stands a male contingent of R&B balladeers. These are folks like Trey Songz and Ne-Yo, whom I see yearly at the NBA All-Star game, but couldnt positively identify a mere five minutes after the contests final buzzer. Theyre difficult to distinguish between because all their tunes seem to harp on a single trope: the voluptuous nature of the female figure. Even my favorite urban songwriter, The-Dream, is tirelessly crooning about his desire to see that thang pop. This school of composition is very ass-forward, and the frequency with which the apple bottom is invoked strikes me as ass-backward. Again, theres the wholesale absence of grace. In two generations, weve gone from stark Puritanism to abject

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prurience. Popular R&B, once the most tender of genres, now lurches decidedly toward the lewd. We dont get love songs so much as sex songs. And thats if we get songs at all. Often, we get a simple hook, beat, or melody, thricelooped in an effort to bring form to something inherently amorphous. This is the sonic equivalent of those shopping carts left stranded in the dollar store parking lot. Youve bagged your items and transported them hastily to your ride. Now youve got to finish the job. That is, youve got to rack your cart or, in musical terms, tie that chorus down to a worthy verse and a sleek bridge. An initial concept is admirable, but its not enough. If you want to claim the glory of being elite, youve got to execute on your impulse, and deliver a complete product. This is a talent that comes gradually, then suddenly. More to the point, its a talent thats possessed in droves by the ostensive subject of todays post, Bruno Mars. To me, hes an avatar of professional pop music, performed with skill and, yes, grace. In keeping with the narrative of defeat, Bruno is a gentle reminder of what might have been, had we kept our pants clasped and our morals intact. No, hes not heir to the inane burdens of Pat Boone, tasked with bowdlerizing the more outrageous elements of Little Richard or R. Kelly. (Mars best-selling single to date uses the line your sex takes me to paradise when your touch would have worked just as well.) What Bruno recalls is the prediluvian know-how evinced by the great songwriters of our parents generation. Much has been made of his new albums debt to the sound of the Police. But when you examine Mars latest single, When I Was Your Man, you dont hear Sting. You hear Billy Joel. And Billy, Id argue, is a titan whose influence has been forsaken for far too long. In these troubled times, charting pop doesnt need another self-satisfied peacock. It needs a piano man who can soundtrack any occasion, who can re-democratize an idiom thats been balkanized into a million petty fiefdoms. Above all, it needs a dude who can bring the fucking songs. Because, Nicki Minaj and Justin Bieber be damned, Top 40 cannot run on swagger alone. Mars has plenty of swagger, but he never allows it to drown out his soulfulness. This, I think, is important: Though Bruno trades in a wide variety of pop forms from R&B to reggae, hip-hop to rock he doesnt cut the figure of a general contractor, turning out tracks for some low, mercenary purpose. For all his genrebending, he writes just one type of song the pop song. His pop, however, comes in a staggering array of shapes and sizes. An a capella number fades into an electric banger. A lilting piano ballad gives way to a peppy guitar tune. No selection feels fake, as Mars takes pains to commit to each composition fully. The singer truly becomes the song, through will, whimsy, or simple practice. Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez into a working musical family, has been performing on stage since
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the age of three. While you and I were still pissing the bed, he was perfecting an Elvis impersonation that would eventually land him a cameo in the immortal Nic Cage feature, Honeymoon in Vegas. The kids a lifer. At 27, hes done his thing for longer than, say, Pearl Jam have been a viable entity. This practice brings with it a polish, a savoir-faire that knows no borders. Thats why I consider Bruno to be a throwback. He tries to please all of the people all of the time, writing tunes for child and retiree alike, for moods happy and sad. We used to call such songs standards. Now they re a total aberration. From this vantage point, Mars is a one-man affront to the forces of demassification. He assembles his pop by apportioning the contents of each tray along the sonic buffet line, sometimes going heavier on the R&B or the digital disco, but never failing to present a balanced plate. His current single, the aforementioned When I Was Your Man, could have been written by Sam Cooke, Burt Bacharach, or, most immediately, Billy Joel. Its a casual summa of soul, R&B, and piano pop, telling a tale thats been told a million times: the regret of love lost. Thankfully, this theme hasn t reached peak oil; itll continue to burn and befuddle and agonize for generations to come. Even if youve lived a charmed or chaste life, and know nothing of the dramas that exist between man and woman, you can still be gripped by the gravity of the solitary figure, confessing his sins and pleading for mercy. Here, Mars is chock full of emotive wails and tortured melisma. But lest he become another American Idler, out to pull a glassshattering Carey or a vertigo-inducing Aguilera, Bruno keeps his spurs at half jangle, so as to let his story shine through. When I Was Your Man is a chronicle of what should have been, offered with no petty excuses or X-rated asides. Look at the lyrics: I should have bought you flowers/And held your hand. This is the stuff of the late Fifties and early Sixties, the material that the Beatles presented on Ed Sullivan before maturing into proper representatives of the counterculture. Apropos of this observation, Ill tell you something I think youll understand: Mars has reclaimed the black-and-white love song of yesteryear, the one where the narrator is contrite and the objective is making things right. When I Was Your Man may presume an innocence that no longer exists. But, for three-and-a-half minutes, it conjures this Eden once more, if only to remind us that not all is lost along with paradise. We can still harbor some civility, some decency. Even after the Fall, were not plunged to the level of beasts, louchely demanding to see that thang pop. We can put our shopping carts away, along with the more lurid of our desires. I dont mean to imply that Mars is some sort of holy rolling celibate. I imagine he has more sex than the varsity football team, and enjoys each encounter thoroughly. But he doesnt need to force the sordid details of every affair onto his next release. In advertising, we have a saying, Dont say it, show it, meaning that some level
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of reserve and nuance is required to square the chemistry between the copy and the visual. The same logic applies to songwriting. If the beat is slinky enough, and the singing is adequately charged, the singer doesnt have to say that hed like to see that thang pop. We simply take such truths to be self-evident. Bruno is particularly good at avoiding this grade of overkill. His first album was called Doo-Wops & Hooligans, and Mars seems a dedicated student of the former form. Doo-wop, after all, was defined by an innocence that wasnt so innocent. That head on your shoulder, that hand entwined in yours, those eyes forever gazing at the stars were mere foreplay for an event that couldnt be discussed in popular song. The great Bruce Springsteen, an eager partaker in doo-wops last dance, described the genre as the sound of raw sex, of silk stockings rustling on backseat upholstery...of bras popping across the USA. Dion Dimucci, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Tony Valli and the Four Seasons they made thangs pop without having to rap about it. When I Was Your Man takes some inspiration from the high notes blasted out on Belmont Avenue. Mars is a veteran performer, but his voice still sounds vaguely adolescent, heavier on falsetto than bass. He can be conceived as the last of the teenagers in love, following not just Dimucci and Valli, but also their target audience the countless little Springsteens and Joels who were cattle prodded into Catholic school canteens and YMHA dances. Joel, like Mars, is a chameleon of musical forms, and an unparalleled popular storyteller. Piano Man takes as its setting a seedy bar, wherein all hope has been abandoned save the promise of a stiff drink. We Didnt Start the Fire looks back at the whole of modern American history, from a time when hope was still alive but not in the best of health. In between, you got the soaring harmonies of Uptown Girl, the wise-guy bravado of You May Be Right, the sober nostalgia of New York State of Mind. And when Billy was looking to score, he neither beat around the bush nor left little to the imagination. Come out, Virginia, dont let me wait was crystal clear in its implications. We knew what Joel was after, but we werent the least bit scandalized. A similar ethos holds true in Brunos latest tune. Its a piano ballad, plunked out loving, by fingers so adept that their prints are found on tracks ranging from B.o.B. s Nothing on You, Travie McCoys Billionaire, and Cee Lo Greens Fuck You each co-written by Mars to Locked Out of Heaven, Marry You, and Grenade each a Mars original. Where Joel, with his river of dreams and his motorcycles ridden in the rain, lent quarter to the testimony of Doo-Wops & Hooligans, Mars took the ecumenical feeling one station further. His discography is Doo-Wops & Hooligans & Motowns Greatest Hits. (& New Wave Revisited.) (& Tuff Gong Defanged.) (& Wedding and Bar Mitzvah Approved.) Mars combines
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Joel with Bob Marley and Michael Jackson, then weaves in Elvis and Sting. He is, as pop critic Jon Caramanica has dubbed him, a universal donor. From the universal, we drill down to the singular. When I Was Your Man is a special track because it cuts across the grain of both the national and the musical mood. Here in end-times America, no one wants to give a fellow a break, even if his infraction is relatively minor. This ethic has insinuated itself in popular songwriting, perhaps most demonstrably in the work of Taylor Swift. Fifteen boyfriends in five years, and each ex gets a fuck you anthem worthy of a NOW symposium. Taylor is never at fault except when shes felled by a technicality: e.g., that time when she knew you were trouble, but pursued you nonetheless. (In other words, I made a mistake, but only because youre a gigantic asshole.) Contrast that with Brunos repeated appeals I know its probably much too late/To apologize for my mistakes; Though it hurts, Ill be the first/To say I was wrong. He holds that wrong for several notes, as if to underscore his error from here to eternity. Then he goes so far as to pivot his plot, and to wish his ex well with her new man: I hope he buys you flowers/I hope he holds your hand. Are you fucking kidding me? Were my tear ducts not dried husks of nonemotion, theyd issue a lachrymose cascade of catharsis. This is great pop songwriting, flashed by a consummate professional. But how is it different from Mars previous material? Well, Id say that When I Was Your Man ups the ante on Brunos earlier wagers. Where before he was absurdly melodic and instantly accessible, here he sees those two virtues, and adds an impossible poignancy. Its his Shes Always A Woman, just with Joels criticism of his counterpart turned inward. Its a mea culpa that isnt all-about-me, issued with absolutely no caveats or barriers to entry. If you like pop music, you will like Bruno Mars. Just as, in years past, if you liked pop music, you would like Billy Joel. Should my analogy seem a bit opportunistic, remember that its been written into Mars catalog from the get go. His first single was called Just the Way You Are, a title borrowed from one of Joels most popular songs. Context undisclosed, itd appear terrifically ballsy for a young songwriter to dash into the pop game with a piano-based track that alludes to the work of one of the best-selling artists of all time. But when you skim Brunos biography, you see that, by the time Doo-Wops & Hooligans entered the Billboard charts, hed paid more dues than a hard-luck bluesman. Thered been the Little Elvis period, the endless touring with the family band, a move to Los Angeles to pursue solo stardom, a failed record deal with Motown, the formation of The Smeezingtons production team, and a years-long period of writing tracks for lesser artists (Brandy!, Adam Levine!!, Flo Rida!!!). The breakthrough came with a trifecta of airy hooks, first on Nothing on You,

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then on Billionaire, and finally on Fuck You. By the time Mars released his first album, he was already through the turnstile, poised to inherit Joels flame. So, is Unorthodox Jukebox 2013s The Stranger? Of course not. But Mars may have something approaching a Stranger within him. Hes proven to be the entertainer as Joel had it, the idol of [his] age, another serenader backed by another nondescript, long-haired band. What Bruno needs to do now is focus on two things that likely seem at odds: maintaining his consistency and continuing his growth. On consistency, let me say this: Mars has already written (or co-written) ten Top 40 singles. Just 25 more and hell match Joels remarkable ledger of success. As to growth, I neednt say anything, because When I Was Your Man shows it. Its a song without hyperbole or metaphor. Bruno doesnt have to tell us that hed catch a grenade for his girl; this message is implicit in the composition. Mars has matured by several degrees on his sophomore album, and theres no reason to believe that this trajectory wont perpetuate itself. Clearly, Ive taken more space than necessary to hurrah Bruno Mars, recall Billy Joel, and assail my fellow Americans. But before we drift off down the river of dreams, we need to take a moment to call out the white lies put forth by our respective subjects. Simply put, Unorthodox Jukebox is a mendacious title for a Bruno Mars album. Brunos jukebox is decidedly orthodox and thats precisely why we feed it our coins. His facility with verse-chorus-verse, with hummable tunes hemmed to fit the 3:30 bar, is his defining characteristic. Forget the references to reggae, hip-hop, R&B, or disco. To quote another worthy piano man, Its still rock and roll to me. Which brings us to Joel, an artist whos well overdue for a renaissance. Lets be properly apologetic. Us indie rock writers have abused poor Billy, painting him as a silly song and dance man, keen to pen the Big Hits of the Reagan era, then to devote his golden years to driving his Cadillac-ac-ac-ac off a series of Long Island thoroughfares. This was another lie, perpetrated by the critical community, but enabled by Joels own tendency to undersell himself. Billy was always an order of magnitude smarter than he let on. And both distant and recent history has shown that you misjudge him at your own peril. Think him bloated by inertia, addled by injury, or carrying a blood-alcohol level normally reserved for Boris Yeltsin, and hell show up at your charity concert and blow the Who, the Rolling Stones, and Eric Clapton off stage. Joel has that inimitable way with words and melody. It doesnt come around often. Bruno Mars excites me, in some minor but genuine fashion, because he evinces a hint of this brilliance. He can bring the no-filler, perfectly proportioned pop song back to the Billboard pole position. Locked Out of Heaven and When I Was Your Man
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are his two best singles to date. The latter opens with the elegiac piano rumble of New York State of Mind, then segues into the romantic post-mortems of Shes Always a Woman. Top 40 hasnt heard such grace in the longest time. Yes, theres a limit to the number of jejune Billy Joel puns a Sunday morning blogger can make. And I think I may have reached my quota. But I turn to Billy because he fits our opening narrative of Decline and Fall. From the late Seventies through the mid-to-late Eighties, there was no greater mainstream pop star (except for Michael Jackson). Come the Nineties and the Aughts, there was no greater pop casualty (except for Michael Jackson). Joel seemed a vestige, a burst appendix from a forgotten vaudeville circuit. But as the grace has drained out of everyday American life, his contributions to the national songbook have restaked their claim to respectability. When towers fell and coastlines were ravaged, the people in need or in mourning didnt listen to Radiohead or Kanye West or Lady Gaga. They listened to Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen and U2 artists that have taken a hit on the indices of cool, but find redemption in the hands of those who like actual songs, not modernist gestures of cut-and-paste, adorned with a meat dress or a smug sense of superiority. Bruno Mars heralds a return to the basic but glorious art of popular songwriting. As such, he reveals the lie in the maxim issued by F. Scott Fitzgerald, perhaps the foremost author from a previous Lost Generation. Fitzgerald famously wrote that there are no second acts in American lives. The 21st Century is more or less an extended refutation of this statement, with sequel begetting comeback and reunion sanctioning revival. Everything gets rebranded, with AIG becoming Chartis before becoming AIG once again. If the central symbol of American irresponsibility can reclaim its name, cant rock and roll? Cant ordinary folks expect to hear something with true democratic reach when they turn on the radio? This is what Bruno Mars portends: songs for all. In the past, the kids had so many tunes that hes sold them on the open market, thus amping his nascent profile. In the future, I think he ll keep his best work for himself, but only so that he might share it with the masses, one release at a time. Sit tight, America. Bruno Mars, like Billy Joel before him, actually knows what hes doing. Alas, I celebrate Mars with heavy fanfare because charting pop is typically graded on what I callously call a retard curve, meaning that high marks are accorded to anything that resonates beyond the coven of thirteen-year-old girls who control the Billboard rankings. Bruno cannot alter the deterministic forces of history. But he can make us feel a little bit better as the areas we inhabit devolve into a terribly humid, wind-blighted, post-apocalyptic hellscape. The American obituary is on ice, but its cork wont be plucked from the bottle for quite some time. Leave it for distant
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generations to see that thang pop. For now, find pride in the fact that we gave the world rock and roll. Ill take Little Richard over a calculus-ridden Roman aqueduct and Bob Dylan over a British war of imperialism. The international community is going to miss us when were gone, drones and all. But until our passing is made official, weve got to be sure not to use the past tense too longingly. Theres still time and cause to admire the present. Lets try to do it with some grace. (February 24, 2013) Raekwon, Mic Flips Raekwons Mic Flips is a case of stakes being clear rather than high. By any honest accounting, its a short cut from a throwaway album, released to so little fanfare that even the mixtape blogs werent particularly keen to acknowledge its existence. The song comes across as a two-minute improvisation, in which Rae asks the DJ to put forth a hot beat then bull-charges his way through a concussive cluster of bars, pausing for neither breath nor the administration of mercy. The DJ in question is DJ Fresh, a Bay Area maestro who for the past several years has been consumed by a clever freelance project, wherein he recruits MCs to man the mic for his proprietary series of Tonite Show features. Different nite, different MC. And tonite just happened to be the Chefs turn at the stove. Here, hes cast himself in a kind of Dinner: Impossible, agreeing to work with another mans ingredients, prep staff, and cutlery. This being Raekwon, however, you knew hed be cooking on an open flame. You can change kitchens, collaborators, or decades, but the song remains the same: The Chef always brings straight fire. Before I delve too deeply into the sort of hip-hop lingo that threatens to humiliate a middle-aged white man such as myself, let me reveal my rationale for extolling Raes virtues. My brief can be boiled down to two motivating factors. First, weve just survived a weekend in which Lil Wayne was effectively pronounced dead by everyone from TMZ to Pitchfork, despite the fact that he was suffering from an eminently curable malady, known colloquially as the drank tremors. (The doctor in me has already diagnosed Rick Ross with the same condition.) This begs a few words on rap and celebrity. No, not hip-hop and celebrity; I said rap and I meant it. It seems to me that, somewhere along the line, institutional forces decided that hip-hop was a more impressive and expansive term than rap, and therefore ordered all franchises to revise their vocabularies. This was daft and unnecessary, as the genre was never better than when its shining stars were spitters, simply ambling up to the mic and going to
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town. The emphasis on flow and lyrical integrity didnt preclude the deployment of a banging beat, but the ultimate point ran parallel to a basic principle: Even if the electric grid were to be torn asunder, and the MC was left with no backing track or means of amplification, he could still hold his own in a freestyle battle. When hip-hop was rap, you had to be smart and you had to be street. Raekwon is both. Thats why hes lasted two decades at the top of the rap game, with no indulgent fall-off or goneHollywood drama. Reason two behind todays Chef salad is a variable caught up in this question of time. Simply put, Mic Flips left me laid low by that most scurrilous of succubae, nostalgia. As regular readers of this blog will note, Im not the type who keeps his eyes forever fixed on the horizon. I enjoy looking back, presumably because the past has already done its dirty deeds, and can hurt me no more. (No less, either.) That said, I prefer to refract old experiences through the lens of new music, perhaps in hope of finding some simulacrum of the regenerative spirit that once pulsed through my headphones. With Mic Flips, my orientation is spun in reverse. I couldnt give a fuck about the future, be it the near-term prospects of rap or the long-term prospects of your lowly author. Raekwon takes me back to 1993 and 1994, when I had my first musical awakening. This came via Wu-Tang Clans Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), a piece of intelligence that Ill be loath to admit to my grandkids, should my privates still prove fertile. I imagine that many of my contemporaries in the indie press tasted the elixir of revelation via shaggier or stonier intercessors. I recall fondly my one undergraduate year at an elite Eastern university, during which I was surrounded by fey Caucasians who listened to Guided By Voices and Jethro Tull. (For the record, I was excommunicated from this college for the most ghetto of reasons: not paying my tuition bill.) The peckerwood trust-funder in the dorm room adjacent to mine used to blast Bungle In the Jungle at all hours of the night, presumably to drown out the screams of the Asian co-eds he was in the midst of sexually assaulting. By the end of the first semester, I was angling to shove Ian Andersons flute up the kids ass. The only thing that got me through my freshman year was the reminder of where I d come from a rusting city in industrial North Jersey and how disappointed my relatives would be if the first of their clan to go away to college flamed out like a little bitch. For motivation and balm, I turned to what little pop music I had at my disposal. I owed three CDs: Nas Illmatic, Led Zeppelin IV, and Wu-Tangs Enter the WuTang. Thankfully, this unlikely trio did the job. I escaped with my pride, if not a diploma or much in the way of transferable credits. The thing about Rae, and about rap music in general, is that he teleports me to the period that preceded this collegiate fiasco. Ive already used this space to recount the
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indignity of being robbed on a crosstown bus, a jack that cost me my shitty-ass Sanyo cassette player and the Nas tape held therein. But crosstown buses werent the only ones I rode as a young man. More frequently, I was a passenger on ramshackle yellow school buses, which rolled my various sports teams to all manner of interscholastic events. This is where Rae and Wu-Tang really resonate with me as the soundtrack to a youth fecklessly sacrificed to the pains and pleasures of basketball. Many 15 or 16 years olds are condemned to play the part of poseur, particularly in the domain of music. They listen to Chicago drill music whilst walking the campus of a sylvan prep school, pump Scandinavian death metal whilst sitting in the bleachers of a progressive charter academy, or sing along to the greatest hits of their parents generation whilst plotting their estrangement from small-town public education. If my teen years were blessed in any regard, it was in the alignment of sound and sensibility. For me, music wasnt an escape; it was an inducement. Wu-Tang put you in a knives-out mindset: Go hard or go home. This was precisely the push I needed to matriculate from timid boy to slightly less timid young man. Raekwon, GZA, Ghostface Killah, ODB, Method Man, Nas they became surrogate fathers to an unmoored city kid who knew nothing but homework and basketball. Twenty years down the line, Im back to file the paternity suit, partially in gratitude, partially in shame. Autobiography notwithstanding, the appeal I want to make is to the very soul of the rap idiom. With Wayne in convulsions, Kanye in a kilt, Jay-Z in a tuxedo, and Drake in delirium, I cannot look upon the genre as anything other than adrift. Tunechi s near-death experience serves as a convenient microcosm for hip-hops own flight from vitality. On Friday night, as the various tabloids posted their shoddy news briefs, we lost the ability to distinguish between the real and the fantastical. Wayne was in critical condition, then in a medically induced coma, then receiving last rites. His mother was flying into L.A. from Louisiana to authorize the discontinuation of life support. Moments later, Weezy was alive and well, perhaps even watching the Syracuse-Georgetown basketball game. Cedars-Sinai was thus the site of a tragedy and a farce, played simultaneously to a confused audience. This was some Michael Jackson shit, only with doctors far more caring and competent than Conrad Murray. The great man was reportedly undone by a weakness for supraphysiological doses of cough syrup. Only that reportedly cant carry much weight, as the contemporary outlets of journalism are no better than realtime pamphleteers, going to press on intrigue and opinion rather than verifiable fact. Waynes health scare was a terrible moment for rap music: an ambulance chase devolved into a grave watch. No one was concerned with the professional integrity of the MC on the examining table. He was now a tatted-up conduit for drug and drink, a caricature of the postmodern urban male, duly aliened for the purposes of spectacle. Weezy was visited by money men and protgs, most notably Drake, a middle-class,
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Canadian rapper whos current single is called Started From the Bottom. Really, Jimmy Brooks? DeGrassi: The Next Generation is the new definition of the bottom? Thats just laughable. But probably not as laughable as another hip-hop fiction, which presents Ricky Rozay, former prison guard in good standing, as the games most ascendant drug kingpin turned MC. These blatantly casual fibs dont seem to bother the vast majority of hip-hop enthusiasts, who tend to revel in their heroes Lamborghinis and Louie V., in magnums of Krug and heaping platters of seafood. (Not to sound ignorant, but if youve lived in a black neighborhood, you know the hottest joint in the ZIP code is Red Lobster. Ive attended Sweet 16s and wedding receptions at Red Lobster, each time convinced that I was dining like a king.) Im not a fan of this runaway materialism, but it seems to me the lesser of the problems under review. The truly ruinous influence on contemporary hip-hop is the absence of truth. Im not so naive as to think that every line on every track rapped by the likes of Rakim, Parrish Smith, and Inspectah Deck was based on observable criteria. But, by and large, these MCs found a story and stuck to it. There were few, if any, internal inconsistencies. They kept their flash to a relatively modest kilowatt level. And their jewelry rarely swagged beyond the filigree of Cuban links. Which brings us back to Raekwon. Hes been hitting me up with Mafioso rap since well before I had a functional understanding of the term. In all that time and here were talking of decades I never got the sense that the Chef was lying to me. Rae just doesnt push dubious product. You know what youre going to get on every tape: head-down, hoodie-up street knowledge, issued in singular voice over a RZAhelmed (or RZA-influenced) production. To some, this is a mark of stasis; to others, a standard from which rap never should have strayed. To me, its a gesture of continuity, as valuable now as it was a generation ago. Hearing Mic Flips, I hear my teenage years, remixed for a new millennium. Even while Rae steamrolls forward, the track stunts and stammers, like Liquid Swords chopped up in a digital processor, then squeezed out of a Jambox. The sound is at once inimitable and inevitable a fait accompli that still registers as fresh, with or without the attendant DJ. RZA is a sonic mastermind, and he framed Wu-Tang with wizardly ingenuity. But each of his MCs was a warlock in his own right. In fact, they werent his MCs but a loose confederation of Staten Islands finest storytellers. Method Man, the first to pop, had a gruff, alluring insistence. Ghostface Killah, perhaps the most accessible of the Clan rappers, had an upfront, no-consonant flow that could adorn a straight soul sample or an electric experiment. Raekwon, though, was the spitter you wanted to go to war with. Nobody else in Wu-Tang or hip-hop at large could match his staccato precision. It was blow to the head after blow to the head. Each verse left you seeing stars.
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Mic Flips is similarly celestial, even if it runs its course before its author can shift into interstellar overdrive. Like I said, the track is about two minutes long about the length of a classic Wu-Tang skit or aside. This time constraint might lead you to believe that Rae is in some sort of rush, anxious to cram every last syllable into his meager allotment of clock. This is not the case. The Chef lets the track simmer for close to a minute before he begins his rap. After spitting his peace, he takes an express departure, leaving the beat to fade out towards oblivion. We get one verse, delivered with the sort of even-keeled intensity thats largely removed itself from the rap game. Rae speaks so fast, and with such lingual dexterity, that his lyrics manage a diamondtight compression. Heres the transcript from his first 10 seconds of rapping: The rsums a rifle/My uniforms is trifle/Ha ha I pull my burner out and goin up on Michael/Wiz kid high profile DAmato/Rap like the VS/The Chef got his ratchet out on every bottle. I acknowledge that I might have misheard a word or five; this stuff is only built for Cuban linx, and Im a well-domesticated, white-collar cat. What I mean to underscore is not just the lyrical imagery, but the pace. The passage above amounts to a nearly four-word-per-second aural assault. Yes, its cryptic, but you dont need to understand every reference to feel bruised and battered. Wu-Tang has always been about leaving a mark rather than a discernible message. (One could argue that the mark was the message.) The Shaolin MCs werent just battling the beat; they were battling themselves. That was the true genius behind RZAs plan (GZA excepted). Amidst the showcase of 36 Chambers, each act had to jockey for airtime, rapping in competition as well as concert. How do you stand out when youre housed within a full stable of thoroughbreds? You bring your best to every track, and hope that your voice carries. Raekwons voice has carried through the speakers, the streets, and his idioms myriad changes in style. Im in no position to assume the role of honest arbiter, lending equal credence and patience to every hip-hop form. Im partial to the music that came out between, say, 1992 and 1995. Rae was among the shining stars of this era, both as a charter member of a supergroup and as an ambitious lone gunman. His continuing relevance, mixed with the baked-in wages of the calendar, scares up a kind of March Madness. The first thing I did after hearing the initial Mic Flips stream was to play it again, at louder volume. The second thing I did was to search my storage closet for a basketball. Ill be damned if a minute-long rumble with cocaine rap didnt cue muscle memories derived from the mid-90s. It was like Proust and his madeleine, only with high-top sneakers and Fab 5 gym shorts. What I mean to emphasize is that Raekwons presence is indelibly real. He doesnt conjure false headlines, memories of what never was, or dreams of what could never
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be. Cue up a Chefs special, and Im back on a bus in 1994, en route to a rout. My high school basketball team was historically terrible. We had severe problems of academic ineligibility and impromptu attrition, forces that often left us with only seven or eight players on the active roster. We were frequently outmanned, regularly overmatched, and always terrified of what our coach, a former Marine, would do to us if we put in a lackluster performance. To armor myself for the rigors of cant-win competition, Id ramp up for each game by listening to Wu-Tang. The music would get me so hyped that Id regularly alight from the bus in a mania of the first order, ready to ball like a slower, smaller, weaker, and whiter version of Michael Jordan. My teams 1994 season commenced in Fort Lee, New Jersey, a town that owned a share of the George Washington Bridge and, with it, a hint of New York market glamour. At the time, the so-called Bridgemen had an All-State shooting guard, whom my coach had asked me to defend. In anticipation of this showdown, I work myself into an absolute frenzy, channeling untold parcels of energy from my WuTang cassette tape, which looped Protect Ya Neck, Shame On a N**ga, Clan In the Front, Da Mystery of Chessboxin, and Wu-Tang Clan Aint Nuthin to Fuck Wit. Mere moments before tip-off, as I was taking my layups and perfecting my game face, Coach pulled me aside and said, Tone, their shooting guard is just a little too tall for you. Were switching you to point. This proved to be a problem. Id been preparing to take on an All-Star; now Id be watching a no-name. I was far too amped to accept the demotion, and stormed the court in a wide-eyed fervor. We lost the tip and the ball was quickly passed to Fort Lees point guard. Shortly after he crossed the half-court line, I pounced on him like a finely coiled jungle cat. I stripped the rock from his left hand and flicked it southward, toward the goal. Alone on a breakaway, I swear to Christ I heard Wu-Tang in my ear, imploring me to slam that shit home. This was not the wisest of counsels, as Im 5 7 and Italian-American, not a combo that portends high-altitude flights. About 10 feet from the basket, I abruptly pulled up my wheels, the jump clearly predicated on the notion that my extended arm would rise above the rim. As it happened, I came to my senses while aloft and tried to lay the ball in rather than dunk it. This last-second modification had dire and unintended consequences. The Spalding slipped from my grip with cannonball urgency, projecting about 30 feet in the air before landing in the cheerleader-strewn no-mans-land that sat behind the backboard. Id flubbed the first possession of our season. And conditions would rarely improve in the subsequent 25 games. Despite this embarrassment, I continued to listen to Wu-Tang before every contest, leaning on my headphones for athletic inspiration. When playing in our home gym, my team got to select its entrance music, always a point of controversy. We were essentially split down the middle between white kids and black kids. The white kids
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typically lobbied for Pantera. As such, I spent more than a few Tuesday nights jumping, stretching, and dribbling to Cowboys From Hell, which, truth be told, did nothing for me. When the black contingent won control of the turntable, wed come out to Nas, Method Man, or some other rapper of New York pedigree. This was the vibe I preferred. Drum machines simply fit the basketball milieu better than electric guitars. (Think of the sports built-in bouncing, as well as the echoes engendered by gymnasium acoustics.) The tail end of my playing career happened to coincide with the release of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Before my last home game, I was afforded the privilege of selecting our out-from-the-lockers anthem, and I chose Raekwons Guillotine (Swordz). This banger helped shake the melancholy from my mood, but it frightened the parents whod assembled in the stands for Senior Night. (In the event, mine sat out the festivities, as was their hallowed tradition.) The score keeper cut the record off before it finished, and we labored through our pregame warm-ups to steely silence. Even amid these uneasy timbres, I had the Guillotine beat in my head, where it remained through the ring of the opening whistle. Raekwons music just insinuates itself in your miasma. It wraps its fingers around your throat and squeezes hard as a motherfucker. A generation removed from the genesis, Im still gasping for air. I have neither the space nor the heart to pull you through all of the trapdoors that Mic Flips has opened. My basketball jones was acute, protracted, and genuine. The episodes of comedy and tragedy that the sport catalyzed could fill volumes. For now, let me give you the abridged version, in which basketball and rap music came together in potent partnership, defining my teenage years and unwittingly costing me a shot at an Ivy League education. (Perhaps Im being unreasonable or conceited, but I think I might have been able to slide into, say, Cornell if I hadnt faced nightly practices, bi-weekly road trips, and the unique brand of exhaustion that comes with running a motion offense.) My on-court mortifications were many, including, but not limited to, the time I flagrantly fouled an airborne Filipino kid from Palisades Park, thus sparking a miniriot, and the occasion on which I threw a D-Wade-to-LeBronstyle touchdown pass that somehow missed its target and hit the alarm trigger on the gyms fire exit. These incidents being what they were that is, memories made lighter by the passage of time they function as the giggling foil to my prouder, more dignified moments. The following admission perhaps gets at the preening parade of disappointment that is my adult existence, but I make it with no shame or apology. The single greatest moment of my life, bar none, was hitting a three-pointer at the buzzer to beat the Old Tappan Golden Knights in a provincial holiday tournament, triggering a general storm
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of the court by our teams red-and-white retinue. The runner-up was an extended episode, set on the Garfield Avenue Courts in Jersey City. Id been an asphalt rat all summer, hanging on the periphery of the playing grounds, hoping to get a shot at playing in an A-game. Eventually, the regulars took to calling me Ghost, because I was the only white guy who ever visited Garfield. After months of watching and balling on the side with other second-tier talents, I got the chance to step in for a winded player. Soon, I was getting regular minutes. Then, at the end of the summer, I had my moment of clarity. The boys let me run point in a meaningless, 5-on-5 fullcourt scrimmage. I truly felt like Caesar crossing the Rubicon, like Id passed some unambiguous divide and was now on the expressway to glory. Bringing the ball up the court, I was, time and again, infused with the most gratifying, all-enveloping calm imaginable. I figure it was as close to a heroin high as Im ever going to get, provided I dont shortly surrender to the whims of abject desperation. More important, the feeling lasted for a full hour. I know this because it was soundtracked by Wu-Tangs 36 Chambers. We put the tape in the boom box as we paired up into teams and balled until the cassette spun through. When the album gave up its Ghost, so did we. It was simple, casual, and street. It was also beauty and truth. I sincerely apologize to the three readers I have left at this late juncture. Under normal circumstances, I dont have the patience to tolerate indulgent plunges through the looking glass, back to when men were men and women wore bangles. Every dipshit with a working keyboard thinks his story is interesting, that the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s were a golden epoch that Western Civilization will never have the good fortune to revisit. Im not of the opinion that my youth just happened to coincide with an apogee of moral posture or artistic achievement. My time on this earth is dictated by another, hopefully wiser Creature, and the entrance music which He or She selected for me was beyond my control. This all being a matter of chance, Im eternally grateful that Raekwon fell into a privileged slot on my cosmic roulette wheel. What hope is there for those whose foundational musical documents were written by the Spin Doctors or Color Me Badd? I pity those poor bastards, who, to this day, fill the seats at 311 concerts and alt-rock radio revues. Wu-Tang may never have developed into the Beatles or the Stones, but my generation didnt need a Beatles or a Stones. Were not the fucking Baby Boomers, and what I treasure about the Clan is that they allowed for a certain age separation between pre and frre. Raekwons Guillotine had to be yanked from the PA system because it clashed with the sensibilities of my elders, rock-honed Caucasians and Motown-addled AfricanAmericans alike. Wu-Tang and Mafioso rap gave a small sliver of my generation its own set of fingerprints. For one shining moment, wed finally managed to move beyond Sgt. Peppers and Physical Graffiti. This wasnt rock or disco, R&B or pop. It was rap. And it was ours.

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Yes, Im being a touch precious and a great deal more dramatic than the gods of good taste might ordain. But Mic Flips has reversed the register, spitting out cold, hard cash in surprising directions. You know whats more impressive than Young Money? Old money. In societies the world over, the patrician class maintains a teeming contempt for the nouveau riche. What I admire most about Raekwon is that hes above the pitfalls and prejudices of his station. Instead of settling into the stone and pomp of Mount Rushmore rap, he works with all comers, from Kanye to DJ Fresh, from the Game to Justin Bieber. (Seriously, follow that link: the Chef spits on a Runaway Love remix, with Justin singing the hook in his high-pitched sparrow chirp.) Im not going to argue that hip-hop is bereft of such chancy collaborations, but, if youll excuse the semantics, perhaps rap is. Far too frequently, guest verses are dialed in via the nearest Samsung Galaxy, painting the very portrait of expedience. This is a Galaxy without stars, even if Wayne or Jay are repping their bars-for-hire service, whereby Kevin Rudolf or Justin Timberlake get the dregs of a thoroughly tapped barrel. The Chef is different in that he never comes undercooked. Though his menu may not be as extensive as some of the games more plasticine rappers, Rae, in the argot of Brad Hamilton, serves no fries before their time. The oil is always scalding hot. Lest it appear that Im flipping the fishscales back to the calibrations of a bygone era, let me say that rap still has a lot going for it. Even with the pool of paparazzi that surround Yeezy and Drake, even with the spate of bloodless guest verses, the form, like the sizzurp-stricken Wayne, is alive and kicking. Just yesterday, Top Dawg Entertainment debuted the remix of Kendrick Lamars Bitch Dont Kill My Vibe, featuring a star turn from Jay-Z. Im not one of the impulsive hipsters who regards Lamar as Lord and Savior, poised to redeem an entire idiom. But when I hear a young buck come hard, clearly gunning for that Number One spot, Ive got to give the boy credit. Kendricks second verse on the remix is magisterial. It complements the dazzling, razor-sharp Hov intro, thus showing that a junior MC can simultaneously respect his elders and offer a new hope. The cover art for the single is perfect: Its a black and white photo of the late-model Michael Jordan huddling astride early-period Kobe Bryant. Its legend meeting legend, #23 already having secured his rings, #8 burning to follow suit. Basketball and rap music are linked by circumstances logical and lamentable. Again, I dont mean to overstate my credentials on the inner-city beat, but, growing up, many of my classmates internalized the notion that the fastest, most glorious launch point from their humble station was either athletics or entertainment. This quasi-literal one-in-a-million shot came to be perceived as a childs best chance. But what are the true stakes of one in a million? 999,999 failures for every success. This is not
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something we like to think about while watching American Idol or big-upping the latest mixtape phenomenon from Brooklyn. But the illusions of fame and the delusions of grandeur be they the idea that you can follow in Jay-Zs footsteps or slam dunk a basketball from the foul line ruin more lives than they save. Thats why I have zero tolerance for the hold tight to your dreams horseshit that I often see called-out in the business literature. If I held tight to my dreams, Id probably still be at the Garfield Courts, offering furtive sexual favors to the current crop of ballers. A mans gotta make his rent somehow, even if it insults his self-respect. Now theres a mine shaft we neednt explore. Should we feel tempted by the dark side, we can simply pop in a Raekwon tape and listen to the mans street epics. Rae covers the kingpins and their casualties, rarely coloring either brand of character in rosy hues. Only Built For Cuban Linx requires a series of sequels because the food chain has a way of updating itself. Kingpin and casualty turn over, with big man cut low and shorty catching a growth spurt, only to repeat the cycle. Thats how the mic flips: One minute, youre the boss. The next, youre dead or in jail. Rae tells these tales with writerly conviction, flashing a poets eye for detail, a Homeric talent for epithet, and a Shakespearean sense of tragedy. I leave you, however, with a quick burst of comedy. When Wu-Tang is the soundtrack to your life, and your life happens to be feeble, pathetic, and basketball-oriented, you get no shortage of amusing anecdotes. My favorite dates to late 1993, when Enter the Wu-Tang was all the rage and I was in the fevers of my first season of competitive basketball. The game was our home-opener; our opponents, an all-black squad from one of New Jerseys mid-major cities. The stands were packed, largely on account of the allure of the away team, which touted two players who would eventually play pro ball. My side made an eleventh-hour decision to come out to Protect Ya Neck. The player whod selected the cut had failed to bring his Wu-Tang tape to the gym, so a call went out for a usable recording. I had Enter on a terribly worn Maxell, and offered it up. It was deemed playable after a five-second sampling of the chosen single. Unfortunately, our haste had prevented us from running through the full song. When Protect Ya Neck was pumped through the PA system, a weird, operatic feedback seemed to be adorning the rap. Id taped Enter over my uncles recording of Wagners Tannhuser, and now Herr Richard and Sir RZA were battling it out in a kind of accidental Gtterdmmerung. It sounded a bit like the Thrones H.A.M., about 20 years premature and far too raw for the common ear. My tape was swiftly plucked from the deck, to be replaced by Metallica or Public Enemy. My coach was handed the Maxell and proceeded to toss it at me with a smiling flick of What the fuck was that? Both players and fans therefore made me as the faulty DJ. I shrugged it off and prepared for an extended period on the bench.

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Then our starting point guard got injured. And our back-up went ice cold. We were down by 25 points in the second quarter, and had no intention of storming back. Coach gestured for me to check into the game, just to give our first team a little tremor of excitement. In those days, I was known as Wheels, due to a) my tendency to run amok and b) the ugly-ass, blood-red sneakers that my uncle had stolen for me from his stock position at Stans Sports Center in Hoboken. In a gym that had fallen fairly quiet, Coach yelled, Wheels, take #32! Number 32 was one of the future pros, and hearing my coachs instruction, the big man greeted me with grinning condescension. He said, Wheels, Ima bout to show you some aero-DY-namics. Then he added, Them shoes is as fucked up as ya Wu-Tang tape. From there, the insults were physical rather than verbal, climaxing with me being dunked over by McDonalds All-American Tim Thomas. (Really, it was more of a dunk around, utterly unlike the batten-down-the-hatches jam LeBron James threw down on Jason Terry last night.) Ive long since surrendered the belief that I might escape this essay with my pride. I will, however, aim to retire with a statement of pertinent purpose. In the end, Mic Flips is a junior-length sprint for the staircase. Its a bolt for the exit, a dash from the scene of the crime, as all good Mafioso rap must be. The true Don cannot be caught; he either gets away clean or pays for his improprieties with his life. Thats how the story goes, at least. Whats ironic is that this ostensible getaway track has pulled me back into the light traumas of my wonder years. Rather than running from, I m running to. This is partially a function of idiot nostalgia, but its also beholden to the tug of irrepressible memory. Individual instincts define the scope of the song. Which is to say that, here, the listener flips the mic, not the MC. Faced with a two-minute banger of modest and clear stakes, Ive created a monster of mythological proportions. This just goes to show that, whenever Raekwon steps to the mic, stakes is high. Perennially high. The Chef wouldnt serve it any other way, even when hes subject to the flames of another mans burner. For this, I salute him. Effort, skill, focus, consistency, commitment, curiosity thats what keeps Rae fresh. Ill never back down from the argument that hes one of the all-time greats. With twenty years worth of evidence now sitting in the archives, this should hardly be a point of contention. Raes case is open and shut, and the sentence has been adjudicated not to the MC but to his fans: Were Wu for life. And only the most cowardly among us have any interest in filing an appeal. (March 19, 2013)

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Deerhunter, Monomania Deerhunters Monomania is the most rock and roll rock and roll song Ive heard in quite some time. No doubt youve noticed the (apparent) redundancy in my opening statement, what with the genre name rendered adjective and noun in rapid succession. This compound descriptive may cause the crinklings of contempt or the sneers of editorial revision. So let me underscore the conviction that stands as the crux of my argument: I will make many mistakes in this essay; that first sentence, however, is not one of them. To get a sense of what the rock and roll rock and roll label entails, we need to understand the difference between redundancy and repetition. Redundancy is, for the most part, accidental a motion made twice when one time wouldve sufficed. Repetition, on the other hand, is intentional. You repeat for emphasis, for intrigue, for posterity, for rhythm and meter, for shits and giggles. The doubling, tripling, or quintupling down is executed as a tactic, offering a line a little more length or a groove a little more resonance. This is a motive both ancient and immediate. Repetition has been part of musical culture since the period preceding time immemorial, when man was more in tune with his animal spirit. Consider the swiftfooted epithets of Homer or the lingering leitmotifs of Wagner, each of which signified something familiar amid a larger swirl of odyssey and bombast. Rock and roll was different, though, in that it lifted repetition to an art form. It promoted repetition from underling to boss, from captain to colonel. Indeed, if rock and roll had to be reduced to two hallmarks, the winning pair would likely be syncopation and repetition. When certain folks encountered these forces in action, they heard the sound of hopped-up madness. I can forgive my grandparents, both sets now gone the way of all flesh, for thinking rock and roll a raunchy, uncouth, atavistic mess. They wouldnt have used these adjectives, of course. But the gist of their position would have been correct: Rock and roll is a raunchy, uncouth, atavistic mess. And thats precisely why I love it. Its also why I love Monomania. The song is a brash affront to those who put their faith in soft and silly love songs. It doesnt preclude the listener from appreciating the generous appeals of lite rock, but it does temper that appreciation over the anvil of good taste. For the past several years, Ive been bandying about a basic, seemingly unimportant question: Can one make peace with punk and prog, rap and disco, pop and metal, and hold all forms as inherently equal? That is, can one assess a genre or a song without the taint of prejudice or condescension? At the turn of the decade, my answer would have been a resounding no. You had to pick a side, grab a sword, and defend your turf. In the intervening years, Ive become a great deal more relativistic. I can now hear special providence in the rise of most pop singles, from Grimes
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Genesis to Brad Paisleys Accidental Racist to Psys Gentleman. This should not suggest that I admire all songs equally, or even that I admire all songs. It should simply suggest that three-chord rock and roll doesnt have a monopoly on truth and beauty. To put it in vulgar terms, I now feel that one can enjoy, say, fun. or Passion Pit without being a total pussy. Still, certain principles have remained lodged in the back of my reptile brain. At a given point, even a curious listener grows tired of chasing the faddish pulses and ripples of contemporary pop. You want a song to stand for something other than feckless frivolity or treacly inspiration. You want a song to distract and disturb. To channel these disruptive powers, the song must be honest and intense. It has to have the nerve to march down Main Street in a leather jacket and jeans, not to defer to every convenient detour or to surrender to the reigning synthetic vogue. Monomania meets these criteria with aplomb. It begins with the primitive fury of a Stooges tune and ends with the mayhem of an industrial accident. The effect is one of gimme danger and gimme oblivion in happy tandem. The wisdom of the track comes in acknowledging the difference between these two conditions. Monomania repeats itself, but its not the least bit redundant. Every second of the song is ashake with the wild mercury of top-tier rock and roll. I used to write a blog named Singles On Speed, an mp3 emporium founded on the notion that the Ramones were an enormously influential band, just not influential enough. At the time of S.O.S.s first post, Id become disgusted with indie rock, mostly because I had only a tenuous handle on what indie rock entailed. I saw laurels being accorded to Animal Collective and Ariel Pink, acts which I considered fey and indulgent. To me, it seemed ironic that indie had evolved into a platform for the two idioms that erstwhile alternative types had regarded as the most unsavory: prog rock and disco. I was convinced that rock and roll whatever it might be should strive for immediacy and engagement. It should command your ears, not float idly by while you slurp a soy-based beverage or update an Excel spreadsheet. What I was arguing for, I guess, was a touch more rage and repetition a hammering home rather than a sanding down, a direct hit rather than a series of beats around the bush. Nuance has its place, but that place shouldnt be confused with center stage. To train the spotlight on a limp, lukewarm talent is to put mood before muse. (In other words, I didnt want to listen to Beach House or toro y moi, even if that made me reactionary or rockist.) My feelings on this issue have evolved without losing their essential backbone. Im now moved by musical gestures which derive from all corners, but the stuff that really sends me into fits of abandon is elemental rock and roll. The word savage comes to mind. And this, quite expediently, is the word Id use to describe Monomania. Under the right microscope, nothing is more rock and roll than
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monomania. Here we speak of a crippling obsession with a single idea, a concentration so stark and unyielding that it ultimately shortcircuits the brain. Monomania is thus repetition raised to the level of pathology. Its also rock and roll reduced to its most shameful and glorious absurdity: the one-track mind, focused on a matter of dubious concern, usually a member of the opposite sex, but maybe a car or a dream or a drug experience. So much depends on something so undependable. At the moment, if I had just one track to offer to the musical novitiate, eager to learn what rock and roll should sound like, Id choose Monomania. I admit that this is an idiosyncratic choice, but its justified by a helpful barrier to entry, namely that the selection should be current. If you operate under the logic that rock and roll is alive and eternal, you cant be forever in thrall to crate digging. Yes, songs like Judy Is a Punk and Rebel Rebel, Brown Sugar, and Long Tall Sally, say more about the rock form than anything in the Deerhunter canon. But such songs have been issuing their testimony for decades and require the forced infusion of young blood. What disarms me about Monomania is how well it synthesizes the idioms that came before it. The track is CBGBs punk and Haight-Ashbury psychedelia, New York No Wave and middle American garage, European art brut and Dixieland boogie-woogie. Among the forms mentioned, I imagine punk and garage will be the most evident. Monomania convulses with the deranged insistence of something Ill call acid punk: a postSonic Youth Stooges, or Jay Reatard covering the Velvet Underground. The track is a trip, and a bad one at that. Imagine the debauched improv of Sister Ray compressed into five minutes of unhinged indie. The song has the malice of a monster or a mongrel, yet its plainly accessible, provided you have a healthy tolerance for noise. As hinted at above, Monomania starts with the menacing cacophony of I Want to Be Your Dog, then decides, antically and frantically, that its protagonist is too proud to beg. Deerhunters frontman, Bradford Cox, will not wear a leash. He wont wear a helmet, either. This is a brave position, as his song is unapologetically concussive. I dont know how you experience music these days, what with our various streams, Jamboxes, and Beats by Dre. But Im comfortable stating that you havent truly heard Monomania until youve played it at great volume on a shitty car stereo, windows down and passers-by outraged. The track will hook you with its twisted metal ring, guitars and vocals alternately clashing and chiming in concert. Once that hook is inserted, Cox reels you back and forth with a spastic acumen. The final three minutes of the song are devoted to the repetition of the phrase mono-monomania! If Cox shouts this dashed compound once, he shouts it a hundred times, the intensity and the pain ratcheting up with each iteration. By the 4:30 mark, your ear drums have been pounded into
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submission and blood is seeping out of your nose. Without any adjustments to your stereo, the mix has gotten louder, thicker, less forgiving, more violent. Monomania doesnt end so much as disintegrate. The ritualistic chanting is displaced by the buzzsaw purr of a motor bike, but only after all constituent parties have been subjected to a drone policy that rivals President Obamas in terror and aggressiveness. Such is rock and rolls cultural revision writ small: This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but a bang. Remember that rock and roll birthed itself during the early days of the nuclear age, and that it has never really gotten beyond the splitting of atoms. At its best, the form is still urgent and explosive, given to a brutal simplicity that at once insults and affirms science. To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, there is no document of civilization that isnt simultaneously a document of barbarism. The nuclear bomb was a triumph of technology that resulted from mans lowest instincts. So was rock and roll. Id argue that the form needed amplification to impart its message, which was one of frivolity and inspiration, the very characteristics I impugned earlier. Only I think this message was less hackneyed in the 1950s, when Little Richard was banging out raucous rhythms and grooves on his battered piano. Back then, the hysterical noise sounded a lot like freedom, both sensual and sonic. What Little Richard amplified was basic urge and base desire sex, essentially. Drugs and rock and roll always played second fiddle to its predecessor in the Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll trinity. Without the first, the other two dont happen. (Or surely arent as fun.) What I found distasteful about the rock and roll of the late Aughts was its neutered neutrality, its absence of ano-genital intrigue. Little Richard aspired to a certain androgyny, but he wasnt an eunuch or an inveterate penis tucker. Neither is Bradford Cox. Despite describing himself at turns as asexual, abstinent, and homosexual, Cox layers his track in lurid, polymorphous carnality. The lyrics to Monomania are largely stream of consciousness, but they contain a few remarkably evocative couplets. My favorites are Cmon God hear my sick prayer/If you can, send me an angel/If you cant send me an angel/Send me something else instead. A plea to the heavens is thus casually tossed to the hounds of hell. The resignation swiftly follows the request, the singers initial optimism tumbling down a steep, slime-ridden curve. Should the prayer go unanswered, another reward or punishment will be accepted without so much as a flinch. All Cox wants is a response, be it lovely or vile. His carnality is plated in one motion and consumed in one bite, all sharp fangs and lusty saliva. Though hed prefer an angel, hell settle for a demon if thats what the arbiters of appetite are offering. Hes not picky, just hungry. And when youre starving, anything will do.

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This act of conjury reminds me of rock and rolls own immaculate conception. The genre was loose and diffuse, part holy, part wicked, half Saturday night, half Sunday morning. There was groping amid the gospel, and the result was a distinctly American miscegenation: white and black existing uneasily, charged particles threatening to split the atom in which they were encased. At moments of particular inspiration, the molecule did burst, setting off chain reactions of seismic intensity. Its no mistake that a mushroom cloud, at its most impressive stage of hypertrophy, resembles a chemical erection. The power behind early rock and roll wasn t just nuclear; it was sexual. The syncopation was penetration, each repetition a thrust. It may be too late to issue this disclosure, but I assure you that Im not angling for perversion or immaturity, except where rock and roll makes those forces inescapable. This music is important to me worthy, I think, of honest study and quasi-religious veneration. What Im getting at with the carnality and the mushroom clouds and the penetration is the subject of origins. Simply put, a grand musical genre deserves a grand creation myth. Well never be able to identify the distinct moment at which we can say, There began rock and roll! We work in approximations and best guesses, almost all pointing toward the American South of the mid-20th Century. Rock and roll is defined by what its not as well as what it is. The idiom couldnt have come from the manor homes of Victorian England or the courts of the Bourbon kings. It needed alleyways and cotton fields, places of proximity and sweat, bodies being broken then redeemed. Monomania has the necessary closeness to stand as a prime example of rock and roll. Its riffs come so loud and hard that the listener almost feels squeezed into a corner, bullied by the muscle of the mix. At the same time, however, the listener feels unconditionally free, his inhibitions and pretenses dropped vertiginously, like a bowling ball heaved from a fifth story window. The song has the default postures of punk, slack and strident, alternately asking for change and lunging at your jugular. Punk works because its the story of prey turned predator. Dropouts and dead-end kids assemble the few chords they can play into passages of protest or autobiography. Thats the story, at least. For the most part, first generation punks were fidgety suburban types with misfit mentalities. As an example, take Richard Hell, perhaps the most influential artist in the forms transcontinental rise, from lyrical themes to sartorial flair. Hells recent memoir is titled I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp. He had to dream his way toward dereliction, because, in reality, he was a prep school boy from an academic family. This doesnt disqualify him from right of inclusion in punks inner circle. (Once you write Blank Generation, your position in the pantheon is secure.) It merely reaffirms the centrality of origins and creation myths in rock and roll. This is a music that allows no, encourages! makeovers. Many of the poses are fake, as are a plurality of the names. You can get tougher, meaner,
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sexier, more romantic, less invisible with just a touch of makeup or a patch of cloth. Garner a remedial competency in angst or excitement and youre able to choose your own adventure. This, in a sense, is what Bradford Cox has done. If youve seen him perform, you know that hes tall and ungainly, more gangly than Snoop Dogg, more awkward than Joey Ramone. What you may not know is that he has Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes protracted limbs and long, skinny fingers (among other, more serious, maladies). I dont mean to play armchair psychiatrist, but if one condition can turn you into a punk, its Marfan Syndrome. It makes you look different, marks you as odd. And theres absolutely nothing you can do about it. Coxs birthright was a twisted frame and a lanky, lurching presence. This abnormality colors his music as much as it colors our interpretation of his music. Hes the rare rock and roll frontman who doesnt have to foster a physical or emotional trauma. Theres no need for dreaming or makeovers the mutation is written into his very DNA. Again, my intention is not to subject Cox to the language of freaks and geeks or the analyses of shrinks and sages. My concern is rock and roll, a phenomenon midwifed by outcasts from Georgia and Mississippi and New Orleans. Cox himself is from suburban Atlanta, where rock has endured better than it has in the trending critical compendium. With Monomania, Deerhunter bring a no-nonsense firepower back to the indie milieu, which is getting ever more lacy and latticed. The song is relentless in the best possible way, its plea stark and desperate, but never weak. Cox negotiates the sphere between vulnerability and viciousness better than any other singer in contemporary punk, hinting that damage, delirium, destructiveness, and dandyism are dots on the same line. His sick prayer is the essence of rock and roll: humble and presumptuous, troubled and true, sacred and profane. What is he praying for, exactly? The angel must be a metaphor, as seraphim dont regularly swoop into the gutters of depravity. Cox must be singing of something composed of flesh and blood, of an object of desire rather than a figment of devotion or duty. The first seven words of Monomania are My only boy couldnt leave his lady. A masculine figure is referenced but ultimately unnamed, a female antagonist alluded to but not idolized. Just a single line in, the story has all the makings of bad romance, one of the most rock and roll of rock and roll subjects. After several verses of sound and fury, these makings boil over into a great undoing. The songs last couplet, save the three minutes of incantation, is I cant compete with her/Get me released from this...mono-monomania! This would seem to imply that Coxs one-track mind is trained on a man, a beau for whom hes being outdueled by a

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mystery belle. Mono, after all, is akin to homo, and homosexuality is a topic that Cox hasnt cowered from in the past. So, are we dealing with a simple case of love unrequited? Of I want the one I cant have, and its driving me mad? Of longing cut down to size, only to sulk and seethe in its misery? These questions are absurd, as are the modes of inquiry used to assemble them. Mono doesnt come through in stereo; the songs literal meanings and motivations are secondary to its fundamental vibe. At its best, rock and roll has the ability to be both painfully inarticulate and impossibly eloquent. This bipolarity exists in the same note, and begets a paradox, wherein the protagonist is unintelligible yet says more than we can comprehend. All thats necessary is an attunement to the songs intrinsic frequency. Instinct trumps insight, just as feel trumps thought. This will probably sound rich, coming as it does some six pages deep into the review of a marginal mp3, but interpretation is a lark. We should let the sick prayer tumble about in the ether, spinning from Cox to his God and hopefully back. To speculate on what it signifies is tantamount to reading Little Richards lyric sheet as an owners manual. Good luck making sense of wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom! Its like trying to catch the wind when lust and logic dictate that you should let the gales push you wherever they may. Only when you give in does the music put out. In a recent Deerhunter interview, Cox said, The one thing I aspire to is to be a great American rock and roll band. This is no insult to the British, whove produced some of the greatest American rock and roll bands of all time, most notably the Rolling Stones, who certainly didnt shuffle forth from skiffle alone. True, Cox did take aim at such defiantly English ensembles as the Smiths a joust that doesnt sit particularly well with this author, considering that the band just got me through a long, harsh winter but his tone is more provocative than earnest. At bottom, Cox is proud of his country, prouder of his punk patrimony. Ironically, hes something of a Morrissey figure, keen to make a spectacle of himself at the slightest invitation, then to disavow that spectacle in sharp terms. Last year, at a concert for his Atlas Sound project in Minneapolis, Cox responded to a hecklers request for the Knacks My Sharona by playing an hour-long version of the song. In a ski mask. While taunting the audience. One cannot view this as anything other than a punk rock stunt, a behavioral tactic that Cox employs regularly and with spicy relish. Less than two weeks ago, Deerhunter performed Monomania on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I say performed because the song became a willful act of theater. The music was just right bloody and bestial, like New York rock of yore. Only the music was overshadowed by Coxs various stunts and scenes. First, he wore a series
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of crusty bandages on his fingers, stained red to indicate grievous and/or throbbing injury. In truth, Cox was suffering from no immediate physical affliction; he later stated that he sported the bandages as a show of support for his father, whod lately lost several digits in a woodworking accident. (This story could not be corroborated at press time, but I have no reason to doubt Coxs claim, aside from the normal skepticism that one must apply to his testimony.) Second, Cox walked off the Late Night sound stage some three minutes into his song, allowing the Monomania chant and its attendant instrumental battery to carry on unfilmed, as the cameras followed the Deerhunter frontman into a 30 Rock corridor and, ultimately, an elevator bank. While en route, Cox grabbed a beverage from the hands of some unsuspecting lackey, drank his fill, and then tossed the cup asunder. The gesture was decadent, nihilistic, and hilarious. More than anything else, however, it was rock and roll. In the end, authenticity is a concept that plays better on the page than in the round. Rock and roll is essentially a performance art, wherein the dude behind the microphone does his best to shock, seduce, titillate, or traumatize. The punk version of rock and roll takes this confrontational approach and squares it. Monomania is a great rock and roll song because it rages with the raucousness of youthful distress and urgency. But the Monomania performance on Fallon was an instant punk rock classic because it upgraded the rage to a full-on hemorrhage. Cox wasnt just beat down, he was bloodied, bandaged, and heavily drugged. He gave the appearance of not being long for this life. With his crane-like frame, his wild hair, and his disturbingly docile band of acolytes, Cox looked the very portrait of rock and roll excess. On national television, he depicted himself as the most ghastly sort of truant, freshly pulled from the CBGBs shitter, shot through with some ungodly elixir, then commanded to sing for his rotten supper. With his lurch and listlessness, Cox rebooted the animating ethic of teenage pop. Instead of Live Fast, Die Young!; it was now Live Slow, Die Suddenly. He hadnt written a song so much as an epitaph. At least thats what he wants you to believe. And, by virtue of the raw power of rock and roll, you want to believe it, too. Im still learning from and laughing at Deerhunters performance on Fallon. From my vantage point, those five minutes were the finest that the year in pop culture has produced thus far. The most rock and roll of rock and roll songs was given a booster shot containing even more rock and roll. And instead of redundancy, we got fission and fusion a nuclear blast of divine (or diabolical) potency. Theres no such thing as over-the-top when the sky is the limit, no such thing as hyperbole when the distance youre trying to travel is the one between here and eternity. Monomania reminds us that rock and roll can be both the silliest thing in the world and the last, best hope of mankind. Its fleeting and permanent, purifying and corrupting, heavenly
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and hellish, hetero and homo, mono and stereo. These coups of arithmetic, in which the sum climbs higher with every unlikely plus sign, underscore my main point: Rock and roll is singular because rock and roll is two things, three things, four things, everything. If I repeat myself, consider it a function of my enthusiasm. If I contradict myself, consider it a tribute to the majesty of the form. (April 15, 2013)

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PART II: NOT POP SINGLES Dead-Blogging the Grammys: A Pop Post-Mortem The working title for this post The Least Timely Grammys Recap Imaginable was a bit hyperbolic, but not without base. Given the bullying tactics employed by the social media, all events of even meager cultural or political import are liveblogged by a million pairs of calloused thumbs. The fact that most of these thumbs have freshly emerged from their bearers asses is decidedly immaterial. What matters is the ever-widening gyre of fresh content, yours to view at the mere tap and tug of your smartphone. Generally speaking, the real-time coverage is trite to the point of disillusion or catty to the point of parody. One person thinks Taylor Swift is a purepop savior; another regards her as the devil incarnate. The truth, of course, lies somewhere in the middle. Last night, Taylor was neither a triumph nor a flop. Her Barnum & Baileys meets Alice In Wonderland act wasnt particularly novel or mind-bending. It was simply there, and, I imagine, good enough to pass muster. Many viewers noted that Britney Spears had done the ringmistress thing at previous awards programs. Ill merely add that, more than 40 years hence, the Rolling Stones organized an event called the Rock and Roll Circus. The Big Top is an easy location on which to film the flitting machinations of the reigning pop star. Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends. Were so glad you could attend. Come inside, come inside. Its oddly appropriate that a carnival logic should be applied to the Grammys. This years program took place on the first Sunday following the Super Bowl that is, the first Sunday without professional football in just under six months. Whats an angry gaggle of blood-thirsty proles to do without its weekly allotment of head injuries? Well, what it does is pursue concussions of a different character. The Grammys are reliably disorientating. They jump from pop tart to music legend, from arriviste to wily veteran. One minute, a tandem of earnest corporate country singers is giving us the low-down on hearth and home; the next, Rihanna is making a game effort to show us her boobs. By the hour mark, the enlightened viewer has already called for his physician, who carefully examines the patient for everything from headache to spastic colon. The passion for pathology soon slackens, but it continues to linger along the bottom third of the screen. Speaking of screens, I cant claim to have watched the Grammys on a large or flat one. Im packing a 12-year-old Zenith, as deep as it is wide, equipped with a Third World sound system and a none-so-sleek opening in which to jam moldy VHS cassettes. But, even in this horrifically diminished capacity, I was able to take in and appreciate a good portion of the ceremony. Let me be clear: I thought that virtually all
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of the performances were solid, and that a healthy majority of the awards were well deserved. Granted, my list of nominees would have been far different than those that appeared on the official ledger, but no one from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences called for my ballot. This oversight must be tolerated, if not countenanced with perfect decorum. Had my vote proved decisive, Frank Ocean would have won in the coveted Album of the Year category. Channel ORANGE is a lively, lovely, utterly likable pop record; it stands as both a formidable document of its times and an augur of a bounteous pop future. But after watching Frank muddle through his live performance of Forrest Gump, I can understand why the Academy might have wanted to keep him off the nights most prized podium. Oceans act felt desultory, adrip with the Im too cool for this shit postures that Odd Future takes pains to project. When Frank started whistling, I actually wondered if he wasnt just trolling us, using his time in the national spotlight to test Americas patience. I guess life really is like a box of chocolates. You never know what the fuck youre going to get! I expected the arrival of a new R&B titan. Instead, I got a lazy stroll through homoerotic balladry. My disappointment did not end there. For the life of me, I still dont understand Americas fascination with Mumford & Sons. They dont even give us the satisfaction of being a shitty band. The group are comely and competent, but theyre revivalists twice removed, disinterring the bones of a corpse thats already been smuggled over the mountain and through the woods. Mumford have less an oeuvre than a backcountry cardio studio, spiked with bluegrass of a shockingly high BPM register. Marcus works that foot drum like a goddamn Olympic athlete, the only problem being that his teams sound predates the Games of the Modern Olympiad. Thats why a Best Album nod should have been out of the question: Babel is not contemporary. It belongs to another people, in another millennium. Yet it might be daft to consider this a disqualifier. The Grammys regularly shoulder the burdens of a latter-day Village Green Preservation Society. Why? Because their pool of voters is a loose collection of blue hairs and greybeards. Theyd rather uphold an old standard than usher in a new era. A short roster of well-fed industry types doesnt have the clout or the taste to pin their ribbons on anything truly game-changing. Award shows are, at bottom, engines of light entertainment and heavy continuity. They toss the masses a few star turns and rushed collaborations, to a smattering of polite applause. The bar is set intentionally low, as befits a nation in decline. (Hey, at least the power didnt go out in the Staples Center, like it did last week in the Superdome. Chris Brown is a big enough national embarrassment. We dont need to be further humiliated by failures of infrastructure.)
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So, no, Frank Ocean didnt engender the sorts of waves I was hoping for. No, Justin Timberlake didnt step out of his meticulously tailored trousers, so as to scandalize our already apoplectic elders. And yes, perhaps Mumford pre should have used a more fool-proof brand of prophylactics. But you dont go to the Grammys with the pop stars you want. You go to the Grammys with the pop stars you have. Considering these preconditions, our cast of characters came together for a night of pleasant intrigue. Despite the broadcasts bow to trend and technology, the evening was something of a throwback, full of familiar names and aw-shucks humility. Nate Ruess, the 31-year-old author of We Are Young, the freshly minted Song of the Year, confessed to being comparatively old. No shame in that, Nate, as age was, for once, the chicest thing on the Grammys menu. The most charismatic figures to take the stage were Prince and Johnny Depp, both fellows of an earlier vintage. Moreover, the recipients of the evenings most celebrated laurel gold-rushed an album that, with the addition of the proper hisses and scratches, could have passed for an Alan Lomax field recording. Apparently, nothing says 2012 like 1849. As such, my working title for this post The Least Timely Grammys Recap Imaginable is reduced to a preening absurdity. Whats the sense of being timely when the art under review derives from centuries past? The evenings true reports ought to have been delivered via the Pony Express, not Twitter or Facebook. This weeks blogs are, in effect, town criers, charged with shouting out a series of compelling headlines. I will not shrink from this reportorial duty, even if I find it slightly odious and nakedly unnecessary. If theres to be a stampede of micro-content, Ill be damned if I dont step in for a tract or two of idle trampling. Below is a bullet-pointed summary of the Grammys as I saw them, with highlights duly noted and elisions unremarked. I didnt watch the entire program, owing to laundry, light vacuuming, and the investigation of mysterious noises outside my bedroom window. What was forsaken will not be missed. We have enough material to mull over. So, hear ye, hear ye. Thus was the Grammys of 2013, as described in the present tense:

The host is LL Cool J. With his white tux and newsboy cap, he looks like a locker room attendant at Augusta National, albeit one who just finished his third cycle of HGH. J-Los dress resembles a burka which has been draped over the wrong section of flesh. Dont get me wrong: Its sexy. But not even Jennifers bare thigh can
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sweeten our rendezvous with Pitbull, pops most annoying charm piece. Get him a Bud Light and an exit from the premises. Adele wins another goddamned award, for a song wed tired of eons ago. Fun. perform in the Coldplay slot, bellowing at the rafters, wet with artificial rain. Im reminded of why I dont particularly care for the band: They come off a musical theatre troupe. Nate Ruess voice is too reedy for primetime, and the stage drama seems contrived, like a lost episode of Glee. I recall a recent Jeff Ross joke about fun.: They have a period at the end of their name and once a month. Miguel gives us the nights best vocals. Wiz Khalifa is there to tarnish the performance. Mumford do their thing. Ive already said enough about Marcus and his mates. No need to repeat earlier themes. (Which is ironic, since thats precisely what Mumford do.) Taylor Swift sings and dances along to virtually every performance, like she hasnt a care in the world. Her discography argues otherwise. (As did her showopening performance, which touched on forever-evers without seeking rapprochement with Ms. Jackson.) (At this point, even a terrible OutKast joke is worth hazarding, given that the group is probably never-ever-ever getting back together.) Justin Timberlake continues to bite Michael Jacksons storied legacy, opting for a black and white affair that plays better in full color. JT goes all Big Band on us part Count Basie, part Glenn Miller, but mostly blue-eyed soul. Suit & Tie is a great song. The other one, not so much. The debut of 20/20 is so/so. Dave Grohl is rapidly becoming the new Robert Plant: a vaguely avuncular rock and roller with a leonine profile. His jowls give his face character. But they also make him look like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz. The evenings omniscient narrator not LL, but a disembodied voice continually advises us to stay tuned for another Grammys Moment. I remind myself that moments should be labeled as such after theyve taken place. The performance makes the moment, not the mere casting. Just ask the Los Angeles Lakers. Maroon 5 and Alicia Keys? Professional, but nothing special. Kelly Clarkson gives an acceptance speech that sounds like the fruits of intoxication. She is to the Grammys what Jodie Foster was to the Golden Globes: a besotted woman who should have come prepared to say a few words. Note cards, ladies. They fit in any purse. The Black Keys score one for all the rockists in the audience, including me. Played live, the Lonely Boy riff is probably the riff of the year, at least on

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guitar. Not that there was much competition. (Also, Dr. John wears an epically awesome headdress. He should have his medical license revoked immediately.) Sorry LL, but the show is kind of hosting itself. Im impressed by Bruno Mars. Locked Out of Heaven is the male equivalent of a Kelly Clarkson song: heartbreak as high energy. And there are no incoherent speeches. Stings Newcastle croon has held up remarkably well. As always, it seems to be colored by a Jamaican affectation, which is why Mr. Sumner is one of the few white men who can credibly participate in a Bob Marley tribute. The Marley tribute goes well. Still, the man died 32 years ago. Shouldnt we be celebrating new music? The Grammys arent supposed to be the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Lumineers stake their claim to being the whitest band in America. But just as I get over marveling at their lack of melanin, the bands quasi-ginger frontman introduces Jack White, who hasnt seen the sun since his baby left him, many decades ago. Jack is wearing a rhinestone jacket with a garish peacock design. Its killer. And he kills. Initially, I think Love Interruption a poor choice, as its a beautiful but not very excitable number. Freedom at 21 proves to be the ideal foil. Its the evenings sole nod to punk rock. Theres still some hope for Whitey. Carrie Underwood takes the stage. Shes a country-cute combination of Cinderella and Stevie Nicks, mixing princess pretensions with a flair for crystals, provided that those crystals are Jesus-approved. Carrie holds her notes like a champ. And the hologram projections on her dress are provocative. Truth be told, I took the first pattern to be a map of the female reproductive system. This is something I would discuss with my psychologist, if I had proper health insurance. (Oh, there were earlier country performances, but that Lambert woman looked like 20 pounds of sausage stuffed into three ounces of casing. I dont care for spunk for the sake of spunk. You want to be spunky, sing like Wanda Jackson.) (As for Dierks Bentley, Bierks Dentley, or whatever the hell his name is, the jury is still out on whether he pees standing up.) Prince! Tonight, hes the mulatto successor to Johnny Depp, opting for cane and hoodie where Johnny chose feathers and a pirate shirt. Prince is 54; Depp 49. Neither man has aged significantly in the past 20 years. Though they do very little on the Grammy stage, each idol exudes more cool than the full slate of award winners. The secret ingredient is mystery. Many musicians died in 2012. We lost a Bee Gee, an Ohio Player, and a Monkee. An Andrews sister and a McGuire sister. Dick Clark and Adam Yauch. But tonight we pay tribute to Bob MarleyI mean, Levon Helm. The Band were among the most essential ensembles of the classic rock era, and their rootsy sound applied a very deft emergency brake to psychedelia.
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The Weight alone probably staved off prog rock for another three years. Its a song to be sung in the round, and here it gets a dexterous last waltz. Everyone sings well, aside from Elton John, who still hasnt recovered from his involvement with The Lion King soundtrack. Mavis Staples gets the applause, but Brittany Howard steals the show. (And I dont even like Alabama Shakes.) Disappointment of the night: Frank Ocean sleepwalks through Forrest Gump. Bad Tom Hanks jokes abound on Twitter. But not even the most clever among them can prove a distraction from the lifeless figure at the keyboard, all headband and off-key croon. Rehearsal was yesterday, Frank. What the fuck are you doing? Adele dusts off her party dress to present the evenings top trophy to Mumford & Sons. England rejoices. America does, too. What was it that George Bush said about the soft bigotry of low expectations? Thankfully, a Mumford victory isnt as hard to swallow as the flaming failure of W.s presidency. This may be the United States of Amnesia, but I havent forgotten what youve done, George. Youve got a lot to answer for. The Mumford victory, however, sits outside your portfolio. This ones on Barack. Chuck D is old and fat. LL Cool J is muscular but, somehow, not the least bit intimidating. Z Trip is white? And Tom Morello is underutilized. Their Refuse to Lose freestyle is interrupted several times for the airing of legal copy from Deloitte and Touche. Its a stark reminder that attorneys and accountants run the recording industry. Thats why the evenings music wasnt better. Pop has been MBAed into utter predictability.

That just about does it from this peanut gallery. Despite my fetid bouquet of caustic remarks, I salute those who made the 55th Annual Grammy Awards possible. My jeering of Mumford and Ocean is not brandished with malice. I love Frank, and will soon make my peace with Marcus. For now, however, lets stick to the hurrahs. Good show, Bruno Mars! Im surprised Locked Out of Heaven isnt a more ubiquitous track. A tip of the cap to the Black Keys! Lonely Boy makes for good company, and El Camino could conceivably go platinum in the coming year. Congratulaciones, Miguelito! May your work be adorned with a million accolades, each earned. And, lastly, a toast to you, Jack White! You brought a glimmer of unhinged desperation to an evening that was choreographed down to the very curtsy. Others took home the hardware. But you, Brother Jack, owned the night. (At least in my bleary eyes.) We end where we began: with the recognition that this recap isnt especially timely. The Grammys were live-blogged to death, so only the most macabre among us will want to gaze upon its decaying body in the days that follow. This is why Ive decided
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not to sit on my testimony or to spin my memories into some sort of think piece. I wear no monocle and drink no rare cordial. I reported to my tattered television in ripped jeans and a weathered button-down. I asked to be entertained, and this request was granted, by all manner of musicians. Sometimes good enough is, well, good enough. Last night was a case in point. Dont listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. (February 11, 2013) The Strokes, Comedown Machine A good number of Strokes fans have lamented that the band makes too few albums. I lament that they make too many. No, this is not a grand romantic gesture, taking as its core principle the notion that the Strokes should have retired young and unblemished. Theres a cultish faction, composed mostly of bed-wetting rockists and the comment fields in which they sow their shoddy seeds, that feels the group would have been better off as a two-and-done phenomenon. By this reading, Is This It could have been followed by an album called This Is It. Then, true to the tyranny of titles, Julian could have closeted his microphone and Albert could have inventoried his lightning-bolt guitar strap. The buzz of the boys debut thus would have segued seamlessly into the denouement of their finale. This sexy counterfactual allows us to imagine a perfect pairing: raucous noise followed by pristine silence. First a rush and a push, then a smirking recline. Talk about a comedown machine. But I digress, as is my wont. If Im showing contempt for this alternate history, its only because such a history could never have been. Could have, would have, should have is not the language of rock and roll. The genre demands the full lot, warts and all. And, in their adult iteration, the Strokes have been awfully good at giving it to us. This is what I mean when I claim that the band has made too many albums. PostRoom on Fire, each Strokes LP has been at least two records part guitar rock, part synthscape; part New Wave, part old reliable; part hipster catnip, part critical albatross. First Impressions of Earth alternately thrust its blade at your jugular and mellowed out to the glow of the moonlight. Angles pulsed and popped, then spiraled into a sort of futuristic oblivion. Theres some value in the reconciliation of antithetical impulses. The fruits of genius are often found in such syntheses, whereby the extremes of each position are filed down to a golden mean of clarity and coherence. Indeed, sometimes coherence is the only clarity one needs.

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Is This It and Room on Fire surely werent renowned for their crystalline sonic postures. The music was drunken and dirty and disheveled, but these adjectives presented purposefully and remained accounted for from the first track to the last. The songs trickled down the same curb into the same gutter. There was comfort, I guess, in the understanding that the Strokes were a take it or leave it affair. Either you bought into their sound wholesale or you shrugged off the entire enterprise. Which is to say that if you liked one song, you probably liked them all. This uniformity of returns slowed with First Impressions and screeched to a halt with Angles. Im a fan of both albums, but neither has a theme aside from inconstancy. Comedown Machine, the Strokes fifth release, follows a similar pattern. The LP is a 39-minute affront to the very concept of momentum, shuffling paces and styles as a dealer shuffles his deck before a game of blackjack. This is equal parts inspiring and frustrating. In fact, its very much like the card game I just alluded to. A good draw can dissolve into a disappointing hand. Or a rough draw can be fortuitously swapped for a winning hand. A functional level of skill is on display at all times, but, ultimately, the listener sits at the mercy of the cards. Where the Strokes were once a sure thing, theyre now a game of chance. Id advise you to take this chance and give the record an honest listen. Youll find much to admire and much to bemoan, often in the same song. On Comedown Machine, Julian seems to have made melody his chief object of concern. Hell croon a sultry passage, then falsetto a hastened chorus. Hell strut through the verse, then screech the refrain. His cadences change along with his tone, sometimes showing slow and subtle, other times coming tricky and fleet. These pivots keep the listener off balance. Just as you start whistling one melody, Julian alters his recipe, leaving you pursed lipped and furrow browed. Thankfully, the band do not succumb to the same befuddled state. As gears shift, guitars surge or retreat, evincing a camaraderie built on precision and professional tact. All five members appear to have made their peace with the new Strokes aesthetic, which is heavy on stop-and-go phrasing and frequently looses synthesizer presets over tight guitar riffing. Where First Impressions was really a second amendment, positing that Casablancas could no longer hold a monopoly on munitions; and where Angles was a lukewarm compromise between rival parties, pleasing none of the concerned, Comedown Machine plays like the testimony of friends, each placing rhythm over rancor. At long last, the band works together beautifully. Unfortunately, its the songs that now operate at cross purposes. Album opener Tap Out is a slinky wonder of beat and pulse, but it becomes so only after a telling misdirection. The track begins with what sounds like an aborted guitar solo, full of shred and feedback. Within five seconds, a Fab Moretti snare ends the indulgence, cuing a parade of snap-along angularity. Its as if original-formula Van
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Halen had suddenly become Phoenix, circa 2006. And thats the LP in microcosm: an uneasy marriage of rockist abandon and synthy surrender. This descriptive applies not just to the album as a whole but to the individual songs. Just as the track sequence can transition from rager to slow jam, the cuts themselves can start on one floor and end on another. Fender squall begets an electric pinball effect, in which notes bounce off walls and barriers, dinging with video gamestyle alacrity. Tap Out is born in a tempest, bred in a disco, and ultimately left to bob and wiggle in the welcoming ports of yacht rock. Violent becomes twitchy becomes staid. This is a nice bit of alchemy, but I think the process repeats itself too often. On Comedown Machine, the songs have siblings but not identical twins. Tap Out is of one skin with Welcome to Japan, another funky tune in the disco rock vein. Guitars remain upright and Julians voice stays fairly high. The two tracks would have played well as neighbors, one sensibility flowing naturally into the next. Instead, Tap Out is followed by a garage rock mumbler, All the Time, which initially struck me as lightweight imitation of the classic Strokes sound but has since become a wellliked warhorse. Pity that its outer border is the dinky but delightful One Way Trigger. With its Casio kinetics, this beep-happy number sounds like a 45 of A-has Take on Me played at 75 revolutions per minute. Track sequencing of this caliber, wherein sharp points rest at obtuse angles, paints Comedown Machine with the swirling hues of novelty. So varied are the instrumental arrangements that a distinct timbre is never allowed to settle in. And so vague is the lyrical voice that an intelligible narrative arc is never put forth. We get close to a dozen songs, none runty, none revelatory. Whether the tracks are on speaking terms with their predecessors and successors is simply beyond me. A family resemblance is evident in certain pairs and trios, but, taken collectively, the clan would appear to be the product of many fathers. Why the disputed paternity? Asking that question is like asking Why a new Strokes album? Angles let it be known that the bands songwriting would be emanating from a variety of vantages, with no real regard for genre. The lead single, Under Cover of Darkness, resembled Someday with less scuzz around the collar. It portended a poppy, angular guitar rock record. Instead, we got an uneven tribute to the Big 80 s, replete with synth treatments and dreamy interludes. To expect the follow-up to attempt a radical about face would be foolish. Still, one could imagine that the new music might be all over the place without being willfully ungovernable. Comedown Machine is both: experimental but not totally bonkers; tightly wound but released anarchically. I cant help but think that the albums contents could have been placed in a more attractive frame. While one should be careful not to take rock and roll too literally, the LP is called Comedown Machine so why not arrive hot and heavy,
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with the hard rockers, then artfully lower the intensity, to the hypnotic ballads? Such an approach would have given the record the binding it sorely lacks. Again, should and would arent particularly useful in the context of honest rock criticism. Comedown Machine is what it is: a pastiche of different forms, forced together by a band with omnivorous appetites. Julians love of synth pop shines through on the quasi-title track, 80s Comedown Machine, and its delicate kin, Slow Animals and Chances. These songs are at best poignant reminders of Casablancas craft, at worst genre exercises that fail to liven the blood. A little gorgeous, a little boring, the slower numbers can resemble Lou Reed cooing over a Vampire Weekend production (80s) or a spaceship hovering over a quiet suburb (Chances). To be fair, Slow Animals is not as deliberate as the tracks I align it with, and could therefore be the linchpin in the grand sonic comedown. Here, a kind of midtempo cool rules the roost, with Julians melodic shifts occasioning a brief murmur of guitar fuzz. Hammond and Valensi are leashed but not fully tranquilized; they hint at a bark that rings loud and true. We get that bark on 50/50, a predatory piece of rock and roll that aspires to levels of torque and intensity which the Strokes havent touched since Juicebox, Heart In a Cage, and Vision of Division. Hammond and Valensi imagine Television filtered through Audioslave, all while Casablancas sings metal into a megaphone. Its the hardest the Strokes have come in years, and I like it. Along with All the Time, 50/50 touts the bands talent for straight rock arrangements, landing somewhere between garage and grunge. Other swaggering, uptempo songs, notably Partners in Crime and Happy Ending, tease at this leather-clad aesthetic, only to succumb to the metrosexuality of New Wave. Partners buzzes out of the gate like a brawler with a score to settle, but soon becomes a vessel of quiver and quirk. The clenched fist is thus overruled by the swiveling hip. Brooklyn does make cowards of us all. Comedown Machine is chock full of such ambitious misdirection. The songs cannot latch onto one another because their various passages are forever in motion, typically on non-intersecting avenues. At the same time, I cant say that the tracks work seductively as stand-alone mp3s. The clueless A&R rep who resides in my brain is screaming I dont hear a single! This is an album without an Under Cover of Darkness, never mind a 12:51 or a Hard to Explain. Where Ive come to terms with the record and these terms are troubled but improving by the day is in the conceit of digital file manipulation. I can create my own track sequence, one that moves from guitar ramble to synth gambol. As noted, a majority of the songs have internal deviations that render the album-sized incongruities a lesser concern. There is no easy path from Track 1 to Track 11, but some routes are friendlier than others. Im still experimenting with the litany of possible orders, hoping to happen upon the
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arrangement that suits me best. The material lends itself to trial and error, to swaps and switches. If this is a concept album, the concept is Choose Your Own Adventure. Self-centered sequencing is a bit heavy on gall, but I can hop from its cloud to make one unambiguous statement: The Strokes got the final track right. Call It Fate, Call It Karma works only as the conclusion to the comedown, incantating like a music box set astride a vanity mirror. Casablancas croons with longing, then coos with highpitched sincerity. I cant understand a fucking word hes saying, but I intuit that hes utterly confident in the tenor of his message. Where his very first album track, Is This It, admitted a penchant for hiding in girls apartments, this closing number derives from a room of ones own. Julian is no longer a misunderstood wastrel ducking into and out of the seedier dive bars of the Lower East Side. (Does the Lower East Side even have dive bars anymore? Or have they all become John Varvatos boutiques?) Casablancas is now 34 and married, more goofy and sober than threatening or reckless. Hes flipped the script not only in his songs but in his life. And this change is registered on his lyric sheet. Is This It opened with a question, Cant you see Im trying? one that fit the moment well, seeing that the Strokes were thought to possess an effortless cool. Call It Fate ends with a declaration, I needed someone, repeated twice for emphasis. This construction is important for its tense. Julian needed someone, but that need is no more, at least not in syntax of the final line. The song is neither ebullient nor lachrymose; its soft and sepia-toned, but still more twinkle than tear. It has no concern for the pop charts or the record company whose logo adorns the albums cover. Here, the Strokes say This is it. Take it or leave it. Initially, I was poised to pursue the latter option. My musical life has been party to many torrid love affairs, some ending abruptly, others fading away in slow motion. I would have missed the hell out of the Strokes, but the catalog of our first decade together stood firm as a palliative parting gift, tempting me to follow my head rather than my heart. Fortunately, the gift I cite is one thatll keep its bow intact. Because Im not going anywhere, except for my iTunes library, where I can strive to mixmaster the Strokes latest effort into a comprehensible body of work. This is plainly an absurdity, with listener playing artist and artist laying idle as his exhibition is re-curated. But such are the wages of intemperate diversity. Instead of making one album, the Strokes have made two or three. And they must pay for their generosity. Comedown Machine is a flawed record, but no more flawed than Angles or the various solo and side projects that the bands members have released in recent years. Theres been some talk that this fifth LP functions as the Strokes brave new world, settling accounts with RCA and pointing toward a future thats infinite in all directions.
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I dont think this is the case. From here, the Strokes either disband or begin cutting records for Julians minor label, Cult Records. Or they form an independent production company perhaps an arm of Whiz Kid Management and jab at the soft underbelly of the pop market, using a Radiohead-influenced pay what you will model. Ill end the prognosticating there, as the band is currently all over the map, and thus cannot be pinpointed with any measure of accuracy or good faith. Let me stick to Comedown Machine, which I think is best characterized by a paraphrase. Gioachino Rossini, composer of such operatic standards as The William Tell Overture and The Barber of Seville, once quipped that Richard Wagner had great moments but dull quarter hours. So it is with Comedown Machine, with the peaks more than justifying the valleys. Some will, no doubt, find pleasure in these valleys, and will argue that the Strokes ought to keep their fingers on synths of a more modern vintage. I d argue that the effects modules should be muzzled like a rabid dog, so that the essence of the band buzzing amps and garbled vocals can shine through. The response to this request is a simple one: Nobody asked you! Moreover, the idea that the Strokes still have a singular, solitary essence after 15 years in the rock game is a bit far-fetched. This is a band thats proved perpetually hostile to the calculations of the pop media, likely by consequence of the towering hype that ran concomitant with their arrival. There must be some freedom in flying just a touch off the radar. Now that the Strokes are no longer the It band, they can make albums rather than mere headlines. In fact, they can make two or three albums at a time, then release them pell mell on a single LP. Julian can tap his realism and his romanticism. Albert can play up-and-down licks while Nick plays east-to-west melodies. Nikolai and Fab can retreat to the periphery, then reappear in a sleek or funky bottom-end burst. Technically speaking, the band has never been better. And the codas to their new songs show that theyre pregnant with musical possibilities. This is both an intrigue and a momentum killer. All the Time cannot flow dexterously into One Way Trigger when the songs final 25 seconds are a low-volume fritter. Welcome to Japan cracks its disco ball with a tail that seems sourced from Pearl Jams Jeremy. And Slow Animals becomes even more sluggish when its last half-minute is lent to sheer, stony silence. There are no Last Nite to Hard to Explain baton passes on this record, and we have to accept the songwriters proggy and priggish prerogative. A band that was once predictably great is now greatly unpredictable. On Happy Ending, Julian sings, Baby, show me where to go, but this is an obvious feint. He isnt interested in following marching orders. Neither is his band. The Strokes future efforts, should they manifest at all, will be multi-headed and many fingered. Other than that, we havent the slightest clue as to what to expect or when to expect it. So, at this late date, I dare say that the effort itself ought to be enough. Cant
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you see theyre trying? And cant you find some value in the results? I know I have. Give Comedown Machine a fair shake and its false starts will engineer a truly happy ending. Call it fate or call it karma. Just be sure to call it as you hear it, not as others do. (April 3, 2013) Savages, Silence Yourself Silence Yourself has everyone talking. This would register merely as an irony were it not also a bit of a conceit. Savages have provoked interest in their work by aspiring to be something more than a band. The London quartet is, above all, an aesthetic made flesh and blood, complete with dark-hued clothing, androgynous haircuts, and songs that ably revivify select sections of the postpunk archives. One could be forgiven for placing them at the University of Leeds, circa 1978, a time when entertainment could be militant and militancy entertaining. Jehnny Beth, Gemma Thompson, Ayse Hassan, and Fay Milton frontwoman, guitarist, bassist, and drummer, respectively present themselves as avengers etched in black and white, here to rid the world of distractions, to champion the self by kicking open the doors to mind and body. That this approach has been tried before doesnt serve as a disqualifier. The stance athwart never goes out of style, particularly in rock and roll. One must be certain, however, not to mistake intrigue for revolution. The rebel-rebel history of pop music is oft told, and it underscores the central problem with Savages: Their effect is blunted by their affect, with the talk surrounding their debut LP focusing on their theses instead of their tracks. The groups obsession with style and posture, from online art direction to pre-show audience instruction, devours the substance of their songwriting. The quartet purport to be confrontational, in the manner of, say, Wire or Gang of Four, acts who frequently baited their fans to a point just short of retributive violence. Though this contempt for complacency is inspiring, its also a bit bullying and derivative. By aping the ethic of an earlier era, arent Savages rather glibly forfeiting any claims to originality? Moreover, isn t it a bit indulgent to propose that you should experience Savages rather than merely listen to them? Well, yes and no. While its true that nothing in pop music is more clichd than challenging the concept of normal, few contemporary acts are as committed to the editorial imperative as Savages. I use the word acts intentionally. The band strikes me as a theater troupe that boasts skillful command of the traditional instruments of rock and roll. They are, by their own admission, a stage phenomenon, built for the riser, not the pit. This admission comes in Savages Manifesto #1, which begins,
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SAVAGES INTENTION IS TO CREATE A SOUND, INDESTRUCTIBLE, MUSICALLY SOLID, WRITTEN FOR THE STAGE AND DESIGNED WITH ENOUGH NUANCES TO PROVIDE A WIDE RANGE OF EMOTIONS. You know a band is ambitious when they take the trouble of numbering their manifestos, not to mention setting their testimony is capital letters. This dual feat of chronology and philosophy may come across as precious, if not downright grating. But with so much inanity clunking about the pop sphere, isnt it heartening to encounter an ensemble that doesnt shrink from the serious? Isnt it exciting to meet a band that has a calling, a duty, a mission? You do have recourse to answer these questions in the negative. A healthy consortium of artists, particularly those whove achieved heavy rotation on the indie blogs, have lately taken to Tumblr to voice their opinions on matters that rankle their bowels. These opinions frequently, and perhaps inevitably, matriculate into formal ideology. In vogue at the moment are tracts against gender bias and corporate tyranny, subjects that merit a full frontal assault from the few, the proud, and the vaguely intelligible. Earnestness, however, can be one hell of a bore, especially when its expressed with free-associative whimsy. Much of the iconoclastic writing in the music milieu communicates nothing so much as the authors sense of self-importance. An artist notes that he cares passionately about a given topic, then sabotages this concern by rushing his entry that is, by not giving his thoughts enough thought, and hoping that his relative celebrity will bridge the gap between intention and impact. If Savages err, its on the opposite side of this paradigm. Their act was premeditated and brilliantly staged. Before a lick was laid down, Gemma Thompson, who named the band, and Jehnny Beth, whos become its de facto mouthpiece, decided that Savages was to be in the business of connections. They would connect their audience not just to each other, but to a previously hidden component of their very selves. Savages offer more than music; they offer emancipation. This is a dangerous lot, prone to the undercooked and the overstepped. On the cover of their debut album, Savages have included a poem that starts with the lines, The world used to be silent/Now it has too many voices/And the noise is a constant distraction. These words dont have to be rendered in all caps to leave an impression. And this impression is manifested in both a nod of the head and a scratch of the temple. I agree that modernity suffers from a surplus of frivolous sounds, but when, pray tell, was the world silent? The Big Bang must have measured more than a few decibels, and even the primordial earth, yet to birth a single human, was peppered with the score of ooze, crackle, and snap. Savages seek to project a profundity that theyve sedulously analyzed but dont fully understand. In their fervor to hack at the essential, theyve skipped over something secondary; namely, the need to make sense.
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I award the need to make sense secondary status because rock and roll has rarely been about linearity or narrative cohesion. The form is first and foremost a feeling, typically coalescing in song but also receptive to the embrace of the individual riff or groove. Savages stand out for trying to impose some discipline amid this larger carousel of pandemonium. As pop continues to spin in an ever-widening gyre, Savages yell Stop! And Ill be damned if they dont mean it. Theyre as comfortable issuing orders as they are manifestos. The bands debut album takes as its title a command (Silence yourself!), and its first song, Shut Up, makes certain to repeat this instruction more brusquely. This is par for the course with Savages. I get the impression that the group compile curt song titles, then backfill with lyrics and instrumental battery. Repetition is their stock in trade, with Jehnny Beth finding a phrase and sticking to it. The musical accompaniment is studded with tight chords and wicked ostinatos. There are no spotlit solos or extended asides, no hyperlexic verses or tricky choruses. An aesthetic was settled upon at the inception of the Savages project, and that aesthetic was a semi-radical simplicity. I say semi because Savages arent as angular as Gang of Four or as reductive as Wire. They permit a little warmth to seep through the postpunk tremor. Throughout Silence Yourself, I hear the influence of Nineties alt rock and mainstream metal. Every song sounds familiar but ultimately unaccounted for. First we hear Siouxsie and the Banshees, interpolated with the mechanical quivers of Joy Division. Then we hear echoes of Nirvana, chiefly in the squall of strings and the thunderous percussion. Certain portions of Silence Yourself imagine In Utero finally come to term, only with Steve Albini stripping away anything one might consider extraneous. (Hence, not being Steve Albini.) Savages present a skeleton that, somewhat paradoxically, bears weight. The record carries too much motion to ring hollow. Though it repeats itself, the progress it negotiates is decidedly forward, toward the next song or hang-up. The music strives to be of a piece with the bands philosophy, as outlined in Manifesto #2: SAVAGES is not trying to give you something you didnt have already, it is calling within yourself something you buried ages ago, it is an attempt to reveal and reconnect your PHYSICAL and EMOTION self and give you the urge to experience your life differently... From there, the statement gets an order of magnitude more ponderous, touching upon erotic ideals and POSITIVE MANIPULATIONS. Still, the absence of a gag reflex is as salutary as the flouting of basic grammatical standards. Savages want to punch normal in the face, to bruise its brow line and make its nose bleed. Amid the concussion, they hope to impart some clarity. And they hold value as a band by being only about 75% full of shit. I hasten to point out that this is a strong ratio. Most holier-than-thou rock groups are totally deluded, drunk off the power of being in a privileged position, if only in their
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own minds. Savages cling to a welcome quarter of truth, a fourth of their act being sourced in waters that are above reproach. They admit to providing nothing new, either musically or spiritually. In fact, they state as their goal a great unmasking, a peeling away of the layers of so-called civilization. They champion something earlier, something more primitive. At bottom, Savages arent flying the flag for postpunk; theyre seeking to sublimate the instinctual truths that postpunk music endeavored to reanimate. Theirs is a tortured simplicity, achieved through contemplation rather than rehearsal. Which is not to say that the band isnt spectacularly well-rehearsed. Their album has very little fat and their live show is a veritable exhibition of efficiency. But look at their manifestos. All the order and rigidity evident in Savages music are suspended for a kind of textual passion. Sentences run on, discipline trails off. The band demand that you silence yourself, but then evince a crippling disability to keep quiet. I imagine any second-tier philosophy student could argue that to be silent is demonstrably different than to keep quiet. That an argument can be proffered, however, doesnt mean that you should believe it. Savages contradict themselves willfully, as is the fate of those who are tasked with learning to unlearn or calling out the complexities of simplicity. By posting no-nonsense rhetoric thats plainly stuffed with supposition, the band unwittingly aligns itself with self-help gurus on the order of Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra. Cant you see? What youre looking for is something that you already possess. It exists within the self, and can be tapped on demand once your mind or your soul or your chi is attuned to the proper frequency. Fall in line and revelation will follow. To me, this is sorcery dressed up in the borrowed rags of emancipation. Be wary of those who would purport to free you. They usually have a God complex, or, at the very least, a lifestyle course to sell you. The notion that modernity can be defeated by focus and discipline is one that ought to be quarantined to the yoga studio or the monkish retreat. The world was never silent and neither were we. To pursue a mute state of affairs is to nullify the social aspect of human existence, to sacrifice our species chief biological advantage. Savages I AM HERE Manifesto states IT IS STRONGLY ADVICE [sic] TO KEEP OUR MOUTH SHUT IF WE WANT TO SUCCEED. Leaving aside the obvious assertion that Jehnny Beth couldnt produce an album or play a concert if she kept her mouth shut, it should be written that sustained silence is tantamount to disenfranchisement. The silent get trampled on, and the meek dont inherit anything but the wages of servitude. One must know the ledge between being a good listener and occupying a passive role in someone else s world.

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Where Savages fail as a construct is in their paradoxical muddling of hierarchy: They speak with an implied level of authority, then insist that authority is precisely what you need to question, but only on the terms detailed in their mission statements. The band dont want fans so much as adherents. They dont want you to think for yourself; they want you to think like them. This is the business end of their act, and its the conceit of a savagery none too noble. Thankfully, their act has a music end as well. Silence Yourself is studded with stark, barebones rockers, the noise coming fast and furiously from the opening number, Shut Up, through the penultimate track, Husbands. The albums first words arent sung but spoken. And theyre spoken not by Jehnny Beth but by Joan Blondell, an actress whose lines come from the 1977 John Cassavetes film, Opening Night. Savages seem to have a proclivity for Cassavetes work, reflected not just in Shut Up but also in Husbands, a title attached to both the bands signature song and one of Cassavetes most acclaimed films. The verit style of the great director casts a shadow on Savages brand of postpunk, which is blunt, whippet-quick, and scarring. On Silence Yourself, there are no audacious panning shots, just a series of merciless close-ups, establishing an intimacy thats alternately brave and barbed. Savages want you to get close, but not that close. Their M.O. is to smolder, then explode. Guitar and bass shimmer and stab, ratcheting up a tension thats released in sudden crescendo, typically heralded by one of Jehnnys piercing Ohh!s. The band is efficient in verse and riff, lending quarter to spin and whirlwind but nothing in the way of sidelong distraction. Im pleased to give Savages credit: They make good on the reasonable sections of their manifestos, editing down their songs to the wiry essentials. I Am Here and Citys Full are full-steam-ahead cuts, featuring little but barre chords and Jehnnys searing vibrato. Strife, She Will, and No Face offer ferocity and fear in equal measure, fusing a consistent indie sound out of influences as disparate as Garbage, Foo Fighters, the Slits, and the Raveonettes. From a critical perspective, none of these references are perfect, and I admit as much. I doubt that Savages had the perennially avuncular Dave Grohl in mind when they set about assembling their opus. Still, Strife packs an opening drum figure which more or less mirrors that of Nirvanas Scentless Apprentice, and the central guitar line is redolent of those that won glory on Nineties rock radio. Savages thus incorporate textures that are distinctively post-postpunk. Theirs is not a one-note band or a one-idea franchise. And though their formula has been applied before, its rarely been done so well or with such enthusiasm. My initial interface with Savages came nearly a year ago, via their Flying to Berlin/Husbands single. The song after the backslash was the clear winner, and it
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remains the groups best cut to date. Husbands was a lightning bolt, emerging swiftly from an ether of ambient noise. Fay Miltons drum smacked us out of the compositions da capo stupor. Then came Gemma Thompsons vertigo-inducing guitar lick, which called to mind a World War I propeller plane plunging toward a fiery crash. At that point, voice and bass were merely added bonuses, supplying torque to an inviolable gravitational pull. The single induced silence without the strains of a formal request. You heard it and you were transfixed. It said I AM HERE through its music, not an accompanying manifesto. On Silence Yourself, Savages make the ballsy decision to rejigger the original Husbands arrangement. The song no longer stands alone, springing to life at the knee-jerk whack of a snare. Now the track segues seamlessly from its predecessor, the twitchy, unhinged Hit Me. It arrives bass first, with Hassans rubbery ping portending trouble. The politics of this reordering hold a provocation that I can t regard as incidental. Several lines into Hit Me, Jehnny sings, I took a beating tonight/And it was the best I ever had. Later, she barks, Im ready/When you hit me. This readiness is made manifest in Husbands, which ambles out of the gate to a verse reading, I woke up and I saw the face of a guy/I dont know who he was/ He had no eyes. These lyrics are imbued with terror and displacement, a feeling of captivity and abuse that lands all the more brutally given the outrageous revelations currently hemorrhaging out of Ariel Castros Cleveland basement. Perhaps this is a folly of overeager interpretation, but Hit Me into Husbands sounds like a story of domestic battery, connubial bliss refashioned as connubial horror. Its scary stuff and, perversely, the albums best passage. Ive been a fan of Husbands since its drop. The song was included in my Best of 2012 compendium, largely on account of its visceral appeal. No baroque noodling or synth-pop filigree for Savages, just the Wilhelm Scream, issued at loud volume. I likened the track to Joy Divisions Shes Lost Control, a comparison that I can stand behind if not fully vouch for. Really, I think the track belongs to the cinema. The obvious analogue would be Cassavetes Husbands, but my memories of that film dont accord with my sentiments regarding Savages single. Jehnny Beths bellow of He had no eyes!, followed by her declaration that his presence made [her] feel ill at ease, conjures images from Roman Polanskis Repulsion, which cast Catherine Deneuve as a sexually maladjusted pantaphobiac. She experiences nightmares of rape and molestation, the black and white film triggering disgust aside titillation. It s a very claustrophobic movie, just as Husbands is a very claustrophobic song. Walls and hands seem to be closing in on you, promising traumas of varied intensity. In both works of art, you suspect that the scene will not end well for the protagonist. She will be broken or defiled, perhaps even committed to a sanitarium. Whats being depicted, finally, is not danger from without but madness from within.
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For reasons which arent altogether clear, the original version of Husbands is more harrowing than its sequel. Savages seem more grounded the second time around, still prone to frenzy but not yet fit for a straitjacket. Though version 2.0 clangs louder on the low end, with Hassans bass given greater share, the overall delivery is better composed, in every sense of the phrase. Fifteen seconds are cut from the run time, and the tracks calling card, Jehnnys whispery wail of husbands, husbands, husbands!, loses just a touch of its desperation. The song is by no means a radio-friendly unit shifter, but its somehow been talked off the ledge, no longer on the brink of selfinjury. This is consistent with the attitude adopted throughout Silence Yourself. Savages bend but do not break. They value economy too much to get caught up in the dislocating episodes of mania. This is, after all, a show. And the show must go on. Id give the on-record performance a solid B hearty applause if not a standing ovation. Nothing but Husbands shook me to the core, but the also-rans sprint with a verve thats reliably thrilling to witness. Savages believe in themselves, and their confidence rises from the vinyl in a clenched fist. This fist is one of affirmation, not mere protest. The women of Savages genuinely feel that they know a better way, and they aim to impel you to follow them, not just on Twitter or Facebook, but in life. As Laura Snapes commented in her recent Pitchfork cover story on the band, These imperious, Romantic punks want to be nothing less than a gateway drug to transformative art and ideas. Here, we return to the concept of the skeleton key, magically commissioned to unlock the potential of every susceptible soul. We repeat the conviction that Savages are something more than a quartet of ambitious musicians. To paraphrase D Boon from the Minutemen, this band could be your life. And what a dour life it would be. Simply put, Ive been around the block a few too many times to fall for half-baked manifestos, however well intended. A statement that begins with IN OUR MODERN WORLD, MAN ASSIDUOUSLY ABANDONS HIS LIFE TO PRACTICAL NECESSITIES AND HIS IMAGINATION TO SLAVERY cannot beget empowerment. This is the stuff of cults and communes, of undergraduate activism and its kind of memos, which tilt dry and doctrinaire. In this regard, Savages inherit the torch formerly held aloft by campus-radical postpunks, who practiced what the music writer Simon Reynolds called trendy-lefty autodidacticism. (If youre interested in postpunk but havent read Mr. Reynolds Rip It Up and Start Again, Id advise you to visit Amazon immediately.) This penchant for being strident and outspoken is both Savages raison dtre and their limiting factor. The band are Romantic because they can imagine a better world. (I agree wholeheartedly with Laura Snapes use of the capital-R adjective, which packs an emotional charge.) But Savages are also, by my reading, dilettantes, not because I substantively disagree with their politics, but
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because they regard change as a tuning out rather than a chiming in. Id like to join these ladies in a less distracted, more thoughtful world. I just dont think well get there by shutting up. Agree to disagree, I guess. No blood needs to be spilled, nor should a sealed train be dispatched to Petrograd. Savages are proud firebrands, but theyre not allergic to turning down the heat or softening their message. Silence Yourself does, fittingly, have its quiet moments, where mood usurps motion. Three of the LPs 11 tracks essentially crawl, with Waiting For a Sign letting a little air out of the albums tires, Dead Nature signaling a halftime intermission, and Marshal Dear closing out the proceedings with a piano-driven simmer. Of the three slow numbers, Marshal Dear is the best, playing like the Misfits In the Doorway, the reflective coda to Static Ages steel-toed bludgeoning. Here, Savages sound tamed and spent, but rumors of their demise are greatly exaggerated. This song is a last call disguised as a last rites. The title character will be dying within the hour, and hes given a terminal instruction in Jehnnys French-accented English. Silence yourself, she says. This phrase is repeated several times for effect; then the singer steps aside for a short instrumental epilogue. Thus the albums last words are also its title. This seems right, given the fact that Silence Yourself hosts more mantras than a full conclave of Hindu priests. The chorus of a given song typically contains that song s title, often repeated in triplicate. Jehnny is not a witty lyricist; she toils in the service of concision, not adornment, and she does her job with relish. (Or, more accurately, with no relish.) In last weeks New Yorker, pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones profiled Savages, writing, Beths tendency is to use short words and vague pronouns, usually describing a moment of extremity or decision. This is correct, if not edifying. Frere-Jones could just as easily be referencing George W. Bush, who was an avatar of Manichean bromides and monosyllabic bluster. Perhaps this is an apt analogy, as both W. and Jehnny Beth are zealots for freedom. Again, it boils down to belief. Savages and neo-cons share a commitment to remaking the world in their own image. Such is the God complex I warned of earlier, although unilateral action as enacted by a rock and roll band is categorically less damaging than unilateral action taken by imperious, Romantic Republicans. Shock and awe, in the end, leaves a bigger crater than volitional silence. Yet Savages still cry out for a stifling of sound. In fact, they demand it. Before their show in Seattle last month, the band published a SILENCE YOUR PHONES manifesto. It read, in part, OUR GOAL IS TO DISCOVER BETTER WAYS OF LIVING AND EXPERIENCING MUSIC. WE BELIEVE THAT THE USE OF PHONES DURING A GIG PREVENTS ALL OF US FROM TOTALLY IMMERSING OURSELVES. They ask for silence so that they can be heard, and I
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think that this is well within their rights, particularly if theyre willing to offer refunds to disgruntled ticket holders. One of my favorite songwriters, Bruce Springsteen, regularly asks for a little quiet during his solo acoustic numbers, which require a focus that, say, Glory Days does not. During the Boss Devils and Dust tour, I was at a show where sound troubles caused certain members of the audience to yell We cant hear you! Unfortunately, Bruce couldnt decipher these cries. He figured he was being taunted for playing topical songs, many of which questioned the logic of Operation Enduring Freedom. In this great emancipatory moment, Springsteen told the presumed hecklers to Shut the fuck up. He also offered them a full refund at the door. Even at his meanest, the Boss was unfailingly generous. He didnt have his enemies removed; he had them remunerated. To their credit, Savages are not so keen to compromise. They dont request a vow of silence so much as enforce it, with little concern for anything as vulgar as money. The commodity they covet is concentration the talent to exist in the microsecond, without the crutch of photos or conversation or Internet access. As Lindsay Zoladz of Pitchfork has written, their ability to see the value of silence in a world of noise might make Savages the most web-savvy band of the year. In other words, the bands insistence on silence makes silence impossible. By shouting, in all caps, NO TALKING, Savages ensure that everyone will have something to talk about. This is the irony that I addressed at the top of this essay, the conceit that ultimately peripheralizes Savages music. Read any in-depth piece on the band and youll find that its subject is the ensembles straight-spine rule mongering or its postpunk protesting. The songs themselves arent mentioned until the second paragraph. Thats because Savages message preempts their music, just as the band intended. This isnt a criticism. Nor is it purposely myopic. I understand that the music can work synergistically with the manifestos that motivate it, provided that themes operate in concert rather than contrast. Silence Yourself fails as an art exhibition because there are two hands at the controls, one hitting the mute button, the other twisting the volume dial up to 11. I think its unfair to expect others to remain mute while you claim to traffic in something immutable, something INDESTRUCTIBLE and MUSICALLY SOLID. We acknowledge that this is a show, and that youre playing to us, not for us, but I dont want to read a users manual before streaming your album. Or, more to the point, I dont want the first line of that users manual to be PUT DOWN THIS USERS MANUAL, followed by a treatise on demystification. Theres a distinction between being enlightened and being fucked with. In any honest assessment of band versus media, Savages have won. Though the group have released just 40 minutes of recorded music, theyve filled features sections, Album of the Week columns, and countless comment fields. What indie bands need to
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do in the contemporary music marketplace is to start a conversation, whereby people react to an mp3 or a video or a sidebar provocation. Then more people react to that reaction, and a meme emerges. Insofar as Savages are known, theyre known as austere postpunks who brandish aesthetic theories along with their instruments. If I were in Savages, Id prefer to be recognized for having written Husbands than for having drawn up a sign that prohibits videos, Instagramming, or tweets. The calls for no distractions have become a distraction. And thats a shame. Still, you cant blame a band for trying to change the world. I defend any ensembles right to declare Year Zero, to rip it up and start again. The new commandments, however, should be on your record, not in the Words section of your website. Lend the music primacy and youll be regarded as a viable musician. Otherwise, youre participating in an act of theater, and your testimony cannot be believed once the stage lights go dim. This is a tragedy for a band as humorless as Savages. For them, everything depends on being taken seriously. They really want you to shut your mouth and listen, to find the hidden truth within. The band apparently took their name from Lord of the Flies, the William Golding novel which, as any eighth grader can tell you, chronicled the race towards barbarism among a gang of shipwrecked British prep school students. Away from the sound and the fury of modern life, the boys didnt become more thoughtful; instead, they became more vicious. Rules were quickly tossed aside, and manners evaporated in the island heat. Children were killed and idols were worshiped. Composure descended into chaos. So much for freeing your mind. The more one considers Savages, the more one notices that their ironies obscure their convictions. In the bands very first manifesto, we read, SAVAGES SONGS AIM TO REMIND US THAT HUMAN BEINGS HAVENT EVOLVED SO MUCH. But then we listen to the songs and find that their impact is precisely the opposite: Husbands, She Will, and Shut Up flummox the listener with their primitive intensity. Our instincts tell us to fight or flee, and these are fight songs. They remind us that human beings, over the course of dozens of millennia, have evolved from bashing each other over the head with a rock to enlisting high-priced lawyers and accountants to do their dirty work for them. Civilization is largely a suppression of instinct, not a surrender to it. You want nature, go shit in the woods. Then pick up a stick and hunt for your dinner. Savages sound like theyd be up for this challenge, but only through the intercessions of a movie script. Ultimately, their music is more evocative than provocative, and what it evokes is the cinema Cassavetes, Polanski, Hitchcock, and, for me, Sidney Lumets Equus. This film was based on Peter Shaffers play of the same title, and featured Richard Burton in the main role, that of Dr. Martin Dysart. Hes a child
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psychiatrist whos tasked with making sense of the case of Alan Strang, a disturbed teenager who blinded six horses in a Hampshire stable. His attempts to contextualize the atrocity prove maddening, and Dysart eventually labels himself both an incompetent and a hypocrite. He realizes that his personal philosophy, his obsession with the primitive world and the instinctual truths that were lost with it, is grounded in so much bollocks. What wild returns I make to the womb of civilization!, Dysart shouts, admitting that his paganism is a pose. While he dreams of centaurs, his patient is undone by trying to become one (through means that cannot be spoken of in good company). Despite the specter of derangement, Dysart sees a bravery in the young Strang, a bravery he knows hell never have. It pains him to rob his patient of his capacity to worship, but the rules of civilization demand that he push for a cure. In the end, Strang is placed on the road to recovery, Dysart on a slow march to despair. Though hes supposed to know the human mind in all its intricacies, the good doctor cannot account for Equus, Strangs equine God. In Lord of the Flies, we were offered a pigs head to venerate; in Equus, a horses head. Primitives worship idols, make burnt offerings, and are prone to violence. This is insinuated but never explained, perhaps because it cannot be explained, as our species is too domesticated to return to the spear and the loincloth. Dysart closes his analysis with a statement of defeat: There is now, in my mouth, a sharp chain. And it never comes out. The object he must scrutinize is inscrutable, and this shatters Dysarts psyche. All that thinking does him in. So it is with Savages. You can try to reconcile their message with their music, but youd be wiser to regard it as a fools errand, lest you go the way of Dr. Dysart. Even if you do as youre told, and silence yourself, youll find that the noise doesnt stop. Savages are the godhead and the Lord of the Flies. They have the conch, and their class is continuously in session. Id advise you to listen to the music, not the mission statements. The shut up runs both ways, from artist to fan and from fan to artist. If you can tune out the buzz that Savages have conjured for themselves, youll hear one hell of a debut album. If you cannot, youll spend a day or two rending your garments. Rest assured, however, that this sharp chain does come out. All you need, ironically, is a distraction. Put a little distance between yourself and Savages platform, and youll come to hear the songs for what they are walloping postpunk rockers rather than what they aspire to be portals to personal and/or cosmic discovery.

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Nothing new here. Just good music, from a talented young band. This should be enough. Pity that, by Savages own definition, it is not. (May 10, 2013) Vampire Weekend, Modern Vampires of the City Modern Vampires of the City is Vampire Weekends third album, and the first that I have reason to regard with a wary ear. The record stands apart from its predecessors on a variety of fronts, the most immediate being its headlong embrace of the ticking clock. Here were privy to the garnished wages of mortality, a lien that addles the hearts of the young and the curious like an invisible FICA tax. Thus, life s two sure things are conveniently compressed into a strong series of pop songs, some so strong as to number among the years best. One can consider these songs separately, listening for the distinction between singles and deep cuts, but to do so would kill a heady gestalt. Modern Vampires grips you from the jump and releases your hand only after its had its say. To skip certain tracks, or to reorder the chosen chronology, would be an affront to Vampire Weekends artistic intention. Start to finish, this is the finest LP of the year, by several orders of magnitude. I lend it a wary ear only because it confirms what perceptive listeners might have already suspected: Vampire Weekend have left the summer homes of Cape Cod, absented themselves from the contained logic of the college campus, dumped the kefir and horchata down the kitchen sink. Now theyre out in the real world, engaging with themes that are more eternal than seasonal. The permanence of impermanence is in the air. As Ezra Koenig shouts on the shimmering, resplendent Finger Back, I dont want to live like this/But I dont want to die. Neither do I, pal. But Im afraid we dont have much choice in the matter. What makes Modern Vampires special is its refusal to be taken in by either a naive optimism or an easy cynicism. There are dark bits, for sure, but none of a grey so opaque that it obscures the sun. The LPs first song, Obvious Bicycle, is pedaled by a couplet reading, You oughta spare your face the razor/Because no ones gonna spare the time for you. These would appear to be dispiriting lines, possessed of indolence, unemployment, or a surrender to circumstance. Self-pity, however, isnt something that Vampire Weekend encourage. Obvious Bicycle is ultimately a stirring song, and Modern Vampires is ultimately an opus of affirmation. Upon completing my initial stream of the album, the first thing I did was shave. Sparing my face the razor would have been an abdication of the responsibilities of adult life. It also would have been a small act of submission, to forces that are better left quarantined than indulged.
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Alas, Vampire Weekend are essential because theyre contemplative but not paralyzed by thought. They negotiate a productive working relationship between the intellectual and the kinetic, demonstrating cleverness and abandon in equal measure. On Modern Vampires, Koenigs lyrics have reached a new level of weight and sobriety. The two conditions are not the same, and it takes a nuanced hand to achieve the right balance. Koenig finds his sweet spot in a device as old as the spoken word: storytelling. He gives each song a narrative, its arc typically avoiding the extremes of despair or euphoria. Ezra is an inquisitive fellow, but the answers he desires demand questions wed rather avoid questions of place and provenance, of method and mortality. Are we up to the task of modern living? Can we grow older with dignity? What are we to believe now that our youth a commodity weve always taken for granted because weve known no alternative is scattered to the wind? Should we put our faith in God, man, music, or some insipid combination thereof? I apologize if my commentary is leading you to believe that Modern Vampires is, at bottom, a ponderous extension of Are you there, God? Its me, Ezra. This is pop music, brilliantly written and skillfully played. Koenig is at home in both the soil and the sea, so his gaze isnt forever locked on some inscrutable firmament. By his own admission, The perfect tone is halfway between deeply serious and totally fucking around. A band as talented as Vampire Weekend can have fun with fundamental truths because, well, thats just who they are: cosmic cut-ups, blessed with a penchant for mining humor from gravity and gravity from humor. This ambidexterity isnt by any means limited to the groups frontman. It could be argued that the quartets sonic comptroller, Rostam Batmanglij, is the new records Most Valuable Vampire. His multivariate arrangements are at once the most sophisticated and the least predictable in the VW canon. The band have pushed to the fore instruments that they formerly held at an arms length, most notably piano, acoustic guitar, and organ. Vocal harmonies are also given a greater billing, working alternately as leavening agents and a form of ballast. That said, fans of the ensembles original textures can rest easy. Harpsichord flourishes and quivering guitars still abound; its just that theyre marked with a thumbprint of the ethereal. At long last, Vampire Weekend have found religion not Jesus or Allah or free-market capitalism, but a place for reflection beyond the Columbia quad or the mortal coil. On a warm, ruminative track called Dont Lie, Koenig sings, Theres a headstone right in front of you/And everyone I know. The words resonate only because Rostam has dressed them up in their Sunday s best. Church organ pairs with percussion thats reminiscent of the stylized drums on Elvis Costellos This Years Girl. The first sound befits a ballad; the second a banger. Yet, on Modern Vampires, they get along famously. Even putative contrasts find
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concert, claiming common ground in VWs ambitious mixing board. Its as if the melting pot and the salad bowl had struck an accord: Regardless of tenor or timbre, were going to lock hands and push forward. Long story short, Rostam is a technical virtuoso, finding sublimity in the street corner, weaving threads and patterns together like a textile maven. As its title would suggest, this album is the work of city folk, familiar with the fancies of boroughs central and peripheral. Vampire Weekend dont shrink from the heavy beats of hip-hop or radio pop. They borrow what they need from all genres, mainstream and underground, domestic and international. Rostams task is to alter and amalgamate rather than appropriate or adulterate; that is, to assemble a coherent whole from a junk pile of spare parts. On Modern Vampires, he does this with such aplomb that were inclined to offer him prize money. Rostam achieves with sound what Koenig achieves with words: He conjures the perfect tone, halfway between deeply serious and totally fucking around. His effects are a cause. Theyre valuable in and of themselves, as conduits of energy or attitude. But when these sonics are recognized as a standard around which like-minded souls can rally, theyre rendered all the more precious, perhaps even immutable. For now, Vampire Weekend are throwing their lot in with the modern, the progressive, the populist. They write indie rock anthems music that derives its power from the consent of the many, not from the critical minority. That critics actually love their work is a happy bonus, representing a rare overlap between niche taste and chart position. If the current numbers hold, Modern Vampires will debut as the #1 record in the country. This should be a point of pride for all those who love pop music. The shame, insofar as there is any, is that the LP will not remain in pole position for weeks to come. New days inevitably bring new fascinations, many of which are alarmingly misguided or premature. Let us address this unpleasantness swiftly and without ungovernable passion. Simply put, by early Tuesday morning, the week of May 12th had ceased to be defined as the week during which the new Vampire Weekend album was to be released. Instead, it had become the week during which the new Daft Punk album could be streamed, scouted, and dissected. We were on to the next appointment even before the current visitor had removed his cap and jacket. So it is with our hotel civilization, where rooms are rented rather than owned, the bill often greeted with a dash toward the nearest exit. Modern Vampires is irregular in that it calls for an extended stay. Theres depth and wisdom here, more than can be assimilated in a single serving. You need to listen to this record front to back, in the order devised by its authors. In doing so, youll be treated to a genuine aesthetic experience, whereby accessibility and complexity ride saddle to saddle, galloping toward whichever horizon you
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choose. Pop music is rarely this glorious and this vulnerable at the same time. The songs have weight, but they also float. The lyrics question, but also affirm. The album is hummable, but also horrifying. It suggests that the future is infinite in all directions, yet reminds us that our time to pursue the transcendent is limited. Whether Vampire Weekend are deeply serious or totally fucking around is almost immaterial. They do the heavy lifting, but we bear the burden of interpretation. Of course, striving to make sense of it all can get in the way of enjoying the utterly charming music. Ill admit that Modern Vampires is not an album that aspires to be written about; its an album that aspires to be listened to. This is our first obligation: to take the songs in. From there, we can do as we please, even if our efforts prove more zealous than useful. So, without further philosophical rankling, let me describe my listening experience. Cuing up the album, I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper, simply to list the names of the songs and to accommodate any notes I might see fit to scribble. I left a little space in the left margin, thereby reserving a slim column in which to insert asterisks. An asterisk would indicate that the song under review was exceptional something that deserved to be assessed over and above its mere inclusion on the album. Midway through Modern Vampires, five of the six songs had asterisks next to their names. By the end of the 12-song rotation, nine of the dirty dozen bore the mark of distinction. This is not to say that I found three-fourths of the album merely pleasant or amusing. Those asterisks communicated that 75% of the LP rated somewhere beyond masterful. The remaining 25% only merited the adjective amazing. But to divide Modern Vampires into percentages is to miss the forest for the trees. As Ive hinted, the best course is to appraise the album as a whole, each link essential to the integrity of the chain. The only time my interface with Modern Vampires proved less than marvelous was when I unwittingly relieved the album of its Diane Young single. This was an honest mistake, the result of an earlier download residing in the stacks of my iTunes library, not in my Recent Added folder, from which I was streaming the LP. Things were rolling along smoothly until I reached the clean-up spot, now party to a gaping hole. Instead of Diane Young, I got Dont Lie, which is bit like getting herbal tea when you were expecting strong espresso. The listen was marred, tainted, incomplete. These songs need each other, in exactly the order that Ezra and Rostam arranged them. The transitions are clean and seamless, like those brokered on the classic rock albums that your elders regard as Scripture. I think Modern Vampires belongs in their exalted company. If I have trouble explaining why, its only because the vocabulary of the instant classic is a rusted over with clich. This isnt Q104.3, where were forever sniffing Bob Dylans underpants, in search of some holy scent or stain. Let me be realistic: I doubt that Modern Vampires will induce beatific visions or spontaneous orgasm. Owing to the exigencies of the digital
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market, it could never be as culturally relevant as, say, Blonde On Blonde. But if youll deign to give the record an honest spin, Im pretty sure itll change your opinion of Vampire Weekend, almost certainly for the better. This is no small achievement, considering that, for many of us, Vampire Weekend already registered as a personal favorite. Ive long regarded them a great band, if not a Great Band. The dual caps had to be reserved for acts that either moved the goal posts on pop music or entered into a staring contest with the abyss, and somehow won. In the first group, you have your Beatles and your Stones; in the second, the likes of Suicide and Joy Division. At the moment, Vampire Weekend belong in neither the pop-sensation camp nor the hallowed corps of black-clad existentialists. Their fate is to gradually climb the hill toward Great, shouldering the rock for the whole of the Millennial Generation, muscling up from novelty to master. Modern Vampires is their best record yet, largely because its the bands first fully mature album. VWs music was initially escapist, replete with mansard roofs and undergraduate lectures, devastating backstrokes and diplomatic immunity. It was as if a young J.D. Salinger had written the screenplay for a film by Wes Anderson or Whit Stillman witty, provocative, and thematically arresting, but also a bit contrived. Its tough to sympathize with the problems of the haute bourgeoisie, particularly when a slumlord is snapping at your ankles and your employer is doling out pink slips like the Susan J. Komen street team. Even if you loved Vampire Weekend, you got the sense that they were singing for someone else. Modern Vampires corrects this course. If the album were corsetted into a word visualization chart, big bubbles would be accorded to souls, old, die, truth, time, Babylon, warmth, me, you, and love. Vampire Weekend have ceased to be enamored of the piddling concerns of this world and are now caught in the righteous undertow of the next. This is what I mean when I say that theyve found religion: the band now look to the heavens, not only for kicks, but for guidance. Where previous VW albums wore prep school blazers and boat shoes, Modern Vampires wears a priestly collar. And the LP derives its drama from the notion that this priest might have lost his faith. On the albums second song, Unbelievers, this doubt is casually tugged toward certitude. Koenig imagines damnation rather than nothingness; We know the fire awaits, unbelievers, he sings, his feet already charred by the flames. Whats interesting is that the band dont render this portent as a lurid Bosch hellscape or a marbled Piet. The boys conjure a carnival, setting Ezras confessions to a swirling, snap-along instrumental. Unbelievers sounds like a mix of Girls Honey Bunny and Elvis Costellos cover of I Stand Accused, the battering drums lending a backbone to the organ chime. The song insinuates that an amazing grace can be found
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in being lost. Its as if the narrator has come to the conclusion that hes O.K. with not being O.K. not because he lacks ambition, but because hes gained perspective. Hes learned that certain truths defy capture; to chase them with conquerors legs is to commission a campaign of hubris or folly. These states might even be one and the same. This concept of perspective pervades the album, perhaps nowhere more explicitly than on a track called Everlasting Arms, a title sourced in Deuteronomy (The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.). Lifted by rising scales and Afro-pop drums, Koenig claims to hum the Dies Irae as you play the Hallelujah. This is tantamount to offering judgment amid praise, sadness amid celebration. Make no mistake: Modern Vampires has some melancholy about it. When an albums most upbeat song is called Diane Young, you might be inclined to wonder whether the songwriters have stopped taking their Zoloft. You jettison this line of inquiry, however, when you realize that Vampire Weekend havent lost their sense of humor. The band squeeze a laugh out of the cruel fate that awaits us all, fire or no fire. The penultimate verse of Diane Young starts, Irish and proud, baby, naturally/But youve got the luck of a Kennedy/So grab the wheel and keep holding it tight/Til youre tottering off into that good night. This humor is black if not entirely gallows. The specter of death is less the turd in the punch bowl than the alcohol that gives the drink its kick. Rostam inserts skronks and vocal manipulations, giving Ezra a manic croon, the sort that might befit a hopped-up greaser with designs on eternity. Here, Elvis Presley studies the gospels while high on amphetamines. He needs the speed because he knows his time is running out. The shadow of Elvis looms large over Modern Vampires. Presley is made manifest in the lead single, Costello in the deeper cuts, which rely more heavily on organ and upfront percussion. Central among my vices as a music critic (aside from my evident lack of a concision) is a penchant for cultivating forced or facile analogies. So while I dont want to shoehorn Modern Vampires into another artists loafers, I cant help but note that the album reminds me a bit of Costellos own third feature, Armed Forces. There, Costello hit the brake on his youthful exuberance, admitting for the first time that he had more questions than answers. The LPs opening lyric is Oh, I just dont know where to begin. No longer so bratty or cocksure, Elvis needed the Attractions to prop up the earnestness and solemnity of his writing. (Bear in mind that earnestness and solemnity are relative terms; on Armed Forces, Costello is still wickedly funny.) Doubt had begun to seep into his work. The LP ended with an instructive anomaly: Elvis, easily among the most prolific songwriters of the time, stealing a track from Nick Lowe. This number was called (Whats So Funny Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding, and it came just two years after Costello had

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proclaimed everything means less than zero. From nihilism had come light, or at least a more ecumenical mindset. This history repeats itself on Modern Vampires. Nothing is poached outright from Costello it isnt the presence of a musical influence that frames the album but the absence of a moral North Star. Theres a vacancy in the soul of the cerebral twentysomething, a barren place where spouse or career or God used to reside. Koenig and Rostam attempt to reseed these fields, but the crop grows inward rather than outward. Resolve replaces revelation, and the band slowly find comfort in being uncomfortable, as they must if theyre to consider themselves honest artists. This stance skews more British than American, and it reminds you that Ezra Koenig was an English major, toiling in texts that schools take pains to keep away from the business students. I hear echoes of Edward St. Aubyn, who, in his third Patrick Melrose novel, Some Hope, wrote Perhaps there was something in this half-shallow, half-profound idea that one had to despair of life in order to grasp its real value. Vampire Weekend do St. Aubyn one better by truncating the despair and elongating the ecstasy. Ryan Dombal at Pitchfork has commented that Koenig has an ecstatic worldview, and I think hes right. The singers spiritual awareness, once meager, is now a mature, ecumenical force. Nearing the invidious age of 30, Ezra has developed the ability to transcend rather than simply wallow. Vampire Weekend have scaled to greater heights because Rostams instrumental aesthetic matches Ezras lyrical ambition note for note. What theyve created is a kind of hipster liturgy; the songs not only have weight, but Mass. This is most apparent on Modern Vampires most conspicuous anthem, Ya Hey. The title at once alludes to the Old Testament God and the best pop song released in my lifetime, OutKasts Hey Ya. The song proper invites you to believe in the Bible, the Billboard charts, or some lesser principle of self-organization. Koenig coos, Oh, sweet thing/Zion doesnt love you/And Babylon dont love/But you love everything. As such, peace, love, and understanding register as gestures of defiance, not so much funny as brave. Evil and the occult are not wiped from the album. Their fingerprints remain in evidence, in the creaks and whispers of the slower tracks, particularly Hannah Hunt and Hudson. The latter song begins, Hudson died on Hudson Bay/The water took its victims name, imagining a haunting its characters cant shake off. Freedom comes only with the acknowledgment of the chains. Innocence lost, like Paradise before it, cannot be regained. But this doesnt signify that life is meaningless. In fact, it imbues life with more meaning: You have freedom of choice. So you should try to make the right one.

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This is the stuff of church imposing moral strictures on a world that seems aloof. Vampire Weekend are unbelievers, sinners in the hands of angry God. But isnt an angry God better than no God at all? I dont know the answer to this question, and neither do you, but its mere proffering is a prerequisite to discovery. As Ezra sings on Modern Vampires most elegiac track, Step, The gloves are off/The wisdom teeth are out. Considering weve lost our innocence, why not drop our pretenses as well? Maybe well learn something. Koenig is able to manage this turn toward the eternal because he has the vocal equivalent of a baby face. His voice cant scare up the menace to take on hard rock or street rap. It can, however, broker the high pitches of a youth choir, duly robed and dutifully rehearsed. Vampire Weekend make clever use of this quality, enlisting a pair of altar boys to sing the most adult of hymns. These altar boys are Ezra and Rostam, the first high in the mix, the second following faithfully. Ezra takes all of the solos, but Rostam handles the harmonies and the chorales, thickening certain songs with chant, others with glimmers of Bach and Handel. The religious ambiance is achieved most memorably in a simple device: accentual stress. Certain syllables are held for several notes, a stretching thats common to liturgical music, from the Dies Irae to the Hallelujah. We get a touch of this treatment on Modern Vampires opening track, in which the middle of the word listen is deftly elongated, spinning a little more glory through the spokes of Obvious Bicycle. This glory continues in various forms through the LPs last song, Young Lion, a piano-based number that spans less than two minutes but seems to go back centuries. It almost sounds like a field recording from some holy sanctuary, a live session cheaply preserved for posterity. The only lyric is You take your time/Young lion, but the time and the lion are made to rhyme, and both receive divine servings of accentual stress. Theres a deep and abiding religion in this song, as Young Lion was the name Jacob gave to his son Judah in Genesis 49:9. From Judah would come David, whose Israelite line would extend until it eventually begot Jesus. Talk about ending on a high note. Thankfully, this high note is decipherable to all ears, eager or skeptical, innocent or wary. You dont need to be grounded in Biblical or musical history to enjoy Vampire Weekends poetic brand of pop. You just have to give the band your time and attention, and not much of each. Many of Modern Vampires hits are immediate; the rest land after the third or fourth listen. Though theres faith and its parallel questioning, the band stop short of self-flagellation. Themes may confront, but the music soothes. The record makes more space for respite than requiem. Our wrists are spared the razor. Ultimately, Modern Vampires is a triumphant and graceful album that claims neither triumph nor grace. Its sole instance of revelation comes near the end of Ya Hey,
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when the narrator is enraptured by an intrepid DJ set, one that segues from Israelites to 19th Nervous Breakdown. The young lions of the Old Testament give way to the soft whimpers of modern anxiety. Psychology puts the blitz on religion, becoming a church of its own. Devotion to the Creator and the universe is displaced by a devotion to the self and the mind. This is a sordid business, something like a resignation from the collective, in the name of a false god. Ya Hey shines for redeeming this retreat. It allows an impressionable soul to experience a Paul of Tarsus moment, ostensibly outside a festival tent, where the tunes know no borders. Is this where Ezra and Rostam find truth? Is this the Gospel According to the Modern Vampires, bearing a byline of Indio, California? For Coachella is, like Scripture, a desert affair. Its tents are a site of frequent deliverance and unspeakable ecstasies. One wonders if all the faith and the fervor and the visions arent just a function of severe dehydration. Or maybe the comfort of belief is just that good. Maybe the music is too. (May 19, 2013)

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anthony M. Verdoni is the founder and principal of Green & Byrd Media, an advertising firm based in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He was formerly Editor of The Princeton University Nightly (P.U.N), a current events periodical. His blogs have included Singles On Speed and First Takes/Second Opinions, both published under the imprimatur of Punktilio Productions. Mr. Verdonis latest venture, No Relation Digital, is scheduled to launch in the fall of 2013.

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