Fun.--Be Calm

Be Calm



I picked up this album last week and I can't get enough of it. I never listened to the Format, never even heard of them I don't think, but I guess this is the spinoff of its remains. But that's as far as I care to place this band in any context—as far as I'm concerned, Fun.(that period is annoying as shit) is totally divorced from any time or trend...not because they're that original, but because they're that exceptionally derivative.

The whole record is like a tour of the best and kitchiest from the last thirty years of pop history—there's ELO and Queen in heavy doses, late 80's power ballads (I'm thinking of you, Firehouse—represent!), 90's GooGoo Doll grunge pop, Graceland/Vampire Weekend, the multi-instrumentation of post-NMH Indie, tons of Andrew Lloyd Weber, 80's pop saccharine, the structure and bombast of Meatloaf/Jim Steinman, and heaping portions of 70's singer-songwriter sincerity. The homage is so clear and rapid-fire, that it's almost like listening to samples instead of influences . It's low-art Frankenstein, and I love it. But the one influence that's notably absent—as in like COMPLETELY absent—is any sort of reserve or irony.

I mean, there's an entire fucking song about an old couple holding hands in their back-yard and what an awesome life they've had—and how their kids are all grown, and awesome, and how totally great it is that they did it all together...and I keep waiting for him to say that he's regretted the whole thing, or there's another woman, or doesn't mortality suck, or she has cancer...but it doesn't happen. They just hug it out or something and the song ends. Which is kind of jarring in it's jarringlessness. Also, it rulz, and I actually find it kind of moving.

So I'm going to try to just do a running diary of the opening track which I've heard like twenty times already—we'll see how it goes. Somehow, I think a stream of consciousness review probably suits this song the best—if ever there were a band that delighted in the ephemeral moment—it's these fools.

We start with some poignant stage-setting violins, like some Gone With The Wind prologue, which die out and usher us into some Rentish moping about love-lost with the violins keeping time. And then the falsetto kicks in, with soft Queen harmony behind and you know something's coming when he starts talking really quick about bodegas. I think there's an accordion, too. Then our first crescendo head-fake. Instead, there's some sort of angsty conversation between multiple voices going on over a 2000ish pop synth-beat. It's probably in his head—not that it matters. Then he does some weird rapping with the beats and hand-claps and violins building behind him and the crescendo comes for real...and there are horns and they kick ass and it's resplendent with self-affirming cheese. It's R. Kelly via Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. But maybe that wasn't the real crescendo, because we've shifted into ELO sound laced over Jellyfish power-pop, and this seems to be going somewhere else. And then the falsetto hits a new place, like the key change in Living on a Prayer—and there probably can't be another level, because we're at least three crescendos in at this point. But there might be...because there's the time-tested pause that tells you something else awaits. And now we're re-crescendoing that last-crescendo this time at the lower octave that hammers the sincerity—I think Heart pulled this trick in Alone--and there's no way that there can really be a song in which the dude is telling me “be calm, I know you feel like you're breaking down”, is this really all about empathy and everything will be all right? And he cracks his voice to show he really means it. And then we close with the same sad violins that opened, and Scene. That's how you close a first act.

I Got Married!

My doctor said to me, "If you love NyQuil so much, why don't you marry it?" Which we did, tying the knot in a small ceremony. Our first act as a married couple: slept all day.
Our second? Super-long post!

Something old:
Johnny Thunder
The Kinks, The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, 1968.
My favorite Kinks song of all time, and that's saying something. The most perfect chord progression of all time. I love a lot about "Johnny Thunder," but one of the most amazing things about it is that most of the lyrics are just baby-talk notes and sounds. The perfect two-and-a-half minute pop song. The entirety of The Kinks Are The Village Green Society is worth your time.

Something new:
The Jubilee Choruses
Sin Fang Bous, Clangour, 2009.
Sin Fang Bous (a 26 yo Icelandic guy) splits the very large difference between something like Loney, Dear and Animal Collective. This album is great to listen to when sick because it's so fucking confusing under the most normal of circumstances that with my wife at my side I don't care at all if it doesn't make any sense. "The Jubilee Choruses" has emerged as my favorite song on Clangour, mostly because of that ridiculous swirling ending where the breakbeat gets doubled up on itself. This song does an awful lot in four minutes-- it's the Vinny "Microwave" Johnson of music.


Something borrowed:

Love Cats
Cursive, Daytrotter Session, Sept. 22, 2009.
Perhaps the most obvious cover ever. The fascination Tim Kasher and Conor Oberst shared for The Cure, above all else, seemed to drive the whole Omaha scene. Thing is, Bright Eyes grew out of it and added on to it. Cursive has been stuck there, which has led to some good records (including their latest, Mama, I'm Swollen) and one great one (The Ugly Organ). Still, it's fun to hear a screechier cover of "Love Cats," right? I think so.

Something blue:

Jews for Jesus Blues
Clem Snide, End of Love, 2005.
"Now that I'm saved, I wish I was damned." Eef Barzelay is an amazing lyricist, which one would have to be given how clear-as-a-bell they make his vocals. Clem Snide is a terribly underrated band. Most people I know who are fans prefer The Ghost of Fashion, but I have always preferred The End of Love. Do yourself a favor and listen to them both.

Fancy Restaurants, Karen O, and Frank Sinatra: An Exploration of Sinead O'Connor

Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor

We've got a lot to cover, so let's get started.

After a warm synth sustains a deeply elegiac note, O'Connor opens with a frighteningly honest line: "It's been 7 hours and 15 days / Since you took your love away." Even the first syllable aches: if ou listen closely you'll hear the tiniest grit in her voice. From there, we are introduced to a woman who cannot help but pick at her scabs. She tacitly acknowledges, in a sense, that by counting the hours since her lover's departure she is her own worst enemy. But this doesn't stop her from lobbing accusations at her subject (let's, for the sake of argument, assume that this is a man who has rejected her). Love is being actively withheld from her, after all. And when she says "hours" her voice bottoms out and you see this yawning precipice below her. We're only 16 seconds int the song, and it's already clear that this is not just a breakup song; this is an exorcism.

O'Connor then lists all of her new-found freedoms, which oddly includes fancy restaurants at which she is free to dine alone. Whatever. That's probably healthier than weeping at Taco Bell, a soggy chalupa in your hand. The important thing here is that O'Connor works very hard to make these freedoms sound believably unbelievable. They're among the most unconvincing lines in all of pop music, and they're supposed to be that way. Good singing is good acting, and O'Connor sells is beautifully. Case in point: when she delivers the doctor's advice for a broken heart, she sneers and snarls like a petulant, know-it-all teenager.

The big moment in the song comes after the lovely violin solo, during which she is clearly weighing her options. She has to lay it on the line, or she has to slink away to her fancy restaurants alone. When she steps back up to the mic, she declares that "all the flowers you planted, mama / in the backyard / all died when you went away. / I know living with you, baby, was sometimes hard / but I'm willing to give it another try." Ignoring the incongruity (and inconvenience) with "mama," these are some incredibly sung lines. Again, we get that big beautifully hollow note in "all." And when she tells him that she's willing to give it anther try, these are the thinnest notes she hits in the whole song. She's been withholding her romantic recriminations for far too long. That list of freedoms is telling: these are clearly the freedoms she never had in the relationship. When she sings that last line, she's not underlining her words for emphasis. There's barely any conviction there: she's hemming and hawing with that note. She's trying to find the voice to say something more definitive that I'm willing. You're willing? What about I want . . .? She's hoping that he takes her back, certainly, but by the end she sounds terrified at the prospect.

And the video! Made at a time when videos rarely deepened or complicated or even just handsomely complimented a song, the video for NC2U is nearly perfect in its ability to bolster an otherwise amazing song.



I can do without the lingering shots of Paris, but the way that O'Connor continually fights to summon the courage to address the camera is breathtaking to watch. When he faces the camera, she's putting on the bravest face she can muster. But she lets her mask slip: when she turns to look down or away, she looks unbelievably fragile. She looks as tender as a little bird. I think it's hard not to worry about whether or not she's going to be able to weather this storm.

And when those two tears roll down her cheek at the end, I'm a worthless puddle of tears. I actually feel flooded with both sympathy and pity, however you want to make that distinction.

Obviously, it would be ridiculous to talk about those two tears without taking about the other most famous pair of tears in music video history: Karen O's in the video for Maps. After Nick Zinner's rawkus guitar solo, Brian Chase settles into his massive stutter-step of a beat and Karen O draws circles in front her with the mic, trying with all her worthless might to keep her cheeks dry. There are actually a lot of parallels between NC2U and Maps. In fact, NC2U was Maps before Karen O was old enough to sew a pair of feathered spandex. O'Connor is ultimately more articulate than Karen O. Where Karen O can only promise that no one currently loves him as much as she does (despite her infidelity), O'Connor proves that no one will ever love him as much as she does. Karen O is simply too stunned to digest the moment of departure, so she reaches for the only weapon at her disposal: herself and her unfaithful love. O'Connor is past that moment: 7 hours and 15 days to be precise. O'Connor is too wounded (and too aware of her injuries) to make such beautifully grand statements that really function as apologies. O'Connor's steeped in her misery too long. Things are difficult now. Things will be difficult for some time. These are difficulties that Karen O can only imagine (or worst, anticipate) in her song.

But the moment that gets me every time, the moment that puts a fat lump right in my throat, occurs at 4:09 in the video (I can't post the high quality version, so you'll have to look closely). She is weakly singing the chorus for the final time, fighting back tears, and, at 4:09, she swallows them in the most heartbreakingly human way. Sinead O'Connor is really crying in the video Those are real tears. And she really swallows them because she's trying to make it through the shoot. I think it occurs to you then that this is all really happening. This is no longer just a pop song. This is a very public pumping of a very deep well of sadness.

For late term Gen-Xers like us, I think it's very easy to be jaded about music videos. They started as silly and ridiculous. Then, after promises that they could be an art form, they more or less became expensive and ridiculous. Granted, a lot of them are visually inventive (Mark Romanek, Michel Gondry, etc), but very few of them are emotional experiences. I cannot think of another video that I consider as truly moving as NC2U.

At the end of the day, NC2U promises all the standard trappings of pop music: a pleasant voice sings a pleasant melody over pleasant music. But the song delivers more than pop music is designed to hold: a wrenching portrait of someone who is in real pain and whose only recourse is her stunning voice. This is a song whose power transcends Sinead O'Connor and all that has unfortunately been associated with her. When your song is this beautiful, it's all too easy to forget the head shorn of hair or the Pope photo incident or the weird relationship with the Catholic church or the fact that Frank Sinatra threatened to kick her ass. Unlike most one hit wonders, the song itself is powerful enough to draw attention away from the backstory, even if part of it involves Sinatra's threat to "punch [you] right in the mouth." When Doug Feiger dies and he's crediting with writing "My Sharona," you'll dig the song out and listen to it and laugh a little, thinking of that time you sang it in the car to your girlfriend or the first time you watched Reality Bites. But when Sinead O'Connor is mourned, you'll listen to this song in remembrance and there won't be a trace of irony to be had because the totalizing sincerity of this song defies ironic scrutiny. And how many mainstream pop songs in the last two (or three or four) decades can you say that about?

The Misfits - Last Caress

jumping the gun a bit because i know i won't be around the computer much tomorrow.

i have to say i felt better seeing matt talk about lyrics. i have an ungodly difficult time discerning lyrics while a song plays, and i can't really understand them much unless i read them. there must be some part of my brain that is underdeveloped. occasionally, however, an annunciation explodes on the scene that makes "not hearing" impossible. i'm convinced that's the secret to the popularity to a lot of bad pop and contemporary country music. i think it's also a reason why eminem caught so much flack from the media early on.

and then there's glen danzig. he's got something to say. he killed my baby today, and it doesn't matter much to him as long as it's dead. when you got something like that to say, it's best to have out with it at the outset of the song. he ain't done saying either, cause he raped my mom, too. and it doesn't matter much to me as long as he rocks it this fucking hard. i have yet to scold my ipod when it dials up this gem.

plus, this is the band (with henry rollins) that chased vince neil and the boys down the street just for being pussies. and rick james is lucky he's dead, cause he was on the fucking list.

"SECONDS: Is there a story of you and Henry Rollins chasing Motley Crue down a street ?

DANZIG: Not down the street, but we ran them out of The Whiskey when The Misfits first played there. It happened and it was pretty funny. You know, Motley Crue got a lot from The Misfits -- so did Rick James."


bonus pic:

"Last Caress"

Come Back Baby, High and Lonesome

Come Back Baby



Here's one for the 3/5 Grinnell majority in the group. One night after bartending at JD's I went down the stairs to the Pub--it was probably Finals or some shit because it was just me and the townies. Then, this band came on, and for whatever reason, the music just laid me out, and I spent two and half hours dancing with strange, sturdy women, swearing that this was some of the best stuff I'd ever heard. I paid five bucks for the CD, and it immediately entered the drinking at 2 AM rotation. I ended up catching them three or four more times while I was there...always a full house—it's really a perfect Midwestern blue-collar bar sound. Drunken and sloppy, bluesy but not despondent, with just enough country to keep it real. Like if one of the Walkmen actually had something go half-way right for once. Or at least didn't overthink the stuff that totally sucked. Back in the day, when every night ended with whiskey and music—it got heavy play for me...now, unfortunately, not so much.

“Come Back” is probably the class of the album—I think it was their encore at the shows. It's about some out of work dude who gets his heart-broken by a 17-year old hottie that leaves him for some guy who's got a great factory job. I still love all the rural small-town details that litter the song, and while I think it wears a little thin about halfway through, it finishes up strong. The lines, “Sometimes when she calls my name/I swear it sounds just like a curse/ But at 4:00 on a love-sick Iowa morning/I tell you people, I sure heard worse” absolutely brought the house down. It's also the sort of song that not only sounded significantly better live, but probably could have benefited from better production that highlighted the keyboards and slide a little better. If Uncle Tupelo had done it, it would be an alt-country classic.

High and Lonesome has long since broken up, but the frontman, David Zollo, keeps touring—almost exclusively in Iowa, playing three nights a week or so for most of the year, releasing an album every now and then. Which doesn't seem like a bad life. I've bought all his new records—and every few months or so I'll break one of them out. They're like musical comfort food—totally honest and authentic, but without ever being so challenging or intense that they could ruin a perfectly good buzz.

"T.K." Clinic

T.K.



Internal Wrangler 2001.

Nothing else sounds like this album. Coming out of Liverpool, there's a bit of expectation that weighs pretty heavily on a band. How to combat this? Well, wearing surgical masks onstage is one way to go, and if you sound like Clinic, at least at this point in their careers, I don't care if you're wearing the pelts of endangered species on your loins. Actually, I would probably not really be into that. I prefer unguarded loins.

When listening to Internal Wrangler (and what the fuck does that mean?), which I ranked 4th in our UTR Best of 2000 list- after Kid A, Stankonia and The Moon and Antarctica, I don't hear anything else. You know how you listen to some bands and you keep hearing what came before them? How once you figure out a band that's influenced a band all you can hear is that for a while? Well, at the beginning of "T.K." I hear the sound of a door opening on Star Trek, but other than that, I don't know. It sounds like some RZA soundtrack for a movie that never got made. Or hasn't been made yet. Because it sounds simultaneously brand new and old. And did then, too. It's timeless music in a kind of disconcerting way.

I don't know what any of the lyrics are, really, except for that "Come on come on come on, now don't be gauche." Although listening to it now, louder, I wonder if it's "Come on come on come on, oh don't be ghosts." Which would be badass. I was going to look them up, but why ruin it? Why care?

I don't know if this is my favorite song on this album, "Distortions" or "2/4" probably wins that honor, but "T.K." seems the most Clinic-y of all these tracks. Clinic is the strangest band I know of, in a good way, because nothing they do seems like it should go together AT ALL, the buzzsaw guitars, the thumping percussion, the odd sound effects (like someone saying "MMM" or "Ooo" in that distorted way), and the high-pitched vocals of the awesomely named Ade Blackburn are all totally different, and yet with pure ferocity and confidence, they've created something totally unique. Who else can I say that about?

Little Secrets

Lyrics do not penetrate my brain. I can certainly appreciate a good lyric, and bad lyrics are difficult to ignore. For the most part, though, they simply act as something for me to sing along to in my car. While I pick up the words quickly, I rarely pay any heed to what I’m singing. I can listen to a song hundreds of times, but my mind ignores Bloom’s Taxonomy and rarely goes further than the knowledge stage when a song plays.

The album I listened to most in August was Manners by Passion Pit. This surprised no one more than me, since it doesn’t exactly fit with most of the music in my collection. Yet something about it made me want to listen to it every time I got in my car for at least a month. “Little Secrets” found itself played repeatedly at maximum volume with me singing louder with every listen. What was I singing? I don’t have a clue. Judging by the reviews of the album, the music is a lot more upbeat than the lyrics. I just haven’t made the effort to figure out what it says, nor do I plan to do so. The way I hear it, “Little Secrets” may as well be a Sigur Ros song. Of course, I sing along to Sigur Ros as well.

http://boxstr.com/files/6063194_5yamg/02%20Little%20Secrets.mp3