Some Songs Considered - Posts Tagged 'track analysis'

September 7, 2009

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“Olsen Olsen” - Sigur Rós
(Words/music: Sigur Rós, available on Ágætis Byrjun, Fat Cat 1999 / PIAS America 2000)

Recently, I’ve been thinking about moments I associate with songs. In many cases, finding a new favorite isn’t about finding the right ingredients but rather the right circumstances. This is how albums seemingly “reinvent” themselves over time; an album that evoked one set of emotions at one time period might return another time with an entirely new set of associated feelings. Along with this, often, comes a new set of favorite songs. It’s not that the songs change (obviously), but rather the listener. A lot of times, I’ll rediscover a record that went hidden behind mounds of new music only to find something entirely new that I never noticed earlier. I used to get frustrated when I’d buy an album, listen a couple times, and then abandon it; now, I see these occasions as “buying myself a present for the future,” almost like I bought the record and subconsciously stashed it away for when the time would be right.

I bought Ágætis Byrjun in 2001 and liked it immediately. It sounded like something that beautiful, angel-throated aliens might sing. I have vivid memories of my first winter break home from college, running errands for my mom in her mini-van listening to Ágætis Byrjun and Jeff Buckley’s Grace for almost the entire break. Then, the record drifted to the depths of my giant CD binder, traveling with me back and forth between school and home, occasionally getting played but only sporadically. Then, last summer while visiting my old college roommate in Chicago, we watched Sigur Rós’s Heima documentary. While marveling at the beautiful Icelandic countryside, I absorbed all the different performances of their songs. “Olsen Olsen” was the one that stopped me in my tracks, though. I was compiling my things in his apartment when that scene started, and the opening crawl immediately struck me. I started packing slower and slower, watching a crowd gather on the countryside as that beautiful woodwind melody floated in for the first time. Then, as the film panned across a now complete crowd, “Olsen Olsen” shifted into high gear and I froze in my tracks. I let the mix of bowed strings – some from a traditional string section, the others from the electric guitars played with a bow, wash over me. It was the perfect wave of distortion and melody soundtracking a breathtaking scene of rural Iceland at dusk. It was the precise moment that led me back to Ágætis Byrjun, a record that I often put on late at night when I need to unwind and shift towards bedtime. I previously had favorites from that album – specifically “Starálfur” - but since that time, “Olsen Olsen” became my favorite (and, over the past 12 months is my most played song on Last.fm, in part from those late night Ágætis Byrjun listening sessions). All because of a lazy August afternoon in an apartment a few blocks away from Lake Michigan.

More on Sigur Rós: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

September 4, 2009

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“Shimmy Shimmy Ya” – Ol’ Dirty Bastard
(Words/music: Robert Diggs Jr. and Russell Jones, available on Return to the 36 Chambers, Elektra 1995)

In the world of the Ol’ Dirty Bastard, “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” plays fairly straightforward. That being said, “straightforward” for the ODB sounds spastic and bizarre to the rest of us. Once you get past his oddities – his declaration for his preference for “rawness,” for example – “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” follows a fairly straightforward structure. Behind that relentless piano loop RZA crafts, ODB repeats himself through most of the track. Unlike some of his more free-associative tracks, “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” gives the impression that Dirt thought about what he wanted to say, specifically a Wu-Tang shout-out, and set out to accomplish it. It has a hazy, almost drunken feel to it as the beat and the piano seem out of sync – the perfect musical accompaniment to an ODB solo track.

Of course, the charm of an ODB solo cut isn’t the cunning wordplay or the masterful production – it’s the personality behind the rhymes. Even in a fairly set routine, ODB makes the track feel like it could fall off its hinges at any given moment. It’s an odd sort of excitement – the way Dirt’s voice rises and falls sounds hypnotic, yet at the same time it sounds inches away from collapsing in on itself. Dirt’s role in the Wu-Tang Clan was to bring the crazy personality among many skilled lyricists, and “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” finds him flying the freak flag proudly, even if it’s not his strangest moment.

More on Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 19, 2009

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“Inside of Love” – Nada Surf
(Words/music: Matthew Caws, Ira Elliot, and Daniel Lorca, available on Let Go, Barsuk Records 2002)

Subtle differences distinguish self-deprecation, self-loathing, and self-pity. We see someone who makes a joke about himself as charming, someone who obsesses over a personal flaw as frustrating, and someone who feels sorry for himself as pathetic. All three of these behaviors come from that similarly dark place in ourselves yet end up in different places. It’s a bit of an oversimplification, but the difference involves ownership – being comfortable enough with one’s flaws to acknowledge them (and laugh, even), recognizing flaws and hating that part of ourselves, or painting oneself as a blameless victim who can’t change the situation. This is the danger of self-pity, when we give up ownership and try to pass the blame to anyone else. It leaves us in a frozen state – unable to improve our situation and unwilling to try anything to change the circumstances. Whether it’s seeking a copout or making a series of behaviors a routine, feeling sorry for oneself does nobody any favors.

This is what makes “Inside of Love” interesting to me. Matthew Caws’ narrator exists in the grey area between self-loathing and self-pity. He finds himself in a rut, watching garbage on TV and rehashing his regrettable behavior night after night. This character knows that he doesn’t like the cycle he’s in yet seems stuck in it; he knows enough to want “an aerial view” of his life, but has no plans on implementing it. The whole song turns on one line in that verse – “I know the last page so well, I can’t read the first.” It encapsulates the feeling of recognizing a problem yet actively avoiding it – quitting before even playing, as the case may be. So instead of finding the “inside of love,” he’s on the couch, watching mind-numbing television and deluding himself into thinking that it’s been “a bad night.” Sure, we’re all entitled to a bad night from time to time, but when they become bad weeks and bad months, something has to give. Caws paints this narrator with efficient detail, making his plea for substantial emotional connection real yet undercutting it with his self-pity. It’s simultaneously beautiful, heartbreaking, and infuriating, and best (or worst, depending on your perspective) of all, it cuts close to home. Some people might react better to a direct, “take control”-type song, but others might tune it out before it can hit home. “Inside of Love” seduces us into listening with these beautiful harmonies and strikes when we recognize part of ourselves in this narrator. Sometimes, seeing our pathos in someone else is enough to get us off the couch to switch off the TV and start picking up the pieces.

More on Nada Surf: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 18, 2009

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“Timeless Melody” – The La’s
(Words/music: Lee Mavers, available on The La’s, Go! Discs / London Records 1990)

That quote “talking about music is like dancing about architecture” bothers me mainly because it’s out of order. It should be “talking about music is like designing a building about dance” – with the “less artistic” medium being used to convey the “more artistic” medium. Regardless, I see truth in that sentiment, even though I spend a chunk of time every day writing about music. Even on my best days, where the words come together in just the right way, I wouldn’t dream of one of these blog posts replacing a song. That’s part of the reason why I have the song at the top of the post – it comes first. I’ve used this space to defend writing and discussion about music because songs aren’t these static, one-sided pieces of work. There are a number of different ways to approach a song, think about it, and process it, and the problem with writing about it is that it usually only tackles one way of entering a song. The beauty of art, songs included, is the different levels and entrances into it, leading to as many different interpretations as people who encounter it. I think that the reason that many of us (well, me at least, I’ll let everyone else speak for themselves) gravitate towards music rather than some other art forms is that it hits us on a level that other mediums don’t reach as easily. I’ve experienced profound moments of connection and enlightenment through books, film, visual arts, and even architecture, but music touches a nerve more frequently than all of those combined. In my case, melody, harmony, and rhythm know the roadmap to my soul.

“Timeless Melody” captures the experience of listening to a great song as well as any song I’ve heard. The “even the words they fail” me line touches on the hours I spent making mixtapes – sometimes to capture a specific mood or feeling, sometimes to introduce a part of myself to someone, and sometimes even to learn something about myself. I especially love the way Mavers describes (gasp! he’s writing about music!) the way music intertwines in our lives by freeing us from our “memory chains.” The pun on chord/cord really drives this home too, describing the way that we emotionally wrap ourselves in songs for myriad reasons. For me, when a song snakes in, it becomes part of that memory chain, adding another link (and often, an entire new strand of associated memories). Most importantly, Mavers’ song does all of this while crafting an impeccable pop song. From the opening scuttle through that irresistible melody that carries this treatise about the power of music, Mavers makes the most of his three minutes of pop bliss. Ultimately, even with well written lyrics, the words give way to the melody and rhythm, letting the song dance around our hearts, build skyscrapers in our minds, or paint vivid portraits of our favorite melodies.

I don’t dance, I don’t draw blue prints, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about music, and writing and talking about how it affects me only broadens my appreciation of it. Whether you come by here just for the songs or you come by to take part in the discussion, I’m just happy to share.

More on The La’s: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 17, 2009

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“Kinky Afro” – Happy Mondays
(Words/music: Shaun Ryder, Paul Ryder, Mark Day, Paul Davis and Gary Whelan, available on Pills ‘n Thrills and Bellyaches, Factory 1990)

I’ve used this space to do a number of different things – including my not-so-shocking admission that I have weak dancing abilities. This is directly related to my aversion to dance clubs, which directly influences my pedestrian knowledge of dance music. For example, I know everything I know about the late ‘80s / early ‘90s Madchester scene from a handful of things I’ve read on the internet and 24 Hour Party People. I don’t have all of the details down, but I do have a general timeline and some key names, so a flag went off in my head when Factory Records’ Tony Wilson came up in conjunction with the Happy Mondays. It’s also worth noting that I only sought out some of the Happy Mondays’ music (aside from “24 Hour Party People,” which I enjoy a lot) after seeing the movie. I didn’t know that the first three Mondays’ records were produced by (in order), John Cale from the Velvet Underground, Paul Oakenfold, and Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz of the Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club. That’s enough historical context for me to start digging a little deeper.

What I found (to be fair, I’ve mainly gone through the singles / best of) sounds terrific. “Kinky Afro” in particular captures this liveliness and electricity in the music. It manages to blur the line between my concept of “dance” music and guitar rock, and I hear all of those things mixed in there. There are elements of the Brit Pop I loved as a teenager as well as some of the post-punk that preceded the Mondays on Factory. Similar to Primal Scream’s early ‘90s output, “Kinky Afro” surprised me with how fresh it sounds – I might have expected this to sound dated, but it reminds me of a lot of stuff from the past few years. In particular, Shaun Ryder and James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem are joined in my mind. Ryder doesn’t sing in the conventional sense (and I imagine that is a dealbreaker for a lot of people), yet he sings enough to let his personality shine through the track. He’s uncompromising and kind of funny, especially during his most curmudgeonly points on “Kinky Afro.” His brash and unforgiving persona here laid the groundwork for the snarky persona Murphy cultivated on the early LCD Soundsystem singles. Still, I have to think that Ryder, the center of the storm, might be the reason why the Happy Mondays are nonentities in the United States and Jesus Jones topped the charts here (while stalling in the 30s in the UK). On this one, the Brits had it right.

More on Happy Mondays: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 16, 2009

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“Fortunate Son” – Creedence Clearwater Revival
(Words/music: John Fogerty, available on Willy and the Poor Boys, Fantasy Records 1969)

In my mind, “Fortunate Son” remains one of the most essential protest songs. In many ways, it does everything that the punk movement a decade later strived to accomplish. It seethes with righteous anger, targeting upper class hypocrisy with the same pointed anger every punk envies. John Fogerty sings with more indignation than anyone this side of Joe Strummer, making his performance sound personal and desperate. In the same year as Woodstock, Fogerty’s song stood as the angry answer to the Summer of Love by pointing fingers and refusing to compromise. Critics point towards the Stooges or McCartney’s “Helter Skelter” as punk rock’s touchstones, but fewer songs seem as “punk rock” as “Fortunate Son,” even to this day.

This made those awful, blindly patriotic Wrangler Jeans’ commercials from a few years ago so infuriating. These commercials, which I think included Brett Favre, took the song’s first two lines out of context. It stripped the song of everything that made it so powerful, undercutting Fogery’s undercutting. I imagine it was some advertising agency employee Googling partriotic songs and ending up on some misguided webpage listing “Fortunate Son” as one. Yes, it’s patriotic in the sense that it embraces freedom of speech, but it doesn’t fit the conventional definition of “patriotism,” or at least not the definition Wrangler tried to shove down its audience’s throats. I’m not sure who owns the publishing rights to Creedence’s catalog (whether it’s Fogerty or someone else), but the egregious misuse of the song remains with me to this day. Even the song’s (slight) rebirth during the recent War on Terrorism as a protest song can’t make me forget about Wrangler’s mangling – and if John Fogerty signed off on it, I can’t help but think a little less of him. If it’s true that once a song becomes public, it belongs to all of us, it’s our responsibility to demand to have it back from those who choose a cut-and-paste interpretation of it.

More on Creedence Clearwater Revival: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 15, 2009

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“More Than This” – Roxy Music
(Words/music: Bryan Ferry, available on Avalon, Virgin Records 1982)

“More Than This” will always remind me of the karaoke scene from Lost in Translation. At the end of the sequence, a subdued, slightly uncomfortable Bill Murray sings the song in a mix of deadpan and exhaustion. Coming from his character, Murray makes the song sound reluctant, in particular when he delivers the chorus while looking at Scarlett Johansson. In the context of the movie, “More Than This” underscores the fleeting nature of their connection – a pair of lonely insomniacs who met halfway across the world and grow close enough only to make their separation uncomfortable. Even in his overtly fatigued voice, Murray’s character recognizes his situation yet falls short of embracing the uncertainty.

Buoyed by beautifully shimmering synthesizers, Bryan Ferry sings “More Than This” sweetly, contrasting with the acceptance of nothingness. It creates a sense of cognitive dissonance – a beautifully sung and arranged song that laments the impermanent nature of the human existence. The common interpretation (at least that I’ve come across) reads “More Than This” as a sort of “live in the moment” song, but lyrically it seems more focused on endings and nothingness than opportunity. This makes me think that its Ferry’s vocal performance (and the arrangement) that turn the song from nothingness to carpe diem. It raises a couple questions. First, can the meaning of the song bend based on the performance. This seems obvious with sarcasm and irony factored in, and even with “stripped down” arrangements that often make a sad song seem a little darker, but can a song shift significantly just from a single vocal performance? If so, doesn’t that render the music (and/or personality) more important than the words in a “it’s not what you say but how it’s said” sense? I’m even willing to suspend this thought for the sake of covers and re-interpretations; however, in a case like this where Ferry sings his words differently than they’re read off the page, I’m torn by it. Ferry knows the motivation behind the song better than anyone else, so I’m inclined to think that his bittersweet interpretation brings out a silver lining I can’t see in the lyrics alone.

More on Roxy Music: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 13, 2009

Reblogged from thisistheglamorous

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“If I Can’t Change Your Mind” – Sugar
(Words/music: Bob Mould, available on Copper Blue, Rykodisc 1992)

(Note: Thank you to thisistheglamorous (who you should read/follow because he is hilarious and a wonderful read) for reblogging this. I accidentally posted tonight’s post to my personal tumblr and Tumblr won’t let you reblog yourself. Anyway, here’s the original post)

Popular culture – music included – provides an opportunity for escapism. We don’t always consider that with music, though; instead, we focus on connecting to lyrics or emotions in songs – on having music to comfort us or celebrate or anything in between. Occasionally, we consider music as a mood adjuster – something that helps to change our mood, motivate us, or drown out something undesirable. Maybe because I’ve always had an overactive imagination (and that I’ve watched enough movies in my lifetime), but I often spend wandering moments playing out alternate scenarios in my mind. It’s sort of like spontaneous short story writing – it begins with a “what if” question and then I play out one or more of the possible outcomes in my mind. I never think of it actively, but these daydreams often have a soundtrack.

Anyway, I remember having a very vivid sequence one time where I turned “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” upside down. In Sugar’s incredibly catchy version, Bob Mould offers a plea to make a lover stay immediately after a breakup. Whether I was sucked in by the bright guitar and up-beat tempo, my daydream involved using “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” as a method of persuasion; someone using it to help woo over a reluctant love interest. I’m not even clear on the details (and I’m not sure I was at the time, either) – whether it was someone who was hurt previously and unwilling to be vulnerable again or whatever – but nonetheless it was the soundtrack to this strangely vivid out-of-context scene in my head that’s stuck with me. Maybe I imagined the song as a dialogue – the part about being heartbroken and teary was one person and the other replying “if I can’t change your mind, who will?” Maybe in my head romantic comedies expand their soundtrack past the half dozen stock songs that end up in every movie and I wanted to give Bob Mould one of those sweet royalty checks. Probably, though, it was a bit of wishful thinking – we all want to be the kind of person to win each other over, and in both scenarios (the song and this imaginary sequence), the protagonist has a longing to be important and persuasive to a specific person. I’d like to think that my subconscious honed in on this shared idea and made the connection between the real song and the imagined scenario. Maybe I’ve just watched too many movies where music carries this sort of charged emotional persuasion (Say Anything and High Fidelity off the top of my head) that I immediately targeted that part of the song – since it’s so melodically convincing, it must be emotionally as well.

More on Sugar: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 12, 2009

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“Walking with Thee” – Clinic
(Words/music: Clinic, available on Walking with Thee, Domino 2002)

I go long stretches of time in between listens to Clinic, but when I hear a song like “Walking with Thee,” I feel like I still know every twist and turn. It’s not that it’s a predictable song; instead, I spent a lot of time learning these songs passively by listening to it repeatedly. Every play, whether putting the “Walking with Thee” single on my record player, putting the album on, or letting the songs pass through on shuffle, offered another opportunity to commit another part of the song to those deep recesses of memory where things like this lie in deep storage until needed. I probably go weeks without actively thinking about a band like Clinic, but as soon as the song starts, it’s like those neurons in my brain immediately know where to find the case file, carefully built up over years of sporadic listens.

As a song, “Walking with Thee” feels like a time capsule not only because it comes right back when I hear it, but also because it feels like it belongs in another era. It sounds like a distorted modern take on the late 1960s garage rock genre. The lead organ riff could fit in on the Nuggets compilation if they played it on vintage equipment. The arrangement stays simple, riding this superb riff and a fairly simple, repetitive lyric, gently shifting from segment to segment. On one level, this sounds like something the kids down the street could play. However, just like the first wave of garage rock, some intangible separates songs like this from the amateurs. In this case, it’s a general sense of uncertainty that haunts the song. No single element points at it, but I feel a minor sense of dread in the deepest part of the song. Perhaps from listening to other Clinic songs, it’s a weird feeling of paranoia that something else lies in the song. Regardless, it’s this deviation from the more carefree garage rock of the 1960s that distinguishes “Walking with Thee” from its predecessors.

More on Clinic: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 10, 2009

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“People of the Sun” – Rage Against the Machine
(Words: Zack de la Rocha, music: Rage Against the Machine, available on Evil Empire, Epic 1996)

Rage Against the Machine’s music will always find a place with those who connect with the primal energy in their sound and the anger in Zack de la Rocha’s voice. Some might argue that these people miss the point, but that’s alright. Yes, de la Rocha’s lyrics are more than just angry rants against those who piss him off, but that’s not the reason that most of his fans came to him. If Rage’s draw was extremely far-left politics (much further left than this liberal at least), their audience might be a fraction of what they had. Instead, their aggressive sound gave de la Rocha the audience to share his message and educate the masses about his interests. It seems like he (and his bandmates) understand that they need the soapbox before they can start speaking. Even if much of their crowd cared more for the “rage” rather than knowing who/what the “machine” was, many more people heard the band’s message than the people passing out the Communist newsletter on the corner of city streets.

Regardless, Tom Morello always interested me the most; specifically, I marveled at the wide range of sounds he coaxed out of his guitar, making it howl and wail in an entirely unique way. “People of the Sun” seems like one of Morello’s tamer moments, but only because he locks into a groove early on. The rhythm section lays down a solid beat and Morello makes his six strings sing like some sort of rare beast. His tone articulated the same seething anger de la Rocha channeled in his lyrics, placing the Zapatista rebels in a variety of historical contexts (Wikipedia will provide a better history lesson than I can in this space). Not to slight the rhythm section at all (who else could lay it down like that?), but de la Rocha’s verbal assault and Morello’s innovation set Rage Against the Machine apart from their contemporaries. While bands that honed in on the angry part of their rap-rock hybrid ended up like Limp Bizkit, Rage Against the Machine produced numerous tracks like “People of the Sun” that could satiate the gear heads, fist pumpers, and revolutionaries at the same time. No wonder so many people still love them.

More on Rage Against the Machine: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 9, 2009

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“I Get Wet” - Andrew W.K.
(Words/music: Andrew W.K., available on I Get Wet, Mercury 2002)

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that nobody likes Andrew W.K. simply for the music. Sure, the songs have their merits (more on that in a minute), but the real draw is the personality. It’s possible to like music and hate the artist (Oasis is as fine an example as any other), but the dividing line for Andrew W.K. begins and ends with the man. Since the red-hot fury of his debut faded, he’s released a few albums under the radar (including an entire album of Japanese pop songs – appropriately, he’s big in Japan), gone on public speaking tours, founded a successful club in New York City (Santos’ Party House), hosted his own kids show (that my ten year-old cousin enthusiastically endorsed this weekend), and grew his legacy as a cult figure. Of course, his multiple-hour speaking engagements, appearance on Aqua Teen Hunger Force, weird faces on Fox News, and teaching Conan O’Brien how to dance helped build his persona, but the legend began with I Get Wet. His debut, beginning with its iconic cover, crams enough partying into a half hour to give anyone alcohol poisoning. It even spawned what might be the greatest Pitchfork review of all time – one that desperately tries to be snarky yet still tips its hand in Mr. Wilkes-Krier’s direction. Naturally, it’s not music for everyone and for most people, it’s not music for all occasions. Still, in well-concentrated bursts, Andrew W.K. accomplishes precisely what he aims to do – lighten the mood.

Ultimately, songs like “I Get Wet” work because they seem like the natural extension of this man’s personality. If you’re going to like his music, it’s because you’re charmed (in some unconventional sense of the word) by the man creating the music. It’s not even remotely subtle, but it has no aims of being Pet Sounds either. It’s not the pop-metal sheen that makes “I Get Wet” (among others) irresistible, it’s the vivacity that permeates through every inch of the song. Anything with energy and melody gets pushed to the front of the mix, pushing Andrew W.K. to the middle of the mix; as a result, the song nearly bursts with the fanfare of horns, pounding of drums, and bludgeoning with melody. He has a gift for arranging, and he proves his musical prowess in a home movie by vamping on the opening fanfare on his piano. Instead, he chooses to be the raving lunatic at the center of the party. It’s understandable that some (or many, to be honest) might feel fatigued by his act, but he either plays the part so well (or truly lives this way, amazingly) that authenticity and irony get thrown out the window. It might not scratch the itch for something quiet and precise (although he recently told NPR that he loves Bach), but when the time is right to turn the volume up to double digits, “I Get Wet” accomplishes the task perfectly.

More on Andrew W.K.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 8, 2009

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“Punk Rock Girl” - The Dead Milkmen
(Words/music: The Dead Milkmen, available on Beezelbubba, Enigma 1988)

“Punk Rock Girl” accomplishes something spectacular – it captures everything wrong and right with the stereotypical suburban punk rock experience. On one level, “Punk Rock Girl” describes those kids you knew in high school – the ones more interested in the image of punk rock than music itself. Perhaps it’s a byproduct of my own personal investment in music, but people who see music as a fashion accessory is a major pet peeve. I knew kids like this in high school – the “punks” who used it as an excuse to act like jerks – so hearing about kids chanting “anarchy” in a pizza shop when they can’t get their way doesn’t do much for me. The Dead Milkmen seem in on the joke as well, and not just because of their history of tongue-in-cheek songs. The narrator sounds like a high school student’s creative writing assignment, complete with forced imagery and awkward rhyme. They even (intentionally, I think) credit “California Dreaming” (which they immediately allude to) to the Beach Boys, a wink to the know-it-all teen punk. All of this comes from a band using an accordion prominently in a song about teens pissed about a lack of Mojo Nixon albums; it’s hard not to chuckle a little bit.

A funny thing happens near the end of the song – our faux-punk narrator encounters the quintessential teenage punk experience – exclusion. He meets the rambunctious love of his life only to have her father deem him too weird (and thus unsuitable) for his daughter. Even then, after setting her father up as “The Man,” he still proclaims that’s “you’re the one for me, Punk Rock Girl.” Maybe I’m jaded, but the narrator seems like he’s either fantasizing about a girl he barely knows (hence calling her “Punk Rock Girl”) and imagines all of the escapades they might encounter together, or he likes that her dad hates him. Regardless, even if the narrator brings back uncomfortable high school memories, “Punk Rock Girl” speaks to a different part of the punk rock audience – one that might appreciate the orthodoxy of hardcore but maintain a healthy distance from it. Even if it’s a little nerdy – a weak voice, wiry guitar, and sing-songy nature - “Punk Rock Girl” capture what it feels like to start working against the grain. Regardless of it’s tone – whether it salutes the safety-pin clad or pokes fun at them – it’s part of the suburban punk’s experience for many of us.

More on The Dead Milkmen: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 7, 2009

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“Once Around the Block” - Badly Drawn Boy
(Words/music: Damon Gough, available on The Hour of Bewilderbeast, Twisted Nerve / XL Recordings 2000)

Even if my habits indicate otherwise (or, in this case, my readers), I like to think of myself as a creative person. Like many creative minds (as opposed to concrete minds for the sake of argument), mine wanders a fair amount. I spend a lot of mental energy (both conscious and sub-conscious) making connections between things, often leading me to re-imagine something as something else. Over the past seven months, this blog became my primary hobby, so a lot of that idle mental energy goes towards these songs or the act of writing itself. Naturally, these roads intersected, leading me to start pondering what my writing process would sound like – if I were to soundtrack a montage of me sitting at my computer hammering out one of these posts, what might I choose. “Once Around the Block” feels like the best fit, perhaps because the snare drum sounds like a typewriter. More importantly, it sounds like a typewriter working in an irregular rhythm – sometimes it locks right into the waltz-like rhythm on the track, other times it creates a polyrhythmic effect, and other times it sounds lost.

Listening to the song again this morning, I still hear the typewriter hammering away, yet I noticed for the first time that it feels slightly behind the beat, whether by design or just because it’s played with brushes rather than sticks. Combined with the starts and stops, it almost sounds like the drums are chasing the rest of the band (or, for the sake of my metaphor, that the words are chasing the song). This captures the purpose of writing about music (for me, at least) – taking a song and trying to get to the root of it, chasing the magic until it reveals itself to me. These mini-revelations make the pursuit worthwhile – all of the sub-par posts, blank stares, and revisions morph from pain to payment when I learn something new. Ideally, good writing strives to be like “Once Around the Block,” sounding effortless and light despite careful and precise orchestration. Even Gough’s lyrics fit in with the act of writing – chasing infatuations, outrunning fears, striving for the perfect word, and ultimately starting over again.

More on Badly Drawn Boy: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

August 6, 2009

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“Vicious” - Lou Reed
(Words/music: Lou Reed, available on Transformer, RCA 1972)

When we talk about Lou Reed as an innovator, whether as a solo performer or as a part of the Velvet Underground, it’s in the context of rock music. Rightfully so, as the Velvet Underground (and Reed’s subsequent solo material) helped to make rock music more than a louder version of the blues. By integrating different artistic strains (free jazz, performance art, etc.), the Velvet Underground helped establish rock music as its own artistic medium. I only mention this because of word choice – it’s usually “rock” music and not “pop” music (somewhat surprising since “pop” was a word associated with Andy Warhol) associated with the band, when these genre-blending experiments influenced many different genres in addition to rock. Moreover, the Velvet Underground crafted pop songs – granted, they stretched, chopped, and scrambled them often beyond recognition. Still, most of the great VU songs rely heavily on elements of pop music. Perhaps the label escaped the band because they were not popular, but the band relied on the same conventions as pop music as their starting point.

Much of Reed’s solo material went away from the pop song, but many of his early solo compositions (“Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” etc) masterfully combined pop song structure with experimental twists. “Vicious” takes the standard verse-chorus structure of the pop song and adds in two distinctively non-pop elements. First, Reed turns the lyrical content upside down – most pop songs have heartbreakers as villains, but Reed’s narrator has a sinister and violent relationship with the other person in the song. It might not sound as sensational in a post-Eminem music world, but I can’t think of any murder fantasies before “Vicious.” Reed, ever the cool presence, delivers these lines about swallowing razor blades in his deadpan vocal style, suggesting either detachment from the narrator or another level of dementia in his narrator’s violent tendencies. Reed’s narrator goes through his screed while harmonies, cowbell, and a familiar guitar riff (I can’t place it, it might just be from listening to “Vicious” six times today) build a compellingly catchy arrangement. Then, just like the narrator’s id shining through, that wonderful distorted guitar comes in and plays that scrambled riff (and later, a wonderfully unhinged solo). It’s the only musical hint at his narrator’s troubled personality, yet it strangely fits in with the rest of the arrangement; it calls attention to itself, but no more than a perfectly played lead part might do under other circumstances. Both the guitar song and the lyrical content seem to play off each other, turning this otherwise normal sounding pop song into something far more interesting.

More on Lou Reed: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

TAGGED UNDER: lou reed | 1972 | 1970s | track analysis | rca | the velvet underground |

August 5, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“It Was There That I Saw You” - …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead
(Words/music: Trail of Dead, available on Source Tags & Codes, Interscope 2002)

At the time, Source Tags & Codes was the most visceral album I owned. It wasn’t the kind of record I thought about (and thus I probably missed out on the semiotics inferred by the title) or connected with on an emotional level. Instead, I remember it was something I’d feel when listening to it. I’d heard louder albums, I’d heard faster album, and I’d heard heavier albums. But the first time I listened to the record (home for the summer from college, sitting on my parents’ floor playing F-Zero on Super Nintendo), the album felt like this huge wave crashing against me. The grand sound – in volume but also in ambition, hit me in a way that rendered me speechless. The guitars and drums rushed out of the speaker the way an medieval army rushes into battle in a movie. This assault wasn’t flawless – the “general” Conrad Keeley sounded like the nasally tactician rather than Achilles (and I still can’t listen to “Another Morning Stoner” without hearing Keeley breathe in before each line), but it seemed like it while it was playing. During an era where I thought a lot about my favorite music (like the narrative I wanted to impose on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot), Source Tags & Codes was an anomaly – when it was on, I marveled at it, and when it stopped I had almost nothing to say. It’s one of the few records that I enjoyed that generally left me speechless.

“It Was There That I Saw You” encapsulates most of the “tricks” that Source Tags & Codes uses in its plan of attack. After a few seconds of static and radios tuning, the song uncoils like a snake attacking its prey. In less than a minute, the band empties their barrels and recoils and rests. Where other bands might stretch this minute into a two and a half minute song (or leave it as a sixty two second track – a far more appealing alternative), the band pulls the tempo back and plays a darkly melodic middle section. This instrumental bridge, nearly half of the song’s running time, shows that the band excels at a lower tempo and intensity, and after the opening punch of the song’s first minute, it’s a welcome reprieve. Whether it sounds like Sonic Youth at their slower moments or not, its the charm that lures the snake back out. Granted, it could be the sonic equivalent of the snake gracefully slithering across the floor – looking more entrancing than excitable – but nonetheless the opening assault returns for a final reprieve. Even though it’s almost identical to the first minute, it sounds equally as urgent and assailing as the first strike. It’s this cycle of rawness and polished sheen that makes the album hit as hard as it does, and even if they revealed all their methods on the first track, they still work on the rest of the disc.

More on …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

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