Some Songs Considered - Posts Tagged 'v2 records'

March 7, 2010

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Pick a Part That’s New” – Stereophonics
(Words/music: Stuart Cable, Kelly Jones, and Richard Jones, available on Performance and Cocktails, V2 1999)

If I stop to think about it, Kelly Jones’ voice bothers me. He has a gravelly edge to his voice, particularly when he’s approaching the limits of his range, that sounds good on paper. On record, it’s generally fine too – I like a fair number of Stereophonics songs, so it is far from a dealbreaker, and I’m not sure I’d prefer to hear someone else sing any of them. So it generally comes down to the off moments where I’m finding my attention drawn to his voice rather than the melody or the lyrics. I guess, to boil it down, on the good songs it’s a nonissue, on the weaker songs it’s infuriating.

So I was kind of surprised tonight when I found myself focusing on his voice when I heard “Pick a Part That’s New.” This is one of my favorite Stereophonics singles, largely because of that terrific guitar riff and its generally sunny demeanor. The only explanation I have for this is that I’ve heard this song so many times that my attention shifted looking for something new. Earlier on this blog, I’ve suggested that songs that reveal different virtues with repeated listening lead to a rewarding relationship of repeated listening. In this case, repeated listening brought something unfavorable (or, more than likely, subconsciously overlooked) out front. I’m confident that “Pick a Part That’s New” and I will get through this rough patch. I might just need a night or two sleeping on the couch.

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

October 4, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Steady, as She Goes” – The Raconteurs
(Words/music: Brendan Benson and Jack White, available on Broken Boy Soldiers, Third Man / V2 Records 2006)

I love watching sports, but I’ve realized that it’s an area where trivia trumps understanding. Sure, there are plenty of excellent minds who analyze and discuss sports both on TV and in print, but far too many spew lists of unrelated facts. For example, while watching football highlights, a former NFL player recapping the game diverted from the action on screen to tell us where the running back went to college. Rather than analyzing the play (which is why these networks hire former players and coaches, not necessarily because they are gifted journalists) or just reading the copy and staying out of the way, he felt compelled to throw out a fact a way of showing off. Sometimes a player’s alma mater matters (when talking about former teammates, the system he played in, a former coach, etc.), but most of the time it’s inconsequential. Rather than furthering discussion by talking about what makes a player exceptional or a team perform poorly, we’re pumped full of facts available within the first couple paragraphs of a Wikipedia search. Simply put, it’s a convenient way to sound knowledgeable without saying anything thoughtful.

This happens with music as well. It’s easy to fall into the trap of listing band member’s former bands or listing every single detail of a band’s biography. I know this because I find myself falling into this trap more often than I care to admit. It seems like some bands elicit this type of fact burp more than others; The Raconteurs, for instance, often get described not by what they sound like but by the members’ other musical projects. Maybe that’s good enough for some people, but knowing where a band comes from doesn’t mean I’ll like a record. In the grand scheme of things, I don’t like “Steady, as She Goes” because the guy from the White Stripes sings on it. I like it because it’s a departure from Jack White’s usual straight-ahead blues assault. There’s depth to the arrangement, both in instrumentation and in song structure. There’s also subtlety beneath the volume, whether Brendan Benson’s backing vocals (hey, have I mentioned that he’s a solo artist?) or the guitar squeal buried in the mix right before the second chorus. It also keeps the same things I like about his White Stripes songs, such as the punchy guitar sound and the snowballing tension that builds up to the chorus. Sure, the band members’ pedigree acts as an advertisement to bring in listeners, but ultimately, people won’t stay exclusively because of their alma mater or hometown. Eventually, these songs have to say something.

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

June 18, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Bodyrock” - Moby
(Words/music: Moby, available on Play, V2 1999)

“Electronica” (or whatever you want to call it) seemed poised to become a major cultural force in the United States in the late 1990s. While this takeover didn’t happen the way many thought it would, it wasn’t a fruitless endeavor. Sure, the Chemical Brothers and the Crystal Method (among others) had a fair amount of success, but electronic dance music needed to evolve before its moment in the spotlight. Two of the biggest successes in America – Fatboy Slim and Moby – bridged a gap between club music and rock music, incorporating surf guitar riffs or icy pianos with big beats and samples. While Fatboy Slim dabbled as a rock star, he still preferred to stay behind the turntables and out of the spotlight. Moby, however, embraced the spotlight entirely by the time Play came out. He even fronted his own band of musicians when performing live. In 2009, we might just call Moby a “performer” or a “rock star,” but looking back at how popular music has changed in the states over the last decade, he plays a more interesting role.

Listening to something like “Bodyrock” now doesn’t seem that extraordinary, but back in 1999 I’m not sure I had heard something like this. Sure, Moby wasn’t the first to marry rock music and club rhythms (My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” does this trick ten times better than “Bodyrock,” and Primal Scream squeezed out an entire album built around this blurred line), but Moby took it further by putting a face on it. “Bodyrock” feels like a riff heavy rock song, but relies on that persistent beat and tons of repetition (both in the music and the vocal incantation). Somehow, he’s drawn on his roots as both an electronic musician and hardcore punk nerd and found a middle ground. It’s maybe not the ideal track for either audience, but “Bodyrock” (and much of Play) was music that many people could like. For me, it’s this seamless blending of genres that seems significant now. We take it for granted when a band like Animal Collective put samplers and guitars on the same stage, but it was a long road before these paths converged. Moby wasn’t the first, and while he did it well, he probably didn’t do it the best (and to be fair, I’m not knowledgeable enough to make that argument either way), but he brought it to the most people. I’m not sure we’d have our current musical world (for better or worse) – one where recording guitar tracks in Garageband makes sense – without Play.

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

April 14, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Hang Me Up to Dry” – Cold War Kids
(Words/music: Cold War Kids, available on Robbers & Cowards, Downtown/V2 2006)

Looking back at the ascendency of music blogs over the past few years, it’s somewhat startling how quickly their influence took hold. Now, the network of the “big” music blogs tend to echo each other; one introduces a band and slowly everyone else catches on. Some of these bands (Arcade Fire immediately comes to mind) rose from bloggers’ darlings to full-blown phenomenon, while others surfaced for a brief moment in the spotlight before stepping back to the blog circuit. Cold War Kids is one of those bands for me – one that I kept reading about before hearing them. I think they were well into the backlash by the time I finally heard “Hang Me Out to Dry” – maybe I was busy those few weeks, or maybe I missed that initial spark that set everyone off on them. Regardless, my knowledge of the band begins and ends with “Hang Me Out to Dry” – something that should not be read as a condemnation of the song. I really enjoy the song (more on that in a minute), yet I’m satisfied to stop there. I’ve never listened to the rest of Robbers & Cowards and even when I’m looking for something new to explore, I have little interest to listen to the rest of the disc. I think this is a product of how I discovered the song as almost an afterthought – I had read far too much about the band by the time I heard the song, and even though I liked the song, it didn’t seem worthy of all the fuss.

So the question is why “Hang Me Up to Dry” was a dead-end when my natural inclination is to follow up on a band when I like a song. Specifically, I like how the song grinds against itself; that slow riff creates this specific menacing feel to the track, and vocalist Nathan Willett channels this sinister feeling in his vocals. The entire song feels dramatic – from the dark, brooding riff to the way Willett twists every note, especially as he sings the chorus sounding half tormented, half ready to snap. Perhaps it’s the drama that makes “Hang Me Up to Dry” enough for me. The song is plenty, and when every other thing I read about the band was a meta-commentary about the band’s hype cycle, it’s hard for me to want to delve in deeper. It’s too bad, because I can see elements in “Hang Me Out to Dry” that would make people go crazy about them in the first place. Maybe this is the music blog’s double-edged sword - it’s capable of introducing us to many wonderful new bands, yet it’s also capable of making us sick of these bands before we actually hear them.

More on Cold War Kids: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

March 23, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“The Crystal Lake” – Grandaddy
(Words/music: Jason Lytle, available on The Sophtware Slump, V2 Records 2000)

At best, I have mixed feelings about The Sophtware Slump. While some praise it as a masterful work of man versus machine (and go as far as talking about it in the same breath as OK Computer), I find that it’s a very uneven album. The long songs tend to be too long and either overstay their welcome or spend too much time getting started, and a handful of the short songs sound like incomplete ideas. If I didn’t like a handful of the songs on Sumday, I’m not sure I would have made it past “He’s Simple, He’s Dumb, He’s the Pilot.” In my experience, Grandaddy is a band that I enjoy much more in the MP3 era; if I had to listen to one of their albums on vinyl, I’d almost always select something else that I enjoy the entire way through. However, on my computer I can take the handful of songs that I love (and love is the right word – I adore these particular songs) and put them into the pool of songs I shuffle through. Every time one of these songs comes up, I wonder why I don’t listen to the band more often. Then, I put on an album and find myself skipping through to my favorites and remember why I skipped over the others in the first place.

“The Crystal Lake” is one of the Grandaddy songs I enjoy on its own. In particular, the opening guitar riff and appreciating synthesizer mix well to create a distinct atmosphere. The problem with “atmosphere” in music is that it can’t carry a song on its own – once the mood is set, the song needs to do something with it either melodically, structurally, or musically. This is where a lot of Grandaddy songs fall flat for me – they create a mood that lulls me to sleep and before I know it, the song is over. “The Crystal Lake” takes hold right away with that opening riff - the fuzzy tone and tempo keep the song feeling laid back, but the phrase sounds like it came out of the mid 1980s post-punk era. Jason Lytle uses his voice perfectly in this song, letting it gently creep up to the higher points in his register. He sings with such a clear and lifting tone that makes his voice blend in with the rest of the arrangement. In particular, Lytle pushes the boundaries of his voice , making himself sound more human at the end of the chorus just in time to deliver the lines about finding his way after losing it. The rest of Grandaddy’s hallmarks are here – the odd sound effects, the slight textural change entering into the chorus, but it’s Lytle’s voice that puts this song over the edge and moves it from skipped album track to playlist staple.

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

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