The Singles Rundown

Is it just me or has 2009 been swamped in mediocrity?  By this time last year we had already been treated to releases by the likes of Beach House, M83, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vampire Weekend and Titus Andronicus.  So far, the only real standouts of 2009 have been Animal Collective and U2 (yes, U2!).  There’ve been some really good ones (i.e. Antony and the Johnsons, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart), some pretty decent ones (i.e. The Decemberists, Franz Nicolay), but for the most part nothing else too spectacular.

And now given this past week’s release of the highly-anticipated UGK 4 Life, Bun B and the late Pimp C join the ranks of Diplo, Franz Ferdinand, Springsteen and Telepathe on 2009′s ever-expanding list of “high expectations/low results”.

2009 thus far.

Seeing as how this is supposed to be a singles rundown (which I’ll get to in a sec), I’m not going to go into too much detail about the album.  All I’ll say is those who have always appreciated UGK for the tight beats and Dirty South vibe will probably get a kick out of the album–but those like myself, who were expecting a graduation into a different realm following 2007′s incredibly diverse UGK (Underground Kingz), will find themselves dissappointed.

That being said, my inbox is now officially running low.  Over the next couple months, I’ve got nothing much to look forward too other than Art Brut’s greatest-titled-album-of-all-time, Art Brut vs. Satan, and the Hold Steady’s upcoming live venture (*jizzes pants*), A Positive Rage.  In the meantime, the only link between now and, say, Till the Casket Drops, is a handful of singles.  So without any further ado, the rundown:

“Alcoholics Unanimous” :: Art Brut

If 2007′s It’s a Bit Complicated taught us anything it’s that too much of a good thing can be pretty fucking agonizing.  By the time Art Brut’s second album rolled around, the fresh sound they’d established with Bang Bang Rock & Roll had grown stale and, in the words of Eddie Argos himself, “boring”, so it’s nice to see they’ve been switching things up a bit.  You’ve still got your Pulp-esque, hilariously non-sensical lyrics (“I’m having trouble forming…sentences”), but this time laced over an almost disjointed, Gang of Four-like backdrop.  And now I’ve run out of  suffixes and adverbs, I’ll just leave it with, “Kudos, Frank Black.”

“Chillin’ (feat. Lady Gaga)” :: Wale

It’s ironic that on last year’s phenomenal The Mixtape About Nothing, Wale had more to say than any rapper of his generation before him.  So, naturally, I’m a little upset that on “Chillin’”, the debut-ish track off his upcoming debut-ish Attention: Deficit, he pretty much does nothing other than reiterate his name for 3 and a half minutes.  Sometimes I worry that as versatile an artist as Wale is, he may have set the bar for his proper debut dangerously high and anything short of that is bound to be a letdown.  But then I remember that Dave Sitek is doing production work for the album and all my anxieties seem to subside.

“Hang You from the Heavens” :: The Dead Weather

Jack White is the last person you’d expect to be associated with the phrase “one-trick pony”, but it seems that with every new project he starts (I think we’re at 4 now) he repeats himself more and more.  Over the past decade he’s gone from garage rock to garage blues to blues rock to, now, electro-blues, and I have to admit the formula is becoming a bit tiresome.  Save for Alison Mosshart’s vocals, the debut single by his latest project sounds like it could just as easily be a track by the Go, the White Stripes, or the Raconteurs.  Maybe he should take some cues from Art Brut and Frank Black.

“Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” :: Bob Dylan

It’s nice to think that Bob Dylan is 67 years old and still fucking around with his audience.  Unlike 2006′s crisp, blues-oriented Modern Times, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin’” comes off as loud, brassy, and sloppy (in a good way).  But while I love the fact that after 50 years in the industry Dylan is still making some of the best music of his career, I can’t help but think of it as bittersweet.  The more elusive his sound becomes, the more he’ll start to roam around.  And the more he roams around, the closer he comes to burning out (or releasing a hip hop album).  Even Waldo settled down at some point.

“Hardcore Girls (feat. Rye Rye)” :: The Count and Sinden

For the record, I don’t know much about UK Daft Punk clones, the Count and Sinden, nor could I care less.  All that matters is they’ve got a track with Rye Rye so I approve.

“Drop” :: Rich Boy

Last but not least, Rich Boy.  I just want to start off by saying, this is one of the sickest beats I’ve heard in a long-ass time.  Yeah, it sounds like just like “A Milli” but the difference is, Rich Boy does it right.  If you’re going to take a beat as annoyingly infectious as this, you don’t give it an MC that sounds like a bullfrog with laryngitis (see above picture).  Accusing Rich Boy of jacking this beat from Weezy would be like spiting Romeo and Juliet for being a ripoff of Tristan and Iseult.  Rich Boy makes it work.  And what’s even better, throw 607 into the mix, add a pinch of Auto-Tune, and you get this, a track so hot even Shakespeare himself would get off on it.

Major Lazer @ SXSW, or, Pretty Much the Most Important Thing You’ll See All Day

So I was browsing my school’s music forum and happened to stumble across this little number:

For those left wallowing in confusion, Major Lazer is the heaven-wrought collaboration between the Philly-based Diplo and the UK-based Switch.  The duo made an appearance last Saturday at SXSW’s Levi’s/FADER Fort (while I was sitting here writing a fucking Decemberists review).

Why am I so excited about this?  Well aside from the fact that it’s Diplo and Switch, the pair that’s brought you everything from baile funk to “Paper Planes” (ever heard of it?), the project has been in production for God knows how long so I guess it’s just nice to see they’ve been using that time wisely.  Enjoy.

And yes, it deserves its own post.

“The Hazards of Love” (A Review of Sorts)

5 albums I’ve acquired this past week:

1. Beware :: Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy
2. The Hazards of Love :: The Decemberists
3. Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill :: Grouper
4. Bring Me the Workhorse :: My Brightest Diamond
5. Decent Work for Decent Pay :: Diplo

So it’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m currently at a standstill now that I’ve reached Step 4 of my patent-pending “5 steps to recovery from the previous night”.  Where Steps 1-3 tend to involve lots of coffee and mac & cheese, Step 4 is pretty much just listening to music for the next 6 hours or until more coffee and mac & cheese are available.  The problem is, I’ve already listened to 3 of the 5 albums on that list throughout the week and the remaining two, Diplo and Grouper, just seem a bit too heavy for a Saturday afternoon.  What to do?!

I think the obvious answer would be, “Pick a different album.  You’ve got 1000+ albums in your iTunes–I’m sure you can find one that suits you right now.  Duh.”

Well I say, “Fuck that, I’m listening to The Hazards of Love again.”

I think I can say I’ve been a fan of the Decemberists for some time, which is probably why I found their last studio album (2006′s The Crane Wife) to be kind of a disappointment.  For those who don’t know, The Crane Wife was their first major label blah blah blah who cares.  The point is it just wasn’t all that great.  Obviously there were moments of brilliance, as can be expected from anything by the band.  My problem with it was it just didn’t feel like a Decemberists album the same way Castaways and Cutouts or Picaresque did.  It wasn’t gripping, it wasn’t immersive, it sounded more like a band imitating the Decemberists rather than the Decemberists themselves.  So I can’t help but find it ironic that I’m so attracted to their latest release, the least Decemberists-sounding Decemberists album to date.

First and foremost, The Hazards of Love is a rock opera.  What?  Yes, a rock opera!  And judging from a few listens, I can comfortably say this is the most well-conceived rock opera since The Wall. What sets it apart from, say, the Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday or the Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free (or American Idiot if you want to be a dick about it) is that those weren’t really rock operas in the same sense.  You can’t isolate any one track on The Hazards of Love and expect it to bode well on its own.  The album is a work as a whole, not a collection of tracks that all have something in common.

The story itself is nothing special–typical Colin Meloy fare about love, death, and forest queens.  What makes the album so great has nothing to do with the story, but rather the storytelling; the little intricacies like characterization, organization, and orchestration (and the fact that they’re really, really good at all three).  It’s like having a conversation with Morgan Freeman.  You really don’t give a shit what he’s talking about, you just want to hear him talk.  It’s what he does best.

But back to my first point.  The only thing that really alludes to The Hazards of Love being a Decemberists album is Colin Meloy’s vocals.  You don’t hear much experimentation on the part of Chris Funk or Jenny Conlee like on previous albums and even John Moen’s backing vocals are few and far between.  From the bit parts by Becky Stark and Shara Worden (who, for the record, has the greatest voice in the music industry) to the constant shifts in orchestration to the reprises and interludes here and there, the album plays more like “The Decemberists: The Musical” than “The Decemberists: The Album”.  And, in all honesty, that’s not a bad thing.  In fact, that’s what a rock opera is supposed to be.

More News from Nowhere

News and notes from the past week or so.

1/ Changed the name.  No offense to Elf Power, I just forgot how much I love the song “The New Pollution”.  The name’s catchier, too.

2/ Back in Fort Lee for the week.  As far as I can tell, nothing’s changed.  Oh, and speaking of which:

3/ More media coverage, more faculty suspensions, and its own editorial cartoon in the Bergen Record.  Well done, Fort Lee High School.

4/ Watchmen was incredible.  Kudos to Jackie Earle Haley whose Rorschach was better than Alan Moore’s.  If you have yet to see it, I would a) not look at this picture…

Now you can't unsee it.

…and b) unless you’re reading this on a Blackberry or iPhone while waiting for the movie to start, get off the computer and go see it.  Which brings me to:

5/ I kinda want a Blackberry.

6/ Crystal Stilts, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Hatcham Social and Twee as Fuck  ::  Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St., New York, NY  ::  Thursday, 18 June 2009, 8pm.  Who else is interested?

7/ Still working on internship stuff.  Grassroots Campaigns interview tomorrow at 4pm.  Still working on applications for UN NGO Sustainibility, Fund for the Public Interest, and New Jersey Association of ‘That’d be fucking ironic’.

8/ I can’t embed mp3 files to this blog…which sucks.

Kutiman Mixes YouTube

I’ve been posting this everywhere lately.  This Israeli artist takes random YouTube clips and mixes them together to create some of the sickest shit you’ll ever hear.  Observe.

“The Mother of All Funk Chords”

“Just a Lady”

You can find more here.  Courtesy of Ze Frank.

Welcome to the Blagosphere, or, “I’m being postmodern, before it’s fashionable.”

Yesterday, Fort Lee High School came under attack after it was revealed that for the past six years, “guidance counselors or administrators at [the school] have changed or deleted grades on students’ transcripts to help them get into ‘very selective’ colleges and universities.” (full story)

As a member of the graduating class of 2008 and a current student at what I would consider to be a “very selective college”, it would make sense that this “scandal” should be the subject of my first post.  I should talk about how this really comes as no shock to me and this is just the product of Jay Berman’s unrelenting ego.  I should talk about how, regardless of the fact that the students aren’t being held accountable, the back of my mind is still branded with the idea that maybe, just maybe, there’s a possibility I didn’t get into this school on my own merit.  And finally, I should talk about professional integrity (or lack thereof), not only on behalf of the those involved, but also of the secretaries, faculty and anyone else who has worked closely with these people over the years.

But I’m not going to.  Seeing as how I’m new to blogging and this is my first post, I’d much rather just ramble about some nonsensical shit.  I’ll get to the FLHS story at another point in time.

First, off, this blog is just an experiment.  To be honest, I’m perfectly content with just my Twitter account, regardless of how pointless it is.  There’s no need for logic or creativity or progress.  It’s like the internet embodiment of postmodernism–if postmodernism was an incoherent dipshit.

But, anyways, back to blogging.  I’ve never been a big fan of blogs.  The only encounters I’ve really had with them in the past were through two cousins (Matt and Serena), a Philly-based record label, and the frontman of Art Brut.  For some reason, bloggers always just reminded me of that obnoxious kid in your poli sci class (Ian) that talks out of his ass for 90 minutes straight.  No one really cares what he has to say and we all just wish he’d just shut the fuck up for once.  It’s mindless self-indulgence.

Regardless, when incidents like this whole Fort Lee High School fiasco happen, there’s only so much I can comment on in tweets of 20 words or less.

Hence, the blog.

I may not be a fan of blogging but that doesn’t mean I’m past mindless self indulgence.  Enjoy.

-Dan