February 9th, 2007 4:13pm
I Thought The World Should Know
Bright Eyes "Four Winds" - I'm not sure why I downloaded this song. Morbid curiosity? A well-intentioned desire to give Conor Oberst another chance? Aimless boredom? All of the above, I guess. The first surprise was that the first minute went by without any vocals, and it's not half bad, basically "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" done up as fakey country rock, but it's actually a pretty good melody to nick, and the strings sound kinda nice. It's a happy, pleasant minute.
The second surprise is that when Oberst starts singing, it doesn't make me want to immediately erase the file. One of my major problems with Oberst has been that he sings everything in a deeply unappealing whine which makes him come off like an entitled, petulant teenage boy telling his dad to get out of his room when he's angry, or like a kid about to eat some worms when he's sad. Simply put, he doesn't sound that much like a douchebag on this song. He can't stop being himself, but he can apparently rein in his excesses and sing like an adult when he's in the mood. His rhythm on the verses mimics that of America's "A Horse With No Name," and again, stealing from that tune isn't such a terrible idea. Maybe Oberst is growing up! I mean, he's in his mid-20s, that's a good time to start, but when people have been telling you that you're great and cute smart girls from all over the world have been pining for you since you were 15, you really never have any good reason to change.
The other big problem I've had with Conor Oberst is a more personal hang-up. Much of his music, but most especially the Lifted album, sounds like the sort of thing I would have thought would be the best thing ever back when I was a teenager -- bombastic, overwrought, whiney, smug, over-arranged. If I could figure out by age 20 that this was in fact a recipe for some of the worst music imaginable, why couldn't this dude? I can't help but associate this guy with emotional and intellectual immaturity when almost everything he does reminds me of a period of my life in which I totally hated myself, and with good reason.
Cutting to the chase, "Four Winds" doesn't sound like anything I would have imagined when I was 18, and I guess neither does I'm Wide Awake It's Morning, though I definitely dislike that record. It's a lot easier for me to be okay with Oberst when he's not symbolizing anything to me, and it certainly helps that much more aggravating musicians have since replaced him in my mind as the straw man representing everything that I hate about contemporary indie rock. (Conor, if you're reading and at all flattered by this, send a nice thank you card to Sufjan Stevens, okay?)
So, yeah, "Four Winds." It's a Bright Eyes song that I don't dislike. Um, enjoy? (Click here to buy it from Saddle Creek.)
Say Anything "Every Man Has A Molly" - I'm ideologically opposed to the concept of "guilty pleasures," but I can't think of any better way for me to describe my relationship with this song. As Rob Harvilla noted in his recent feature about the band in the Village Voice, "Every Man Has A Molly" is the ultimate example of the sort of emo misogyny described by Jessica Hopper in her essay "Emo: Where The Girls Aren't." It's also actually a fantastic pop song with lyrics that are intentionally nasty, over-sharing, insufferably indulgent, and above all else, extremely self-aware. Max Bemis knows that he's being a total dick, and so he plays it for laughs without diminishing his emotions, and the result is something that comes off as being a true, if extremely unflattering portrait of a wounded, entitled asshole. Basically, this sounds like Weezer circa Pinkerton if Rivers Cuomo was ten times more of a jerk, and had no illusions about romantic love at all whatsoever. It's well-constructed and fun, and I just really love the way the name "Molly Connolly" sounds in the song. I feel like such a creep for being way into this, and that's kinda screwed up and hypocritical for me if just because there are loads of other records with lyrics that are just as questionable if not a whole lot worse that I don't feel too bad about at all. (Like, for example, that entire Clipse album.) (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
Elsewhere: You can listen to my segment from last night's episode of Fair Game right here. It's nice, but I'm definitely a little nervous and you can tell in my speech patterns. I kept using the same words for some reason, and even though I actually kinda coached myself to say "thanks for having me" on the way to the station, my brain made me say "thanks it was good to see you" TWICE, even though it's radio. If you were wondering, A Sunny Day In Glasgow's song was cut for time, and so it's just Charlotte Hatherley, the Child Ballads, Of Montreal, and Noonday Underground.
Also: If you've been reading this site on RSS or whatever and missed the big banner up top, you might want to know that I'm DJing between sets for a show at Galapagos in Brooklyn tonight featuring A Place To Bury Strangers, Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, the Vandelles, and Mofos. I'm not familiar with Mofos and Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, but I've seen the Vandelles and A Place To Bury Strangers before, and they were both quite good.
And: I'm really glad that Choire Sicha is back at Gawker.
The second surprise is that when Oberst starts singing, it doesn't make me want to immediately erase the file. One of my major problems with Oberst has been that he sings everything in a deeply unappealing whine which makes him come off like an entitled, petulant teenage boy telling his dad to get out of his room when he's angry, or like a kid about to eat some worms when he's sad. Simply put, he doesn't sound that much like a douchebag on this song. He can't stop being himself, but he can apparently rein in his excesses and sing like an adult when he's in the mood. His rhythm on the verses mimics that of America's "A Horse With No Name," and again, stealing from that tune isn't such a terrible idea. Maybe Oberst is growing up! I mean, he's in his mid-20s, that's a good time to start, but when people have been telling you that you're great and cute smart girls from all over the world have been pining for you since you were 15, you really never have any good reason to change.
The other big problem I've had with Conor Oberst is a more personal hang-up. Much of his music, but most especially the Lifted album, sounds like the sort of thing I would have thought would be the best thing ever back when I was a teenager -- bombastic, overwrought, whiney, smug, over-arranged. If I could figure out by age 20 that this was in fact a recipe for some of the worst music imaginable, why couldn't this dude? I can't help but associate this guy with emotional and intellectual immaturity when almost everything he does reminds me of a period of my life in which I totally hated myself, and with good reason.
Cutting to the chase, "Four Winds" doesn't sound like anything I would have imagined when I was 18, and I guess neither does I'm Wide Awake It's Morning, though I definitely dislike that record. It's a lot easier for me to be okay with Oberst when he's not symbolizing anything to me, and it certainly helps that much more aggravating musicians have since replaced him in my mind as the straw man representing everything that I hate about contemporary indie rock. (Conor, if you're reading and at all flattered by this, send a nice thank you card to Sufjan Stevens, okay?)
So, yeah, "Four Winds." It's a Bright Eyes song that I don't dislike. Um, enjoy? (Click here to buy it from Saddle Creek.)
Say Anything "Every Man Has A Molly" - I'm ideologically opposed to the concept of "guilty pleasures," but I can't think of any better way for me to describe my relationship with this song. As Rob Harvilla noted in his recent feature about the band in the Village Voice, "Every Man Has A Molly" is the ultimate example of the sort of emo misogyny described by Jessica Hopper in her essay "Emo: Where The Girls Aren't." It's also actually a fantastic pop song with lyrics that are intentionally nasty, over-sharing, insufferably indulgent, and above all else, extremely self-aware. Max Bemis knows that he's being a total dick, and so he plays it for laughs without diminishing his emotions, and the result is something that comes off as being a true, if extremely unflattering portrait of a wounded, entitled asshole. Basically, this sounds like Weezer circa Pinkerton if Rivers Cuomo was ten times more of a jerk, and had no illusions about romantic love at all whatsoever. It's well-constructed and fun, and I just really love the way the name "Molly Connolly" sounds in the song. I feel like such a creep for being way into this, and that's kinda screwed up and hypocritical for me if just because there are loads of other records with lyrics that are just as questionable if not a whole lot worse that I don't feel too bad about at all. (Like, for example, that entire Clipse album.) (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
Elsewhere: You can listen to my segment from last night's episode of Fair Game right here. It's nice, but I'm definitely a little nervous and you can tell in my speech patterns. I kept using the same words for some reason, and even though I actually kinda coached myself to say "thanks for having me" on the way to the station, my brain made me say "thanks it was good to see you" TWICE, even though it's radio. If you were wondering, A Sunny Day In Glasgow's song was cut for time, and so it's just Charlotte Hatherley, the Child Ballads, Of Montreal, and Noonday Underground.
Also: If you've been reading this site on RSS or whatever and missed the big banner up top, you might want to know that I'm DJing between sets for a show at Galapagos in Brooklyn tonight featuring A Place To Bury Strangers, Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, the Vandelles, and Mofos. I'm not familiar with Mofos and Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, but I've seen the Vandelles and A Place To Bury Strangers before, and they were both quite good.
And: I'm really glad that Choire Sicha is back at Gawker.
2/9/07 4:21 pm
If nothing else, Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!! have a great name.
2/9/07 4:56 pm
sh-sh-sh-shark attack!!! are insaneeeee. tonight is going to be incredible.
2/9/07 9:00 pm
hell has frozen over
2/9/07 9:07 pm
Yeah, that was kinda what I had in mind for the post today.
2/10/07 7:51 am
Love the damningly faint praise of the Bright Eyes track. But you’re absolutely spot-on about Conor Oberst and his his whole whiny, sensitive emo-boy presentation–and of course the big bombastic opera he seems to make of every little thing he writes about. Grating doesn’t even begin to describe it. And really, right or wrong, it serves to illuminate how utterly petty all of that adolescent no-one-understands-my-pain drama in general comes off now. Maybe that’s an unfair thing to say from this age perspective, but I hear stuff like his, and that of his peers, and all I can think is, Don’t worry kids. Soon you’ll have some real problems in your life to worry about.
2/10/07 2:25 pm
if ya combined camper van beethoven with, um, bright eyes from 4 years ago, this is what you’d get. not bad.
2/11/07 1:24 am
1) you’re right, Conner Oberst is a whiny fuckin’ bitch.
2) That song is my favorite Say Anything song…Max is one of the best lyricists I’ve heard, and the writing is so balls-out. The other great song is “Wow, I Can Be Sexual, Too.”
2/11/07 2:26 am
That Say Anything track kinda sounds like Hefner if they were a mid-90s American major label signed ‘alt-rock’ band. Or something.
I don’t see how it’s particularly misogynistic, but then… that makes me worried; maybe in listening to too much blues and ’60s garage and, er, stuff, I’m getting less sensitive to such things. Ah well, fuck it. It’s a decent enough song but I’m not keen on the singer’s voice or the production.
2/12/07 6:03 am
it isn’t as if conor asked to be the poster boy for indie/emo/”underground” music. and surely a lot of the music 15 year olds create are especially angsty/whiny at least he does it in a poetic way. I love I’m Wide Awake And It’s Morning and all his other discography. I guess we just have different opinions.
2/12/07 7:11 am
Yeah, and that’s kind of the point I wanted to get in this entry — to a certain extent, I simply can’t judge Oberst on his merits, he’s too tied into personal stuff for me, and nothing I will ever write about him will be fair.
2/12/07 8:24 am
hey man– fuck you.
2/12/07 4:34 pm
Matthew,
Nice job on the radio- it was cool to put a voice with your writing, which I’ve enjoyed reading for the last two years. Keep up the good work.
2/13/07 9:40 pm
I have to admit, “send a nice thank you card to Sufjan Stevens” had me laughing. Four Winds has a few pleasing pseudo-religious quips that are creatively intertwined with Conor’s typical political rhetoric… but other than that I really hope the “Santa is Coming To Town” feel was intentional, cause if it is coincidental… the song really takes a turn towards sadly pathetic. Regardless, it’s a sign of hope for Conor… especially after “When The President Talks To God” (a sad, sad political rant in my opinion… nice intentions, terrible outcome).
As far as the Say Anything song, I’m getting tired of poorly phrased, journal entry lyrics that lack any sort of artistic thought… I’d rather listen to Conor creatively complain about adolescence in Fevers and Mirrors… at least there is “an attempt to tip the scales.”
Really enjoy your posts. Great blog you have here.
2/15/07 1:00 am
Awesome. We’ll have you eating worms while sobbing along to “If Winter Ends” in no time.
And. I saw your link on the left hand column of the 33 blogspot. I don’t know if that means what I think it means, but if it does - congratulations! Though I can’t say I’m especially surprised.
2/15/07 11:37 pm
i dunno. sufjan steeven’s can arrange a simple tune and has money to have all sorts of people bring his musicality out there, in the bombastic way, but in an appropriate way. for that reason, i wouldn’t hate on the guy. he listens to a lot of stuff, the easily notable obsession with stuff like Steve Reich is nice, not too many “indie” types can pull that off. I agree on the bright eyes thing, but that guy shot for the starts and blew his load on “fevers and mirrors”… no one was doing that goth shit like that then, or now. too bad he didn’t keep going with that and started doing more predictable / generic material.
2/19/07 5:21 am
“I’m ideologically opposed to the concept of “guilty pleasures…”
Well said, I may start using that line, but in the back of my head I’ll always footnote you.
4/14/07 12:26 am
Say Anything is being featured on mtvUs House Band:
http://www.mtvu.com/music/house_band/