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Happy Labor Day, I Guess

Hey, no songs today, sorry. I’ve got a lot of cool stuff planned for the rest of this week, though. Exciting new stuff, mostly. In the meantime, please let me indulge in a small rant about R.E.M….

R.E.M. Botch Best-Of Tracklist!

First off, here’s the tracklisting for R.E.M.’s new greatest hits compilation In Time:

Man On The Moon / The Great Beyond / Bad Day (new single, re-written Lifes Rich Pageant outtake) / What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? / All The Way To Reno (You’re Gonna Be A Star)/ Losing My Religion / E-Bow The Letter / Orange Crush / Imitation Of Life / Daysleeper / Animal (new song) / The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite / Stand / Electrolite / All The Right Friends / Everybody Hurts / At My Most Beautiful / Nightswimming

I find this tracklisting fascinating, because it gets some things right (the inclusion of “Nightswimming”) while generally messing up something that really should’ve been a no-brainer.

First, isn’t this supposed to be a hits compilation? What exactly is the point of leaving out several big hits, most obviously “Pop Song 89” and “Shiny Happy People”? It seems that the band has omitted those songs mostly due to some kind of embarassment about them, particularly “Shiny Happy People.” Presumably the target audience for a greatest hits compilation are buying the cd because they want the hits. “Shiny Happy People” may be a silly song that the band is ashamed of (though they shouldn’t be – it’s a nice song), but it belongs on the cd simply because most people would expect it to be there. “Pop Song 89” is a much bigger hit than any of the more recent songs on this record, so why does that song get the ax when “E-Bow The Letter,” the song that pretty much destroyed the band’s commercial career, is represented? “E-Bow” is a fine song, but it’s just not a hit, and neither is “All The Way To Reno” from Reveal or the dreadful “All The Right Friends” from the Vanilla Sky soundtrack.

Why is Monster being underrepresented? Monster was a huge hit when it came out and it went multiplatinum. Even though there are a large number of fans who dislike the record and about a million copies of it in used record stores around the world, it doesn’t change the fact that “Crush With Eyeliner,” “Bang And Blame,” and “Strange Currencies” were legitimate hits on radio and MTV, and are exactly the sort of songs that casual fans might want to have on an R.E.M. hits compilation. All of those songs are better known to the general public than anything off of the last three R.E.M. records, which were all failures in terms of mainstream popularity.

That said, I’m happy with the songs selected from the last three LPs. “E-Bow The Letter” may have been a commercial misstep, but it was a good idea to include “Electrolite,” which is definitely one of the most underrated and beautiful songs in the band’s catalog. If “Electrolite” was released as the lead single from New Adventures In Hi-Fi, there’s a chance that the album may actually have been a modest hit. “Daysleeper” and “At My Most Beautiful” were the obvious songs to go with from Up, and they definitely belong on this record. I’m glad that my two favorite songs from Reveal were the ones to make the cut; I’d be very embarassed for them if they had included something as trite and melodramatic as “I’ll Take The Rain” to represent that album.

I’ve heard live versions of “Bad Day” and “Animal” – they’re both kinda average. I’m not sure why so many bands are so eager to muddy up sure-thing greatest hits packages with lackluster recently-recorded material. I understand that labels want new singles to promote the record, but R.E.M. didn’t need to have two “new” songs in addition to two non-album soundtrack songs, crowding out legimate hit singles. Maybe instead of these two songs, the band could have re-recorded an older gem, such as a studio version of the live arrangement of “Country Feedback,” and made that the special bonus song. That way you get the “new single” and an old classic which should be on the record in one go. Y’know, logic. Of course, re-recording older songs can be a disasterous thing, as it was for U2 when they tried it for their last hits compilation.

I don’t think it’s ridiculous to get annoyed with folks messing up their own greatest hits albums. I sincerely believe that these records are important; especially for young record buyers who want to try out older artists without getting overwhelmed by large back catalogs, and for casual listeners who for perfectly understandable reasons, just want the hits. The entire point of these compilations is to be crass and commercial. They should be about giving the people what they want, it shouldn’t be about the artist trying to revise their own history.

7:58

It would be great if the “secret opening” involved Ol Dirty Bastard. Especially if MTV didn’t know about it in advance.

8:00

Oh. Britney! “Like A Virgin”! YES YES YES

I like the way Britney’s singing this.

8:01

And Christina! Christina looks cuter in bridal gear than Britney. It’s probably the goth hair. The “Boy Toy” belt thing doesn’t hurt. Britney is prettier, but that outfit isn’t flattering her.

The Fab Five are loving this!

8:02

Aw man. Why did they stop so soon? Madonna is here now, and she’s singing “Hollywood.” Whatever.

8:03

Madonna kissed Britney and Christina. I guess that’ll make the papers, even though it’s pretty boring.

Now Missy’s here. That’s good news. Are we supposed to pretend that we all love this “Hollywood” song? I mean, it’s okay, but it’s rather subpar compared to most every other Madonna dance pop single.

8:06

Chris Rock is here. He’s riffing on easy targets, but it’s funny. “50 took more shots to the face than Jenna Jameson!”

8:14

LeBron James and Ashanti are here to advertise Sprite, or something. LeBron (and I don’t really know who he is, he’s a basketball player, I guess) is wearing a hideous Bob Marley/Lion t-shirt. They’ve got to sic Carson Kressley on this guy.

8:17

Missy Elliot wins best Hip Hop video for “Work It.” She is wearing a tux/tracksuit with a sequined hat and tie. (Or are those diamonds?)

8:25

And we’re back. Tony Hawk and some guy from Jackass are on now. They’re here to introduce Good Charlotte. Their song is pretty boring, but it’s not really offensive. They sound exactly like Blink 182, but they look as though a Hot Topic threw up all over them. Every generation of middle school kids gets their own Green Day, I suppose.

8:30

Kelly Clarkson and Ludacris are here.

I hope that “Ignition (Remix)” wins this category, but Beyonce will probably win instead.

8:32

Yup, Beyonce wins.

I’m not crazy about Beyonce’s outfit. It’s too damn puffy. But she’s lovely otherwise.

8:39

Evanescence and Sean Paul are introducing the “best video from a film.” From left: goon, cute goth girl, worst singer currently on the radio. Sean Paul did a couple songs in the pre-show thing. It’s amazing how tuneless this guy is.

8:40

What a shocker! Eminem wins for “Lose Yourself.” He’s with his life partner and 50 Cent. Nothing special here, move right along.

8:42

Ugh. Crank Yankers.

8:48

Nelly and Murphy Lee are out now. They’re basically just talking about asses.

8:49

Xtina! Redman! “Dirrty!” This should be craaaaaazy, god willing.

8:50

Gothtina emerges!

8:51

I definitely approve of her new goth/dom/fetish look (even if she’s a bit too tan to be convincingly goth), but y’know, this just isn’t craaaazy enough.

8:52

Dave Navarro! It’s “Fighter” time! “Black Cat 2003!”

It’s pretty good, but y’know, not dirrty enough. I expect more sleaze than this from Xtina.

8:54

Outkast and Iggy Pop!

Big Boi actually looks wackier than Andre.

I heart Andre 3000.

8:56

The MTV2 awards goes to A.F.I. Whatever. I mean, does anyone really expect Interpol to win things like this?

9:03

David Spade and the Olsen Twins. Boring. Those two girls clearly have the best publicist in the world.

9:04

Oh, it’s obviously time to give Justin Timberlake an award.

9:05

Yup. It most certainly is. Justin wins for “Cry Me A River.”

He looks nice in a suit. I like the grey shirt.

“This is cooler than bubblegum for me.” Okay. That at least sounds right.

9:07

P Diddy is here, with a Remember Barry White shirt.

9:08

Run DMC are here. I suspect that they have some kind of contract that ensures that they appear on this show every year for the rest of their lives. As I said last year, they do not seem to have a career aside from appearing on this show. But they are talking about Jam Master Jay, so I’m probably just being a callous prick about this.

9:10

50 Cent gets the award for Best Rap Video. Eminem is on stage too. I think he’s wearing the exact same outfit that he wore last year. I’m glad that 50 brought him out – Eminem is just not on tv nearly enough, y’know?

9:11

The voiceover just promised a “special appearance from Eminem.” That’s more like it!

9:13

Ads are on right now. Earlier during the pre-show, they kept saying that Metallica were doing some special thing at the end to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this show. I wonder what it might be. Since Metallica is one of the most humorless bands of all time, it can’t possibly be anything funny or kitschy, so I’m not sure what to expect.

9:18

Lizzie Maguire, Jason Biggs, and Lil’ John are here to introduce Best Group Video.

9:20

Coldplay wins for “The Scientist.” Chris Martin is genuinely appreciative of the fact that Justin Timberlake enjoys his music. That’s cool.

9:21

Eminem’s doing a skit with the retarded Crank Yanker puppet. He’s opened his heart to puppets since his run-in with Triumph. This skit is BOMBING. They should’ve just had a rematch with Triumph.

9:23

50 Cent performs “P.I.M.P.”

9:25

Oh good. Snoop is here to lend a helping hand. Automatically, this is now way better.

Why does that one dancing girl near Snoop look so incredibly sad? She’s just standing there, sulking, with her body limp. Someone needs to give her a hug.

9:33

The Fab Five! YES YES YES

9:34

Oh, and Jimmy Fallon is there too.

9:35

This is pretty funny, they’re basically just riffing on the fact that Jimmy could easily pass for a member of the Queer Eye cast. But Jimmy should let go of the “but really, I’m straight” thing.

Why didn’t they let Carson talk more? They should’ve just let him host this show.

9:37

Carson Kressley totally fucking rocks. He just jumped up a foot off the ground in mock euphoria.

9:38

Beyonce wins again! I didn’t catch the category. She’s thanking Jay-Z.

9:39

More Crank Yankers? Ugh ugh ugh. Is this really that popular? At least Tracy Morgan is saving this skit a little bit.

9:40

The voiceover lady just told us that we’re about to see an “unforgettable performance” from Mary J. Blige. It seems to me that whether or not something will be forgettable should ideally be determined after the event happens.

9:45

Fred Durst introduces Jack Black, who is in Michael Jackson drag. They are just goofing on Jackson’s “Artist of the Century” meltdown from last year. Eh.

9:47

C’mon, give the award to the White Stripes.

9:48

Linkin Park gets the award instead, obviously.

One of the Linkin Park guys is wearing a trucker cap. I guess he doesn’t know yet. The Asian guy in this band looks like he’s an IT dude.

9:50

DMX has a dog in night camouflage fatigues! That’s the fucking craziest thing so far tonight!

9:51

Mary J. Blige is here to bring us nonmelodic histrionics drenched in waaaay too much reverb.

Oh, but Method Man is here! As with Snoop, it’s better already.

Now 50 Cent is on stage. That doesn’t make things better, but it doesn’t make it worse either.

9:52

Mary’s at least singing a melody now. This song isn’t half bad, actually. I’ve never heard this before.

9:54

Oh come on. She’s doing “No More Drama” now? Yawn.

9:57

Three minutes after it’s over, I’ve already forgotten most of Mary J. Blige’s performance. You lied to me, voiceover lady.

9:59

Avril Lavigne, Kelly Osbourne, and Duran Duran. That actually sort of makes sense. Kelly is happy about it.

It’s time for Best Dance Video, but they are having some sound problems.

10:01

Oh, they’re giving Duran Duran a lifetime achievement award. That’s awfully nice of them.

10:03

Justin is victorious once again! This time it’s for “Rock Your Body.”

10:10

Justin is so smoothe. Now he’s here to introduce Coldplay. He loves Coldplay because they are “emotional.” He thinks they’re the Best Band In The World.

10:11

Coldplay perform “The Scientist.”

10:12

This is really nice, but this is a nice song, and it’d be hard to fuck this up. Chris Martin really does need to shave, though.

10:15

Venus and Serena Williams are here to present the award for Best Male Video.

10:17

In that one shot from the “Cry Me A River” video, Justin really looks like he’s going for a Donnie Darko look. I wonder if they intended that.

10:18

Justin wins again. Maybe he’ll dedicate this one to Sasha Frere-Jones.

10:20

No, he dedicates it to Johnny Cash instead.

10:25

Mya and Pamela Anderson are presenting now. Someone needs to fix the levels on Mya’s mic.

10:26

Best New Artist goes to 50 Cent. That’s sensible.

10:28

Pharrell and a Linkin Park guy are here to introduce someone. Linkin Park guy is proud of liking Pete Yorn. Pharrell ignores him.

10:29

It’s BEYONCE TIME!

She’s upside down!

She’s doing “Baby Boy” while being groped by weird men dressed entirely in black, head to toe! It looks like something out of The Invisibles.

This is the kind of crazy I’ve been waiting for all night. Even Sean Paul can’t ruin this!

10:31

“Crazy In Love” kicks in! W000000T!

10:32

There’s a streaker!

10:33

Jay-Z is here! She’s got her mink stole! This is just fantastic. This is showmanship!

10:40

Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore are here to present the Viewer’s Choice Award.

10:44

Good Charlotte wins. That makes sense – this was a tight race, but it seems like they have the largest number of white teen girl fans, and that’s how you win this award.

10:50

Adam Sandler, a magical pimp, and Snoop present Best Video and do “izzle” jokes that will be really, really dated soon.

10:52

Missy wins Best Video for “Work It”! This is truly Pop Justice!

I’m glad that Johnny Cash lost this.

She’s got a wacky Adidas golf suit! Nice.

10:55

Metallica do a MTV Greatest Hits riffs medley: Lenny Kravitz “Are You Gonna Go My Way”/Nirvana “Smells Like Teen Spirit”/The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army”/Michael Jackson “Beat It”

This is exactly what some people mean when they use the word “rockist.”

10:57

They’re doing their own song now. Metallica is unintentionally hilarious. They’re so serious!

The show’s over now. I’m going to get some crazy google hits with this post.

The Time My Voice Found The Words I Sought

The Strokes “12:51” (live at the Summer Sonic Festival, August 3rd 2003) – So does this mean that next year it will be hip to say that you are influenced by the first two U2 albums? Or could Julian Cassablancas’s passable Mark E Smith impression be enough to distract most people from the fact that the music sounds as though it is an outtake from the Boy sessions?

Late Summer Reruns

I don’t plan on doing this too often, but today I’m posting some reader requests for songs that I have blogged here in the past.

Rusty writes:

dear matthew

big fan of em, and i saw em with radiohead tonight. when you saw them in brooklyn, did you record the enitre show, and did they play the song ‘fly’ that they opened up with tonight? it was outstanding. malkmus came out and introduced it as ‘fly,’ slow number with killer synth on the side. opened up with a line about flying away … do you maybe have it somewhere? if not, know where i might be able to get it. thanks man.

I’ve never actually recorded a Jicks show, but I do have several good recordings of the Jicks performing “Fly,” which is a cover of a song by a very obscure psychedelic band from the late 60s called J.K. & Co. I went through about ten different recordings of the song, and I think that this version from the Paris 2001 Oui FM concert is the best in terms of performance and sound quality. I’ve edited the song so that there is virtually no audience noise, so that it could fit in well on a cd of studio tracks.

To double your pleasure, here is the beautiful original J.K. & Co. version of “Fly.” The song is taken from the only album the band ever recorded, 1968’s Suddenly One Summer. J.K. & Co. were led by the 15 year old singer/songwriter Jay Kaye, son of the guitarist Mary Kaye of Las Vegas’ The Mary Kaye Trio and namesake of the Mary Kaye Fender Stratocaster. The album itself is primarily inspired by Jay’s spiritual awakening as a result of taking LSD, and is meant to represent the birth and death of a fictional man. His band’s career was unfortunately cut short due to their record company’s unwise decision to release the 36 second instrumental intro before “Fly” on the album as a single in an attempt to gain publicity for having the shortest single ever released. This obviously didn’t go over well, and led to very poor sales for the album, and the band were financially limited to touring only in California. Making matters worse, Kaye’s age meant that they could not get gigs in most nightclubs, forcing them to play mostly teen rec centers. Apparently, Kaye is now living in Spain and still writing and performing music.

Chris writes:

Do you know if there’s anywhere else on the web where I can find that mp3 of the weird girl talking over Prince’s “Kiss” you posted a while back?

I really don’t think so. I recorded that from an archive of The Audio Kitchen which has since been removed. I think it’s fairly safe to say that that only people who ever heard the mp3 were either a) directly acquainted with the person who made the mp3 or recieved it as part of the intended gift, b) friends of the Audio Kitchen’s Professor, or listeners of the show or c) people who downloaded the mp3 from this blog and passed it on. I’m totally wrong! Go here for the Amy track, plus a whole bunch of other similar mp3s!

The mp3 in question was recorded by a girl named Amy for a mix cd which she was making for her girlfriend Caroline. She recorded herself singing along and making some comments over the top of Prince’s classic “Kiss.” Amy is extremely flirtatious, but also disturbingly possessive and transparently insecure. The Professor found this on Amy’s harddrive back in the heyday of Napster, aired it on a special edition of the Audio Kitchen last year, and now it belongs to the world. It’s easily one of the most entertaining bits of found audio that I’ve ever encountered, and I’m happy to offer it up once again. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Amy Sings With Prince For Caroline

Super Heat Super Heat Super Heat

Dog Ruff “Jon E Storm” – This is taken from the Northern Electronic compilation of electronic pop acts from Sheffield, England. This is just ridiculously fun and catchy; it’s got an insistent beat and cute cheerleader-style vocals about Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four. Once again, if you can’t take novelty dance punk-pop, don’t bother with this. However, if you’re into that sort of thing, you are in for a treat. (Thanks to Junkai!)

Hey, I just realized that the MTV awards will be on this coming Thursday – I’ll have to do another MTV VMA Play By Play. That was a lot of fun last year.

All Of Us Sing About It

The Dandy Warhols “Plan A” – Thanks to Gaston, who told me a few times over to check out the new Dandy Warhols LP Welcome To The Monkey House, and was totally right about it. I always take it as a good sign when I want to post a song from an album on this blog, and I have to have a little pros-and-cons debate in my head about which song to pick. It was either this or the single “We Used To Be Friends,” but this one won out because I like that it’s the first song that I’ve heard that sounds like it may have been influenced by 13/Think Tank era Blur. Great Albarn-y falsetto on the verses, by the way.

Timbaland, Magoo, and Missy Elliot “Cop That Shit” – Please embrace the irony of downloading a song with an anti-P2P/bootlegging/burning-cds-for-friends message. (But do buy the new Timbaland album if you can afford it. No need to be too spiteful about it.) Those of you who may not get a mischievious thrill from that should at least listen to it for the great Missy verse about halfway through. Never stinking!

I Love You On The Floor Today

Pleasure featuring Justine Frischmann “Don’t Look The Other Way” – I do believe that this is Justine’s first post-Elastica single, but it’s only a guest spot. I’m not sure when she’s going to be releasing more new material (It took, what, six years for The Menace to come out? I’m not holding my breath!), but this is very promising. She hasn’t lost her pop touch at all. I’m just wondering if this song is knicking its melody from a song that I either don’t know or can’t remember…

Peaches “Shake Yer Dix” – “Are the motherfuckers ready for the fatherfuckers? Are the fatherfuckers ready for the mother fuckers? No.” Yes! I’ve been waiting about three years for this song to come out – the first time I ever heard/saw Peaches was when she and Gonzales opened up for Elastica at the Bowery Ballroom back in 2000. About halfway through the set, they did this song, and I’ve been searching around for a copy of it ever since. It’s definitely one of the best songs on the somewhat disappointing new Fatherfucker album. It’s not that the new album isn’t good, it’s just that it’s lacking some super-joycore disco songs along the lines of “Lovertits” and “Set It Off.” Too much of the record is really slow and drowsy sounding. That works fine for a song like “I’m The Kinda,” which has a great hook to it, but it just gets a little repetitive after a while. The collaboration with Iggy Pop is really cute, though, and boosts the energy level a bit.

I Feel You In Every Molecule Of Me

Beyonce Knowles featuring Vanness Wu “Crazy In Love” – I know what you are thinking. “Crazy In Love” is an amazing song. Pretty much everyone agrees that it’s this year’s Summer Pop Anthem. It’s the kind of song that God sends to us so that He can prove to us all that we can get along and agree about some things once in a while. But don’t you ever hear the song, and feel as though it is missing something? Like, say, a guy from an Tawianese boy band rapping in Chinese over the bridge where Jay-Z would be? Well, you can rest easy now. This version of “Crazy In Love” was created for the Chinese market with the hope that a cameo by the Chinese star Vanness Wu of F4 would boost the sales of the Beyonce record, since she is a relatively unknown artist in the far east. Apparently, it has worked, and this version of the song is a big hit in China. If any of you out there are DJs, I dare you to play this version at a party/club, just to see how people react when the crazy sounding Chinese rapping comes in halfway through. Let me know if you do.

Richard X featuring Jarvis Cocker “Into You” – This is for all the people who started doubting Jarvis when he started dressing up like a skeleton and singing faux goth songs. This is the sort of complicated mash-up that Richard X specializes in, but I’m not quite sure if I know all of the components. I’m fairly sure that the music is from another song, but I can’t place it. The lyrics may or may not be Jarvis’s, but the chorus and guitar parts are from the Mazzy Star hit “Fade Into You.” If you know more about this song, please let me know in the comments. Whatever this song is made up of, this composition is gorgeous, and one of the finest ballads of 2003 by far.

RETRIBUTION IS COMING!

Since the WFMU archives are still down as of this writing, I’m going to be offering a fairly recent gem from The Best Show On WFMU. In this skit, Tom Scharpling decides to play a prank on the air by calling up a man named Bruce Willis, and interviewing him as though he was the famous movie star of the same name. Things, of course, go horribly awry when Mr. Willis discovers that Tom is teasing him on the air. These four mp3s must be listened to in sequence – when this originally aired, there was some time elapsed between each call, with Tom talking and taking calls on the air. None of that content is relevant to the joke, but it is good to keep in mind that there was a certain tension created by those gaps of time. Also, be forewarned: part four of this set is perhaps the most over the top three minutes of any Best Show skit to date.

Bruce Willis, Part One

Bruce Willis, Part Two

Bruce Willis, Part Three

Bruce Willis, Part Four

Play This Music On Every Route

I’ll try to write more about this tomorrow. I’m running short on time today.

Dirt McGirt (aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard) w/ Pharrell Williams “Pop Shit” – Oh yes, he’s still got it! This is taken from the fantastic new The Neptunes Present…Clones album.

Broadcast “Colour Me In” – This is from the new Broadcast album Haha Sound.

The Flaming Lips “Seven Nation Army Vs. Moving To Florida” – The Flaming Lips recently recorded this in session for Radio 1. It’s the music of The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” with the lyrics from The Butthole Surfer’s “Moving To California.”

Hey Straight Yr Always Too Late

Junior Senior “Chicks And Dicks” – Ah yes, undiluted joycore. “Move Your Feet” seems like such a one-hit-wonder kind of song, but hopefully this one can at least be a minor hit before the Junior Senior thing runs its course. And I don’t mean that in a dismissive way at all, the ephemeral nature of novelty dance pop is kinda beautiful and poetic in its own way. I should mention that the entire album is consistently fun and catchy, it’s actually one of the best albums that I’ve heard from this year.

Herbie Hancock “All Apologies” – When I returned home on Monday, overcome with the feeling that what I was returning to was not much of a home at all, I sat down at my computer. The computer seemed awkward and vaguely alien to me, which is bizarre considering how much time I’ve spent with it and that I was only away from it for eight days. I scanned through my mp3s, and this was the first thing I played. I’m not sure why I chose it, I just did. And it felt exactly right. “All Apologies” is my favorite Nirvana song, hands down. This version retains the song’s gorgeous melody, but tones down the pathos, while still keeping the general emotional tone intact. In this version, it’s less of a resigned suicide note, and more of a frustrated shrug.

I feel a lot different after my trip. I’m not very willing to talk about personal issues here, but I can say that right now I feel a lot more focused on what I want in my life, and I’m determined enough now that I’m willing to get over a lot of stupid fears in order to get what I want. One of those fears is asking people for help. I definitely need help, especially in the short term. So I’m asking all of you: I need money. I need a job. Preferably a steady job, but little jobs here and there would be fine as long as they pay me. If anyone reading this can help me out, I promise to make it up to you someday. Please bear in mind that it would have to be something in the NYC metro area, or something I could do from my house. I’m not expecting much from this, but it’s worth a shot, right?

I’ve got some experience with writing, secretarial/clerical office work, limited design experience, and a lot of experience with photography. I have a BFA from Parsons School Of Design/New School University. I’ve had experience working as a teacher’s assistant, which included doing some research, and lecturing a class of college students. I can write press releases and other similar kinds of copy with relative ease. I’m pretty good at writing about dry or complex things in an easy-to-read and layperson-friendly manner. I’m very knowledgeable in a number of areas, a lot of which I never really write about on this blog. I’ve been doing a lot of volunteer work with WFMU whenever I can over the past year, and that’s given me some more experience with a lot miscellaneous office-centric work. I think I can be helpful in a lot of ways. If you can help, please email me. The email address is on the bottom of the links column on the right of the screen.

Hi, I’m Back

Hey folks, I’m back from my little trip. I know that I said I’d be back with this today, but I’m really not up for it just yet. On one hand, I really haven’t been thinking so much about the sort of things that I would write about here, it just hasn’t been on my mind so much over the past week. On the other, I am definitely intimidated by the quality of the writing that has been posted here in my absence, and I’d like to at least attempt to compete with some of the folks who were kind enough to fill in for me. Anyway, if any of the folks who I invited to post here would like to post something here today, that would be great. Consider it an encore.

Belle and Sebastian for People Who Don’t Like Belle and Sebastian

Even among those with a strong tolerance for twee, their exists a certain contingent of folk with steely and/or flinty hearts who steadfastly deny the abundant charms of Belle and Sebastian. To those of you not bewitched by the sweet/sly dialectic of Stuart Murdoch’s songs,* or the increasing tightness of the band itself (somehow these ragamuffins just fucking lock in together – at each of the shows I’ve been to, the initial song starts off weak, as if the band hadn’t played together in months, but as soon as the first chorus hits everything becomes fucking beautiful. With the elimination of distraction Isobel Campbell, who seemed only to pout and kibitz onstage, perhaps the band will be even more tight at this week’s show in Prospect Park, which is BTW far too expensive, and it better not fucking rain, dude). An all-too-common sentiment expressed by these tough, tough kids is that “I don’t like Belle and Sebastian, but I like stuff that sounds like Belle and Sebastian.” Well, I have two things for these people: A clue, and some songs by bands that are sort of reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian, but, you know different. I guess they’re similar in an Amazon.com “if you like this, try this” way, which we all know uses the most advanced AI the military industrial complex has ever devised. Think about it. What would be more important than to develop an easy way to convince people to consume more and more of what they already have? But before I start sketching an ASCII version of the infamous GSY!BE (is that punctuated correctly?) record company/military-industrial complex chart (which I think I can improve to implicate Tommy Mottola, as the prime mover behind the current Iraq thing, as a ploy to boost sales of Thalia, but that will wait), let me offer you two bands, one American, one British.

The Americans, The Mendoza Line, are much loved by me for their ruling aesthetic of dogged failure. I finally witnessed them in action a few weeks back, opening for the borecore (well, their live show, reputably – I didn’t stick around for it, though) Luna at Maxwell’s. The 6 person strong band, a few of them more drunk than the others, gamely plowed through a set of songs from their last two albums, as well as a great cover of Arab Strap’s “Packs of Three,” which I tried in vain to find to post here. What you’re getting then is A Damn Good Disguise, which is a damn good song where one of the 3 ML songwriters, Tim Bracy, is at his most bitter and dylanesque. And he really fucking sounds like Dylan when plastered, as he was at the Maxwell’s show. “A Damn Good Disguise” sounds like Belle and Sebastian with less lisping and more pedal steel, which is a good thing. Who the hell doesn’t like pedal steel? This may be, as I wrote on my blog, to which I will not link because it is struggling to be reborn into something less insufferable at the moment, a hootenanny, though I am, as is well known, not an expert at the hootenanical. Nor any other songform, for that matter.

Anyway, check out this entry from The American Book Congress, a collaborative blog from some of the band members, wherein they attempt to write the liner notes to their forthcoming CD. And NYC residents, please note the band will be performing at Mercury Lounge this Friday, August 15, and I may or may not be attending, depending on what my palmist has to tell me.

The other band is not a particular favorite of mine, but they often get lumped in with B&S (finally got tired of typing that), and so I will note them here. I just heard this song yesterday for the first time, so I’m not quite sure how it will stand up, but the title track from The Clientele’s “The Violet Hour” is quite stunning, better even than the standout from their previous material (collected on “Suburban Light”), a song about everyone’s favorite boxer, “Joseph Cornell.” Unfortunately, you’ll have to seek it out yourself. The Violet Hour sounds kind of Californian folk-psych to me, even though these guys are from London. It’s a fabulously put together number, and has a lax, romantic vibe that just makes me want to smoke a cigarette in silence with you at 2 am. Yes, you! The cute one, over there!

(The Clientele are playing at the Bowery Ballroom September 11th, I believe, with Damon and Naomi)

In any case, thank you Matthew for letting me invade your blog, and I thank all of you very sophisticated and no doubt well-groomed and very tall, to boot, individuals, for putting up with my unwarranted love for middling indie rock bands. Let they, with their soft sounds and intelligent lyrics, ease you into the night, or mid-afternoon, or whatever time you happen to hear these songs.

* Yeah, he shouldn’t let anyone else sing or write songs, I know.

Tiga – ’Hot In Herre’

One of the things a good cover version can do is take elements that were already present in a song, however deeply buried or not, and make them textual rather than subtextual, so that the listener comes to appreciate the original in a whole new light. ‘Hot In Herre’ was already camp. It was already almost disco (The Neptunes’ beat is the sound of them well on their to ‘Rock Your Body’). It was already saucy in an almost English way – think Carry On films, or Nelly as Benny Hill, chasing girls round the room… but not in any way that carries threatening or predatory overtones. There’s nothing aggressive about ‘Hot In Herre’, sexually or otherwise. It’s impossible to feel threatened by a man called Nelly, and that plaster on his face has always looked more like a flamboyant affectation (in the best possible sense) rather than a reminder of violence. His most famous song is playful to the point of being absurd – the “I’m just kidding… Unless you’re gonna do it”, the back-and-forth of Nelly inviting the object of his lust to disrobe, and her telling him, basically, that she was going to that anyway… This may not sound particularly reconstructed behaviour, but there’s a gentleness to Nelly that marks him out from other, tougher, more macho emcees – sometimes just boyish, sometimes almost dandyish (not to the extent of someone like Andre 3000, but think about that moment in the ‘Work It’ video with Nelly and Justin Timberlake wearing silk dressing-gowns and talking posh – sure it’s a pisstake, but can you imagine KRS One doing that?).

And there’s the thing. When Nelly drew fire from KRS One, it demonstrated the specific ways in which hip-hop that considers itself any variety of ‘real’ or ‘underground’ – from backpack-laden college campus to ‘the streets’ – always hates hip-hop that crosses over into pop. Hip-pop, for want of a better term, isn’t the right kind of masculine. It’s not manly enough in an overly testosterone-filled, so-heterosexual-it-hurts way (which of course always starts to shade into camp itself, but that’s another story). It involves letting women sing on your records, dancing around, having too much fun, doing it for the kids. (I sometimes wonder if Nelly recording with N’Sync was a deliberate middle-finger gesture of defiance – collaborating with a boy band must be the ultimate act of sacrilege in the eyes of the ‘underground’ – and of course The Neptunes were involved, clever little scamps). To sum up the difference: it isn’t “grrr!”, it’s “good gracious!”.

So don’t let anyone tell you that Tiga is ‘subverting’ the original of this song. He’s not: he’s just showing you a side to it that you might not have considered. Of course, this would all be a little academic if Tiga’s version didn’t have its own merits: that oh-so-casual but word perfect delivery, the beat that makes you dance in spasms like… well yes, a puppet on a string, boy. But the thing I like most about Tiga’s cover is how obvious it is that he loves the song. The cover version as a form of karaoke has given us as many travesties as triumphs (‘Heroes’ by Oasis, anyone?), but when someone pulls it off, it becomes impossible not to be infected by their enthusiasm. This track is a tribute to the shiny, silly brilliance of pop music that in the process becomes the thing itself, rather than just an homage. And that’s why I don’t see it is as a gimmicky novelty record, or just as a way for white hipster kids to enjoy the song without having to admit they like Nelly, even if it becomes those things with wider exposure.

It’s scorchio in London right now, just so you know.

It took me a while to decide what to write about and a while longer to take time to write it which is why I no longer have a blog of my own. Many thanks in advance for letting me scrawl across yours, Flux. Hope you don’t reget it too much.

The Boss

Bruce Springsteen was my first rock and roll hero. The library down the street from the house I grew up in had all of his albums on cassette and I think I got more use out of them than the rest of the community combined. The early hype comparing Springsteen to Dylan was responsible for some sort of bizarre reverse engineering that exposed my nine year old self to The Times They Are A-Changin’ and Woody Guthrie. Not that I liked any of that stuff at the time. Oh no, Bob Dylan was boring. He didn’t have wizz bang gangs from uptown and he sure as hell wasn’t racing in the streets.

But they’re both protest singers. Springsteen probably more so at this stage in their careers. Born in the USA wasn’t the fucking national anthem Regan and his idiot staff seemed to think it was. I understood that at 10, listening to this guy sing about veterans getting the shaft during a fucked up economy. And while I’m not really a huge fan of Springsteen anymore I still respect the hell out of him. It bothers me that people think The Ghost of Tom Joad is a Rage Against the Machine track. He just gets no respect. And then American Skin (41 Shots).

“…You’ve got to understand the rules

If an officer stops you

Promise me you’ll always be polite,

that you’ll never ever run away

Promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight”

And the protests. From police groups (of course) but also from firefighters garbage collectors and seemingly every other public service group with an air of authority around them. When NWA said “Fuck the police” and PE said “Fight the power” they were giving a voice to people that weren’t being heard but they were also (sadly) preaching to the choir. But the police, firefighters, trash collectors and that guy with the greasy mullet and the Chevy Super 8 are Springsteen’s bread and butter. Its not like he was trying to be edgy or make a grab at street cred. He had something to lose and he played the song anyway. And thats worth something. Lets face it, most white middle class adults over 40 aren’t going to buy an antiauthoritarian punk or hip hop record but some of them might buy Springsteen: Live in NYC. And maybe some of them got the message.

It ain’t no secret

No secret my friend

You can get killed just for living

In your American Skin

America’s most important protest singer? Maybe.

Scott Thompson – Dear Eminem

I’m not sure exactly why I like this bit so much. I think it has to do with the fact that I do really like Eminem, and the song seems to have a certain genuine affection for him, as well–it just looks to sort of take him down a peg. It’s not the kind of strict, blind hataz stuff you find on morning DJ show parodies, which this superficially resembles. Instead, it’s gentler, more persuasive, a nice character piece; even the jabs at him having a pseudo-gay relationship with Dre feel light-hearted and subtle. (Though they’re not subtle at all.) Maybe it’s something about a faggot calling someone straight a faggot, and in that this resembles the best of Scott’s fabulous “Buddy” monologues from The Kids In The Hall. He’s giving himself a boyfriend, which is nicely ambivalent but also honest, and he doens’t get too campy about it. There’s just something charming about someone making fun of someone else and then threatening to kill their boyfriend with a juicer. It’s nicely self-aware.

Of course, the line, “If we ever adopt a special needs mixed-race child, we’re gonna name him Eminem!” is lovely, as is “It’s so rare to find a black man that sticks around. Believe me–I know!” (The latter is classic Buddy.) The way he delivers the first few lines of the third verse are awesome, too.

Best of all, though, is the chorus, which while horrendously sung, makes fun of Eminem not for being white or dumb or whatever–it makes fun of him for being grumpy. Man, how great is that, huh?

Note: sorry for the lack of critical essays in the last two days, but they’ve been busy ones. I had a few planned out that I didn’t get to, so I’ll probably end up posting ’em next week over at my blog, which is called clap clap blog. (Knew I’d get a plug in there at some point, right?)

the mass psychology of pop

More pop and psychoanalysis! Following on from something I wrote yesterday in my own blog, I’ve been thinking about Allison Anders’ film God Give Me Strength, and her assertion that poised pop is often capable of more emotional depth than the literalism of emo, etc, precisely because its sleek surfaces can call a kind of aural unconscious into being. Interesting. (But depth isn’t always interesting, anyway. Heh.) Kristen Vigard’s rendition of Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello’s “God Give Me Strength” is the centrepiece of Anders’ film, and it’s so fucking beautiful that it makes me cry. Apparently Bacharach and Costello’s demo made Anders cry, too, but Vigard’s dignified performance for the film is far superior to Costello’s own histrionic attempt on Painted From Memory. Vigard’s voicing is just so. She has it down. And this is what opens up a space for our own projections. In the film, Illeana Douglas’ songwriting character is at her wits’ end, having been fucked over again, and pours everything into a bittersweet lament, “God Give Me Strength”, to open her career as a performer. She sings it plaintively for a genius producer of the Brian Wilson mould — Matt Dillon’s character. He paces around her as she sings, and her voice only really cracks at the climatic line, “I want him to hurt”. His eyes widen. Later, after an awkward silence, he can only manage, “Wow. What a sad song”. It is.

“I still deam of Organon.” Many people know that Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” is based on the life of the Wilhelm Reich, a scientist who thought he could control the weather by harnessing “orgone energy”, and who was hounded to death by the US Government for peddling his “orgone accumulators”. But what’s usually glossed over is that Reich was a member of the German Communist Party and the author of the “seminal” book, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, which was the most notable attempt to synthesise Marxism and the psychoanalytic realm up till Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus. His troubling, radical thesis: that people’s willing participation in fascism is connected to forms of repression that are at once more general and yet also intimate, e.g. sexual repression. (Here’s a very funny distillation in a few words.)

Hey, what’s this got to do with Kate Bush? Oh well. Ummm… Anyway, note Bush’s traditionally “musical” approach to sampling, in which samples are put to service as simulated instruments — it’s all Fairlights, Linn drums, etc. standing for a string orchestra. Incidentally, I bought the album on which this track appears, The Hounds of Love, on the same fateful day as getting Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, whose approach to samples couldn’t be any more radically different. I recently had an interesting conversation with a hip-hop historian who told me that the rise of hip-hop coincided with the US Government abrogating its responsibilities to fund the teaching of music in public schools. Of course, that had been the teaching of the Western classical musical tradition, in which Kate Bush is so steeped. So in the ambivalent absence of such a framework in the consciousness of kids in the ’70s, the sounds of the street — unlike the African American pop of previous decades — embraced forms that broke wildly from Western musicology. Interesting!

Flux = great, for letting me rant again.

{insert indecipherable vocalisation here}

“PYT (Pretty Young Thing)“, Michael Jackson. There was a time, not long ago, when I used to listen to this song over and over again on the train, to the exclusion of most others. Lots of other songs from Thriller are overplayed, so I’m making up for it with this one. Dunno if I could ever wear this one out, though; it’s real neat. Justin Timberlake wishes he were this neat. Also: for something so crisp and crunchy, it’s not as ferocious as the bigger songs from Thriller, in which Michael started his descent into a strangely muted, almost autistic kind of fury.

I’ll throw in a little bonus here: Michael’s excellent home demo of “Billie Jean“, included on the Special Edition of Thriller. A couple of weeks ago I was at an academic conference about popular music, and one of the hottest papers was called “Saying the Unsayable: the non-verbal vocalisations of Michael Jackson”, in which the presenter argued that Jackson’s yelps and grunts channel those non-conforming layers of his persona — those apparent “crises” of race, gender and sexuality — that are constantly glossed over in the more readily identifiable aspects of his artistry. In this light, it’s really interesting to hear Michael’s moments of glossolalia in those bits of the song where he hasn’t yet written the lyrics. They fit completely with the sighs and screams that remain in the final version of the song. But because the song hasn’t fully cohered in the demo, Michael’s voice seems even more permeable, crawling from a place before words. This would be a good time to go over the definition of the psychoanalytic term, chora:

The earliest stage in your psychosexual development (0-6 months), according to Julia Kristeva. In this pre-lingual stage of development, you were dominated by a chaotic mix of perceptions, feelings, and needs. You did not distinguish your own self from that of your mother or even the world around you. Rather, you spent your time taking into yourself everything that you experienced as pleasurable without any acknowledgment of boundaries.

Be careful what you do. This is Ben from Antipopper, signing off.

Downloadin’ pictures of Sarah Michelle Gella

I can’t really seem to get past the similarities between a Fountains of Wayne album and a Weird Al Yankovic album — the genre-hopping, the references to very time-specific pop culture, the “oh my god I can’t believe he rhymed that with that” lyrics. I’m not saying that makes Fountains of Wayne bad — I’ve always had a fondness for the Yankovic oeuvre (his masterpiece was “Yoda,” but “All About the Pentiums” is a close second).

Anyway, “Hey Julie” does all the right things by taking the awkward, goofy lyrics about office work and mean bosses and sales figures and turning them into a love song. I can’t help but be charmed. It’s my little pop gem gift to you on this, my last Fluxblog post.

Please come visit me anytime over at Waking Ear. I’ve enjoyed getting to meet some new people, and my comments links are always aching to be mouse-clicked. That sounded weird. But you know what I mean.

Oh, and thanks to Matthew for inviting me to be a part of this week.

The Afghan Whigs – When We Two Parted

It’s a grave misfortune of musical fate that the Afghan Whigs ever had anything to do with Sub Pop. Branded for a crime they didn’t commit, the Whigs never quite escaped the yoke of a half-baked musical revolution that had nothing to do with the earnest, near-pretentious white-boy soul and scalding emotional howl that carpets every shaggy inch of Gentlemen.

The cover artwork alone is incredible. Children locked in uncomfortable adult poses are cast in sepia, like a forward thinking memory. Looking at it now, I can’t resist a comparison to the faux-Kevin Smith approaches to sexual politics that have soiled the mainstream in the past decade. I picture Ben and Jen, costumed from Gigli, in the same positions and have to run off for a change of trousers because I’ve pissed myself laughing.

But let’s focus down to the centerpiece, the Columbine Roller-Rink anthem When We Two Parted. I picture Dulli singing this to an anonymous party girl he’s brought home, over whose face hovers a projected image of his One True Love, while disaffected youth skate slowly in orbit around the bed. His arrogance is diminished here, the first place on the record where perhaps he’s not quite so proud to have fucked up. Like the Moebius-strip memory of the cover image, this song is tied to the electro-Stax final admission of ‘I Keep Coming Back’. I wish I could say that this sort of self-awareness is what kept me off the slow-dance floors of my childhood. In fact, as Greg Dulli well knows when he’s drunk enough, it was simple cowardice.

(Brought to you by the folks at The Pork Store.)