Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Gameboy/Gamegirl “Sweaty Wet/Dirty Damp” – There’s a temptation to rebel against these sort of deliberate fun machines, especially if your idea of a great time isn’t so extremely lewd and extroverted, but there’s so much cutesy mischief and barely-contained glee to be found in this track that it’s hard not to at least smile along. Gameboy/Gamegirl are approximating the sound of booty bass and Funk Carioca, but something has been twisted in their adaptation of the formula, resulting in a track that filters those sensibilities through the fluorescent funk common to the music of fellow Melbourne dance acts such as Muscles, the Avalanches, and Cut Copy. (Click here for the Gameboy/Gamegirl MySpace page.)

Squimaoto “Rich In Vitamins” – The beat and arpeggios are not especially weird, but Squimaoto’s song still feels as though it has been folded inside-out. Not to imply that it sounds awkward — it moves along with this stealthy ninja grace, even when it launches into a noisy fit towards the end. (Click here to buy it from Brothersister Records.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Luke Slater, Sylvie Marks & HAL9000, and Aesop Rock.

Also: Mike Barthel on cynicism, Stephen Colbert, blogs, and pop music.

Spank Rock – Excerpt from Fabriclive 33 including: CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above (Spank Rock Remix),” Chicks on Speed “Wordy Rappinghood (Playgroup Mix),” Mr. Oizo “Nazis (Justice Mix),” and Dominatrix “The Dominatrix Sleeps Tonight” – The album-length mixes in the Fabric series are very hit or miss, and the quality largely depends on the character and genre affiliations of the DJ on any given disc. A good number of them do their job well, but feel anonymous and aesthetically flat, and though I appreciate them in a distanced sort of way and a strong argument can be made that I simply lack a nuanced taste for certain dance subgenres, I just can’t connect with a record that never strays from a limited palette of textures and one monotonous beat for 80 minutes. Spank Rock’s mix is characteristically restless, rowdy, and fun as it cycles through bits of recent crowd-pleasers, electro cuts, and tweaked oldies. The mix is fluid and intuitive, but not overworked, lending the set a loose feeling that implies that they are whimsically skipping around through their record bins.

I’m not sure why, but I’d never really paid much attention to Spank Rock’s remix of CSS’ “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” before acquiring this Fabric mix. Interestingly, Spank Rock’s version modifies the arrangement so that it is easier to mix seamlessly into one of their sets, but the by-product of that pragmatism is that the mood darkens considerably and it contrasts with the raunchy cheer common to the rest of the mix. The lyrics are foregrounded by the newly spare arrangement, and the alternate vocal take by Lovefoxxx emphasizes the sadness just barely obscured by her “live for the moment” optimism as she tries to make the most of her time with a long distance love that she’s finally just met in person. The excitement and open-hearted lust is still there, but her doubt, frustration, and nervousness isn’t nearly as well concealed as it is on the original recording. The shift isn’t all that drastic, but it’s enough to to reinforce my estimation that its words fall into the highest percentile of quality pop lyrics from the past ten years, and make the song sound fresh to me all over again after having heard it soooooooo many times throughout 2006.

Edit:

I’d like to address this comment left in the box below, which more or less echoes what I was railing against the last time I wrote about CSS at length:

I’m sure Lovefoxxx is not emoting that much. She’s in a dance band for crying out loud and not a very good one. – Anon

To a certain extent this (obviously quite brave!) anonymous poster is entitled to their opinion, and since it is apparent that they haven’t given this a great deal of thought, it’s not really worth arguing with them, at least not in the interest of trying to change their mind. But honestly, there’s no way I can read this sort of comment without assuming some pretty harsh things — mainly, that they seem to have extremely rigid and unimaginative ideas about what signifies intelligent and emotionally moving art.

I think that a lot of the problem that some people run into with CSS is that their record is very much a product of the present tense, and though I believe that accounts for a great deal of its beauty, art that is so tied into a moment that will inevitably pass tends to freak out a certain type of insecure fan who demands permanence and timelessness, often because they are terrified of ever having to admit that they enjoyed something that has since become dated. If you want to cling to the notion of having an imagined aesthetic upper hand, you will most likely become allergic to this sort of music, and find refuge in safe bets. If you’ve conditioned yourself to think of contemporary culture (especially internet culture) as being an endless stream of vulgar novelty — a notion that is not entirely inaccurate, by the way — you’ve most likely blinded yourself to any art that speaks to the humanity and emotional truth of experiences within that culture.

This particular CSS song is about an increasingly common experience that was quite rare less than a decade ago, and there are very few songs that explore it, especially not in a way that so articulately expresses the mixed emotions, expectations, and awkwardness of the situation without getting all emo about it. Like the rest of their album, “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” is dealing with both the positive and negative aspects of living in a world that seems small on the internet, but is still quite vast — physically and culturally. They do this while being playful, while sounding fun, and without making grand pronouncements or diving into the deep end of angst. I can’t see how that isn’t a totally remarkable achievement. (Click here to pre-order it from Fabric.)

Elsewhere: Chris Conroy on false authority and the nature of the modern backlash.

Deerhunter “Wash Off” – The stakes always seem very high in Deerhunter’s best songs, and even though it’s not always clear what’s happening in them on a literal level, there’s certainly a sense that no emotion, idea, or fictional construct is going to emerge from them unchanged or entirely intact. “Wash Off” consciously steals its central motif from krautrock, but it’s in the interest of pragmatism rather than pastiche. Like the most memorable Neu! songs, the music feels as though it is accelerating toward some endless horizon, but unlike that band’s rather serene compositions, Deerhunter seem to be in a hurry to achieve some form of transcendence, periodically kicking at their effects pedals for moments of inspired rocking. When they rock out, they sound as though they’ve let their spirits run free from their bodies. Joyous isn’t quite the right word given their solemn tone, but it’s halfway there. (Click here to buy it from Kranky.)

James Brown “Call Me Superbad (Cornelius Rework)” – James Brown would’ve fined Cornelius into the poor house if he was actually a member of his band. The first minute of his reworked track seems like a handful of false starts, but it eventually settles into a groove that seems to move diagonally away from Brown’s vocal performance. It all comes together by the time the horns kick in, but it always feels as though it’s about to tip over and fall apart, as though Cornelius is playing a thrilling game of musical Jenga with Brown’s song. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Peter Birkenhead on the problem with Oprah and “The Secret.”

Pleasure “Out Of Love” – You know that point in some songs (most especially new wave tunes) when the sentiment of the lyric overcomes the singer and they reflexively close their eyes for a moment and swoon as they hit a higher note? It’s a glorious thing, and most good songs about new infatuation tend to do this at least once, if not a few times over. This new single by Pleasure sounds as though it was engineered to maximize the impact of these swooning moments, and so when they come, the rush is exhilarating and sorta exhausting. “Out Of Love” is a sublime mix of gleeful synthpop bounce and sad-eyed melancholy, and though there are some echoes of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass,” it tosses out that song’s cynicism and wounded pride in favor of an entirely earnest sweetness. (Click here for the Pleasure MySpace page.)

Dan Deacon “Okie Dokie” – Dan Deacon’s absurd, cartoonish electro-punk is like being assaulted by a street gang of Pokemon characters. It rocks out and hits you hard and fast, but it never stops seeming cute and silly even when the track accelerates so much that the electronic snare hits begin to sound more like rapid gun fire than any kind of musical instrument. (Click here for the Dan Deacon website.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on why going to see Girl Talk play a live gig may not be a very good idea.

Joss Stone “Put Your Hands On Me” – Joss Stone never inspired any enthusiasm from me before — her voice is strong but generic, and she seemed to be going out of her way to win cred points with the dullest sort of mainstream pop fans. Her music was inoffensive and generally dull, the sort of thing that you can hear and tune out, or maybe enjoy just enough to ask “hey, who is this?,” get the answer, and then totally forget about it the next day. This song, on the other hand, is quite fun. It’s extremely corny and not especially original, but Stone is utterly unashamed, and embraces its cheesiness wholeheartedly. Her collaborator Raphael Saadiq is clearly mimicking Rich Harrison’s “1 Thing” and DJ Premier’s “Ain’t No Other Man,” and though the track and the vocal performance do not reach the incredible heights of either song, it’s a worthy tune, and I’m glad to hear another song in the style much in the same way that I’m likely to enjoy any reasonably successful copy of the Pixies’ formula. Aside from the obvious affectations, she reminds me a lot of early ’90s Mariah Carey on this recording. She sounds completely overwhelmed by infatuation, and totally amped to be singing. Her pure pleasure in the act of performing is obvious and it elevates a song that would otherwise just be pretty good to something kinda thrilling and special. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

The Clientele “Joseph Cornell” – You can listen to this song during the day, and because it is an exceptional composition it will sound just fine, but it will only really make sense at night. (This is also the case for the vast majority of the Clash’s discography, most of which sounds as though it was recorded in a world illuminated only by the moon, street lamps, neon signage, and fluorescent light leaking out the windows of buildings.) The lyrics are fully aware that the music is about the night, and more than that, a feeling of emotional absence accompanying physical presence as two people make their way home in the wee hours. The words set the song in London, but the mention of Delancey Street and quiet late night train rides keeps my mind in Manhattan, in part because I can’t help being a bit provincial, but more in that the Lower East Side is a place that I associate with this type of scene, and this particular sort of loneliness. (Click here to buy it from Merge.)

Grachan Moncur III “When” – The song walks in aimless circles, somehow lost in a place it knows too well. It doesn’t matter what the other instruments do — if they pull off in another direction, if they whine and moan and protest, if they cool out and nod gently — they can’t escape the gravity of that unchanging piano motif. It’s an anchor, and even if its chords are calming, by the end of the piece, it becomes clear that it has kept the song contained within a stifling perimeter. It grinds down on hope, and reinforces pessimism. It’s a beautiful performance full of inspired improvisations, but that just makes the piece more terrifying and seductive. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Tiger Tunes “The Walk” – This song would’ve been on the next Tiger Tunes album if…well, if they didn’t just stop being a band sometime over a year ago. The key personnel have moved on to a new band called Beta Satan, but I’ll come back to them another time. Today, I just want to lament the passing of what was most likely the best Danish band of this decade. Or maybe ever. There’s really not a lot of Danish bands that are well known to Americans, so I can’t be certain. Let’s just call this a hunch and chalk it up to well-meaning hyperbole, okay?

Tiger Tunes maintained a balancing act that unfortunately very few bands ever manage. They played hyperactive keyboard-driven new wave without sounding wimpy or self-consciously retro, and basically sounded as though they learned everything they new about playing punk rock music from video games. Their lyrics were witty but full of angst, and even when they sounded like they were about to totally wig out, they didn’t seem as though they were taking themselves very seriously. They respected their emotions and experiences, but clearly regarded them as being inherently absurd. They sang about getting bullied by a “fuckmachine” named Kirsten, attempting to smooth out relationship problems with pancakes, and in this case, a party so awful that it, as they put it, undermined their very existence. It’s easy to hear “The Walk” as a vague explanation for why they called it a day, but who knows. I just wish they at least finished the record, or kept going. It’s too bad, really. (Click here for the official Tiger Tunes website.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with music from Mutual Appreciation, Shortbus, and Stranger Than Fiction.

Also: Mike Barthel on hardcore punk, hardcore porn, Sarah Silverman, conservatism, and transgression.

And: Tom Ewing thinks that recent changes in the Marvel and DC Universes may be tied in with their ambitious MMORPG projects.

Mark Ronson featuring Santo Gold “Pretty Green” – The original version of “Pretty Green” by the Jam is hardly a sleepy tune, but in comparison to this super-kinetic cover by producer Mark Ronson, it seems stiff and comatose. Is there even a proper genre name for this thing, other than “classy dance-pop stuff with horns that Mark Ronson makes” or um, “modern Ze“? Santo Gold has a prissy, bratty voice similar to that of Cristina, though her delivery is more playful than caustic and ironic. Not to say that there isn’t some irony in this record; it’s just that it’s not the kind that is meant to make you feel bad. (Click here for Mark Ronson’s MySpace page.)

Bonde Do Role “Gasolina (Radioclit remix)” – Things we lose by not listening to the original mix of “Gasolina”: a great blurting horn hook, a fantastic drum break that kicks in just before the first minute is up. Things we gain by listening to this remix by Radioclit instead: a jumpy electro beat, a slightly devious synth lead, and vocals that pop out a bit better, especially when she chants the name “Afrika Bambaataa.” I mean, this really shouldn’t be an either/or situation, but the Radioclit mix wins today. (Click here to buy it from Turntable Lab.)

Elsewhere: R.I.P. Charles Gocher from the Sun City Girls.

Also: Sean Michaels didn’t die.

And: Craig Ferguson explains why he is not going to mock Britney Spears.

Santa Maria “Lalalalalaaa” – Maria Eriksson’s voice may not be as memorable and unique as that of her fellow ex-Concrete Victoria Bergsman, but they are both the musical grandchildren of Nico, and as such smuggle a great deal of warmth and humanity in a voice that seems lethargic and aloof on the surface. “Lalalalaaa” recalls the sound of the Concretes, but even more so the most tuneful tracks in the Electrelane catalog, or going back to a more obscure reference point, the better songs by Quickspace. The song feels like a train of thought taking form and then drifting away, and as it goes on, it seems as though they are trying to draw out an idea that’s already begun to fade away. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Robyn “Robotboy (UK Version)” – It’s been a long time, but Robyn is finally releasing her self-titled album in the UK. Two of the songs have been re-recorded, two other songs have been added, and the running order has been shuffled around so that “Konichiwa Bitches” is the first proper tune on the record. It’s funny how the character of the album shifts so much with these changes even though it’s mostly the same thing. “Bum Like You” and “Robotboy” are both faster and thoroughly electro now, and as a result the albums feels considerably less eclectic and more focused on being this super modern Europop thing. I prefer the original version of “Bum Like You,” but “Robotboy” has definitely been improved by its faster pace and sweeter production. As a whole, Robyn is better — the kinks have been ironed out, and it suddenly sounds more like a greatest hits compilation than a regular album. (Click here for Robyn’s official site.)

Sonic Youth @ Webster Hall 2/16/07
Candle / Reena / Incinerate / Bull in the Heather / Skip Tracer / Do You Believe In Rapture? / What A Waste / Silver Rocket / Rats / Turquoise Boy / Jams Run Free / Pink Steam / Or // The Neutral / Shaking Hell /// Expressway To Yr Skull

At long last, after twelve years of seeing them play at least once on every tour, I finally got to see Sonic Youth play “Silver Rocket”! This means my list of Sonic Youth oldies that they play live but I have never seen has been reduced to just “Brother James” and “Inhuman.” (It’s sort of amazing how common “Brother James” is — it is played with some regularity on virtually every tour — and yet it remains so elusive!) This is not counting songs that were performed frequently before 1995 – other key songs that I would love to see but have not been performed since before I started seeing them live include “Theresa’s Sound-World,” “Stereo Sanctity,” “Tuff Gnarl,” “Pipeline/Kill Time,” “I Love Her All The Time,” “Dirty Boots,” “Flower,” “Hey Joni,” and “The Sprawl,” but who knows if they will do any of those ever again.

Honestly, I would’ve been happy enough just to see them play “Candle” and “Skip Tracer” again, since they both rank among my top five or six favorites in the Sonic Youth catalog. Really, there isn’t a lot to say about this show aside from remarking on the setlist — like Radiohead, their performances are of a freakishly consistent and high level of quality, and after a certain number of shows, all you can do is offer yet another reverent WOW.

Sonic Youth “The Neutral” – This is how they introduced this song on Friday night:

Thurston: “Hey Kim, why don’t you tell us what this song’s about? You told me once, but I forgot.”

Kim: “It’s about the modern dude.”

One of the most interesting things about Sonic Youth’s lyrics over the past decade is the way that songs about people and their relationships are always strictly observational. They aren’t entirely emotionally detached, but definitely stand at a distance from their subjects, and they never do much to hide that — if anything, the vicarious drama and benign voyeurism becomes the real topic. “The Neutral” is sung to a friend about some mysterious and alluring “modern dude,” but the song isn’t really about him; it’s about the possibility that her friend might end up with him, and how that fills her with excitement, pride, and mild envy. As the song ends, Kim sings “he’s neutral, and he’s weary, and he’s so in love with you,” and it’s the single most heartbreaking line she’s written since she sang “I’m so happy we’re just friends” at the end of “Creme Brulee” on Dirty. It’s not because she’s actually interested in the “modern dude,” but that she’s acknowledging the ways in which she is cut off from these sort of possibilities, for better or worse. She wants the best for her friend, and she’s hopeful that this crush works out, and in some small way she knows it’s because she wants to be in on this magic, even if she’s just on the periphery. (Click here to buy it from AmpCamp.)

A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ The Delancey 2/17/07
Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All / Lists, Plans / A Mundane Phone Call With Jack Parsons / Ghost in the Graveyard / C’mon / The Best Summer Ever

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All” – A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s evolution as a live band continues to stray from the muted, ethereal effect of their studio recordings without sacrificing their appeal. If anything, their show at the Delancey foregrounded their most appealing and accessible aspects — the melodies, the guitar textures, and the voices of Lauren and Robin Daniels — and highlighting things that aren’t so strongly emphasized on the album, i.e. the lyrics and the beats. The girls sound like shy apparitions on Scribble Mural Comic Journal, but in person, they are outgoing, flirtatious, and bold. Their drummer is tight and energetic, and was key in translating music designed for headphones into something physical and urgent. “C’mon” was played with a disco beat, “Best Summer Ever” was played like a rock hit, and “Lists, Plans” was sped up considerably, and transformed into an arty funk song not unlike Stereolab’s “Metronomic Underground.” (Click here to buy it from Notenuf.)

Coin-Op “Favourite Subjects” – If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you may remember Coin-Op as the band from England who wrote “Hey Uri!,” a song that inexplicably tore into the spoon-bending, long-ago disgraced faux-psychic Uri Gellar. “Favourite Subjects” is no less bitter and abrasive, but its subject matter is more timely, if not timeless: Arrogant self-absorbed drug-fueled pricks. The song has a great momentum and a memorable scream-along chorus, and sounds kinda like a dancey version of McLusky, though the singer affects a slightly bizarre twang on its verses. (Click here for the Coin-Op website.)

The Knife “Marble House (Rex The Dog mix)” – The original version of “Marble House” is a romantic melodrama pushed to such an aesthetic extreme that its solemnity is nearly absurd. Its sentiment is super-concentrated, and so its emotional potency is overwhelming, basically redefining the word “hyperballad.” It’s not exactly a natural candidate for a dance remix, but Rex The Dog has outdone himself, speeding up the melody and amping up its dynamics without doing much to diminish its essential grandeur. Once it gets going, it actually begins to resemble Ace of Base, a group commonly invoked as a damning comparison by kneejerk anti-pop Knife detractors, but that’s no bad thing in this case. (Click here to buy it from AmpCamp.)

Elsewhere: “Indie rock NOW is a cult of marginalized success.” (Thanks to Carl.)

Also: “Wow, that’s so weird, like, I’ve never gotten along with someone that played all six strings on a guitar before!” – Watch a brief documentary about James Rabbit.

Alton Ellis “You Make Me Happy” – Studio 1 reggae from the 60s and 70s is easily some of the most perfectly recorded music in history, most especially in the way that it sounds so loose and easy, and every sound is transformed from a representation of a performance to something more sublime and abstract. For example, can music possibly sound more comforting than the bass line in this song? It’s not just the notes or the phrase, it’s this ideal texture, tone, and mix that makes it all sound as though you’re hearing it from within a womb. Everything in the track feels like bliss, but that bass brings us back to the greatest peace we’ll ever know. (Click here to buy it from Soul Jazz Records.)

Feist “My Moon, My Man” – Snap, thump, snap, thump — it’s a glam beat, and more or less on the same wavelength as Goldfrapp on their last two albums, but whereas their sound is dominating, mechanical and aloof, Feist’s song is submissive, muted, and colored by soft washes of blue moonlight. The lead guitar on the break is especially lovely, and sounds as though it just wandered in from some hopelessly romantic 80s UK alt-rock tune that we’ve never heard before. (Click here for the Feist MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Photocall, Jay Reatard, and the Marcia Blaine School For Girls.

Arcade Fire @ Judson Memorial Church 2/13/07
Keep The Car Running / Antichrist Television Blues / Black Mirror / Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son / No Cars Go / Haiti / Black Wave/Bad Vibrations / My Body Is A Cage / Neon Bible / Power Out / Rebellion (Lies) / Intervention // Windowsill / The Well and the Lighthouse

This was my first time seeing the Arcade Fire, mainly because it took me about two years to come around to liking their first album. I now agree with the consensus — Funeral is very good — but I’m finding that I’m in a minority at the moment for believing that their new album Neon Bible is about twenty times better. On one hand, it’s an inevitable backlash, the sort of thing that invariably happens when a debut album is so successful and meaningful to its fans. On the other, it’s some very strong evidence that a large portion of the indie yuppie nation simply have no taste for brilliance.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Arcade Fire are a compelling live act. They hit the stage as a ten piece ensemble, in part to honor their detailed arrangements and specific textures, but mostly to hit the audience with an overwhelming wall of sound. For a band known for their bombast, the songs never seemed over-arranged, and the performance was always disciplined and focused, save for the hit single “Power Out,” which dumbed down their sound for the effect of sheer blunt force. At their best, the clever details of the arrangements were noticeable but not distracting — a bit of subtle horn skronk on “Black Mirror,” the low moan of a bowed upright bass on “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” (which was, for me, the highlight of the show), the sound of paper being torn used as a percussive effect on “Neon Bible.”

Unavoidably, Win Butler was the focal point of the performance, even when he was not singing lead. The man has an odd temperment for a rock frontman of either the indie or arena persuasion. He is stoic but not humorless, and intense without being ponderous or pretentious. He has a sort of gravity that cannot be easily faked, and a charisma that does not seem forced or even intentional. He falls somewhere in the middle of a scale with Bono circa Achtung Baby on one side, and Johnny Cash on the other. His wife Regine has a different but complementary character — her tone and demeanor is more playful, but she also seems more worldly and cynical.

Arcade Fire “Antichrist Television Blues” – I’ve been listening to songs from Neon Bible since they’ve been leaking, and biting my tongue for weeks despite feeling as though I could write endlessly on the topic of just “Intervention” and “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations.” By the time the record leaked in full and I heard “Antichrist Television Blues” for the first time, I’d become convinced of the album’s apparent themes well enough to assume that it was another song about a sympathetic character desperately praying for deliverance from poverty and its attendant miseries. I wasn’t exactly wrong about that — this is indeed a song sung from perspective of a troubled man pleading with God, but I did miss the crucial details of his prayer.

As it turns out, “Antichrist Television Blues” has a few alternate titles, and one of them is “Joe Simpson,” as in the father and manager of Jessica and Ashlee. If you follow the words, it is clear that the song is based on him, and even though it’s rather damning, it’s still more generous than you could ever expect given that Butler writes his character as a devout believer corrupted by his hubris and ambition rather than someone who is merely creepy, exploitative, and opportunistic.

If Neon Bible is mainly dealing with faith as a way of bargaining for a way out of disastrous situations and a lack of opportunity, “Antichrist Television Blues” is a necessary part of that continuum, examining the selfishness of a delusional, dogmatic man who can’t see the cruelty and deranged logic of his ways. The humble, luckless souls of “Intervention,” “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations,” and “Windowsill” may suffer a futile hope for escape from their circumstances, but the character in “Antichrist Television Blues” nearly destroys himself with the perversity of his convictions, and it only serves him right. (Click here to pre-order it from Merge.)

Elsewhere: J. Edward Keyes has finally found the holy grail of mash-ups: Malcolm McLaren’s mix of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

This is intended to be a Valentine’s Day post, but since I have other plans for tomorrow, you get his one day early.

Erasure “Victim of Love (Live in Nashville, 2006)” – This is ostensibly a country version of “Victim of Love,” but in actuality it is a glorious totem pole of kitsch. The country and western signifiers are in full force, but there’s also a vague Hawaiian luau theme, some Elvis Presley inflections, a twee female back-up singer, a general lounge vibe, and well, let’s not skip over the very fact that this is an Erasure song. I’ve always thought that Andy Bell sounded a bit like Cher on this particular tune, and that impression is even stronger on this version. Every day in every way, Andy Bell becomes a better diva. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Mika “Billy Brown” – Mika may not top Erasure today in terms of sublime campiness, but he comes close with this jaunty tune about a bored suburbanite whose life becomes a directionless mess when he realizes that he’s fallen in love with another man. For a song about the ramifications of sexual confusion, it’s remarkably cheery and devoid of angst, but you can chalk that up to the fact that it’s sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator and not its tragic character. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

The Smashing Pumpkins “Beautiful” – It took me ten years to develop the frame of reference to realize that this is Billy Corgan’s ersatz version of Prince circa Sign O The Times. It’s an oddball pop song, and certainly one of the weirder compositions in the Smashing Pumpkins catalog, but it makes perfect sense in the context of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The beauty of that record comes from how perfectly it emulates the mindset of suburban teenagers, with each of its 28 songs falling on a gray scale of exaggerated, hormonal emotions. There are several types of crush songs on the record, but “Beautiful” is the one that totally nails the ridiculous, naive purity of unrequited love. The object of his affection is idealized in the first verse but just after he lets it slip that he’s not actually with that person (“with my face pressed up to the glass / wanting you”), the song shifts into a daydream scenario in which they are together, his love is returned tenfold, and everything is perfect and lovely forever and ever and ever and ever. But forever doesn’t last even in his fantasy, and we’re back to him acknowledging that they really don’t know each other very well, and that “you just can’t tell / who you’ll love and who you won’t.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: “Like a spider, crawling up inside your body and laying a thousand eggs of cancer…I killed you.”

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks @ Irving Plaza 2/10/07 (Plug Awards)
Baby C’mon / Dragonfly Pie / It Kills / Pennywhistle Thunder / Hopscotch Willie / Jo Jo’s Jacket / Walk Into a Mirror

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks @ Maxwell’s 2/11/07
Pencil Rot / Water and a Seat / Merry Go Round / Dragonfly Pie / Real Emotional Trash / Freeze the Saints / Walk Into a Mirror / Baltimore Again / Animal Midnight / Baby C’mon / (“Psychopath” improv) / Pennywhistle Thunder / Hopscotch Willie / The Hook // Mama / (band intros, including a bit of “School” by Nirvana) / Wicked Wanda / Oyster

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks “Dragonfly Pie (One Music session, 10/3/05)” – This early version of “Dragonfly Pie” was recorded back when John Moen was still the drummer in the Jicks, and though it is quite good, you just have to take my word for it that it’s about ten times better with Janet Weiss behind the kit. Since the Jicks started up, I’ve been excited about John Moen, not just because he’s a cool, funny talented dude, but because his presence in the band meant that Stephen Malkmus finally had a kick-ass drummer rather than someone who was just adequate and/or exceedingly charming. Finally, I thought, Malkmus is collaborating with an equal!

In retrospect it seems that for all his chops, Moen was still subordinate to Malkmus’ style — they were on the same wavelength, but SM called all the shots. Not so with Janet Weiss. She’s an unstoppable force with a distinct, hard-hitting, fill-heavy style that complements Malkmus’ post-Pavement songs so well that it seems as though they were made to play together, and pose creative challenges to one another.

The older songs were pumped up with a level of kinetic energy alien to Malkmus’ career to date, as though the skinny, lanky compositions had all gone off to a gym for two solid years and emerged as buff, toned behemoths without losing any of their melodic grace. “Merry Go Round” and the lovely “Walk Into a Mirror” were tight, poppy, and harmonic, but the majority of the new tunes were epic in structure, but placed a greater emphasis on rhythmic shifts and instrumental passages than meandering solos. I’ve seen people refer to Pig Lib as being almost pornographic in the way that it panders to the taste of Malkmus fanboys such as myself, and this new material is the same way, though also for Janet Weiss. Whenever the album comes out later this year, it’s going to sound like the musical equivalent of indie rock slash fiction. (Click here for the official Malkmus site.)

If you were wondering, the Plug Awards was a total mess. I’ll let Idolator cover the details, but let’s just say that they were damn lucky that a guy as skilled at making fun of stupid shit as David Cross was the host, and was able to salvage its many poorly planned, ill-conceived bits and the generally haphazard nature of the production. The bands were a mixed bag — El-P was good but only performed two songs, Deerhoof sounded like 1993 on stage whereas they sound like 1997 on their new album, and the Silversun Pickups were so bad that I wanted to slap some sense into everyone I saw in the audience who was visably enjoying their set. I’d only skimmed over their music before, listening to enough to know that I had no interest in writing about them, but seeing them live shifted my apathy to outright disdain. Basically, the Silversun Pickups sound like the Afghan Whigs if Greg Dulli had somehow lost his genitals in a horrible accident when he was 8 years old. I’ve seen people compare them to the Smashing Pumpkins, and that just seems totally preposterous to me — they could only sound like the Pumpkins to a person who has never heard any of their albums but is nevertheless convinced that they hate the music based on the fact that Billy Corgan is kind of a douchebag.

Elsewhere: Slate’s Jim Lewis suggests that Factory Girl is actually a mean-spirited homophobic allegory.

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.

Arthur Russell “Hiding Your Present From You” – If you made a list of the components of this composition, it may seem awkward and unlikely that they would gel, much less come together as a thing of great beauty, but Arthur Russell pulled it off with an uncommon grace, which is probably the best way to describe the essential quality of his music in general. “Hiding Your Present From You” (Present as in a gift, or present as in tense? I prefer the latter.) radiates intense good will and love without seeming even remotely cloying, and a lot of that comes through just in the way Russell’s reedy voice seems to glow throughout the mix. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

The Freelance Hellraiser “We Don’t Belong” – In a convoluted sort of way, there’s a good chance that I might not be doing this blog if it weren’t for the Freelance Hellraiser, aka the dude who kick-started the mash-up trend earlier in this decade, and had me addicted to Boom Selection, which was the primary inspiration for putting mp3s on my site in the first place. It’s an interesting thing to hear him making music as a proper solo artist, not just because it’s sort of brave for him to step away from his main gimmick, but that his music skews noticeably toward the elements of “Stroke of Genie-us” derived from the Strokes rather than the Christina Aguilera bits. The guy still has a knack for constructing exciting tracks, though some of the cuts on the album have this sort of soggy Britishness to them that’s not entirely appealing, and I’m not just talking about the song with the guy from Snow Patrol. “We Don’t Belong” is the best of the set, mainly for the way it zooms off like a shoegazer race car during the chorus, and shamelessly echoes a bit of “Hey Jude” in its intro. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Clinic, the Postmarks, and Dust To Digital’s Sacred Harp compilation.

Also: I’m going to be on tonight’s episode of Fair Game on Public Radio International. They are going to be talking to me about songs by Of Montreal, Charlotte Hatherley, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Noonday Underground. and the Child Ballads.

Times New Viking “Love Your Daughters” – Times New Viking’s lo-fi style may be an affectation in the age of Pro-Tools, but it’s an aesthetic choice that works well for them, and pretty much anyone else who plays this sort of raggedy, fuzzy pop rock — the kind of music that used to be synonymous with the category “indie rock” before that phrase ended up getting corrupted by overuse. A lot of the beauty in lo-fi comes from its distinct, informal textures, and the way it makes every sound seem lived-in and familiar, like a crappy yet sturdy jacket you’ve been wearing every winter for the better part of a decade. I’m not convinced that these guitar parts would sound better recorded any other way, and the blur of vocals and keyboards fill the arrangement out without sounding fixed in any position, like bits of scenery in memories that might be a bit off, but aren’t exactly essential to the feeling. (Click here to buy it from Midheaven.)

Elsewhere: I have a paragraph of comments in this year’s Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. Here they are for you if you hate to click links:

Passionate fandom is a bonus and may grant you some longevity, but your average flash-in-the-pan only needs to get enough people to provide some sort of risk-free, superficial endorsement — downloading your songs for free, adding you on MySpace — to build up enough buzz to generate a backlash before anyone outside your tiny cultural bubble ever learns your name, much less hears your music. On the bright side, burning through a seemingly complete career arc in the span of six months is still better than to have no recognition at all, and even when first-year bloggers are pimping bland, conservative acts such as the Cold War Kids, they are still collectively far more adventurous than the overwhelming majority of print and broadcast media.

Matthew Perpetua
Astoria, New York

Also: Here is my ballot, which is a little different from the one that I did for Idolator’s poll.

And: A Merry Marvel Musical Atrocity, courtesy of Rachelle Goguen.

Liz Phair “Nashville” – Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong writers or speaking to the wrong people since the early 90s, but it seems that almost no one ever mentions that the guitar parts on Liz Phair’s first two albums are more often than not as poetic as her words. The tone in “Nashville” is drowsy and nearly serene, but its churning rhythm is nervous and unsteady in a way particular to feeling terrified about losing something in which you’ve invested too much. It’s an interesting subtext for a song that depicts a relationship in its most uneventful yet most emotionally loaded moments, and proclaims “I won’t decorate my love” at the end like a mantra, a promise, and a manifesto.

Of course, when she sings those words, the arrangement contradicts the notion with some sentimental adornment in the form of a few faded saxophone notes and some distant twinkling sounds, presumably an echo of the sweetest thing that Phair sings in this, or possibly any other, song: “They don’t know what they like so much about it / they just go for any shiny old bauble / and nobody sparkles like you.” It’s a genuinely beautiful thing to say, but it’s grounded in an elitism that I find to be human and true, and it speaks to the reality that who you fall in love with is a matter of taste, and some people have better taste than others. Ultimately, this is a song about pride, and the way that it makes love both more difficult in that it keeps you from opening up to just anyone, and more rewarding when you find someone with whom you can feel safe enough to drop your defenses. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

The Breeders “London Song” – The song moves along in fits and starts without ever stopping in place. Sure, there are moments of dramatic silence, but those are there to indicate that the music has hit a peak and is about to roll backwards or drop suddenly in mid-air, rendering its lyrical themes of depression and lapsed sobriety as Sisyphean slapstick. Kim Deal has done many, many rad things in her career, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that the bridge of this song ranks among her top five all-time best moments — “I thought I’d know better….I thought I would knoooooooow!” And right then, on cue, she tumbles back into the chorus like it’s a bad habit. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: Pageblank on work, Bjork, and Matthew Barney, Indexed makes some sense of the world with little hand-drawn charts, and Random Panels presents the four types of Bat-conflict.

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt @ Tonic 2/3/2007
Cryin’ / Teenage Extreme / You Can’t Kill Us, Man, We’re Already Dead / Sunday Morning / Your Best Won’t Be Enough / Makin’ Love in the Sunshine / That’s How The Story Goes / The Love I Lose / Please Remember Me / Strange Sensation // Artist’s Lament

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine (Album Version)” – The band played this show with a trio of girls from NYU called the Maxi Dancers, who performed an awkward but highly appropriate jailbait burlesque act throughout the set, starting off with some over the top vamping to the Skinemax guitar licks of “Cryin'” and a glam schoolgirl striptease for “Teenage Extreme.” By the time they came around to the extended dance version “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine,” the room exploded into a fantastic dance party for artsy New Yorkers of three different generations. It was a pure, perfect concert moment in which the audience became an equal part of the performance, and the song became complete. Later on, after an enthusiastic call for an encore, “Artist’s Lament” came close to matching the magic of “Makin’ Love,” with its angst-ridden chorus “Oh Christ, do you know what it’s like / to be long on ideas / but short on time?” becoming the anthem that it deserves to be before hitting its climax and ending as a sort of slow dance at a prom. It drives me mad that this band can consistently pack venues in New York City and put on these lively, thoughtful spectacles without attracting the attention of too many people outside of the art world, but trust me, if you’re sleeping on this, it’s your loss. (Click here for the Maxi Geil website.)

David Vandervelde “Nothin’ No” – “Nothin’ No,” as in “nothin’, no, is gonna keep us apart.” Which is, of course, something you only say when every goddamn thing in the world is going to get in the way of the thing you want, and the only way to keep sane and focused and possibly overcome your obstacles is to persevere with relentless, stupid optimism and fidelity. The entire song sounds as though it is cheerfully swimming against the tide of bad odds and negativity, and it’s just sort of ridiculous and inspiring. I really hope that things worked out for this dude. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: Chris Conroy on comic books, Anthony Miccio on the twenty albums that he kept in their entirety from 2006, Funeral Pudding begins the game of Of Montreal, and Ed Shepp recites a post from the Cold Inclusive.