Fluxblog
January 21st, 2011 1:23am

Fight To Get It Back Again


Pearl Jam “The Fixer” (Live on Ten Legs version)

I don’t really remember why, but I never got around to writing about Pearl Jam’s last album Backspacer. I suppose I just wasn’t up for it at the time it came out, things were kinda rough and it didn’t connect. I did like “The Fixer” more or less immediately. It’s undoubtedly one of the group’s best latter day singles, an energetic, compact composition that showcases their generally underrated gift for pop songwriting. (Has any other band written so many memorable radio hits while rarely getting credit for writing catchy, well-constructed songs?) A lot of what makes “The Fixer” work is the way the song plays off of the heroic quality of Eddie Vedder’s voice and stage persona. In this song, he’s an earnest, old fashioned guy who wants to save everyone and everything, and to preserve cherished things from the past that he fear may be lost forever. There’s a sense of humor in this, a touch of self-parody, but for the most part, this is the sound of the guy proudly owning his character, messiah complex and all.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 20th, 2011 1:30am

You Stubbed Your Toe


Chain and the Gang “Not Good Enough”

There are countless love songs, but tough love songs are kinda rare, especially when they have nothing to do with sex and romance. “Not Good Enough” delivers a harsh message with a cheerful, friendly tune: “If you feel like you’re not good enough then you’re probably not, and you never, ever will be.” Ian Svenonius sings the words with no particular malice or venom, he mostly comes across like someone who respects the listener enough to not sugarcoat a hard truth. It’s important to note that he’s not telling anyone that they can’t do something, only that it’s impossible to accomplish much without believing on some level that you can do it.

Pre-order it from Amazon.



January 19th, 2011 1:04am

Distant Memories Swell


Esben and the Witch “Marine Fields Grow”

“Marine Fields Grow” is slight and airy, but it has an intense gravity to it. It’s the kind of song that reaches out and pulls you into its sad, weary, romantic emotional zone. The vocals sound pained and impossibly sad as they echo within these circular, hypnotic melodic patterns. It sounds like she’s singing around a void, or singing to something that is no longer there. It’s horrible to realize when something or someone is gone, and that you suddenly need to restructure the way you live to avoid falling into this hole that cannot be filled. Other songs are about moving on from that loss, but this one feels like it’s only about the pain of realizing that it’s there in the first place.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 18th, 2011 1:30am

Fluxblog Interview With Scott Miller


Scott Miller was the frontman and primary songwriter for two great indie pop bands — Game Theory in the ’80s, and the Loud Family in the ’90s. I’m especially fond of the latter, mostly because the Game Theory albums are kinda hard to come by and so I’ve just spent a lot more time with the Loud Family. His aesthetic is consistent over the course of all those records: Sharp melodies, unusual song structures and chord changes, and carefully composed, postmodern, often very witty lyrics. If you’ve never heard his music, I strongly recommend listening to this mix I made collecting highlights from the Loud Family discography.

Miller began writing about music on the Loud Family website sometime in the late ’90s. Music: What Happened?, his first book of music criticism, was just released and I can’t recommend it highly enough. As it turns out, Miller is just as clever and insightful as a critic as he is as a lyricist. The book is pretty simple: He selected 20 favorite songs from every year between 1957 and 2009, and wrote a bit about every song. The format is actually very close to what you get on this site, but without the mp3s. I loved it, and I think that if you enjoy what I do, you’ll get a lot out of Scott’s writing.

Read the rest of this entry »



January 14th, 2011 9:20am

Looking For A Chance To Let Go


R.I.P. Trish Keenan.

Broadcast “Michael A Grammar”

My name is not Michael, but it’s very common for people to think that it is. It’s not far off from Matthew, I suppose, and it’s a nice enough name, so I’m never very offended. (I mean, if people were accidentally calling me Mike or Mikey or Mickey, I might take some issue.) The only time I ever wish that my name was actually Michael is when I hear this song. Trish Keenan sings the name with a quiet grace and gentle authority – Michael could just as well be her child as it as a lover, a brother, or a best friend. Lyrically as well as musically, the track is intimate and woozy, like a disjointed half-asleep late night conversation set to song.

Buy it from Amazon. Originally posted 11/22/2005)



January 13th, 2011 6:36am

Hypnotic Sounds To My Ears


Yelle “Safari Disco Club”

I think she’s singing about animals dancing, but it doesn’t really matter. Like most Yelle songs, this is about the bounce of the beats, the brightness of the synthesizer tones, and this particular quality to her voice that is very captivating but sorta hard to explain. I love her assertive style, the way she kinda declares every line, but what really excites me is something in the very timbre of her voice. I like the way her vocals are treated here — it’s mostly her natural tone, but at some points it’s warped and extended. I imagine her voice hardening, becoming something like a force field. Everything just bounces off it, you know?

Pre-order it from Amazon.

Fergus & Geronimo “Girls With English Accents”

When I saw this title on the back cover of this CD, I really wanted to like the song because like most any reasonable person, I have a major soft spot for girls with English accents. Thank goodness this is a fitting tribute. The sound of it very mid-60s British rock, but filtered through a loose, stoned, free-wheeling American vibe. When they sing about wanting to visit England, they seem as if they’ve spent all their time listening to British Invasion records fantasizing about the bands’ groupies.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 12th, 2011 6:57am

A Girl Like You


Smith Westerns “Weekend”

The harmony in the chorus of “Weekend” is so perfect, so familiar, so gentle and sweet. The rest of the song is like a shiny, sparkling frame for that gorgeous swoop of melody. The words mostly just narrate the vibe — the spiritual lift of minor excitement and the bummer of slight disappointment tied in with an earnest but low key infatuation. Like a lot of the best indie rock and power pop bands, Smith Westerns are good at evoking the magic in a small moment. Chances are, you either hear this and immediately identify with it in the moment, or you hear a bit of yourself from the past. I’d be sad for anyone who hasn’t ever felt some variation on this feeling. It’s a nice thing.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 11th, 2011 1:00am

Life And How To Live It


Excerpt from Patton Oswalt’s Zombie Spaceship Wasteland featuring Michael Stipe

As a consumer you have three options in terms of buying and experiencing Patton Oswalt’s new book Zombie Spaceship Wasteland. I am telling you right now: Unless you are deaf, there is a correct choice to be made. You have to buy the audiobook.

If you buy Zombie Spaceship Wasteland for your Kindle or some other similar device, you’re getting the bare minimum experience. I cannot recommend this unless you are deaf and/or you really love using your Kindle or other similar device. The only positive thing I can say about this experience is that it does not involve paper, shipping, etc and that is good for the environment. But then again, the same is true of downloading an audiobook so that is a shared advantage.

If you buy Zombie Spaceship Wasteland as a physical book, you will have a tactile experience and something you can put on a shelf. I recognize these as generally positive things, and this is certainly my preferred method of consuming books. I’m sure you can get a lot of out a traditional reading experience with this particular book. Oswalt is a fine writer — and not just “for a stand-up comedian,” he is a rather brilliant prose stylist — and the book jacket is a pleasing shade of blue. Also, there is a comic book chapter and comic books are best read on actual paper. That said, you are simply not getting the best possible Zombie Spaceship Wasteland experience in this format. You will be missing something very important.

Patton Oswalt reads the audiobook of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland. This is a major advantage that makes the other formats comparatively irrelevant. Oswalt is one of the great oral storytellers of our era. Why would you pass up the chance to hear his rhythms, cadences, intonation? Why would you not want to hear all that nuance, all the additional asides? The difference between reading this on the page and listening to him speak is like the difference between listening to a great piece of music and reading the sheet music.

This isn’t some guy just reading a book out loud. It’s a true performance and a complete work of art. He takes advantage of the form — a chapter of faux-academic writing about hobo folk songs is complemented by fake field recordings of the songs in question performed by Michael Penn; the opening story in which R.E.M.’s Fables of the Reconstruction pushes Oswalt toward an epiphany that leads him out of his dull life in Northern Virginia includes lyric passages read by Michael Stipe himself. All that, and you get a .pdf of the comic! You can’t lose.

The R.E.M. sequence is brilliant, by the way. I never knew Oswalt was a fan, but from the moment he mentioned Fables, it made perfect sense to me that it would be his favorite. Given the themes in his body of work, how is he not going to love the album about small town loners and a desire for escape?

Buy it from Amazon.



January 10th, 2011 6:35am

Children By The Millions


I resisted and/or ignored the Replacements for years, and it was mostly because I didn’t have a place for them in my life. There’s a lot of other major canonical acts I came around to sort of late, and I think that’s normal and fine. A nice thing about art is that most of it isn’t going anywhere, and whenever you’re ready for it, it’ll still be there waiting for you. The right moment might come even with music you’ve written off in the past.

I definitely wrote off the Replacements for a long time. They were always sold to me in a way that did not and still does not appeal to me: Messy, debauched fuck-ups with loud, blunt music, like an 80s indie rock Ke$ha. When I was a teen and first exploring the rock canon, this was very unappealing. I was an uptight kid, effectively straight edge into my early 20s, and the idea of a pretty basic rock band whose primary hook was nonstop inebriation did not arouse my interest. Over the years I developed some appreciation for their best known songs, but aside from putting “I Will Dare” on one of my favorite iPod playlists, I never felt inclined to explore their catalog until fairly recently.

Going deeper into the Replacements catalog I found that while that lowlife midwestern party boy vibe is indeed a big part of their deal, there were better reasons to like the band. They may have been legendary for haphazard concerts, but Paul Westerberg’s songs were focused, disciplined things. Like Pavement and Guided by Voices a few years down the line, the Replacements could get away with being loose and sloppy because their songs were so sturdy and tuneful. They had a solid foundation and a singer with a strong voice for rock and roll. Westerberg never sounds like he’s ever trying too hard to sound as soulful as he does on his best songs. He’s a natural.

Here are two of my favorite Replacement songs. The first is glaringly obvious, the second only slightly less so. Maybe you’ve never heard them before. If that is the case, I think you’re in luck.

The Replacements “Alex Chilton”

I was listening to this song and thinking about how easy it is to imagine it arranged and recorded in the style of Spoon. Then I flipped the thought and realized that this song is in a lot of ways a crucial part of the blueprint for Spoon, specifically the vocal phrasing and rhythmic attack on the guitar in the chorus. Maybe the song would sound better if it was recorded in the Spoon style, but I quite like the way the band’s rawness is filtered through a mid-80s production aesthetic. There’s a nice tension in the way the bombastic sound of some elements contrasts with other parts that signal raggedness and intimacy.

“Alex Chilton” is, of course, about Alex Chilton of Big Star. Or really, it’s about being a fan, and imagining an artist as this larger-than-life figure. In Westerberg’s mythology, Chilton isn’t an obscure figure on the fringe of rock history but instead a beloved pop icon on par with the Beatles. It’s a song where the real world doesn’t matter half as much as one man’s personal passion. It’s quite beautiful and sweet, and it serves a great advertisement for Chilton and Big Star. I imagine that quite a few people went out looking for Big Star records after hearing this song. Someone should write a similar tune about Paul Westerberg and call it “Paul Westerberg.”

Buy it from Amazon.

The Replacements “Swingin’ Party”

“Swingin’ Party” is a gorgeous expression of self-loathing. The lyrics are basically a string of self-deprecating one-liners delivered with a wounded sincerity over an arrangement that makes the sentiment seem lovely and romantic in spite of itself. It’s the moment when someone lets their guard down, and makes themselves vulnerable — the mood is sad, but there’s this feeling of possibility. You’re opening up, and that could change your relationship with whomever you’re addressing. It could get more intimate, or it could just get more awkward and strained.

Buy it from Amazon.



January 6th, 2011 12:29am

Great Expectations On The Line


Jessica Lea Mayfield “Tell Me”

Jessica Lea Mayfield mainly operates in a sort of alt-country mode, but on a few of the songs on her second album she kinda wanders off, bringing her sad twang into less obvious musical surroundings. “Tell Me” is one of those tracks, a strange art pop composition with a careful arrangement that sounds like someone trying to find their way out of a maze of mixed emotions. Mayfield sounds a bit exhausted, but willing to work hard to find her way through self-doubt (“failure is proof that I am not brave”) or get beyond this vexing emotional stalemate. The sound is this song is so specific — pensive, mildly anxious, carefully calibrated to a precise balance of subtle emotional shifts. It has a very complete character.

Pre-order it from Amazon.



January 5th, 2011 6:50am

What’s Left Of Me When You Do That?


The Dø “Gonna Be Sick!”

The start of “Gonna Be Sick!” is a bit plodding and monotone, but as the song progresses, it becomes far more lively and colorful. Also, and the title may be a giveaway here, it gets to sound a lot more nervous. The emotional shifts are a bit jarring, and follow along with the piece’s unusual tonal and rhythmic transitions and collisions. (I actually hear a lot of Can influence in this arrangement. Do you?) Olivia Bouyssou Merilahti’s voice is especially great and expressive, investing her anxious words with enough drama to be emotionally engaging while just humorous enough to undercut the tension with some dark self-aware wit. The song pulled me in right away, but even still I feel like this is very much the type of track that can seem minor at first, but is quite astonishing when you spend a bit of time paying close attention to its details.

Buy it via The Dø’s site.



January 4th, 2011 6:49am

We’re Already Dead


M.I.A. “Gen N-E-Y”

So yeah, I didn’t like ///Y/ very much. And because of this, I wonder if a lot of my enthusiastic approval of Vicki Leekx is based on just feeling relieved that M.I.A. is once again focusing on her strengths rather than her weaknesses. Whereas ///Y/ was a messy, joyless slog, the mixtape repositions her as a brilliant curator of beats and the kind of vocalist who knows exactly how to make her bitterness and anger sound like a very good time. “Gen N-E-Y” is a highlight of the mix, and it’s one of the most brutal tracks she’s ever done. She’s tearing someone apart — some people are saying it’s a Diplo dis track, which sounds about right to me — and her spite sounds incredibly focused. There’s some very well-applied filter effect on her voice, and it intensifies the nastiness in her tone, as if her words have been sharpened to a point being plunged into the person she’s addressing on every hard beat. It’s vicious, but weirdly fun. Misanthropic glee, I guess.

Get the full mixtape for free from M.I.A.



January 3rd, 2011 7:52am

Let’s Save Our Troubles For Another Day


Janet Jackson “Escapade”

It occurred to me the other day that “Escapade” is Janet Jackson’s equivalent to her brother Michael’s monster hit “The Way You Make Me Feel.” Most obviously, both songs are perky, optimistic, and flirty in tone, and tend to be considered among their most frivolous singles. More specifically, the two songs have nearly identical subject matter and sentiment. The lyrics come from the perspective of working class people who are trying to fit romance into their lives, and are getting very excited about spending time with the object of their affection. It’s all very banal, but that’s kind of the point, and not simply in terms of writing something that a broad range of people can relate to in some way. Michael sings about “working from 9 to 5;” Janet “worked so hard all week” and just cashed her check so she has some money on her weekend getaway. If you put this in the context of the singers’ very unusual upbringing and phenomenal careers, the most ordinary details start to come across like a fantasy of normalcy. They invest these songs with so much effervescent joy and enthusiasm, and I think on some level it’s because they really yearned for something so simple, fun, and uncomplicated. Of course, we do too! The singer and audience may be thinking of the some thing from different perspectives and economic means, but the expression puts them right in the same place.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 30th, 2010 6:54am

I Love You Like Being Kissed


of Montreal “Girl Named Hello”

It’s hard to find the emotional center of this song. It’s a groovy tune, but like a lot of music derived from Afrobeat, there’s a moodiness underlying the joyful physicality of the rhythm. Kevin Barnes’ vocals and lyrics are all over the place, veering between playful, goofy lines and some intense self-loathing. Or rather, perspective on intense self-loathing: “If I treated someone else the way I treat myself, I’d be in jail.” I like the way the piece feels stuck in an emotional limbo, a bit self-conscious about the past and totally unsure of the future. Barnes makes the best of this in-between tone in the album sequencing, bookending it with the joyful, earnestly flirtatious “Sex Karma” and the bitter, spiteful “Famine Affair.” It’s an entire side on the vinyl edition, and in three songs it is a microcosm of False Priest‘s manic depressive version of romance.

Buy it from Amazon.

Veronika Fischer “He, Wir Fahr’n Mit Dem Zug”

The title translates to “Hey, we ride the train.” I’m not sure, but I think that might be the official motto of Germany. Anyway, this is a prime bit of East German disco from the late ’70s. I responded to this song immediately. For one thing, it is comprised of so many familiar disco signifiers that it seems as if the band and the producers were attempting to make the ultimate disco track. But despite the somewhat overstuffed quality of the arrangement, every bit is extremely well executed and distinct. There’s a lot of color and contrast to this song. Also, not for nothing but there is a keyboard part in this track that seems to anticipate the chorus melody of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” (I’m not alone in hearing that, right?)

Buy it from Amazon.



December 29th, 2010 7:05am

Until The End Of The World


Gauntlet Hair “Our Scenery”

I wrote a story called At the End of the World with Gauntlet Hair for the Awl, and it was published there yesterday. It’s part of a series of posts this week in which various writers work from the premise that the world will indeed end in 2012, and that 2011 is the last full year of our lives/society/world. My piece is written from the future, around this time next year, and it is about how music culture thrives in the end times. Actually, I’ll let you in on a secret: It’s not about that at all. It’s actually about how music culture right now is fun, vibrant, interesting, and meaningful despite all the assorted downsides you could mention. It’s also something of a sequel to the piece I wrote for the Awl last year, The Ballad of That Guy from Titus Andronicus.

Unlike the Titus Andronicus story, At the End of the World with Gauntlet Hair is not written from the perspective of the band in the title. They just get a brief mention in the final paragraph, an example of something bubbling up right now that may seem ancient just twelve months from now. Something fresh and promising that is on the horizon but will be in the recent past before very long. Also, something with a ridiculous name!

To be honest with you, I put off listening to Gauntlet Hair for a while in 2010 simply because I didn’t want to listen to a band called Gauntlet Hair. So if you’re like “oh, fuck Gauntlet Hair,” I really don’t blame you. But this is good, intriguing stuff that is in line with some current fashions without being predictable or falling into the familiar ruts of newbie bands. The songs on their 7″ have melody and color, and they have a way with reverb that is both heavy-handed and rather skillful. The reverb in “Our Scenery” sounds like a tangible thing, an ethereal noise they have somehow sculpted into a shape it seems as if you could reach out and touch. The physicality is unexpected, and that makes everything else about the song that much more catchy and pretty.

The 7″ is sold out, but you can get the A-side of this single from Forest Family Records.



December 28th, 2010 6:37am

Crispy Like A Pair Of Headphones


Ghostface Killah “2Getha Baby”

I’m a little conflicted about Ghostface these days. On one hand, I really like that he’s just out there working, doing his thing, grinding out records every year. If you shut out all the details and the weirdness of the record industry, his productivity can be seen as a kind of romantic thing, an ideal of a rapper as craftsman. The problem is, it’s pretty obvious that the guy has been on autopilot for a little while now. I definitely feel that a half-hearted Ghostface is more talented and interesting than a majority of rappers at their best, but it’s a bit deflating to put on a record like Apollo Kids and get the sense that he’s just going through the motions. I mean, jeez, even the album title is recycled, you know? Frustratingly, there’s not anything obviously wrong with the music. It’s serviceable stuff, it just feels slightly off. The presence of “2getha Baby,” a legitimately strong and endearing track that plays to Ghost’s familiar strengths, emphasizes this feeling that the other songs just aren’t totally there. Something’s missing. Apollo Kids sounds like the kind of album a good artist makes when they are bitterly trying to get out of a label contract.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 22nd, 2010 9:56am

Without A Single Store-Bought Thing


The Mynabirds “All I Want is Truth (For Christmas)”

Here’s a Christmas song for those who are both cynical about the future of humanity, and idealistic about the holiday. Laura Burhenn’s composition interpolates bits of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” but bends them into verses about global warming and endless war before settling on wishing for a modest celebration of family and friendship. It’s actually closer to the spirit of the original draft of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane to be a fairly depressing tune, and was rewritten at the behest of Judy Garland, who would be the first to perform it. Burhenn’s lyrics can get a bit cloying at times, but this is ultimately very warm, sweet, and homey, like a good Christmas song should be.

Buy it from Saddle Creek.



December 21st, 2010 11:20am

With Just The Slighest Bit Of Finesse


R.E.M. “Discoverer”

If anything became clear to me in writing the Pop Songs site, it is that Michael Stipe is a man who is very committed to a set of themes that have been popping up in various forms on all of R.E.M.’s albums since the beginning of their career over thirty years ago. One of those themes is the firm belief that the future is a good thing. This has resulted in a lot of songs that are like friendly pep talks, and others that call for progress and radical change. Collapse Into Now pushes further with this theme. It’s a set of songs mainly focused on climbing out from the wreckage of both political and personal disasters, and finding the strength to carry on into the future with optimism and enthusiasm.

In “Discoverer,” the song that opens and then later concludes the album as a reprise, this struggle to overcome misery is presented as an act of heroism. It’s a grandiose track that combines the anthemic structure and tonality of “Finest Worksong” with the brisk rhythmic urgency of “So Fast, So Numb,” but the lyrics keep to a small, personal scale. In the verses, Stipe is conciliatory, doing his best to save face with a partner with whom he has been quarreling. The chorus is a resolution to move on, leading up to the “DISCOVERER! DISCOVERER!” refrain, which comes out sounding like an exclamation of triumph. He’s singing about wanting to get back to that thrill of discovery, of finding newness and excitement in the world, and in each other. He wants to be open to opportunities and possibilities, and he wants to share his adventure. I love that this relationship drama is put in the context of “the hero’s journey;” I love that at one point he sings about feeling “called.” This is why we have heroes in fiction, right? So that we can be inspired, and find it within ourselves to embrace life with bravery and passion. This song is a glorious epiphany, and it fills me with positive energy and excitement for my own future.

Pre-order it from iTunes.



December 20th, 2010 10:16am

The Dream We All Dream Of


Prince @ Madison Square Garden 12/18/2010
Welcome 2 America / Dance (Disco Heat) / Baby, I’m A Star / The Beautiful Ones / Let’s Go Crazy / Delirious / Let’s Go Crazy (reprise) / 1999 / Shhh / Uptown / Raspberry Beret / Cream / Cool / Let’s Work / U Got the Look (with Sheila E) / The Glamorous Life (with Sheila E) / Nothing Compares 2 U / Purple Rain // Kiss /// A Love Bizarre (with Sheila E and a cavalcade of dancing celebrities.)

This was my first time seeing Prince in concert, and the show was as close to a best case scenario as I could have hoped for. As you can see, it was a two hour hit parade focused on material from 1980 through 1987, the period when he was an untouchable pop genius. His creative peak may be behind him, but he remains an absolutely brilliant performer. He has a high level of energy, craft, and pure showmanship, but beyond that, he is possessed of a superhuman charisma that is captivating even from up in the cheap seats. A lot of the time I was just standing there in awe of his presence, and the seeming effortlessness of his performance. The moment that stands out in my memory is so simple, but so iconic — I remember looking up at the big screen, in tight close up on his face as he did one of his famous impish smirks. I feel like this experience was mostly about simply bearing witness to Prince, and that was like the pinnacle of Prince-ness.

Prince played my all-time favorite Prince song at this show, and so let’s talk about that one.

Prince “U Got the Look”

“U Got the Look” is, for me, the platonic ideal of a Prince song. It’s blends elements from funk, new wave, and rock so seamlessly that it stands apart from other genres, it’s really just Prince music. Every sound in the track is vibrant and crackling with energy, like a transmission from some better, sexier world. It’s an extremely playful song, full of charming lyrics that set the highest standard for flirtation in the context of a pop song, or quite possibly the context of anything at all. It’s an ideal balance of flattery, sweetness, humor, and overt sexuality. You get silly voices, you get sexually charged vocal interaction, you get the ridiculous, wonderful concept of the World Series of Love. My favorite part is probably when he catches himself in a contradiction and offers a retraction: “My face is red, I stand corrected!” Everything about the song is fun. It’s inspiring that way. It makes you want to shed all insecurity and be as confident and funny and smooth as Prince. It makes you realize that it really can be as simple as “if love is good, then let’s get 2 rammin’.” Truly, this song is the dream we all dream of.

Buy it from Amazon.



December 17th, 2010 11:24am

Wait, Did I Forget My Sunglasses?


Sleigh Bells “Kids”

The basic high concept behind Sleigh Bells is bold, exciting, and strangely, something that hasn’t really been done before: Extremely catchy hardcore/metal riffs dropped over crunk beats and topped off with airy bubblegum vocals that contrast a cool femininity with the macho, amped-up quality of the music. Like a lot of the best ideas in pop, it’s a triumph of simplicity and novelty, and the appeal is immediate and intuitive.

That collision of familiar styles is not the only big idea on Treats, though. What really pushes the music over the top is the way it is recorded and mastered to convey an impossible loudness by deliberately narrowing its dynamic range to the point of clipping the sound even at moderate volumes. I am fairly certain that Treats is the first album to fetishize the negative consequences of the Loudness War. It’s not simply designed to sound good on bad headphones, car stereos, and computer speakers; it’s made to emulate the way overly hot recordings sound on those devices when you turn them all the way up, and to tap into our positive connection to that distortion because we only turned the music up so high because we liked it.

To some extent, it’s a meta conceit not unlike the way lo-fi and chillwave artists present their songs with a deliberate patina of age and grit intended evoke the aesthetics of recording and playback devices of the past. The obvious difference is that Treats is not concerned with the past, but rather how we experience music in the present. It plays on memories of interacting with music that are so fresh we’ve only begun to process them. It’s rather like how Phil Spector devised his famous “wall of sound” style by tailoring the arrangements and recordings to sound good on transistor radio. They found a way to not only take advantage of the limitations of the devices on which the songs would be heard, but to make something beautiful and exciting out of technical flaws and the misguided, market-driven impulse to master music at a ridiculous volume.

The important thing to stress is that this clever angle isn’t used as a distancing device, and it’s not some purely intellectual aesthetic. It’s mostly just the answer to the question “How can we take these awesome songs and make them even more awesome?” When the sound of it gets intense, when the loudest bits clip to the point of abstraction, the effect is purely physical. On a conscious level we recognize this as the sound of the music getting too loud and coming out “wrong,” but mostly you’re just hit by noise, and the way it vibrates through your body and around the room. It’s a record that forces you to be aware of your response to it. It’s a celebration of loudness, of loving something so much that you don’t mind damaging your hearing a bit, of the way it feels to be physically overwhelmed by sound.

In this Sleigh Bells record, I hear a blueprint for rock music going into the next decade. It’s a new way of being loud and aggressive and powerful that doesn’t throw out the raw essentials of rock so much as it reconfigures them for the era we are in. I really hope other musicians out there recognize this, and do what they can to put their own spin on these basic ideas.

Buy it from Amazon.




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