Sloan “Unkind”

There are other songs on Sloan’s new album The Double Cross that grabbed my attention more quickly, and I’ll get to them later on. Weirdly, those songs were more subtle and understated — the lovely ballad “Laying So Low,” the retro-pop “Shadow of Love,” the stately “Beverley Terrace.” “Unkind,” a Patrick Pentland number, is one of his riffy stompy tunes and it just sorta pushed its way into my brain and has barely left for weeks. The only song that can knock it out of my mind lately is “Friday” by Rebecca Black. Obviously, “Friday” can be a little irritating, but “Unkind” is a joy. I love how assertive it sounds — not angry or pushy, just very clear-headed and forthright. Pentland is dealing with some relationship anxiety and frustration in the lyrics, but even when he’s being mean and dismissive, he doesn’t come across like a jerk. The words do not suggest any kind of resolution, but the music sounds celebratory, like someone realizing that they have the freedom and agency to walk away from someone who is bringing them down.

Pre-order it from Yep Roc.

TV on the Radio “Caffeinated Consciousness”

There’s a Peter Gabriel thing going on here, right? Like someone trying to turn “Sledgehammer” into punk rock. It works for TV on the Radio, mainly because Tunde Adebimpe’s voice has this bouncy, colorful quality that suits the cartoonish exaggeration in the music. “Caffeinated Consciousness” is one of those sneaky songs in which the verses are bolder and catchier than the chorus, which recedes into a smoother, funkier, calmer zone. The “caffeinated” bits are what get you, it’s like being zapped with animated lightning. It’s not surprising that the lyrics are so positive and focused on constructive behavior — this feels so much like the manic buzz of inspiration that comes once in a while, and you basically have to go with it or suffer for ignoring the call to action.

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Janet Jackson @ Radio City Music Hall 3/19/2011

The Pleasure Principle / Control / What Have You Done For Me Lately? / Feedback / You Want This – Alright / Miss You Much / Nasty / Nothing / Come Back to Me / Let’s Wait A While / Again / Doesn’t Really Matter / Escapade / Love Will Never Do (Without You) / When I Think of You / All For You / That’s the Way Love Goes / I Get Lonely / If / Scream / Rhythm Nation // Diamonds – The Best Things in Life Are Free – Make Me / Together Again

For a major icon of pop music, Janet Jackson is not a tremendously charismatic performer. She’s incredibly likeable and extremely talented, but she just doesn’t have that weird power over people where just being in her presence is astonishing. I might not have really noticed this if two of the most recent shows I have seen weren’t Prince and Lady Gaga, both of whom definitely have that freakish charisma. You can’t take your eyes off them; they radiate something indescribable. I’m sure Michael Jackson was the same way.

This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Janet. Not many people have that kind of power, and a huge number of immensely talented people get by without it. She knows how to compensate for it, that’s for sure. Dancers and choreography can often be this sort of default mode for live pop music, but for Janet, it’s an integral part of her expression. The choreography is careful and detailed. The dancing — both in terms of individual dancers and the overall group — is intuitive but surprising, and focuses your attention on movement without making you think so much about it.

Janet Jackson “When I Think of You”

As a singer, Jackson is very underrated. There’s nothing ostentatious about her vocals — there’s no melisma, no belting. She sings to suit melody and she never upstages her rhythm. The songs are often deceptive in their apparent simplicity, often escalating toward demanding high notes. She’s very good at conveying sweetness, and later in her career, subverting that sweetness with a pervy sexuality. I’m a very big fan of her more innocent dance pop songs, like “When I Think of You,” “Love Will Never Do,” “Miss You Much” and “Escapade.” Those are brilliantly composed pop singles, but Janet brings a thrilling lovestruck exuberance that pushes them toward something more potent and profound.

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Keren Ann “My Name Is Trouble”

Keren Ann has always an artist that I respect but never held my interest enough for me to actively pay attention to her albums. She has had a tendency to write far too many songs with the same monochromatic palette and languid pace. Decent mood music, but not engaging pop music. I suppose she felt the same way — 101, her first album in four years, is by far the most dynamic record of her career. “My Name Is Trouble” is the most impressive cut, a keyboard-centric arrangement with a simple driving beat that frames a lovely vocal melody. Her voice and the melodic style remind me a lot of St. Vincent, right on down to the way Annie Clark often masks very dark lyrical themes in a placid, pretty tone. Though Keren Ann lacks the sonic contrast and emotive power of Clark’s guitar, her song goes a different way, complementing her voice with brittle, glassy synthesizer tones and fluid, expressive bass runs.

Buy it from Amazon.

Adventure “Smoke and Mirrors”

Adventure’s Benny Boeldt is signed to Carpark Records and he’s a member of Dan Deacon’s crew, but he’s not the artsy indie weirdo you might expect from that pedigree. He’s actually a tidy synthpop formalist, a tuneful balladeer who sounds as if he’s spent years obsessing over Human League, Soft Cell, Erasure, OMD, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. “Smoke and Mirrors” is his finest composition — it’s the catchiest, probably, but it nails the most charming thing about proper 80s synthpop: An ideal ratio of melancholy melody sung in a handsome voice and perkiness delivered by sparkling keyboards and snappy beats.

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Linda Perhacs “Parallelograms”

The first time I heard this song I was genuinely startled by a moment that comes about halfway through the piece. Now I know it is coming and it’s still disconcerting. This placid, gentle harmony shifts drastically into this delirious, psychedelic state — imagine a folk song getting hit over the head and stumbling around in a daze before fading back to consciousness. It’s like that. The composition has a strange shape and dimension, it’s as much an installation art piece as it is a song.

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The Kills “DNA”

The first two songs released from the Kills’ forthcoming album Blood Pressures have been rather subdued numbers — good and interesting, but not exactly compelling as standalone singles. They recede rather than explode, they don’t attract attention. “Satellite,” the first single, grafted the duo’s mecha-blues on to a nodding rocksteady beat. “DNA,” the second, comes across as a slightly looser and more organic version of their usual sound. The song is tense, but it sounds more lonely than sexual. (Maybe this is because there is more negative space in the arrangement, and Alison Mosshart sings the song mostly by herself.) “DNA” gets deeper and more interesting as it becomes more familiar. The intensity and desperation builds gradually over the course of four minutes but it never breaks, Mosshart ends the piece sounding steadfast in her resolve. The song is like building a wall — by the end, nothing gets through it.

Buy it from Amazon.

This video comes courtesy of R.E.M. and Warner Bros. Records. It’s “exclusive” to this site, but by all means, put it on your own site and spread it around. It’s a lovely performance of a terrific song and people should hear it.

One of my favorite things about R.E.M. is how much of their catalog is devoted to expressions of empathy. When you think of it, it’s not all that common in pop music. “Every Day Is Yours To Win” belongs to a long line of Michael Stipe pep talk songs. “Everybody Hurts” is the most famous, but others include “Find the River,” “Why Not Smile?,” “Imitation of Life” and “Get Up.” “Every Day…” echoes themes from the band’s previous songs in this vein — there’s a world out there for you to experience and discover; your misery is valid but hold on — but its sentiment is spiked with some words that acknowledge that “winning” in life isn’t very easy, and we might not notice it when we do come out on top. The lyrics also touch on the running theme in Collapse Into Now, ie, that finding the strength to carry on after a major trauma is a form of heroism. You have to fight hard to be optimistic. Its own gentle, muted way, this song is saying that if you can manage to hold off negativity from within and without, you are a hero and you are winning.

Buy it from Amazon.

Rainbow Arabia “Without You”

There’s no sense writing around this: Rainbow Arabia sound a lot like the Knife. Not just like the Knife, mind you — just enough that it’s hard to avoid the reference point. It’s in the vocals, it’s in the keyboard tones, sometimes it’s in the sort of melodic quality to the percussion. They go to a different place with a familiar template. They’re more physical, less programmed. More sparkling, less goth. More island, less tundra. Oh, and sometimes there is guitar! “Without You” is a standout, and actually one of the least Knife-ish tracks. It does, however, sound like the kind of early to mid 00s dance pop that has a massive sentimental value to me, so my response is sort of complicated: I instinctively love it, but my critical side wonders how much of this is a Pavlovian thing. But yeah, it’s better to trust instinct on these matters.

Buy it from Insound.

Superchunk @ Radio City Music Hall 3/8/2011

Learned To Surf / Crossed Wires / Detroit Has A Skyline / Seed Toss / My Gap Feels Weird / Like A Fool / Hello Hawk / Digging For Something / Slack Motherfucker

Superchunk “Like A Fool”

I went to this show on fairly show notice; someone got sick blah blah blah. I mainly accepted a ticket because I wanted to see Wild Flag and because the venue happens to be directly across the street from where I work these days. Wild Flag were good and interesting, but I don’t want to write anything about them until I hear their album. I left after Superchunk finished their set, about a half hour before Bright Eyes took the stage. (You might remember that I’m not a fan of Conor Oberst.)

Anyway, Superchunk. I’ve always liked Superchunk but never really connected with them. I feel a little weird about that — they belong to a cohort of 90s indie bands that I love, and their drummer happens to be one of the two funniest men on earth. I wasn’t sure what to expect from seeing this show, but I figured I’d have fun and it’d be low pressure and I had no obligation to writing about it.

Well, I was right about the fun. They’re a sharp band, and very energetic. Mac McCaughan is particularly impressive — it seemed like he was hopping up and down for most of the set, and never seemed to flub a note or get winded while he sang. Superchunk has very straightforward songs — I think I’ve mistaken this no-frills aesthetic for them being a bit bland and basic in the past — but their charm comes in how they deliver their tunes with great force and precision. This is a band that could easily coast on being pleasant, but they really go for the extra oomph.

Lucky for me, the band only played songs I knew in their brief 40 minute set. I generally prefer seeing live music when I know the material, that’s just how I’m wired. That said, the song that really hit me was “Like A Fool,” an oldie I only kinda half-remembered and probably had not listened to on purpose in ten years. It’s a huge, majestic number, and very well-suited to a big, classy room like Radio City. The chords felt right in that moment, I spent a lot of the song with my eyes closed just appreciating the strumming and the way the music hits this crest that feels both melancholy and exhilarating.

Buy it from Amazon.

Lykke Li “Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li writes a lot about being young, it’s kinda her thing. To some extent it’s a “write what you know” situation, but in songs like “Youth Knows No Pain,” she’s singing from a more distant and knowing perspective. It’s a somewhat self-conscious exhortation to delight in the passion and energy of youth, and the tension in the piece comes from trying to figure out whether she’s being totally earnest about it, or if there’s a touch of irony to this Dionysian front. I tend to think it’s a little of both. Her voice is trebly and metallic in this track, which has a way of hardening her tone and concealing emotion. It works for the song — the rest of the production is very treble-heavy too, with busy cymbal crashes and a groovy 60s-style organ part taking up most of the space in the mix. All that treble sounds like an armor to mask vulnerability, and really, so does the call to sexy, reckless action. The title phrase ends up sounding like wishful thinking.

Buy it from Amazon.

Telekinesis “I Cannot Love You”

When this song begins, the angst and drama is already over. It’s all verdict, no deliberation: “I cannot love, I cannot love you.” The music carries some leftover negative emotion, but the vocals mostly convey the relief of finally coming to a firm conclusion and the eagerness to move on from a painful romantic mess. It’s not emphatic or mean spirited, just clear-headed and self-respecting. It’s even better that this song is a tightly-constructed two minute rocker — this is the kind of thing you need to say quickly and economically and then shut up.

Buy it from Amazon.

Dum Dum Girls “He Gets Me High”

I’ve seen the Dum Dum Girls in concert twice and both times I left thinking that Dee Dee’s voice was much better live than on record. That issue has been addressed on the band’s new EP, a set of four tracks that find the band embracing a glossier, more confident sound. It’s a smart move. Unlike many of their peers, the Dum Dum Girls never needed fuzzy production and heavy reverb to improve upon their material or mask their inadequacies as performers. If anything, that sort of thing kept people from noticing Dee Dee’s remarkable craft as a songwriter. It’s hard to miss that in “He Gets Me High,” the EP’s title track. The hooks are simple but expertly composed, and the lyrics are straightforward but precise, suggesting a fair amount of psychological depth and emotional turmoil with blunt, direct language. She sounds wonderful too, like a more demure Chrissie Hynde backed up by louder guitars.

Buy it from Amazon.

Adele “I’ll Be Waiting”

If you take the lyrics of “I’ll Be Waiting” at face value, it’s a “baby please come back I’ve changed for the better” kind of song. But if the sound of it changes its meaning a lot — it’s upbeat, brassy and assertive in a way that makes it seem like the possibility of Adele’s ex taking her back seem like a foregone conclusion. She’s making a great case for getting back together, or at least it sounds like one. The tension at the heart of this piece is that trying to get this failed relationship to work again may in fact be a terrible idea and the singer’s intense optimism about this may be misguided and possibly quite pathetic. But it’s also sweet, especially when you realize that she’s probably working even harder to convince herself.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Dirtbombs “Sharevari”

The Dirtbombs’ new album Party Store has an excellent high concept: Detroit rock band covers Detroit techno classics. It’s a very cool idea, but also a recipe for disaster. As it turns out, though, the most surprising thing about Party Store isn’t that the band decided to interpret these songs in the first place, but that they do it so convincingly without changing their standard instrumentation. Some songs work better than others — their 21-minute take on Carl Craig’s “Bug in the Bass Bin” is a noble experiment with fairly unlistenable results — but when they nail it, it’s like a scrappier version of Liquid Liquid and ESG’s minimal funk magic. Their version of A Number of Names’ “Sharevari” is my favorite, and not just because it’s a very faithful rendition of the song. I think the composition gains an exciting tension from live instrumentation and, well, I just really love the sound of the female vocals in this recording.

Buy it from Amazon.

MNDR “Cut Me Out”

I wasn’t surprised to learn that MNDR’s Amanda Warner had originally planned to become a professional songwriter before becoming a performer. Her songs are economical and seem very precise and methodical — frankly, I’d be shocked if “Cut Me Out” isn’t the product of several thoughtful revisions. Everything about this track, from the very structure of it to the sound of the arrangement and her distinct, charismatic vocal performance, is in perfect balance. This song hits my dance pop sweet spot in a big way: The music is assertive and forceful, but the words, the voice and the tension at the center of the piece conveys vulnerability and confusion.

Visit the MNDR official site.

Guided by Voices “Alone, Stinking and Unafraid” (Live in Dayton, 2001)

The “classic line-up” of Guided By Voices got back together last year. It was cool and I enjoyed the show I saw in Manhattan. But here’s the thing: If you were actually a big GBV fan and went to a lot of their shows during the years when the band was actually a popular touring act, this “classic line-up” wasn’t classic at all. Yes, they were the guys who backed Robert Pollard up on the band’s most acclaimed and beloved albums, but they were long gone by the time GBV got around to building its reputation for drunken, goofy marathon sing-along shows. This was the “classic line-up” if you’re either a super early adopter, a sentimental pedant or a Pollard dilettante. If you love Guided By Voices and went to the shows and followed the regular flow of new records and “side projects” — the actual experience of being a GBV fan in the late 90s through the mid 00s — the real classic line-up is Pollard, Doug Gillard, Nate Farley, Tim Tobias and whoever happened to be playing drums at the time.

As far as I am concerned, Live in Daytron ?6 is the definitive Guided By Voices record, at least in the sense that it has the highest concentration of top-shelf Pollard songs and represents the band in the form that I loved them most. I saw GBV at least 14 times between 1999 and 2004. For me, the band isn’t about any particular album so much as the accumulation of great songs. Like I always say, you never really get how amazing Pollard is until you realize that he has written 100 of your favorite songs.

The GBV setlist was a regularly mutating thing — it had a solid foundation of regularly played hits, but also a rotation of deep cuts, music from whatever album was new at the time, and songs from records that were not released under the GBV name but were definitely GBV songs. This live record includes a lot of classics from that category — “Pop Zeus,” “Tight Globes,” “Submarine Teams,” “Stifled Man Casino,” “Waved Out,” “I Drove A Tank,” “Get Under It,” “Psychic Pilot Clocks Out,” and “Alone, Stinking and Unafraid,” which became one of the band’s most enduring live anthems despite being originally released on a small-run EP under the name Lexo and the Leapers. It annoys me when this stuff gets edited out of the band’s legacy. The same goes for post-Mag Earwhig gems like “Teenage FBI,” “Chasing Heather Crazy,” “The Brides Have Hit Glass” and “Things I Will Keep.” Like I said, that reunion show was nice and all, but it was just weird for me to seeing the band without hearing a lot of these songs since they were so essential to the GBV experience.

Anyway, if you want a solid introduction to Guided By Voices or a good sense of what myself and many others loved about them back in the early 00s, I strongly recommend this live record.

Buy it from GBV Digital.

Patrick Stump “Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)”

I find it very easy to embrace the idea of post-Fall Out Boy Patrick Stump. He’s very charming and talented, he has great taste and a huge amount of ambition. I want to like this guy’s music and I think he has the potential to be a good pop artist outside of his old band. That said, I don’t think he’s there yet. His first EP has its moments, but for the most part it suffers because Stump seems so eager to play it straight and prove his legitimacy as a pop/R&B act that a lot of his personality gets lost in the gloss.

Specifically, there is not enough tension in this music. Fall Out Boy worked because Stump’s technically impressive, R&B-inflected voice was spitting out these verbose, snarky lyrics in the context of jumpy mall rock arrangements. (Truly, that band does not get enough credit for being as weird and distinct as they were.) Stump thrives when his voice is just slightly out of place, but too much of his EP puts his voice in its most expected musical context and it comes out sounding generic. This is frustrating because some of this material is right on the edge of being quite good.

For example, “As Long As I Know I’m Getting Paid” could really be something if the lyrics were just a bit edgier and the arrangement wasn’t so overworked and airless. It comes out sounding like a mildly experimental Maroon 5 song. If you watch him perform the song in this Rolling Stone acoustic session, it comes off much better. I think the difference is mainly in that the acoustic version implies a lot of musical ideas whereas the studio recording executes all of them in the most obvious way possible, leaving nothing to the imagination.

“Spotlight (Oh Nostalgia)” is the one song on the EP I consider to be an unqualified success. It plays to all of Stump’s strengths, giving him plenty of room to display his vocal chops in a catchy tune that allows for moments of bombastic rock while also providing some less likely dynamic shifts. It’s a hybrid weirdo pop song, and it’s exactly the sort of thing he should be doing. If Stump truly wants a place in mainstream pop, he’s more likely to get it by embracing the tensions that make him interesting, not by making second-rate versions of the music he admires.

Buy it from iTunes.

Toro Y Moi “Still Sound”

I’ve come to the conclusion that the more I try to understand my response to Toro Y Moi’s second album Underneath the Pine, the less I get it. I have found that my natural inclination is to zone out during large portions of the record, and I’ve found that it’s not a bad thing. It may in fact be the point. My attention doesn’t stray because I’m bored and disengaged — if anything, I find that I’m more connected to this record when I’m not focused on it, when the sound and beat become part of my surroundings and the mood of the music becomes indistinguishable from my actual emotional state.

Not all of the album is straight-up musical wallpaper. A lot of the reason why the record works is because it does periodically snap together into tighter, more pop-oriented forms. “Still Sound” is my personal favorite, and I think it’s the most impressive piece of music Toro Y Moi has produced to date. There’s a touch of Arthur Russell in this one, not just in the tonality, but in the way the arrangement keeps shifting without seeming restless. (I was listening to my favorite Russell piece “Tell You (Today)” recently and was totally in awe of how drastically it shifts while seeming totally intuitive from moment to moment, I couldn’t fathom how it was composed.) “Still Sound” has the deepest groove and the most coherent emotion on the record, though I’d be hard-pressed to describe exactly what it is. I just recognize the feeling every time I hear it, and am always pleased to his this sound that always reminds me of little bubbles rising up in a glass of soda water.

Buy it from Amazon.

Psychic Friend “Once A Servant”

If I didn’t know this song was written and performed by Will Schwartz before I heard it, I might not have realized it. I’ve been a fan of Will’s singing and songwriting in Imperial Teen and Hey Willpower for years, but though this song with his new band Psychic Friend is within his wheelhouse of melodic pop, his voice is noticeably different. It’s less bratty and less wispy, and a lot more direct in projecting earnest, kind-hearted emotion. This is a beautifully constructed pop song, the parts are simple but very emphatic. It basically lingers on the same romantic feeling for three and a half minutes, but there are subtle dynamic shifts through the whole thing. The bridge is what really sells this one for me — there’s something so angelic and lovely about the way it ascends toward its climax.

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