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.

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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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Radiohead “Separator”

I think that The King of Limbs is a good and interesting record, but there’s no question that it’s also Radiohead’s weakest album. (Yes, Pablo Honey is better.) But you know, they don’t all have to be masterpieces, and it’s about time Radiohead deflated audience expectations a bit and loosened up enough to put out a relatively minor record. As far as I am concerned, this band has put out more than enough major works that if they want to spend the rest of their career releasing just-okay experimental albums, I am totally fine with it.

The King of Limbs is basically the opposite of In Rainbows. In Rainbows is so melodic, so easy to enjoy, so well rounded. Limbs has its moments of beauty but it mostly rejects pop structure and hooks. It emphasizes rhythm, but its beats often sputter or clang together in awkward ways. It’s heavy on atmosphere and mood, but the mood isn’t especially pleasant. The album mostly evokes the feeling of being a bit out of it on medication for a nasty head cold. To some extent, we’ve heard Radiohead toy with similar musical ideas in the past, mostly on non-album tracks, but it’s still very much an experimental work for them. One thing is very clear: All of the members of Radiohead are taking risks on this record, but none of them are playing to their strengths as musicians.

The King of Limbs reminds of those times when an established actor takes a part that is outside of their range and it doesn’t quite work. (Especially comedians taking SERIOUS roles.) You’re watching them thinking about how good they are when they do their regular thing, and only notice the stretching on screen, not the character they are portraying. It’s admirable as an artistic endeavor in some ways, but it’s often just the narcissism of a performer who wants more respect or to prove that they can do anything.

Melody isn’t absent from Limbs, it’s just not emphasized. The prettiest, most melodic tracks come at the end — “Give Up the Ghost” and “Separator.” When the latter song comes on, it feels like you’re suddenly snapping out of the record’s weird daze. The beat is more assertive, the melody is much bolder, the arrangement seems brighter and more colorful. The lyrics match the sound, with Yorke singing about waking up from “a long, weary dream.” He sings that he is free from a weight that he’s been carrying and he sounds genuinely relieved and relaxed. Maybe in the future we’ll look back at this song as a meta commentary on his career: It’s the sound of the band shaking off the weight of being such an Important Band, and moving on as a band that’s actually encouraged to explore, stumble and sometimes fail.

Buy it from Radiohead.

Lady Gaga @ Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ 2/19/2011

Dance in the Dark / Glitter and Grease / Just Dance / Beautiful Dirty Rich / The Fame / LoveGame / Boys Boys Boys / Money Honey / Telephone / You and I / So Happy I Could Die / Monster / Teeth / Allejandro / Poker Face / Paparazzi // Bad Romance /// Born This Way

My main takeaway from seeing Lady Gaga in concert is that she’s a fantastic rock star. She’s working in the context of pop convention for the most part, but her vibe and style on stage is pure rock star. I think this is part of what makes her so great, and different from her peers in the current pop landscape. I think this rocker thing will be more obvious when her next album comes out. Before this show, I got to hear a handful of tracks from Born This Way, and those songs were much more overtly rock without losing any of her dance music sensibility. She’s found a way to merge it all, and I’m excited to see how the world responds. (You can read my preview of these new songs at Rolling Stone.)

Lady Gaga “Born This Way”

Yes, this song echoes Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” and yes, a lot of what Lady Gaga does is essentially an updated version of Madonna’s paradigm for pop stardom. If you’re the type of person who thinks either of those points are equivalent to a valid negative criticism of Lady Gaga, I’m here to tell you that you’re an idiot and almost certainly a hypocrite too.

For one thing, it probably doesn’t take much digging into your record collection to find music by rock bands who are working within some easily identifiable tradition, or may directly call back to a specific artist. We, as a culture, have no problem with this, and if anything, we expect and desire familiarity from rock acts. (This is also true of rap and R&B to a large extent.) So why the double standard for pop acts? Is it because pop is more overtly market-driven, we feel compelled to overstate its cynicism and neglect its similarity to everything else in contemporary music?

Second, how can anyone get up in arms about borrowing ideas from Madonna when Madonna is the Queen of the Magpies? Like Madonna and David Bowie before her, Gaga’s genius isn’t profound musical originality so much as it’s about writing high quality pop songs that fit into a larger aesthetic framework that includes high concept fashion, theatrical performance and interaction with the media at large. Gaga is all about how it all fits together in the big picture, the sum of the parts. She makes the most sense in concert because that’s where it all comes together — the music, the singing, the dancing, the fashion, the setpieces, her interaction with the audience. The audience is very crucial to Gaga; her “little monsters” complete her performance with their physical response and by bringing their own creativity into the mix by showing up in costume, et al. This is a key difference between Gaga and Madonna — Madonna has always presented herself as being removed from her fans, Gaga encourages communication and intense identification. She’s very much of her time. Madonna never had to work with social media in her prime, but Gaga has found a way to seamlessly integrate the aesthetics of the Twitter era into the style of pop stardom that the Material Girl pioneered in the 80s.

I love “Born This Way,” but of course I would — “Express Yourself” has always been my favorite Madonna song, and I just love this sort of pop song. We don’t get that many of them, really. Even without the heavy handed self-help message, this would feel thrilling and inspiring. It’s a joyous, exciting, delightfully cheesy song. It really comes alive in concert, ending her show as a communal celebration of personal empowerment and self-acceptance. If you’re the type of person who feels like the world doesn’t need this sort of message, well, I’m glad you feel so great about yourself or that you’re comfortable in your self-loathing. I’m all in favor of it, though, especially since this song gets into specifics that most other songs with similar messages gloss over in the interest of playing it safe.

Buy it from Amazon.

Scissor Sisters @ Boardwalk Hall, Atlantic City, NJ 2/19/2011

Night Work / Laura / Any Which Way / Running Out / I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ / Filthy/Gorgeous

Scissor Sisters “Night Work”

About halfway through this 22 minute set, Ana Matronic told the audience “If you haven’t heard of us, you’re probably not gay or British.” And yeah, a lot of people in the audience were clearly unfamiliar with the band, but of all the arena shows I’ve seen, this was the best response I’ve ever seen for an opening act. The room was at least two thirds full when they went on at 8 PM sharp, and I saw a lot of dancing on the floor. Gaga’s little monsters are a good, enthusiastic bunch. As far as Scissor Sisters performances go, this was fun but not full power. It sounded like Jake Shears was holding back a little bit, but the back up singers and Ana pulled some extra weight and it came out totally fine. The band routinely plays these kind of venues overseas; it was nice to finally see them play to this kind of room even if it wasn’t their crowd.

Buy it from Amazon.

Gene Defcon “Liz”

It’s actually hard to tell whether this song is being addressed to an actual girlfriend or an unrequited crush, but given the hyperbolic nature of the lyrics, I wonder if a love like this is even requitable. “Liz” is big-hearted and sugary, but also sort of frantic and urgent. Gene Defcon’s voice is thin and boyish, and his words betray a naive and unrealistic notion of romance that veers back and forth between over-the-top fantasy and bleak melodrama. He sounds extremely desperate to will his concept of a perfect life with Liz into existence, and to drown out his doubts and fears. He’s mostly successful, though every now and again, the negativity reveals itself.

Buy it from Amazon. Originally posted on April 4th 2007.

Eagle & Talon “In Manila”

Kim from Eagle & Talon sings in a way that always reminds me a bit of Mary Timony, and so when I first heard this song, a line from a Helium song came to mind: “Cos we’re going out without our guitars…” The band played around with keyboards a bit on their previous record, but that sounded a bit tentative to me alongside their guitar-centric tracks. “In Manila” is all cheap keyboards and thin beats, but it also has the urgency and tunefulness of their best work. I like the way the vocals and the music seem slightly at odds — it sounds as if she’s going through some serious emotional drama while stuck in some environment that’s meant to be very cheerful and innocuous.

Buy it directly from Eagle & Talon.

PJ Harvey “In the Dark Places”

PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake conveys a relentless, overbearing grayness in its sound. I imagine gray buildings, gray clouds, grayish light that stings your eyes and dulls your mood. As on previous albums, Harvey contrasts the bleakness of her arrangements with vocal performances that are passionate but slightly muted and boxed in by the tonality of the music. She’s brilliant in the way she balances unhinged emoting with varying degrees of repressed feeling — she always comes across as a fully formed character with a rich subtext. She typically uses this technique for character studies, but in “In the Dark Places,” she suggests a vivid story about young soldiers from a group perspective, and with only a few lyrical details. There is so much sadness and wounded humanity in the way she sings this song, but it doesn’t get away from the central feeling in the music, which is this resignation to grim obligation.

Buy it from Amazon.

Yuck “Shook Down”

I get the sense that this band was shooting for an Elliott Smith sort of vibe here, like “The Ballad of Big Nothing” or something. It’s not far off, but I think the result is actually closer to “melancholy romantic ballad that gets played during a wistful moment on a teen drama.” And don’t take that the wrong way: That is pretty much exactly why I like this song so much. It’s sad but not depressive; it’s pretty but just a bit rough around the edges; it’s full of intense, idealized affection and longing. You hear this and it makes you want to have some romantic drama in your life — either you want to be the person singing these words, or to have them sung to you. A lot of people try to write songs like this, and a lot of them are mawkish and terrible. Yuck nailed it.

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Disappears “New Fast”

I like when punk bands get away from standard aggression and instead project undiluted dread and nihilism. Disappears do just that — imagine the steady melodic bass groove as a center, and the rest of the arrangement as a sound that pushes you away from it, or up against it. The vocals are what really push this over the top. He is so monotone that he barely sounds like an actual living human being, and the indifference he conveys is, in its way, far more hostile than yelling and screaming. This is the sound of being totally checked out of live, and it’s kinda terrifying.

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Matthew Friedberger “The Sainte-Barbe Triangle”

Even as a long term Fiery Furnaces nerd, I was a bit apprehensive about Matthew Friedberger’s series of solo albums. I consider his combo-pack solo debut Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School to be a low point in the extended Furnaces discography — there’s some good songs in there, but it’s just too much, and the best stuff is still somehow a bit timid for a guy who typically just goes all out. The first two records in this series are another story. To some extent, Napoleonette is roughly what you might expect from a piano-centric Friedberger record, but his experimentation with prepared piano gives the set a fascinating tonality and surprising physicality. Meet Me in Miramas is more of a curveball — hypnotic grooves, insistent rhythms, guitar used more for clanging texture than riffs or melody. “The Sainte-Barbe Triangle” opens that album, and it was immediately startling and engrossing. Through Matthew’s voice still has the cadence particular to himself and his sister Eleanor, everything else about the track comes closer to krautrock than what you’d expect from the Fiery Furnaces. I have no idea what is coming next in the series, but I’m excited to find out. Even after nearly a decade of music, this guy is still finding ways to surprise and challenge me.

Buy it from Thrill Jockey Records.

Little Dragon “Stå Upp”

Yukimi Nagano has a wonderful voice that conveys style and soulfulness, but I don’t think it would be as powerful in Little Dragon’s music if the group was not as masterful in its use of keyboards. “Stå Upp” is a fine example of the way they balance delicate atmospheric parts with melody lines that have this remarkable tonality that always reminds me of colorful artificial light. The sound has this slick, sophisticated quality, but it’s not overly tasteful — there’s a seediness to it, like some bar that’s intended to be classy but has aged into becoming a dive anyway. Also, I love the springiness of their beats, it adds to this overall lightness in the sound. If you imagine the beat as something that keeps a song grounded, the percussion here never seems to touch the floor for very long.

Visit the Little Dragon MySpace page.

James Blake “The Wilhelm Scream”

When it comes to James Blake, it can be easy to get distracted by his context. I think it’s a lot better to into his debut record without thinking too hard about the electronic music scene he comes from or how he relates to various strains of popular music. To get the full effect, you just have to listen and feel it, because really, that’s what matters here. It’s all raw, intense emotion, but written and arranged in a way that allows for lyrical gaps and silences that add a touch of mystery. The songs feel so intimate, but at the same time there’s this distance. On one hand it’s like being with — or just being — a person who can only let someone in so far before putting up some kind of defense. On the other, he gives you plenty of room to fill in the blanks with the details of your own emotional life.

Buy it from Amazon.

Cut Copy “Where I’m Going”

There had to a be a point in the process of writing this song when Dan Whitford realized that his lyrics needed to directly state exactly what the music was communicating, and that anything else would feel like a cheat. When you write a song that sounds exactly like you’re heading off to a brighter, better, happier world, you have to let everyone know it and invite them all along for the trip. This is very much a “journey, not the destination” thing too — when I hear this, I don’t even care about where we’re all going, I just want the joy, the adventure and discovery to last forever. This is the kind of upbeat pop song that actively makes life more enjoyable.

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Holy Ghost! “Do It Again”

Dance pop music is typically an expression of extroversion, or at least aspires to that state of mind. “Do It Again” is atypical in that respect — it’s sung from the perspective of a guy who starts off making a case for wanting to stay in by himself. Once he’s convinced to get out of his house, he’s not any less bored. The rituals and rhythms of bars and dance clubs are just as predictable as being alone in an apartment. He’s not complaining, though, just observing. It’s at that point when the DJ saves his life, or at least makes a ho-hum night a bit better than it would be otherwise by playing some exciting music. These lyrics could go one step further in any direction and be really obvious, but Holy Ghost! stick to understatement, if just to offset the sound of the track. This is some bouncey, colorful stuff. Also, I love the way it sounds as though the singer is about to break into Roxette’s “The Look” on bridge but he catches himself and shifts up the melody before he can get sued.

Go to the Holy Ghost! website.

Patrick Wolf “The City (Richard X Remix)”

The original version of “The City” is quite good, but it pales in comparison to this remix by Richard X. Without doing much to alter the basic character and structure of the song, X pushes everything in Wolf’s song to an ultra-romantic extreme. It’s faster, more danceable. It sounds like a city made of sparkles and it feels like a nonstop cinematic climax. It’s like Wolf and X got together and did their very best to answer the question “What’s so great about dancey pop music, anyway?” This makes me smile, it makes my heart race. If only life always could feel just like this song.

Buy Patrick Wolf music from Amazon.

Iron & Wine “Me and Lazarus”

Though Lazarus is a name with some very specific associations, it’s not entirely clear to me why Sam Beam is using it in this song. The best I can come up with is that the singer is envious of his friend’s ability to redefine and transform himself — in a sense, resurrected like the Biblical Lazarus. It could just be something that sounds nice in the melody, which is fine by me, especially since the main feature of the song is it gorgeous melody and relaxed arrangement. The sound is rich and comforting without seeming heavy, smothering or overdone. The emotional tone is muted and polite, but there’s a complex set of mixed feelings being articulated in the melody and texture. I hear bemusement in the way the melody climbs upward at the end of the verses, resignation in his wordless “oh-oh-ohs,” caution in the slow walk of the bass and assertiveness in the saxophone leads that weave in and out of the composition.

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Wire “Please Take”

Is there anyone better at writing sober, emotionally distant songs about feeling betrayed and aggrieved than Wire’s Colin Newman? “Please Take” is prime late-period Wire — icy, unforgiving and very direct in its sentiment, but so aloof that the kiss-off seems more brutal than if he’d conveyed even the slightest bit of emotional investment. This is the sound of a guy who is making sure that you know that he is totally finished with you and is not bluffing for a second. The music is tuneful and serene, but it can’t sweeten the incredible bitterness of this piece.

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Anna Calvi “No More Words”

I recommend that everyone love this and get as much as they can from it before it starts turning up on the soundtrack of every borderline television show, movie and ad campaign that requires a song that immediately signals romantic yet edgy sexiness. Not that the song would necessarily be diminished by such a thing — actually, it could be enhanced if it ended up in a truly inspired scene — but there’s just something about this that is so immediately powerful and evocative that it’s hard to imagine it not getting snapped up by eager music supervisors. This is a brilliantly realized track. Anna Calvi’s voice has both the ferocity and the restraint of a young Polly Harvey, as well as a natural flair on guitar. The atmosphere of this song is thick from the start but the transition into the second half is totally inspired. It’s like a big puff of colorful smoke that somehow turns into delicate metallic clanging.

Buy it from Domino Records in the U.K. Pre-order it from Amazon in the U.S.

Lia Ices “Little Marriage”

Lia Ices has a frigid, brittle sound that suits her name very well. When I hear “Little Marriage” I imagine an elaborate sculpture of incredibly thin icicles — beautiful, perfect and extremely delicate. But even if the music conveys fragility, the emotion of the piece seems a lot more resilient. The song is mournful in tone, but Ices does not seem shattered by heartbreak and trauma. If anything, she sounds as if she’s found a way to harden her heart to compensate for an outward vulnerability.

Buy it from Amazon.