Miley Cyrus “Space Boots”

Miley Cyrus’ new record is a long slog, but it’s at least an interesting slog. And given that she made it with The Flaming Lips and Mike Will Made It, two contrasting creative forces I think would be rather overpowering in most cases, it’s remarkable that Cyrus pushed them both towards a very specific unifying aesthetic focused on thin, hazy synth drones and crisply snapping beats. I think Stephen Thomas Erlewine’s take on the record is pretty right on – this album is the musical equivalent of watching someone else trip balls rather that something that takes you on a psychedelic journey, and there are stretches of the record where it does “feel like you’re the designated driver at an endless party that you can never leave.” But it’s kinda worth it for the tracks that really come together, like “I Forgive Yiew,” “Fweaky,” and “Space Boots.” The latter is just a really lovely ballad, and its stoned quality enhances its sentiment, and her eagerness to be aggressively WEIIIIRD roots it in very peculiar specifics. If the record is full of songs where you feel like you’re just indulging a self-absorbed friend, a song like “Space Boots” is the kind of thing that reminds you why you’re friends in the first place.

Get it from Miley Cyrus’ official site.

Jimmy Whispers “I Get Lost in You in the Summertime”

The past few waves of “lo-fi” music left me cold because it was mostly just a bunch of shitty bands using bad sound to mask their considerable deficiencies and have some sort of hook for lazy music writers. This track is a very different thing, and closer to where Lou Barlow was in the mid-‘90s with Folk Implosion – the sound isn’t bad, but the looseness of the recording highlights a feeling of “let’s just get this on to tape right away.” Jimmy Whispers really makes you feel as though you’re in a little room with him, where he’s bitching about wanting to “change the fucking feeling,” and then plays a sad little song on the organ for you, and maybe he’s making up half the words on the spot. That “in-the-moment” quality suits this particular song very well; that organ drone and sad melody end up feeling like a present tense that seems to extend deep into the horizon. No wonder he’s so anxious to change the feeling.

Buy it from Amazon.

Low “What Part of Me”

This is a very adult sort of pop song, and it calls back to an era in which adult contemporary pop was also mainstream pop, and not totally synonymous with sentimental bombast. “What Part of Me” reminds me specifically of the more mellow and restrained Phil Collins/Genesis hits, which framed very warm melodies in cold synths and tense electronic percussion, and were generally about people in long term relationships trying to solve emotional conflicts with honest communication. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker sing the song in parallel harmony but rarely fully overlap, which is perfect for a song in which they’re kinda looking just past each other and wondering “what part of me don’t you know?” and trying to figure out what it’d take to realign perfectly. The arrangement hits just the right balance of airiness and rhythmic tension, indicating conflict but nothing particularly intense. My favorite detail here is the low feedback buzz that almost subliminally lingers in the background of parts of the track, like some strange feeling that’s not fully formed enough to articulate or understand.

Buy it from Amazon.

Yo La Tengo “Friday I’m In Love”

“Friday I’m In Love” is so familiar that it’s actually sort of surprising that Yo La Tengo selected it for their new album of acoustic covers and reworked oldies. But that easy familiarity really works for this rendition, which dials down the manic enthusiasm of The Cure’s original recording, but stays true to its romantic heart and impeccable structure. This is a smaller, cozier version of the song, and Georgia Hubley sings it with a bashful sweetness that’s more like a nervous blush than Robert Smith’s delirious gush. I love how casual this sounds, as if Yo La Tengo made this knowing that it’d be the perfect thing for an introvert’s crush playlist. It’s like a little gift for you.

Buy it from Amazon.

Hudson Mohawke “Ryderz”

This track is built around D.J. Rogers’ “Watch Out for the Riders” to such an extent that it really ought to be labeled as a remix. But what a remix this is! Hudson Mohawke is basically doing the old mid-00s rap trick of speeding up an old soul sample til it takes on a odd, sparkly quality, and then making it bump with digital beats. There’s nothing particularly original about this, but the execution is dazzling and joyous.

Buy it from Amazon.

Deradoorian “Violet Minded”

It’s sort of amazing that Angel Deradoorian has spent most of the first decade of her career as a supporting player in other bands when it’s always been so obvious that she has a very particular musical style and vision. And OK, maybe that style has been shaped by proximity to Dave Longstreth, Avey Tare, and Rostam Batmanglij, but she’s still the type of singer whose timbre and affect is immediately identifiable. Her first proper solo record feels like a culmination of her work to date, with elements of Dirty Projectors and Slasher Flicks and her previous solo EP infused into these gently winding psychedelic rock songs. “Violet Minded” is the track that bears the closest resemblance to her work with Dirty Projectors, with an ascending, spiraling vocal hook that would’ve fit in perfectly with the songs on Bitte Orca. Deradoorian’s tracks have a much different feeling, though – whereas Longstreth’s music can’t help but be a bit cold and stiff, her songs convey warmth and generosity.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Weeknd “Tell Your Friends”

I’ve had trouble connecting with The Weeknd in the past, in part because I don’t feel like I have a lot of room in my life for his whole “debauched misery in a brand-new luxury hotel” vibe, but mostly because I find his voice to be fairly anonymous and a lot of his songs rather flimsy. He’s getting around the latter problem by working with top writers and producers these days, and making a virtue of his lack of character by becoming the kind of R&B singer you can just plug into songs. That’s more or less what he’s doing in “Tell Your Friends,” which was mostly produced by Kanye West. This is a very Kanye sort of track, and sounds like it could’ve been a leftover from the My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy era. Weeknd is definitely being himself, in as much as his lyrics are so on-brand that they seem self-conscious, but he’s mostly just lounging around in the middle of an exceptionally well-made track. To his credit, he inhabits the song very well – it’s sorta like he’s a model, and he’s making some gorgeous designer clothes look really good. You put the same thing on some random person, and it’s just not the same.

Buy it from Amazon.

Destroyer “Times Square”

“Times Square” appears three times on Poison Season – this is the version with the fairly typical life-rock Destroyer arrangement, the other two are quiet, vaguely mournful orchestral arrangements that bookend the record. I prefer the rock version, but of course I would – it’s much easier to listen to, and it’s just a lot more pleasing as a pop song with a beat. But I think it’s very valuable that Dan Bejar is presenting this song from a few perspectives, and in context, the rock version feels like a flashback to a more earnest and uncomplicated feeling. The words are about as oblique as you’d expect from Bejar, but there’s a very clear optimism to this song – about love, about New York, about music, about the possibility of salvation or redemption. The bleak string versions imply a sense of doubt about this, or at least look back on the feeling with a touch of bemusement. I don’t think Bejar is writing anything off, but I do think he’s thinking a lot about the romance of optimism.

Buy it from Amazon.

Deerhunter “Snakeskin”

“Snakeskin” is the first Deerhunter song I could describe as funky, though it doesn’t completely work as a straight funk track. The guitar groove and the beat are definitely lifted from ‘60s and ‘70s R&B, but the bass is oddly still in the arrangement. This results in a song that sounds like someone who is trying to affect a confident strut, but is not loose and relaxed enough for it to actually signal confidence. That subtext carries over to Bradford Cox’s lyrics, which riff on the feeling of being born all wrong, and living with a conviction that you’re homely and sickly and weird, and that’s the just the natural state of things. So, basically, this is the sound of trying to feel good in your body and maybe getting about halfway to the thing you assume other people feel all the time, or landing on something else entirely.

Pre-order it from iTunes.

Melkbelly “Bathroom at the Beach”

A lot of the best and most aggressive punk is, on a melodic level, total candy. “Bathroom at the Beach” is a great example – the core of it is catchy and bouncy enough to be a jingle, and the main vocal melody is sung with a singsong lilt that’s close to what you’d get in children’s music. But the sound of it is so gloriously abrasive, and the abrupt burst into noise on the chorus is one of the most thrilling bits of any record I’ve heard recently. It’s so easy to imagine a room full of people losing their shit at that exact moment; it’s like this band is going out of their way to make the most mosh-inducing song possible. I thank them for that.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

FKA Twigs “Figure 8”

“Figure 8” sounds like it’s constantly on the brink of collapse, with FKA Twigs’ voice balanced preciously between skittering, barely cohesive beats and waves of wobbling, distorted synth tones. A lot of Twigs tracks have this dynamic, but don’t quite gel – often, the vocal melody seems arbitrarily dropped into a track. In this, the arrangement is always punctuating the vocal part, and that sense of imminent crash is central to the emotion of the piece. That uncertain feeling extends to the lyrics, which obliquely deal with public scrutiny while seeking out creative experiences that feel more authentic and exciting. She sounds like she’s doing her best to assert herself, but the music is there to show us how hard that can be.

Buy it from Amazon.

Princess Reason “Your Divorce”

How do I know this guy’s voice so well? The particular inflections and cadences, the specific sound of the creak in his voice when he reaches for high notes beyond his range. I swear I’ve heard some version of this guy sing in dozens of bands going back 20 years, but I can’t remember the names of any of them. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s just some guy, the way those other guys were just some guy. This is the music that some guy makes, and the music lots of some guys listen to. I’m some guy too, obviously.

I don’t mean to diminish what a good and interesting little song this is. I love the way this band pushes themselves to just beyond their skill level in playing it, and the irregular contours of its structure. The music finds grace in shabbiness, and so do the lyrics – he nails a lot of very vivid concrete details, and he writes around a messy, secretive affair before ending the song by singing “I can’t wait for you to leave New York / I can’t wait for you to get divorced” in a tone that’s cheerful and glib in a way where you know this guy is setting himself up for some huge disappointments.

Buy it from Bandcamp.

Beach House “Sparks”

Beach House is the sort of band that is so committed to a specific aesthetic that they never seem to change, but are in fact constantly shifting around the formal elements of their music. On the surface, “Sparks” is another hazy, organ-centric drone, but it’s also a sudden left turn from the past couple Beach House records, which emphasized crisp, clean sounds and a melodramatic romanticism. In comparison to tracks like “Myth” and “Wild,” “Sparks” is all scuffed up and knocked slightly off register, with Victoria Legrand’s sullen voice buried in the mix rather than at the center of the music. The guitar tone on the intro is significantly more aggressive than what typically ends up on Beach House records, and it overlaps with the over-driven keyboard drone in a way that suggests aggravated frustration giving way to outright depression. The lyrics are vague, but seem to be about a junkie searching for their next high, but each high is weaker and briefer than the last. It doesn’t really need to be about drugs – the “spark” could be anything that offers a momentary reprieve from pain and boredom – but either way, that theme suits the despairing tone of the record.

Buy it from Amazon.

The Mynabirds “All My Heart”

Laura Burhenn may change the surface aesthetics of The Mynabirds with each record, but she never strays from the core appeal of her music – introspective lyrics that border on secular spirituality, and her weathered, soulful voice. Her new record Lovers Know has a much colder tone than the records that came before it, but her voice is more fiery and emphatic than ever. This contrast really works for her, especially when it seems like she’s this passionate person standing up to a world of indifference. That’s basically what’s going on in “All My Heart,” which is a song about refusing to tamp down her emotions to avoid being hurt or freaking someone out with actual honest feelings. The song has a defiant, heroic sound to it, and it should – it takes real bravery to be so vulnerable, especially in a culture that keeps reminding you of all the bad things that can happen when you let other people in. But it’s worth it when you do, right? That’s what I keep hearing, anyway.

Buy it from Amazon

Dr. Dre featuring Kendrick Lamar, Marsha Ambrosius, and Candice Pillay “Genocide”

“Genocide” is only four and a half minutes, but there’s enough ideas and odd sonic textures in Dem Jointz’s track to pad out half an album. What’s going on in this song?

• An odd, digitally distorted two-note sample that’s being used like a snare hit, so the end of some measures sound as though it’s being pushed ahead by some mechanical device.

• A shuddering turntable sample that works like a drum fill, but feels like rumbling tectonic plates beneath the song.

• A descending bass part that sounds as if each note is a little dot, which is offset by a similar high-pitched set of ascending dot-notes.

• Synth washes that are so subtle that it’s almost perceptible, but are actually crucial in creating a rising sensation on the chorus.

• A totally unexpected a cappella doo-wop bridge, but the lowest voice is doing some kind of dubstep wubby thing.

• A chorus by R&B singer Marsha Ambrosius that strips all the warmth and femininity from her voice, but leaves in a lot of dread and despair.

• A sung verse by Candice Pillay that continues a tradition of using dancehall voices in rap tracks to signify impending doom.

• A verse from Dr. Dre that I didn’t even immediately recognize as him, since his voice is a bit higher pitched than usual, and he’s doing some singsongy bits that I don’t remember ever being a part of his style.

• A verse from Kendrick Lamar that swings from fairly chill to utterly ferocious, and shows off a skill for vivid lyrical detail, off-kilter meters and cadences, and varied vocal textures that no other rapper of his generation can match.

Buy it from iTunes.

Hot Chip @ Webster Hall 8/5/2015
Huarache Lights / One Life Stand / Night & Day / Easy to Get -> Forever In My Life / Started Right / Flutes / Over and Over / Alley Cats / Cry for You / Need You Now / Ready For the Floor / I Feel Better // White Wine and Fried Chicken / And I Was A Boy From School / Dancing in the Dark -> All My Friends

Hot Chip “Huarache Lights”

When I learned that Hot Chip were playing a few shows in New York, I made a point of getting a ticket to the show that was on my birthday because it just made a lot of sense to see them play “Huarache Lights” on a day when I’d be inevitably forced to think a lot about my age. There’s a lot of things going in “Huarache Lights” both musically and thematically, but the aspect of it that really gets under my skin is the way Alexis Taylor sings about aging. It’s not about aging in an “oh my god, I’m soooooo old” way, but about the shifting of cultural context around you, and wondering where you and the things you love fit into things as a new wave of youth culture comes up behind you. He’s singing about this in relationship to being a DJ, and thinking about technology and the inevitability of obsolescence, and it somehow neutralizes its core anxiety with a cool, rational acceptance of change, and conviction that living in the moment is the only way to go.

So yes, dancing to this song was cathartic. Dancing to pretty much all of the set was cathartic! I really loved this show, and being in an audience full of people who were dancing and singing along with little self-consciousness made me feel more comfortable in my skin than I’ve felt in a long while. It was a very good decision to have this particular experience on that particular day.

Buy it from Amazon.

Georgia “Kombine”

“Kombine” is full of harsh, cold, clanging electronic tones, but the synth riff that opens the song is the best. The rest of the track exists in this sort of post-M.I.A. abrasive R&B zone, but that first bit is basically a sick metal riff played on a synth setting seemingly designed to induce terror and anxiety. When the track shifts into something a little more funky and less airtight, that queasy feeling remains. It’s an interesting tone for a song about sex – Georgia’s lyrics get a bit dark, but the sound of the track makes even the sweeter bits seem fraught with tension.

Buy it from Amazon.

Wolf Alice @ Gramercy Park Hotel 8/3/2015
Fluffy / She / Your Love’s Whore / You’re A Germ / 90 Mile Beach / The Wonderwhy / Soapy Water / Lisbon / Storms / Bros / Blush / Giant Peach / Moaning Lisa Smile

This was some kind of industry showcase gig, so I don’t feel right writing about it as if it was a real show. Not because of the band – they were as good live as I’d hoped – but because they were playing to a room full of mostly rude and uninterested people. There were two women up at the front of the stage who were clearly having an amazing time and mouthing the words to every song, but I was cut off from them, and stuck near a group of obnoxious girls who were talking shit about those women because their enthusiasm was embarrassing to them, and they were ~concerned~ that they were bad for the band’s image. (Both of the excited women were overweight.) It was a room full of awful people, and every time I turned my head there were somehow more men and women wearing expensive fedoras. I feel bad for Wolf Alice, but they’re total pros, so they just played it without any apparent problem. I’m sure they’ve played to much worse crowds. I just want to see them play to a room full of people like those two excited women up front.

Wolf Alice “You’re A Germ”

I’ve spent a LOT of time with Wolf Alice’s music over the past month or so, and I love it more all the time. They have excellent range as a band – whereas a lot of other new rock bands seem to put all their eggs in one aesthetic basket, My Love Is Cool is eclectic but coherent. Their bread and butter is dynamic alt-rock, but the ballads and more atmospheric tracks are just as good and deepen the emotional dynamics of their record as a whole. But still, even in a year overflowing with excellent rock music, heavier songs like “You’re A Germ” and “Giant Peach” stand out as being both more raw and more elegantly crafted than the rest. This is where they really show off a mastery of dynamics, and make the songs feel as urgent and physical as a roller coaster ride. “You’re A Germ” in particular sounds like a Pixies song in which Black Francis is a woman and Kim Deal is a man – not simply because Ellie Rowsell is taking the lead, but because she screams out the chorus in a way that’s both totally unhinged and wryly theatrical.

Buy it from Amazon.

Veruca Salt @ Webster Hall 7/31/2015
Prince of Wales / I’m Taking Europe with Me / Black and Blonde / Straight / Laughing in the Sugar Bowl / Forsythia / All Hail Me / Empty Bottle / The Gospel According to Saint Me / Eyes On You / One Last Time / Volcano Girls / Don’t Make Me Prove It / Triage / Spiderman ’79 / Seether / Museum of Broken Relationships / Earthcrosser // Shutterbug / Shimmer Like A Girl / 25

The audience for this Veruca Salt show was the kind of audience you hope for when you see a rock show: visibly excited, intensely engaged, very physical, and singing along to even the brand new songs. To some extent, the people were just mirroring the band’s energy. Veruca Salt are the kind of band that make rock music look like the most fun thing you could possibly do, and they balance out that joy with a lot of darker emotions that allow for truly cathartic moments. The thing that really stands out in my mind is when they were playing “Shutterbug” and everyone around me – including myself – were just belting out the words at each other. I love this sort of thing, where it’s like we’re all performing our love of a song and connecting by mutually acknowledging that Louise singing “I can’t change / change / change” gets under our skin.

Veruca Salt “Black and Blonde”

I was so happy that people were so into the new Veruca Salt songs because I love them too, and it was nice to share that enthusiasm. You never know how this sort of thing will go – some audiences just go in and only want to see hits and zone out for the rest. (That definitely was the case when I saw The Smashing Pumpkins and U2 in the days leading up to this gig.) But it seems like the people who love this band are very excited about them being around now, and it’s not really a nostalgia thing. It looked like about 60% of the audience was women under 30, and I think for them, this is just an iconic band who’ve had a direct influence on a lot of the best rock music coming out over the past couple years. There’s a clear sense of continuity between what they were doing in the 90s, what they’re doing now, and what’s going on in indie music at this moment. But even if there’s other bands sorta like them these days, there’s certain things Veruca Salt bring to the table that the younger bands don’t really have. Nina and Louise have a lot more old school rock swagger, and I think that’s a combination of emulating the music they loved growing up, and just having way more experience as performers. Also, they’re not afraid of going BIG, and letting a song like “Black and Blonde” be the sort of towering sing-along anthem it ought to be. They don’t hold much back, and they kinda teach you to do the same.

Buy it from Amazon.

U2 @ Madison Square Garden 7/30/2015
The Miracle (of Joey Ramone) / The Electric Co. / Vertigo / I Will Follow / Iris (Hold Me Close) / Cedarwood Road / Song for Someone / Sunday Bloody Sunday / Raised by Wolves / Until the End of the World / [The Fly intermission] / Invisible / Even Better Than the Real Thing / Mysterious Ways / Elevation / Ordinary Love / Satellite of Love / Every Breaking Wave / Bullet the Blue Sky / The Hands That Built America -> Pride (In the Name of Love) / Beautiful Day / With or Without You // City of Blinding Lights / Mother and Child Reunion (with Paul Simon) / Where the Streets Have No Name / One

• This is my site and I paid to see this show, so I’m going to allow myself to be petulant about this: I am very disappointed that I managed to see the two shows of an eight show residency that had nearly identical setlists. There are four to five spots in the setlist for this tour where U2 rotate in different songs, and though they’ve been mixing it up over the past several nights in NYC, only one of those spots included a song that was not played on the first night – a cover of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love.” I do not care about “Satellite of Love.” It’s hard not to feel bitter about paying a lot of money for this show and knowing that the other nights had truly exciting things played in these rotation spots – “Bad,” “All I Want Is You,” “Desire” with Jimmy Fallon, “Angel of Harlem” with The Roots, “Two Hearts Beat As One,” “Gloria,” “Out of Control,” “Sweetest Thing,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” But nope, I get “Ordinary Love” – one of the worst songs of their entire career! – for a second time, and another half-hearted performance of “One” in which Bono has the audience sing 80% of the song. I suppose Paul Simon coming out in the encore is theoretically exciting, but he was so awkward and in such bad voice that it was not exactly an exciting moment. Siiiiiigh.

• U2 were very on when I saw them on the first night of this residency, but this show felt like they were just doing their job. I could tell that Bono’s voice was a little worn out in spots, and he seemed a little tired. They’re such pros that they give a lot even when they’re not in top form, so it was hardly a weak performance. Really, I might not have fully noticed that the energy was a bit lower if I hadn’t seen them play with such fire in the recent past.

• The audience for this show, or at least all the people in my vicinity, were not good. U2 shows feed off the energy of the audience, and are improved by the audience’s participation in the big sing along moments in songs like “Pride” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.” I was surrounded by people who seemed entirely unwilling to participate or in any way visibly react to the music, and it dragged down my experience of the show. I have no idea why these people went to see this – it’s kinda expensive, and a lot of the reason you go to see U2 is to be part of this communal experience. It sucks to see them play “Pride” and have maybe 20% of the audience tops participating in the “oh oh oh ohhhh” part when you know first hand how transcendental it feels to be there when 80% of the audience is doing it.

• Midway through the show, Bono introduced the audience to the emergency workers who saved him after his severe biking accident in Manhattan last year, and to the woman who made the 911 call when everyone else in the vicinity of the crash were simply gawking at the scene. Bono let the woman tell her story for a couple minutes, and she made the huge mistake of making a snide remark about NYC, so she ended up getting loudly booed for almost all the time she was speaking. It was really something to see the woman who arguably saved Bono’s life – or at least his career as a performer – get booed by thousands of U2 fans.

• I don’t really have much to add about the songs or the staging, but I did notice that there’s spots in the show that don’t seem to work for the audience, even if they work on a thematic level. “Iris” doesn’t seem to connect at all, and everyone seems very confused by the intermission/”Invisible” sequence. I like that part, so it’s especially disappointing that the majority of the arena barely responds to it. Most of the arena didn’t even stand up for it. “Ordinary Love” is another song that doesn’t work at all, and the piano version of “Every Breaking Wave” is another moment that people take as a cue to sit down for a few minutes. That said, I think “The Miracle,” “Raised by Wolves,” and “Cedarwood Road” go over pretty well, or at least as well as you could expect for tracks from a new record that is mostly either maligned or ignored.

The Smashing Pumpkins @ PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ 7/29/2015
Cherub Rock / Bullet with Butterfly Wings / Tonight, Tonight / Ava Adore / Drum + Fife / One and All (We Are) / The Everlasting Gaze / Zero / The Crying Tree of Mercury / Mayonaise / Disarm / Landslide / 1979 / Run2Me / Thru the Eyes of Ruby / Stand Inside Your Love / United States

As you can see, The Smashing Pumpkins are aiming to please on this tour. The timing makes sense – Jimmy Chamberlain is back on drums, this is a double bill with Marilyn Manson and they’ve got to play to a lot of people who may be there more for Manson, and a reminder that while Billy Corgan is never going to stop pushing forward and making eccentric decisions, he’s not totally against giving people what they want. The Pumpkins have played a lot of oldies and hits on their tours over the past few years, but it hasn’t been as much of a hits-centric set – you’d generally get a handful of the biggest hits, but not all of them. This show felt like a power move, like Corgan’s way of being like “yeah, I can do this any time I want” and making the audience feel lucky to hear almost all the big ones at once rather than kinda bored because it’s a totally expected thing. I think there’s also a strong implication that he’s doing this now because it’s less likely to happen later – for artistic reasons, and also for physical ones. Corgan and Chamberlain are still relatively young men in terms of aging rock stars, but there may come a time when some of this material either won’t hit as hard, or just seem strange to hear from guys in their 60s or 70s. Maybe you can always pull off “Disarm” and “1979,” but I don’t know if you can play “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” and “Ava Adore” forever.

The Smashing Pumpkins “Thru the Eyes of Ruby”

I’m happy to see The Smashing Pumpkins play the big hits, but as a fan, I’m a lot more invested in the non-hits of the classic era. Seeing them play “Thru the Eyes of Ruby” for the first time after 20 years of loving that song was a very big deal for me, and more emotional than I actually anticipated. “Ruby” is one of my all-time favorites, easily, and a song that’s shifted a bit in meaning over time. I remember what this song was for me as a teenager, and how it laid out this fantasy of epic, tortured love. This is a song that builds disappointment and despair into the foundation of its grand romance, and portrays marriage as a sort of shared delusion, and love as something that’s bound to mutate into contempt. My perspective on the song is different now – its bitter and romanticism both feel like things I’ve put at a distance from myself, and the most emotional part is Corgan’s final epiphany: Youth is wasted on the young. Or, maybe more specifically – young love is wasted on the young.

Buy it from Amazon.

Marilyn Manson @ PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ 7/28/2015
Deep Six / Disposable Teens / mOBSCENE / No Reflection / Third Day of a Seven Day Binge / Sweet Dreams / Angel with the Scabbed Wings / Personal Jesus / The Dope Show / Rock Is Dead / Lunchbox / Antichrist Superstar / The Beautiful People / Coma White

Marilyn Manson gives you exactly the show you’d hope for – abrasive and campy, and with a lot of visual tricks and set pieces pulled off on a budget. Manson’s got incredible stage presence, and he and his band’s total commitment to wearing full make-up and several layers of black leather, PVC, and fur in hot summer weather is commendable. This was another setlist heavily skewed towards hits and career overview, and I felt like I definitely got a strong Marilyn Manson concert experience even if I never deliberately set out to have that experience. The band’s relationship with melody and hooks are a bit hit or miss outside of their covers, but there’s just no fucking with “The Dope Show” – that’s easily one of the best glam songs of the ‘90s, and there was no shortage of wannabe glam tunes in that era.