rockrobster23's Last.fm Journal

The Oddity of Classic Rock: Top Ten Songs at 4:33

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 06:06:40 +0000

I don't listen to a lot of classic rock radio, or to much commercial radio of any kind, but when I have tuned in to the local classic rock station, it feels a little like traveling back in time. With a few isolated exceptions (U2, a little Pretenders, Nirvana and Pearl Jam), the classic rock format today is pretty much the same as the classic rock format 20 years ago. It's not a genre, because it has no formal attributes; rather, it is a grouping for commercial purposes, one that has remained curiously stable for a long time.

And what is it, exactly? It's not just old hits, but a specific grouping of some hits and popular album tracks, primarily those that retain a certain masculine swagger--although that's far from the sole criterion. It's insufficient to say merely that classic rock is comprised of songs that make its target audience feel good about their relationship to their adolescence, as that's probably true of any "oldies" format. Like a certain famous conceptual piece at this length, it is a container whose contents are only implied.

What's interesting is that the specific markers of that adolescence (Led Zeppelin, the Stones, The Who, etc.) have retained their validity for so long, and that even within the discographies of individual bands residing in the classic rock sweet spot, there are subcategories of "classic" and "not classic."

For example, you will encounter Lola, but not David Watts; you can be Comfortably Numb but not Fearless; visit with Ziggy Stardust but not The Bewlay Brothers. Much of this, on both sides of the divide, is high-quality, challenging stuff, but the songs that make the cut seem to have been hyper-familiarized and safely absorbed into the larger culture. On a subjective level, it's a safe generalization to say that the songs that make the cut are "songs that I'm tired of," which is more an indictment of how frequently the culture throws them at me than any inherent lack of quality in the songs.

Project Index

The Top Ten Songs at 4:33

1) Born to Run--Bruce Springsteen
Obvious choice here, which I was somewhat anxious to avoid. But being obtusely contrary just for the sake of seeming original and/or iconoclastic is vain hipsterism. And this is one of the "classic rock" songs that I'm not really tired of, even given my problems with the Springsteen mythos.

"Born to Run" is Bruce’s most fully-realized slice of myth, the one that feels most connected to actual lives. It's so full of barely-contained energy, like the teenagers he’s singing about, whose skulls resonate with the rock-operatic feelings into which the lyrics tap directly. It encapsulates and exalts the time when every action, every thought, seems to lead either to triumphant escape or to death; there is no in-between: “I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul.” From the perspective of age, it seems silly and melodramatic to act that way, but being inside of those feelings is terrifying, exhausting, exhilarating, unforgettable. I wouldn’t want to go back there, but I miss it nonetheless.

2) John Allyn Smith Sails--Okkervil River
Some might say this song glorifies a suicide; it certainly doesn’t condemn it. Contrary to the arguments of the song nannies (a straw man I just made up, but hey!—song nannies!) great art doesn’t always have to give good, safe advice, or any advice at all. In fact, the best art probably resists any such easy reductions. Sung from the perspective of the dead alcoholic poet who has run out of poems and reasons for being, it’s brilliant songwriting and one of the very rare rock lyrics that reads as poetry all by itself on the page.

(If I was really concerned about my hipster cred, this is the song I should have put first.)

3) Universal Corner--X
Smoky, seductive, and almost sounds as if it could fit in a classic rock playlist. In fact, there’s no intrinsic reason why it couldn’t, but X’s brand identity doesn’t fit the implied contents of that container. Check out the Peter Gunn theme in the fade, and John Doe's Morrison-esque timbre as he echoes "LA Woman" when he sings the verb "rises."

4) Adam's Apple--Aerosmith
Toys in the Attic created the center of American hard rock in the 70s, and this is perhaps its best track, built around a somersaulting two-guitar riff, and the delightful way Stephen Tyler screams “she ate it” as if it’s the most shockingly amazing thing that ever happened. Also, as if he’s pre-emptively making fun of himself the way the Pixies made fun of stuff like this with “Rock Music.”

5) Houses in Motion--Talking Heads
Some classic rock stations play the Heads from time to time, but never this song. It violates the classic rock code: too edgy and uncomfortable; funky but not in the service of partying; ultimately too bleak, too black, and too nerdy; and those simultaneous achievements are its triumph.

6) I'm Expanding My Mind--Superdrag
Psychedelic power pop that chucks formulaic pop structure, appending a plangent two-minute guitar melody as extended coda.

7) Stormy High--Black Mountain
The uncomplicated pleasures of hard rock, groove and grind. Perhaps that is what classic rock stations are selling? Uncomplicated pleasure? I acknowledge that Black Mountain is exactly like a band of that era, and would fit in perfectly on a classic rock playlist—but they don’t. Because something unfamiliar, even in the same genre, is complicated? I don’t buy it, I don't get it.

8) Everyday--The Raveonettes
An eerie slow-motion replication of Buddy Holly’s winsome original, half Blade Runner dread, half nursery rhyme.

9) 16 Shells From a Thirty-Ought Six--Tom Waits
So, a man hunts an elusive black crow, symbolizing an unattainable desire. Then when he catches the crow, he keeps it inside his guitar and tortures it. There are so many ways to go with that metaphor, I don't know where to start.

When Tom Waits gets mad at his kids, does he threaten to "whittle [them] into kindlin'"? Because that would be kind of frightening.

10) Runaways--XTC
Beatle disciples XTC offer (thematically) the same song as “She’s Leaving Home,” with no additional insight to add, but it’s a great melody and an inventive arrangement.

Lots to talk about, but here's a little spur: at what point in the future does the classic rock format die or change into something else? When it changes, what does it change into? I am especially interested in hearing from people who listen to a lot of classic rock radio now, since those folks will have a better handle on it than I do.

Personal Plunderphonics

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:49:41 +0000

Back in 1998, I spent my fellowship year of grad school not writing my dissertation. Instead, I played lots of video games, pissed away a love affair, and spent a lot of time working on a sample-based electronic music project that I later came to call many bells down.

At the time, I had never heard of John Oswald or plunderphonics, and the term "mash-up" had yet to be invented, but that's pretty much what I was doing, driven by my dissatisfaction with the way most electronic music of the time was so dance-oriented (and so interminably long). I was looking for a psychedelic experience: headphone music for trips, but at pop song lengths.

So, with an early version of ProTools and some primitive freeware, I let my freak flag fly, putting together about 6 months of work into a cassette (yes, a cassette! CD burners were expensive back then) that I called swing, sluggish wind. I sent the cassette out to most of the bands/poets I had sampled, but no one ever replied.

Here, brief descriptions of some of the pieces, with download instructions to follow, should you be interested.

1998 Pieces

What Water Never Did To Land Before 2:50
Surf guitar pastiche.

Lucy School 4:28
Robert Pollard's John Strange School, mixed with a famous Beatles song and some strings from somewhere I can't remember.

Phantom Summer 5:17
LaBradford's Phantom Channel Crossing, a way, way, slowed down riff from the Deftones, with snippets from far-away AM radio stations and a refrain lifted from "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" And a loop of a Posies demo.

Cruelty 2:14
Lucille Clifton reading her poem "Cruelty," with some sonic modification, but no violence done to the text. Set to a vinyl dead groove loop with flavoring from Home, Low, The Cars, and Kronos Quartet.

Beatrix Sleeps Underwater 3:35
This is a straight-up dub of Beatrix with a lot of echo and bass, and a psychedelic meltdown.

Turn Me On (The Story So Far) 5:38
Drum track from an Isaac Hayes song provides the backbeat for a slowed-down melody from Game Theory. I don't remember where I got those weird synth washes, but that's a bit of Cybele's Reverie that sneaks in every once in a while. Plus a little Beatle coda, all funked up.

2007/2008 pieces

I'm still dabbling in this sort of thing from time to time, although I think I'm not as good at it as I used to be, despite having more versatile tools.

16-ton Zeppelin 3:55
That's right, it's a mash-up of Tennessee Ernie Ford and Led Zeppelin. It's not 100% successful, but there are some pretty cool moments.

Captain Howdy Does the Answers 4:28
Tubular Bells with Death Angel's The Ultra-Violence. Obvious, really--and actually kind of scary. If you do Halloween mixes, this one is built for that.

************

All of this stuff is technically illegal, I suppose. And last.fm is blocking any publication of Web addresses leading to file sharing sites, which is cool. Because if you happen to find yourself on mega(harumph)upload (dot.com), and you went to this Web address (?d=884TRDCP) there, then you might find this stuff, if the Beatles lawyers haven't gotten there first.

Or, if that's too hard to figure out, just PM me if you're interested. I will be happy to drop you the link. Unless I'm already in prison.

Virtually Everyone's Singing a Popular Song: The Top Thirteen Songs from 1:32 to 1:35

Sun, 7 Jun 2009 06:52:43 +0000

So, you've gotten used to some amusing prefatory material from me--a mini-essay that introduces a theme that reappears in a couple of the song comments. Fun stuff.

The problem: the essay for this entry doesn't make any sense. Or, it makes too much sense, because the logical conclusion is that I like what I like, and I don't much like what contemporary young rockers like, which means I am old. Let's just hit the grumpy high points and skip all the carefully-marshaled arguments that illustrate my point and lead inevitably to the conclusion that I am old:

1) Kids don't seem to like garage rock anymore. Just my impression.

2) Mainstream popular rock is still following the template laid down by grunge almost two decades ago, and I am bored by its ubiquitous and polished enormousness.

(Maybe this will turn into an actual essay at some point, but for now, it smacks too much of "things ain't like they used to be," and I have sworn not to be "that guy.")

This length is the shortest thus far, and down here at the sliver end of the scale, we find lots of transitional devices, the noises you listen to when an artist wants to rock you (gently) from one fully-realized piece to another. I’m looking more for fully-realized songs, even at this extremely abbreviated time. And in the spirit of the songs on the list below, I'll try to be similarly pithy in my comments.

(Now that is one hell of a rationalization! Fruit of a lifetime of experience justifying laziness.)

One more note: the last couple of journals haven't been linking up to song and artist pages, and I wonder if it's because I wind up with so many links that the last.fm journal software thinks it's spam. So I'm going to try linking just the songs and see if that changes anything.

Project Index

The Top Thirteen Songs from 1:32 to 1:35

1) Mystery Dance--Elvis Costello
I first heard this bleat of young, clumsy lust at the age of 12, which was perfect, because I was living that song (if only in my head rather than in practice with, you know, other people), only I hadn’t yet figured out what the song meant either.

2) Absolutely Cuckoo--The Magnetic Fields
The first in a series of 69 love songs begins, "Don't fall in love with me." Somewhere out there lives a girl who would totally get it if I led off a mix tape for her with this song. Then, later, when she wants to flee in terror, she won't be able to say she wasn't warned. Ha ha! Just kidding. You can't warn people ahead of time, or you'll never get the chance to break up!

3) Game of Pricks--Guided by Voices
Speaking of breakups, this one overflows with melody, like a potent distillation of a late British Invasion song that was twice as long.

4) Whatever Happened to Pong?--Frank Black
A primitive video game as Proustian madeleine. Amazingly for this length, there's an actual cinematic overture-like opening; the actual song part of the song only lasts about a minute.

5) Filler--Minor Threat
Hardcore is typically angry, but here the hurt lurks just underneath like a raw nerve exposed: "What happened to you?"

6) Alligator Teeth--Original Sinners
Monster surf from Exene's post-X project.

7) Back 2 the Base--X
The anti-mythology of celebrity: people say things like "Presley sucked on doggie dicks" because we think we own the famous. And that's almost true: collectively, we own the fame; tragedy ensues when fans confuse the fame with the person it's attached to.

8) Straight Shooter--Reigning Sound
Great Memphis garage, of the type kids don't care about.

Interesting thing that is true of garage rock, hardcore punk, and surf: there is such a huge pool of good stuff that's just a shade below the absolute best. In statistical terms, their bell curves of quality are fat on the right end. Maybe that has something to do with the formulaic qualities of those genres: easy to learn, hard to master?

9) Awasi Gestapo Lepas--The Secret Prostitutes
New old-school punk band from Houston, sings in Indonesian, sounds like toddlers all hopped up on pixie stix. Even more delightful in reality than it sounds like in theory.

10) Rock For Light--Bad Brains
Hippie hardcore! Peace and love, bro.

11) Calling Dr. Modo--Shit Dogs
Baton Rouge's first punk band, a bunch of hippies whose ethos owed as much to Space Ritual as it did to the Ramones. This one leans more to the latter, detailing the perhaps-mythical figure of "Dr. Modo," who performs the service of removing unwanted cats. PETA would not approve.

12) Rocket 58--The Minders
Playful lo-fi garage pop from one of the lesser Elephant 6 acts.

13) Down and Out--Camper Van Beethoven
Look, David Lowery's mocking the hipsters again!

If you are old, or a hipster, you can reminisce and/or be mocked below.

This Mess of Spinning Plates: The Top Eleven Songs at 3:57

Thu, 21 May 2009 06:41:02 +0000

One of the songs I was considering for this list was Bruce Springsteen's Prove It All Night. As I was listening to it, knowing that it would not be able to crack the list, I began trying to figure out exactly what it is about Springsteen that doesn't connect with me in the way it so obviously does for millions of others. Springsteen's music makes a lot of good choices, borrows deftly from solid antecedents, and generally is played with great skill and brio. So, what am I missing?

I touched on this issue here, in a comment on a Bruce song that did make a list--but I don't think I got to the heart of the matter. There, I suggested that once Springsteen got too far away from his actual working-class existence, all he had left was the mythology; but upon further reflection, even in the earlier stuff, it's the mythology that bugs me. I recognize these situations and characters from movies, but not from anything I’ve experienced in real life. The desperation, the longing, the frustration, the horniness: all real and universal stuff, but so laden with Springsteen’s working-class mysticism, that when you step back and look at it outside of the heavy romanticism of the Springsteen filter, it begins to seem faintly ridiculous to write such grand epics about leaving New Jersey.

(Note that I am pretty sure "Born to Run" will make its list, so I am not wholly immune to the charms of Bruce--just resistant. And I halfway suspect, and am willing to be convinced, that some of this may be a boomer thing--that people who were teenagers in the 60s and 70s may identify with the Springsteen ethos more closely than I am able.)

Anyway, the really ironic part is that Springsteen is held up as an icon of realism and authenticity. You know, writing songs about real people with real emotions dealing with real situations. But I ask you: how many people do you know whose lives are that freighted with gothic-level tragedy and romance? These songs are not, for the most part, gritty; they are Romantic poems that happen to be set in New Jersey.*

*The big exception would probably be Nebraska. I should revisit that.

Project Index

The Top Eleven Songs at 3:57

1) Eight Miles High--Hüsker Dü
The top of this list is formidably strong, and I've gone back and forth on the order of the top three for a week. Having failed to reach clarity on the subject, it's time to just rank them. Tomorrow I'll feel I should have arranged them differently.

Thinking about this track as a cover has helped me to realize that I shouldn't devalue songs just because the performers didn't write them. A lot of people might make that argument, but I bet a lot of them don't really believe it (see: "All Along the Watchtower').

I am not arguing that Hüsker Dü's take is better than The Byrds'--I'd call them roughly equal--but this is one of the great covers, in which Bob Mould's microdot guitar achieves the alchemical transmutation of flower power into shredded fury, losing none of the original's wonder along the way.

2) This Mess We're In--PJ Harvey
One of my favorite songwriting tricks was to copy an existing riff or melody, then change the key, the strum pattern, the tempo, etc., adding in changes from the other band members until we had a completely different song. When we copied this one for Trinity Church, we didn't change it enough; but, good taste in thievery, right?*

I wonder what awesomeness would result if Thom Yorke and PJ Harvey did a whole album of duets; their voices just sound great playing off each other. In this, one of Yorke's finest vocals, his velvet voice sounds like a bow sliding across strings.

*When that trick worked, it was golden! No one can tell that Wicked Ways was originally based on "Folsom Prison Blues."

3) Like Spinning Plates--Radiohead
A soundtrack to romantic alienation, with a backwards melody sung forwards, as if it were backwards. Got that? A product of studio fuckery that loses none of the emotional immediacy of less-fussed over stuff.

4) Death or Glory--The Clash
Such wisdom for such young men. The idea that rebellion flames out, that all the hotspurs wind up making compromises and become boring old dads, was not at all obvious to me as a teenager. My reaction to this song at 17 was, “Hell yeah, Joe Strummer! Give it to those hypocritical sellouts!” The joke was on me. But it was one of those extremely slow-to-explode jokes, where you finally get it years later, in this case after the original teller of the joke has died! Funny, that.

5) You're a Better Man Than I--The Yardbirds
In a time of strident protest songs, this one makes its point with an ironically-intended compliment, which in different hands (I’m looking at you, Bob Dylan) might sound smug or angry. But Keith Relf’s vocal is confident without arrogance, and maybe stands a chance of convincing someone on the other side of the argument, which is supposed to be the point, right?

The Yardbirds didn't have the depth of catalog that the other great 60s British groups did, but I bet their best five songs would stand up pretty well to the best five of The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles, and The Stones. Maybe not beat them, but it would be close. If anybody wants a piece of that experiment, there's a journal idea for you.

6) Oh My Lover--PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey sells emotional torment with so much more soul than her contemporaries, the post-grunge angstmonsters. It’s her resonant scary voice, in part, but it’s also the production choices, which emphasize the human scale of the instruments—it’s like listening to amps in a practice room instead of a PA in an arena.

7) We Dream in Sound--Elf Power
Outside of Neutral Milk Hotel, the Elephant 6 bands weren't terribly original, but they were such a blast of fresh melodic noise in the wake of the mainstreaming of alt-grunge in all its noisy anguish. Their home-brewed psychedelic harmonies and creaky production were a welcome contrast to all that studio-slick baritone moping.

8) Unknown Tongue--Blue Öyster Cult
Questions, yes. What the hell is happening in this song? Is it a supernatural visitation, or a metaphor for a spiritual awakening? Something significant has happened, but then Margaret does normal things the next day: is she going in disguise? In what way has Margaret been helped? Hurt? I'm guessing that it has something to do with masturbation and/or menstruation, but it's wrapped up with what appears to be a sexualization of the touch of the Holy Spirit. I'm also guessing that devout Catholics can't be too happy about all this, especially if they can figure it out any better than I can.

9) Teen Archer--Blue Öyster Cult
Lots of doubles on this list, huh? This is jumpin’ revved-up boogie of the early 70s flavor, but with that BOC spin that isn’t quite like anything else. Discuss: right now, what age is the dividing line between people who think "BOC" means this band, and people who think it means "Boards of Canada'?

10) Sing a Simple Song--Sly & The Family Stone
The B-side of “Everyday People,” which will probably make its list when I get to 2:22. Even if you disregard “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” which would place highly on a theoretical list of “Top Ten Summer Songs,” Sly is just about perfect urban summer music, the joyous effervescent soundtrack to open fire hydrants and barbecuing on the sidewalk.

11) Black Betty--Ram Jam
Theoretically speaking, does this count as a guilty pleasure?

When I was in college, a friend of mine made a mix tape that was all mellow sleepytime stuff, except for this song. One time several of us passed out in a room with that mix tape playing on infinite repeat, and every 90 minutes, "Black Betty" would wake us all up, but not for long enough to actually get up and turn off the tape. Hell no, there's no point to that story. We were all drunk. What was the point of that damned mix tape, is what I want to know.

And for my final number, here is some cat typing. I inserted some line breaks, to make it more poetic.

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Radios Appear

Sat, 9 May 2009 07:51:53 +0000

It has come to management's attention that some listeners to my library may have experienced whiplash and sonic dislocation from the wild mood swings inherent in a random selection of tunes from my entire collection.

This should not be construed as an admission that any injury has occurred or is likely to occur. However, in the unlikely event that any injuries may have occurred, management is pleased to offer the following new OSHA-approved radio stations:

Gasoline Sweat: Garage, punk, hard country, surf, electric blues, grit, etc.

Slow Motion Lightspeed Nutty Buddy: Psychedelia, in the broadest sense. Generally downtempo, but with surprises to enchant and mystify.

Perfect Universe Top 40: Power pop and sugar melodies. Based loosely off a mix tape I made once with that title.

Robot Funky Chicken: Get your boogie shoes on. Funk, electro, uptempo soul, disco, dance-ish post-punk.

Fly safely, from the comfort of your chairs.

A Funny Thing About Regret: The Top Twelve Songs from 5:51-5:54

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 06:10:14 +0000

A funny thing about regret is, that it’s better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven’t done."
--The Butthole Surfers

Because it was established last time that everyone loves Kids In America, what, exactly, is there to feel guilty about? Are snide hipsters going to stop by to jeer? Well, maybe; that's why the Internet was invented. But that's their loss. I feel more guilt about what I don't like than what I do like. I regret that I don't like most jazz. Or traditional folk. Or hip-hop. Really old acoustic blues. Hair metal. Prog. Grindcore. I feel as if I've failed to appreciate the value in those genres, that I am too much of a philistine to "get" them.

Alright--I don't really regret that I dislike grindcore. Point #1: Nobody likes everything. The specific shape, color, and contours of taste make having what we call "taste" interesting. It's why we are curious to look through other people's record collections/iPods/last.fm top artist lists. Point #2: That said, I really do wish I could borrow the individual tastes of others, and hear records that I don't like with ears that do. I might learn something.

I also regret that Sweat Loaf wasn't 20 seconds shorter, because it would be neat to have it on this particular list, since I used the quote as an opener. That stupid long fade-in: Gibby Haynes, you have done me wrong.

Project Index

The Top Twelve Songs from 5:51 to 5:54

1) The Battle of Evermore--Led Zeppelin
An atmospheric masterpiece that owes everything to the spooky interplay of Robert Plant's and Sandy Denny's intertwined vocals. Here is an amusing thread of Tolkien/Zep fans arguing about what the lyrics mean, which reminds me: Led Zeppelin was an unbelievably (and secretly!) nerdy band given how popular they were (and are), and especially for their specific variety of popularity, i.e. among hard rockers and early metalheads. Why is Rush generally acknowledged to be nerdy while Zep largely escapes that label? Is it just because Zep sang about both Hobbits and handjobs? While Rush moved on from singing about Hobbits to singing about outer space voyages? Does a nerd who brags about getting laid cease to be a nerd?

Note to offended nerds: I will be attending the Star Trek premiere next week, at midnight, with a friend who will be dressed up as Captain Kirk. So lay off, I'm one of you.

Note to offended Zep fans: Yes, I said it. Look deep inside yourself and you will find essence of nerd.

2) The National Anthem--Radiohead
It pains me to put this second, because I really, really love this song. It's the realization of Radiohead's promise; Radiohead is a band that never fails to be interesting, but a lot of the time they are more interesting than good. Not so in this heavy psych track with hell horns and a sampled coda that comes out of nowhere yet feels perfect.

3) Come Home Baby Julie, Come Home--The American Analog Set
A simple laid-back groove, caressed to tumescence, and finished with ringing vibes. The lyrics are barely there, but it’s still a marvelous love song.

4) Westfall--Okkervil River
A dramatic monologue on the banality of evil; I guess you could call this a murder ballad without a motive, which is both mystifying and to the point: "evil don't look like anything." James had this as his #1 on another list.

5) Like a Prayer--Madonna
As promised last time, a song for you to look at with disdain. So much of the talk about Madonna seems to focus on her iconic cultural status rather than her music, but she wouldn't be quite as big an icon if there wasn't some substance behind it. Here is an example of brilliant pop songwriting—a memorable chorus, dramatic verse melody, and hooks for miles and miles. Subtle changes in accompaniment throughout keep it interesting at this length, as the mood changes from “dark mystery” to “joyous celebration.” Yes, that's more the producer's doing than the performer's, but do we dock the Beatles for George Martin's contributions? Didn't think so; it's a silly argument.

6) Never Say Never--Romeo Void
For music theory nerds, it's a dominant 7th that never resolves (so I've been told). For me, it's the military relentlessness of the riff battling with the anarchy of the sax.

When I was in college in New Orleans, my dorm roommate Lance and I used to go to a gay club on Wednesday night because it was men's night, meaning we could each get two free drinks, just for having penises! I have fond memories of dancing to "Never Say Never" at that club.

7) Emmaline--Urge Overkill
This successful cover brings 70s pop-funk to 90s “modern rock” listeners. It's pretty faithful, and actually way bluesier and sweatier than the original, which has a note of bubblegum that makes it hard to take as seriously.

8) Bohemian Rhapsody--Queen
It's the kind of pretentious bombast I usually dislike, and I would especially hate to see it widely imitated, because if you tried to pull this kind of thing off and failed, it would not be pretty. But "Bohemian Rhapsody" is truly extraordinary, both for its time and for today. It gathers mid-70s arena rock, prog, and pop, and brings them together under the umbrella of…opera? How odd! But doesn’t take itself so seriously that it ceases to be fun.

Was this widely imitated? No, don't tell me. Wait, yes, tell me. If it was, I have to look. I might regret it, but as Gibby says...

9) Silver>Blue--Thurston Moore
Sonic Youth on acoustic guitar, stripped of the feedback freakouts, which lays bare the intricate melodic songwriting that has always underpinned most of those freakouts. They really should have had an MTV Unplugged session. Would have been a classic.

10) Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)--B.T. Express
Horns, Hammond organ, scratchy wah-wah porn guitar. I would like a revival of this sound, please.

11) Love, Reign O'er Me--The Who
Less punk, more “Godfather,” but Daltrey’s howling vocal validates the blustery grandeur.

12) SingKingHeart--Rudjak Manigz
A swoopy, floaty, blurred, and manipulated “My Heart Will Go On,” defamiliarizing the melody to rescue its emotionalism from the syrup of Celine Dion's original. Featuring a chorus of angels, in the original (Biblical) scary-loud blow-your-mind sense.

Available on the Extracted Celluloid compilation from Illegal Art.

I Would Regret Not Mentioning These

Color Of A Lonely Heart Is Blue--Old 97's
Built to Spill--Built to Spill
The Demon--Emily Jane White

Everybody loves to talk about guilt, so go right ahead.

Index to an Impossible Project

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:13:52 +0000

What is This?
I'm making ranked lists of songs by length, with the laughable goal of making a list for each and every song length. Really, it's more about the writing and the discussion than the actual rankings. This is the index to that project.

I. Chronological

Intro: The Perils and Delights of Ranked Lists
Sketching out a rationale for the project.

Perfect Circle of Doo Doo: 3:27
There is no perfect length. Top song:
Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

Tests of Time: 2:32
Overfamiliarity. Top Song: Temptation Inside Your Heart

Snowflakes, Ghosts, Detritus: 4:08
Carpe diem before your culture forgets. Top song: Sweet Jane

Mysterious Lamps and Ashtrays: 3:40
The frustrations of criteria. Top song: Pancho And Lefty

Mixtapes and the Virtues of Brevity: 1:57/1:58
Mixtape hints. Top song: Secondary Modern

The Psychology of Guilty Pleasures: 3:14
The most popular topic. Top song: Alone Again Or

Psychedelic Revelators: 6:20-6:24
Inhabiting sprawl. Top song: Revelator

Plowing Through: 2:54
The one before the Deerhunter show for which I lazily never wrote a review. Top song: Earn Enough for Us

It Should Have Been a Hit: 4:42/4:43
Alternate universes with different hits! Top song: She Pays The Rent

Bad Teacher: 2:25
The worst Christmas song. Top song: Tipitina

Listening to Your Drugs: 4:20
"Enhanced" listening. Top song: Come Together

Daddy Sang Tenor, Crazy in Love: 2:35
My father and his resemblance to country music. Top song: Walkin' After Midnight

Blood Meridian: 5:55-5:59
Cormac McCarthy comments. Top song: Call of the West

The Tyranny of Melody: 3:35
Power pop is a cul-de-sac. Top song: The Real Sheila

Halftime Entertainment: 2:44
Who gets to perform at the Super Bowl? Top song: Folsom Prison Blues

I Am Trying to Make Weird Noises: 6:50-6:59
"Experimental" vs. "psychedelic." Top song: Hallelujah

Blue Suede Goats: 1:48-1:50
Mildly stunned, followed by trepanning. Top song: Rave On

Soundtrack Strategies: 3:11
Watchmen, Tarantino, soundtracks. Top song: The Times They Are A-Changin'

Silly Little Lists: 3:29
Predictability, trajectory, marching up and down the square. Top song: Gardening at Night

A Funny Thing About Regret: 5:51-5:54
Why it diminishes me to not like stuff. Top song: The Battle of Evermore

This Mess of Spinning Plates: 3:57
More on the Springsteen problem. Top song: Eight Miles High

Virtually Everyone's Singing a Popular Song: 1:32 to 1:35
Proof of age; acceptance of proof; refusal to accept consequences. Top song: Mystery Dance

The Oddity of Classic Rock: 4:33
Some things belong, other things don't. Top song: Born to Run

II. Organized by Song Length

1:32-1:35
1:48-1:50
1:57/1:58
2:25
2:32
2:35
2:44
2:54
3:11
3:14
3:27
3:29
3:35
3:40
3:57
4:08
4:20
4:33
4:42/4:43
5:51-5:54
5:55-5:59
6:20-6:24
6:50-6:59

III. Stats

Oh, yes. There will be stats.4:33

Silly Little Lists: The Top Ten Songs at 3:29

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:10:03 +0000

I worry. Are these lists getting predictable? And is that necessarily a bad thing? Wouldn't it be bizarre to have ten completely new artists on each new list? That's not taste, that's just diversity for its own sake. Nonetheless, I'm running out of things to say about the Ramones.

The fact that this project is not a snapshot but a trajectory might just save it; I am counting on having new things to talk about as I proceed. But yeah--this thing is still impossible to imagine finishing. I'm only going to do it as long as it's fun--otherwise I'm Sergeant Major, marching up and down the square:

Counting the intro piece, this is the 19th of these silly little lists. Only 200-odd silly little lists left to go! At this glacial pace, that means I'll be finished sometime early in the 2020s, by which time music will be obsolete. Also, lists will be horribly unfashionable. Especially ranked lists, with their authoritarian and anti-inclusive bias against the vast array of things that aren't on the list. Good God, what a minefield. I have probably already caused someone offense merely by broaching the topic. My insensitivity knows no bounds.

NOTE: Index is coming soon.

The Top Ten Songs at 3:29

1) Gardening at Night--R.E.M.
Stipe’s holy haunted altar-boy falsetto floats over Buck’s sunny jangle; the benefit of the mumbly vocals and oblique lyrics is to reap the rewards of sounding earnest without having to actually commit to being earnest about something in particular.

2) Tiger Mountain Peasant Song--Fleet Foxes
My primary reservation about Fleet Foxes, the thing that keeps me from loving them unconditionally, is their too-heavy reliance on 70s soft folk influences: they feel too sanitized. But this one is a quiet fire, the softness just barely containing a despair that threatens to burst the song's construction. A strong traditional verse/chorus gives way to coda that implodes the lyrical abstractions to reveal an intensely personal confession: “Jesse, I don’t know what I have done. I’m turning myself into a demon.”

3) Regenisraen--Game Theory
Here is some Christmas music I can really get behind. The lyrics only barely mention Christmas, but it has a beautifully melancholic wintry feel, the choral harmonies evoking a spiritual awe like a more existential "O Holy Night." Let's get this in the Christmas music rotation!

4) Memories Can't Wait--Talking Heads
Indicator of high album quality: often when a random song from Fear of Music comes up in a mix, I think “This is surely the best song on this record.” This hallucinatory yawp suggests an acid trip that won’t end, or perhaps the world of a catatonic, or simply someone so traumatized that he is unable to stop reliving what he has already experienced, which is unsettlingly close to normal and universal human experience.

5) When We're Dead And Gone--The Moaners
I love musical collisions, such as this sweaty old slide and harmonica electric blues topped with a sweet girl group melody about death.

6) No More Heroes--The Stranglers
In answer to the question, well, Bono came along, and the world lived in peace and harmony under his benevolent rule.

7) Down in the Valley of Hollow Logs--The Handsome Family
A thematic/stylistic collision here, as the dissonance of a science fiction apocalypse merges with a stately murder ballad. Two lovers laying in the grass poetically profess their love for each other, then commit suicide in anticipation of what seems to be a nuclear holocaust. It begs the question of what meaning a suicide pact has when death is already imminent and certain; I suppose it’s about volition, and the idea that insane romantic gestures actually make sense under those conditions.

8) Amelia--Cocteau Twins
Regardless of what Liz Fraser may actually be singing about, for me the Cocteau Twins have always been primarily about sex, or at least its romantic abstraction. All those trills and lush orchestration, y'know? Yes, actual sex is a bit dirtier and gruntier, but this is what it sounds like when the endorphins throw a gauzy tent over all that mammal lust.

9) Nothing Is True--The Jim Carroll Band
Jim Carroll’s junkie poetry thinks it’s cooler and smarter than it actually is, but his band’s lean twin-guitar attack is cool enough, borrowing Television’s tough melodicism and playing it faster.

10) She's a Sensation--Ramones
The Ramones at their most pop-friendly, which is pretty friendly indeed. Such a shame radio did not agree at the time.

The Most Annoying Song at 3:29

Only a Pawn in Their Game--Bob Dylan
This lame explanation of why poor whites don’t share a “class consciousness” with their brothers is the nadir of hippie philosophy, espousing the dangerous idea that individuals are not responsible for their actions. It posits governors and law enforcement as puppet masters, but didn’t they grow up in the same culture? How do they deserve blame if these other folks can’t think for themselves? When you defend “pawns” with this paternalistic, patronizing bullshit, you rob them of their volition and humanity. Boo.

Now you can march up and down the square with me, unless there's something else you'd rather be doing. Off with you, then.

Soundtrack Strategies: The Top Twelve Songs at 3:11

Thu, 2 Apr 2009 07:43:59 +0000

After seeing Watchmen a second time (yes—loved it, although it’s not perfect), one of the things that struck me was how BIG the soundtrack selections were: I’m thinking specifically of the long set pieces scored to The Times They Are A-Changin', The Sounds of Silence, and All Along the Watchtower. All three are soundtrack-of-a-generation type songs, music and words in which millions of people have invested themselves emotionally. I can understand the thought behind the selections: you’re trying to invest an alternate history of the late 20th century with both the familiarity and power of big songs. The strategy is to put the songs in a slightly different historical chain of events, inviting us to reflect on how they signify differently in a world where a giant blue guy won the Vietnam War for the United States.

At least that’s what it invited me to do; your mileage may vary. Although the film deploys the songs brilliantly—the “Times” and “Silence” sequences might be the best parts of the movie—I think the use of songs that BIG carries with it an inherent flaw: songs like that have been already used in so many contexts, both in media and in the audience’s personal histories, that they have been almost drained of their power of signification. It’s as if they are coasting on our individual and collective memory of what they used to be able to do, when they were fresher.

The sharpest contrast to that soundtrack strategy comes from Quentin Tarantino’s films, which make a virtue of choosing odd, little-known, or forgotten songs to accompany the action. The songs he chooses don’t have the burden of bigness, which allows them to fill the narrative gaps in a unique way. No one had associated Stuck in the Middle With You with cutting off a policeman's ear, and now we all do. Tarantino’s music selections are much more specifically evocative, because they don’t carry a lot of baggage.

On the other hand, most of the difference has to do with the size of the story. Watchmen creates an entirely new world, with events that affect everyone on Earth, while Tarantino tells stories about events that might make the local news. It would have been ridiculous for Zack Snyder to stage the Comedian’s funeral to Flowers on the Wall, just as it would have been pretentious for Tarantino to use “The Sounds of Silence” after Vincent Vega shoots Marvin in the face.

Questions (if you've seen the film): what not-so-big songs might have served well during the Watchmen sequences? What might have been lost or gained by the switch? Or do they need to be big songs? I'm thinking aesthetic more than commercial considerations, but if you want to touch on the business of it, that's fine too.

Or, if you have counterexamples to my general hypothesis, I'd love to hear them.

Intro
3:27
2:32
4:08
3:40
1:57/1:58
3:14
6:20-6:24
2:54
4:42/4:43
2:25
4:20
2:35
5:55-5:59
3:35
2:44
6:50-6:59
1:48-1:50

You know what? I think it's time for an index. I'll get on that next time.

The Top Twelve Songs at 3:11

1) The Times They Are A-Changin'--Bob Dylan
After my last journal, I figure I'd better throw a bone out to the Dylan fans. So here you go--happy now?

As a lyricist, Dylan is at his plainspoken best here. I wonder if he knew that he was writing a song that would outlast the conflicts of the 60s? That it would be universal enough to apply similarly to generations not yet born? And did the youth of the 60s also realize the irony that the anthem they adopted contained arguments that could one day be used against them?

2) Strange Fruit--Billie Holliday
A while back, I asked my commenters for death songs, and Barbara came up with this great suggestion. It retains its power after almost 80 years; it's the magnitude of the juxtaposition of the genteel south in the smell of magnolias with the unpleasant and graphic truth of the lynchings. This is shocking today; how shocking it must have been in the 1930s!

3) Miss Misery--Elliot Smith
A suicide plea, poignant because of what actually happened to Elliot Smith, but also because of the elision of the difference and distance between the absent lover and misery itself. Who is the singer in love with? I’ve been in that place, and can attest that the misery can be both more comfortable and more attractive that the absent lover. Also, I love that there are two ways to read the refrain lyric gramatically: as a direct address (to Miss Misery), or as a repetition of the verb "miss," so that Smith is asking, "Do you miss misery?"

4) Sexy Sadie--The Beatles
One of Lennon’s most successful late-Beatles compositions, a strange and weary-sounding chord progression that develops into something hopeful and aspiring, while Lennon undercuts the hope by singing “you made a fool of everyone.” Lennon says it’s about the Maharishi, but Charles Manson infamously provided his own interpretation to this and other songs from the same album, arguing by implication and bloody example against intentionalism as an interpretive strategy.

5) The Black Angel's Death Song--The Velvet Underground
The first time I heard The Velvet Underground & Nico, in a dorm room when I was 19 years old, I knew at the time that I was hearing one of those rare records that would change the way I thought about music. It was like nothing else I had ever heard, yet it fit in perfectly with stuff I already liked, as if it was filling in a Velvet Underground-shaped hole. I know music lovers hyperbolize about that sort of thing all the time, but I really mean it--mine is a short list. This, Slanted & Enchanted...there might be one or two others.

6) You Little Fool--Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Typically sharp Costello cynicism as he ruminates about the "imitation of love" while showing that the characters in the song don't know enough to make the distinction. Geoff Emerick's fussy production, painted up like an imitation love song, ornaments and underpins the sentiment.

7) Trail of Time--The Knitters
Gorgeous X harmonies on this mournful country ballad. On the album, this song is credited to "Alton Delmar," which I dutifully googled and came up empty, which is shocking these days. I finally figured out that it must be Alton DELMORE, of The Delmore Brothers, but I don't think they ever recorded it. Does anyone know who recorded this song first? JC? Ack? Help?

8) Amanda Ruth--Rank and File
Cowpunk! Why did we stop using that term again? Cause it couldn’t have been that we liked the unlovely “alt country” better. “Alt country” sounds like a keyboard shortcut on a PC.

9) Winterlong--Pixies
A great cover that turns Neil Young's hangdog wistfulness into sprightly pop. If bands in the 80’s released stand-alone singles the way that bands in the 60s did, this would have made a happening b-side to “Here Comes Your Man.”

10) Pink Pussycat--Devo
If you want to read this surf-inflected romp as a misogynistic rape fantasy, I won’t argue against your understanding—that’s pretty much what it is. But it’s also a plainly honest transcription of the idle thoughts of overamped and frustrated teenage boys. Not to mention, it’s hard to take this stuff completely seriously coming from guys in flowerpot hats. It’s a scream from the Id, not a manual on how to treat women. So, guilty pleasure? You decide. I don’t feel guilty about liking it, but it is kind of icky, which as usual is probably the point.

11) Beatrix--Cocteau Twins
From the microgenre of "Medieval Reverb." It's already so echoey and dubby, I took it all the way with a full-on psychedelic dub version, which if you're interested in hearing, I'd be happy to email to you.

12) Amplifier--The dB's
The song is just OK—kind of a loose and ordinary blues much like 1000 other songs. But those other songs don’t have the story of how “she took everything…and what she couldn’t take, she found a way to break.” Except his amplifier. The image of that amplifier sitting in the middle of a mostly-emptied apartment littered with broken stuff—even though the song is about a violent breakup followed by a suicide, that image cracks me up.

Now ya'll can tell me what a callous, hard-hearted misogynist I am.

How to Piss Off a Hippie

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:32:30 +0000

I wrote this about two years ago, posted it elsewhere, and have been saving it for the day when last.fm brings back the recommended reading tab. However, when that day comes, myself and most of my regular commenters may be senile or dead. So, y'know, gather ye rosebuds, etc.

People who love music sometimes identify a little too closely with the musicians/songs they love, to the point that any criticism of those musicians/songs becomes, in the music lover’s mind, a personal attack. That’s true even if the music lover himself had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the music, which is usually the case.

Actually, that’s always the case. If somebody tells Bono, “Everything U2 has done since The Unforgettable Fire is crap,” Bono isn’t going to waste an ounce of energy worrying about that stranger’s opinion. He would be like, “Whatever, dude,” and go off to start a new fashion foundation for the hungry or something. But say the same thing to Obsessive U2 Fan and he will question your motives, insult your taste, ask how many times you were dropped on the head as an infant, and prepare a determined counterattack designed to prove that you are a complete idiot. Because, you see, if you’re not, then guess who the idiot is?

Full disclosure: Yes, I have been guilty of this bizarre behavior, too. But this post isn’t about my idiocy, it’s about the shortcomings of others.

One time when I was living in Philadelphia, I was sitting at a bar next to a gentleman who happened to be very personally invested in the music of Bob Dylan. I was able to detect this because his superpower was obviously the ability to make Bob Dylan the subject of the conversation, no matter what the opening gambit was. (My superpower is the ability to avoid fistfights by talking my way out of them, but that’s a topic for another time.) Anyway, his superpower was beginning to annoy the hell out of me, so I tried this: “Man, Bob Dylan is so overrated. I’m a better songwriter than Bob Dylan.”

Predictably, that flustered the man, who no doubt had endured many criticisms of Dylan’s lack of vocal range, his uneven creative output, his easily mocked persona, etc. Mr. Dylan Fan probably had some great counterarguments to all of those things, but they were just as probably boring.

Of course my claim (to be a better songwriter than Bob Dylan) was ridiculous. I may as well have claimed to be a better dictator than Stalin, except that I have actually written some songs, and I have yet to try out dictating. Anyway, a wilier opponent would have put the burden on me to defend such a ridiculous claim. Instead, he could only sputter incredulously about Dylan’s place as the greatest songwriter of all time and blah blah blah.

So I gave him a task: I borrowed a pen from the bartender, grabbed some bar napkins, and told him to write down ten lines from Bob Dylan songs that he considered great. This had the unforeseen benefit of making him shut up for a long time while he considered which of the thousands of lines from Bob Dylan songs would most decisively expose my idiocy for all the world to ridicule.

What he did not know was that it made no difference at all which lines he selected and carefully wrote down on the bar napkins, because I had already prepared my responses:
1) “That’s crap.”
2) “Juvenile.”
3) “Completely derivative.”
4) “This doesn’t even rhyme.”
5) “I guess this one’s OK, except Abba expressed it much better.”

And so on. Winner of the argument? ME!

The ironic part is, the situation was setting up perfectly to give me a chance to use my superpower, except I had forgotten that I was arguing with a hippie. Ah, I wasn’t in the mood to almost fight or barely avoid a severe beating anyway.