Since I am, as ever, a pawn of the music bloggers, I read this list of the 25 hip-hop albums of all time, and then, I bought Digable Planets' Blowout Comb the next chance I got. And it's so great.
OMG twist! R Kelly, the M Night Shyamalan of R&B? Watch "Same Girl", R Kelly feat. Usher. Watch the ending!
If I weren't a fan of the Dirty Projectors, I might think that the concept of their new album--a reinterpretation of Black Flag's Damaged, made without listening to the original album, recorded on a four-track that Dave Longstreth picked up mid-inspiration at the local music shop (apparently), but with merely a 25-year-old memory of said album and its songs & lyrics--that concept, well, I might find it a bit pretentious. And I'm not going to say that it isn't, but I am going to say that I loved e.g. The Getty Address enough to give it the benefit of the doubt. (Listen to "No More".)
2007 is really shaping up to be the year of R. Kelly, isn't it? He's just been everywhere this year, and it's only March!
Here are a couple of tracks, either from late 2006 or 2007, all of which are pretty great. Everyone should listen to them.
Okay, so American Idol tonight? The contestants can choose from any song in the 2000s—and what do these connoisseurs of fine modern pop choose? Creed, Tim McGraw, & a boring Beyoncé song. [2]
Now, so: I understand there are licensing issues, &c.
But seriously, what the fuck?
So, dear future—or current—Idol contestants, should this particular challenge week ever again rear its ugly head, here are some suggestions [3].
(Or the Hey Willpower + Annie version thereof.) Perhaps not a particularly tough vocal, but still a nice combination of a sort of charm & sexuality. Kellie, perhaps, but it may be too far out of her country comfort zone.
So, I know that Backstreet Boys specifically—& boy pop in general—aren’t exactly in vogue, but seriously: this is brilliant pop music, and I’d expect someone like Ace to be able to pull this off, synchronized camera pouts & all.
Now this: I could see Elliot just eating this up. It’s a novelty song, sure, but it’s got that wannabe-Stevie-but-angry-&-nasty thing going on.
It’s not a competition without Girls Aloud! Honestly, I don’t know who could do this justice. Maybe it’d have to be a group thing, like those strange group performances they do from time to time.
Taylor, I’m looking at you, you symbol of prematurely gray neo-soul! Plus, miming the keyboard solo would win anyone total points in my book.
She’s my favorite, and while some of these picks are motivated by a sort of morbid curiosity, I would really, really like to hear Paris sing this.
Now, this just might have the right sense of melodrama & bombast to win the crowd ever. If someone like Chris Daughtry were to sing it, it might elevate him from the sub-Stone Temple Pilots rut he’s got himself into now.
Perhaps a bit of an obvious pick, considering his start in the pop business, but this is a top pop song.
& there’s so much more! Justin Timberlake; Shakira; Hey Willpower; Gwen Stefani; Robbie Williams; &c.
And I’ll just say this: if any contestant were to ever sing a chapter of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet”, he/she would be my favorite vote forever, and I would probably be compelled to write some silly application that would vote a million times for that contestant. Or something.
[1] “But who wants to shoot the sheriff?” Oh, Blow Out.
[2] The only inspired choice was Katherine’s choice of Christina Aguilera’s “The Voice Within,” which was just okay in terms of her performance, but it’s hard to ruin that song.
[3] Though if last’s season’s butchering of Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘em Up Style (Oops)” is any indication, the idols-in-training aren’t exactly stellar w/ good pop songs, either.
[4] Well, really, part of the reason I included this song is just so I had an excuse to listen to it, again.
I’ve discovered, after a difficult period of mostly fruitless analysis [1], that when I love a song’s lyrics, I love those lyrics for two very particular reasons:
because they use Proper Nouns;
because they use dialogue in an interesting way.
(&, well, also, because they’re funny.)
To wit: [2]
A Dangerous Woman Up To A Point once said —
“I’ve never read ‘so-and-so’ so why mention him here, in this square
where culprits axe me, my dear.
Tried to enjoy myself at the Society Ball, really I did.
Froze on Union Street, it was springtime, I was just a kid lost in a map
of the stars others called ‘your eyes.’
It was a trap!
It was a good time!
It was a hard to realize! ...
This is from Destroyer’s “A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point,” from Destroyer’s Rubies, which album is quickly becoming my favorite of 2006, by the way. [3] There are so many fucking brilliant sounds & words on this album, & it just gets better for me every time I listen.
Listen to “A Dangerous Woman Up to a Point”.
[1] Read, sitting around on the couch on a Sunday afternoon, quite happily lazy.
[2] See also: the Fiery Furnaces.
[3] Prior to the release—but after the inevitable leaks—I wrote about “Rubies” (i.e., the song, not the album).
Few things are as enjoyable as a long plane ride with an iPod on Shuffle mode. [1] Here's some of what I heard during my flight yesterday.
This is the version from 16 Lovers Lane, but last weekend I bought the new Go-Betweens live DVD/CD, That Striped Sunlight Sound, and I actually watched the DVD. I don't generally watch concert performances, because I don't find them all that interesting to watch from home. But this show is just so amazing, & warm, & fun, that I watched it, and loved it.
Now that almost all of Bitter Tea has leaked, I'm just even more excited than ever about the new album. This is a fairly typical song from what I've heard of the album—quite poppy, but still with some crazy keyboard action. And backwards-singing.
Listening to this all I can think of is just how much the Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists sounds like Guns 'n' Roses. It's really quite amazing: it's the exact same guitar sound, which I suppose is exactly what the Manics were going for.
I can't easily explain why I like Busted. Under many other circumstances, I just really can't stand their brand of aggressively sterile post-punk. But this song is just so fun!
I love this song. Love love love it, & in all of its Beach Boys-sounding self. [2]
Oh dear, oh dear. I've written about this before, I'm quite ashamed to say. And I still love it. [3]
Celebration sounds like a scary carnival ride, with howling, and wild animals, and creepy keyboard-playing carnies, and drunks lurching towards you out of shadows.
But in a good way!
I think this may be one of my favorite songs of all time. "She's hurt you again, I can tell—oh, I know that look so well."—you can almost hear a sly grin on Dusty's face.
[1] Not to mention that plane flights just make me so productive—in part, it's the fact that I have my computer, but I don't have a network connection, so I can actually get things done without getting swamped and/or overwhelmed with incoming email.
[2] And, since I now appreciate Pet Sounds, I'm equipped to make that judgment.
[3] BTW, I am just so fucking sad that Bobby Bennett was voted out this week! His "Copacabana" made me so happy. He was just so awesome.
An unexpected but so wonderfully happy thing that I chanced upon today: Green Gartside is back! He's playing his first shows in more than 25 years, as Double G and the Traitorous 3.
& the best part: he's recorded a new album, which will be released April 2006 in the UK!
Listen to "Boom Boom Bap", one of the new songs. As with Anomie & Bonhomie, I was at first apprehensive—but just as I love that album, I'm already loving "Boom Boom Bap". April can't arrive soon enough! [1]
[1] Being as how it also brings the new Fiery Furnaces album & the US release of the Ark album.
It seems as though I've read about Aztec Camera for years. In fact, one of my more vivid Aztec Camera associations is reading in my BMG Music monthly brochure about a new AC album, which, based on timing—it was around 1990, and I was about 13—must have been Stray.
Needless to say, the artisans at BMG weren't quite able to convince me to try out Roddy Frame's 90s semi-comeback album. After all, I was probably on the self-selected Hard Rock regimen, & then at the time, I probably stuck with Living Color, or EMF. Or something.
But so anyway, just last week I downloaded an Aztec Camera track. The track was "We Could Send Letters," and I listened to it for the first time yesterday afternoon, & it just fit, somehow.
& so this weekend I headed down to Amoeba and bought High Land, Hard Rain, the first Aztec Camera album. [1]
Anyway, for anyone else who's new to Aztec Camera, the (really short version of the) story: AC is largely just Roddy Frame, from Scotland, and High Land, Hard Rain, released in 1983 (when Roddy was just 19!), is an incredible set of songs about (what else?) love & loss. The obvious musical reference points are The Orange Juice & Elvis Costello, but there's also something much more pastoral about Aztec Camera, sort of an XTC-ish [2] English countryside vibe.
& the tracks on High Land, Hard Rain contain some of the loveliest acoustic guitar playing I've heard in a long time, particularly in e.g. "We Could Send Letters" & "Lost Outside the Tunnel."
I've only had it for about a day now, but I'm already realizing that it's one of those albums that you listen to both sad & happy, happy knowing that you'll love it forever, & it will never grow old, but sad both because you've missed it for 27 years of your life, & but also because it's just a sad, heartbroken sort of an album.
Listen to "Pillar to Post", from High Land, Hard Rain
[1] Also purchased this weekend:
[2] BTW, speaking of XTC, did anyone see the Chicago auditions for "American Idol"? That first guy, that guy who sang something I can't remember, but then launched into a ridiculously aggressive version of "Making Plans for Nigel"—that just had me dying. He was all like, "Nigel, Nigel, Nigel!".