Revised Perspectives

So last summer, Zuke was kind enough to burn me three CDs of music that I needed to be introduced to. He and Jerry recieved my initial reactions, many of which were not very favorable. Suffice to say, those feelings have changed a bit. Here's the roundup:

Jimi Hendrix (Purple Haze, Are You Experienced, Spanish Castle Magic, Rain Day Dream Away, All Along the Watchtower): Hendrix is a fantastic, lyrical guitar player and I don't mind his vocal weakness too much. When he's playing actual songs (eg. All Along the Watchtower, the famous Dylan cover), he sounds better than in his "looser" tracks (eg. Rain Day...). Pretty good.

The Who (My Generation, Pinball Wizard, Behind Blue Eyes, Baba O' Reily, I Can See For Miles): Sigh. Keith Moon exploding on drums! Moving bass bits from... uh, Entwhistle was it? My Generation is worth it for the drumming alone, and the vocal harmonics on I Can See For Miles are really awesome. The singer guy does the more biting songs better, I think (over Behind Blue Eyes). Unfortunately, their lyrics hamstring them. Pinball Wizard is a little ridiculous.

The Rolling Stones (Gimme Shelter, Street Fighting Man, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction): Oh dear lord, that singer is grating. And I dislike the guitar tone on Satisfaction. When there are other people singing in addition (Gimme Shelter), they're not so bad. Emotionally inaccessible, to say the least.

Led Zepplin (Good Times Bad Times, Communication Breakdown, Rock + Roll, Stairway to Heaven): Eh, you know, they exist, I guess. Not terribly offensive, but not terribly amazing. Stairway to Heaven is kinda cool, though the singer tries (and fails) to sound really sincere.

Bob Dylan (The Times They Are A'Changing, Like A Rolling Stone, Subterranean Homesick Blues): Ugh. Dylan's voice : My Ears :: Cheese Grater : My Skin. Nasal singer's aren't usually bad. But this, this is ridiculous. He would sound whiny normally, but his lyrics make him sound like The Official Whine-Master. Such ridiculously heavy-handed political sledghammering. Like a Rolling Stone comes across as pretentious moralizing in the worst way (and I sometimes like pretention!). Apologies to Jerry, I guess. His lyrics ARE better than Britney's or System of a Down's, not that that's saying very much.

David Bowie (Space Oddity, Young Americans, Suffragette City, Lady Stardust, Starman, Rock 'N' Roll Suicide): Hmm. Bowie sounds like he's being at least marginally creative with his music, as seen in the rather dark Space Oddity. Unfortunately, what I am sure are brilliant compositions are buried under a repulsive aura of Schmalz. Or being too sing-song-y, like Starman. Feh. His voice isn't that bad.

The Beatles (Back in the USSR, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Come Together, Eleanor Rigby): Back in the USSR is great fun, though I really wish they'd bend the bluesy formula even further than they already have. The guitar work on While My Guitar... is pretty awesome, even if the song comes across as a touch saccharine. Come Together's seamless blending of the bass into the percussion before Lennon shouts some brilliance at us. Eleanor Rigby is gorgeous and sad, with effective, though not brilliant, string work.

(There's a song from Steppen Wolf in the compilation, I was underwhelmed. Same goes for "Hot Rod Lincoln" by some band with a long name)

The Cars (Good Times Roll, Moving in Stereo): IT'S "GOOD TIMES ROLL", NOT "GOOD TIMES ROW", DAMMIT! Moving in Stereo is interesting for, oh, about two minutes with the weird voices and something about a shoe.

Boston (More Than A Feeling, Rock and Roll Band): Uh. Seems kinda overblown. Rock and Roll Band has ridiculous lyrics and doesn't even sound convincing.

The Doors (Take It As It Comes, LA Woman, Touch Me): Uh. Not quite as bad as Boston. They just sort of fail to rivet me with anything fantastic. Sort of like nitrogen, you know? The Doors are there, I guess. Doesn't matter to me.

AC/DC (Highway to Hell, Live Wire): On the occasions I can get past the singer's gravelly voice, I find, what? Repetitive power chords and uninspired solos? Great. At least they have more balls than, say, Weezer.

ZZ Top (La Grange): I don't like that singer very much. Almost comical. If I can get past the repetitive accompaniment, I find some vaguely cool guitar work.

Bad Company (Bad Company): Ridiculous. I don't buy it, not one bit.

Collective Soul (Precious Declaration): Big and commercial, but kinda fun in a non-amazing sort of way. Tangible hooks there.

Aerosmith (Rats in the Cellar): Oh goodness. I can't find anything redeeming about this song- pick an aspect and I'll probably say it's bad.

Flogging Molly (Devil's Dance Floor): Flogging Molly gets semi-props for theoretically trying to add something to modern powerpop. It doesn't work very well.

Queen ('39, Bohemian Rhapsody): Hee hee hee. Queen is/are funny when I don't take them seriously. Completely overblown, they manage to be very entertaining. Kinda like Opera, and Bohemian Rhapsody seems quite the satire of operatic things. Heh.

The Clash (London Calling): Kill me for ever liking a punk song, but this one's pretty good. It's really scary and ominous and creepy and such.

Creedence Clearwater Revival (Down on the Corner, Have You Ever Seen the Rain): CCR exudes a vibe of wholesomeness and purity. The first isn't amazing, but the second is quite cathartic. Nice.

U2 (Where the Streets Have No Name): I love this song. I don't care if Bono's couplets are kinda banal. They sound heartfelt. The one-and-a-half-minute buildup of gorgeous Eno synths plus a repetitve, chiming Edge guitar pattern, plus Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen's trademark dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum (etc.) driving backing is great.

Van Halen (Runnin' With the Devil, Ain't Talking 'Bout Love): The first isn't all that great. The second opens with a great riff (with a kind of ridiculous tone), but the singing is completely overblown. The secondary riff/solo thing is kinda cool.

George Harrison (Let it Down, Apple Scruffs): Let It Down is really cool with some great cascades of a ton of instruments doing cool stuff. The chorus is nice, too. Apple Scruffs, on the other hand, is terrible. Completely Ridiculous.

Red Hot Chili Peppers (True Men Don't Kill Coyotes, Throw Away Your Television): The first has one beautiful line in "Ridin' wild on a paisley dragon through the Hollywood hills". The rest of it is kinda crude. The second shows Mr. Kiedis and company at a more mature stage- all the layers are displayed on a vivid canvas: a wonderfully syncopated bass line meshing with a syncopated percussion line, Kiedis's cyclic, repetitive vocals and then guitar, synths (and other stuff?) puncturing in at the right moments. There's a really cool electronic-y solo thingy, too.

run the road

I guess this might not be interesting to those of us who associate hip-hop with calc homework in the lounge, but whatever. I Ituned Run the Road, that UK rap, for the second time, and now I eat that shit up. I swear this album was made by hungry wolves or grumpy bears, I'm not sure which. It's like the Bizarro versions of American MCs got together and vomited furiously over beats that sound like robots being strangled and monster trucks crying. It's deliriously uncool, in ways that Americans don't dare; Lady Sovereign anti-rhymes: "I don't have a cat/It died," Kano tells us what we should be minding on "Ps and Qs," somebody named Ears recalls his "Happy Dayz" as sloppily as could be hoped. Dizzee Rascal is a better Jay-Z, Kano is a better Ludacris, Big E-D is a marvelously bad Lil' Jon impersonator. They all rap like starving orphans about to kill you for your ham sandwich. This album made me so hungry I ate a whole fucking horse.

Speaking of Mr. Bungle...

1999's California is totally great. It is probably the best album I have ever heard from the 1998-2005 time period, a time period which I'm pretty critical of, but all the same, it is a testament to the fact that great albums can still be made, despite all my cynicism. It strikes the rare perfect balance of experimention/originality with strong melody/songcraft. Most groups forsake one for the other, or in the case of most bands of the last decade I've heard, possess neither, but Mr. Bungle just does an impressive job all around. The music is schizophrenic, but never loses itself in pretension or artsiness, keeping up a deluge of fine hooks and melodies. It's at least a 12, maybe a 13 candidate (13 = great album.)

I've been listening to the Mars Volta's De-Loused in the Comatorium, and it's grown on me some, although I still need to listen more. My initial reaction was not very good, because it seemed to be shifted way in the direction of experimentation/originality and low on the melody/songcraft. However, a third listen to the album found me finding the songs more appealing. I still think it leaves a bit to be desired. I have all the same problems with it that I did with Yes's Fragile, from way back in 1972, (see old post for details) but the Volta don't strike me as being as good of songwriters as Yes or even as good as players. On the other hand, the Volta kill Yes on density of arrangements, and I'm a sucker for any man who can sing as high as Cedric Bixler-Zavala while doing it with a lot more emotion than Yes's Jon Anderson. I gave Fragile a 12 on the old 1-15 rating scale (12 = an almost great album), and I'd love to give De-Loused the same rating, but I'd have to subtract at least a point for the lyrics. They are the kind of premium bullshit that sunk progressive rock in the first place, and are now preventing it from rising anew. Yeah, I know, I'm supposed to go to the website, and I'm sure it's an interesting story, but I have fundamental problems with having to go to a website to find interpretations of lyrics in the first place.
Again, it comes down to balance. There's too open, and there's too dense, and the Volta's lyrics don't come even close to the middle. What will I rate this album? I have no idea, at this point. Anywhere from 10 to 13, but probably more in the 10-11 range.

TV is good for now

Excerpts from a Swedish interview with Mike Patton and that other dude from Faith No More (the Z in the corner of the screen stands for Zorba's!):



Patton: You're not supposed to think when you listen to music. You're supposed to fucking pickup on a girl. You're supposed to get drunk. You're supposed to listen to it in your car.

Gould: It's supposed to reinforce your life as a productive cow. As a guy who works his ass of all week, y'know, makes a shitty amount of money, gets fucked up on the weekends and listens to music that makes him feel better so that he can go back to work again and work like the drone he is without thinking about their lifes. That's a very cynical way, but that's how the (music)industry's based, y'know. That's the function it fills. You've got to think, you've got to think about who you are, you've got to think about what you're doing, you've got to think about what you think.

Gould: I think it's good to think about it, at least with our music..hey our music is different than a lot of other music, as cooking....and eating food. We're the cooks and we make the food. We use this spice and this spice and these spices, there it is. "Why did you use those spices?" Well taste it! This is why!

Patton: Is it good?

Gould: You like it? You don't like it? Ok.

Patton: You don't like it! Ok, I'm not gonna force it down your throat.

Gould: We use curry and pepper because curry is good with chicken. And when you cook chicken you should use curry and pepper.

Patton: We didn't go to school, we didn't go to cooking-school. There's no exact reason why that+that=that...

Gould: And we're all self-taught musicians too so we kinda like try to work things out on our own.

Patton: Sure. You know it's like you went in and you're eating something and it was *amazing* and afterwards you asked the cook what it was and he told you it was human balls. Would you be upset?

Gould: (Giggles)

Balogh: What do your fans see you as.

Patton: I dont know...

Gould: A lot of times, unfortunately, the fans tend to see us the way media writes about us. They go, like during 'The real thing': "Dear Faith No More, I really love the way you mix funkstyles and metalstyles together. I'm starting a funk-metalband"
During 'Angel Dust':

"You guys are really weird and really different and I like to drink my own piss"

Patton: "You inspired me..."

Gould: Yeah, I mean who the fuck knows. Unfortunately a lot of kids believe what they read.

Patton: Instead of believing what they hear.

Gould: People in the media, there's always an allusion that they know more than everybody else because they're famous and because they're on TV. Ther's a icon type of thing where a person watching TV can see somebody else and think that they know more because that's how they got where they are, that's how come everybody knows who they are. It's wrong to encourage that because people in the media are just equally stupid as anybody. There is no secret of life, nobody knows. All you can do is to comunicate. If you can get a comunication with somebody and you can have a mutual understanding, that's the best you can do.


See, famous people are stupid too. This becomes painfully apparent when you read Ozzy Osbourne's blog:

November 4, 2004
Back to Abbey Road today to record two more cover songs, “Rocky Mountain Way” and “Go Now,” better known to all of us as GONADS! Ha!

Bono, part 2!!!

More "white supremacy".

Where the Streets Have No Name:
Obviously describing his white utopia.
"I want to feel sunlight on my face
See that dust cloud disappear without a trace."
Sunlight is light is white. Dust cloud is brown and yellow - nonwhite!

Bullet the Blue Sky:
Obviously lamenting the bad state of America due to the vareity of races.
"See it driving nails onto souls on the tree of pain" !!

Running to Stand Still:
White Resistance as heroic:

"Under black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen fromt he sea
She is raging..."

Despite the black cloud of oppression, Bono's heroine still delivers the promise of whiteness.

Twilight:
In his early years, he felt oppressed by the various "people of color" around him. Perhaps a bad experience with a male of this race?

"Twilight, lost my way
Twilight, can't find my way
...
In the shadows, boy meets man."

He is misled by racial propoganda, and has an experience with some man.

I Will Follow:
An homage to his long-departed heroes, perhaps?

Plus, the album "The Unforgettable Fire"... advocating arson!?!

Beautiful Day:
Hope for a new white future.

"See China right in front of you" (China as a new target for his movement!)

"See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light and
See a bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood, all the colors came out!"

Addresses the pacification of the middle east, but more importantly, he talks about all the "colors [coming] out!" After the "flood" (some violent campaign, no doubt), there will be no more races. There will be his race.

Vertigo:
His disdain for all Spanish-speaking people.

"Uno. Dos. Tres. Catorce!" Obvious.

"It's everything I wish I didn't know." He wishes there were no Spanish language.

Calculus is an interesting class. I mean, Bono is a threat to humanity and all that.

Gosh.

Bono the White Supremacist???

Lately I've been infatuated with the idea of making unique lyrical interpretations of a band's entire catalog in the manner of literary criticism. If a feminist literary critic can interpret all literature in terms of feminism, then why can't I interpret all lyrics in terms of homosexuality? I suppose that analogy makes me a gay music critic, which isn't actually true, but that part is irrelevant. Anyways, another idea that sprung up in Calculus today was to interpret U2's work as the work of a group of white supremacists, in fact, Aryans. The textual and physical evidence is so massive.
It started with "Pride (In the Name of Love)," a song supposedly dedicated to the assassination of MLK Jr. Loui pointed out that there was a mistake in the lyrics, that it went "Early morning, April four/A shot rings out in the Memphis sky," but that MLK had been assassinated in the mid-afternoon. I suggested that maybe Bono knew perfectly well what he was doing, and that it was truly a song dedicated to the memory of James Earl Ray.
Things fell quickly from there. After all how can "Sunday Bloody Sunday" not be about the Holocaust?

"One":
"One love, one blood, one life"
"But we're not the same"

Oh Bono, why not just come out and say "One race?"

"Walk On":
"And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for one second you turn back
Oh no, be strong"

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For":
"You broke the bonds and you
Loosed the chains
Carried the cross"

"Then all the colors will bleed into one"
(Note the use of the word bleed. It ain't a metaphor.)

live performance of "Zooropa"--- January 14, 2005:
I hate people of other colors
Other creeds and nations
My name is Bono---
Bono of Arya
Together we will put them all in cages
Put them in a zoo
A Zooropa

At any rate, it was perfectly obvious at our table that Bono is working on his Final Solution, a masterful plan that will work perfectly thanks to the power and prestige Bono has gained from being the leader of perhaps the world's most popular rock band. Why else would he have a guitarist called the Edge? More like the Straight-Edge...

I worry sometimes that I overanalyze music and make it too hard for myself to really slip into the groove of a record. I wind up with albums like "Who's Next" which I know I should love, but I wind up thinking about it as an abstraction, a collection of great melodies, lyrics, and playing which means nothing to me.
This weekend I found a better secret to get into an album's core, and that is simply to just listen a lot. Stevie Wonder's "Fulfillingness' First Finale" was the album of choice, getting 4 plays over 3 days, which is a lot for me. 2 plays in 1 day is something I never do. Yet it really worked out. I don't think it's the best album ever, but I do think it's pretty great, and the songs have been playing through my head constantly. I don't get sick of them either, because they're great songs. Normally, I wind up with like 15 albums I want to listen to, and then I listen to each one before listening to one twice. So even though I have some new albums that amaze me, are bound to be near the top of my album rankings (Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, The Who Live at Leeds, W.A. Mozart Requiem), I don't listen to them anywhere near as much as I should. Time is a bitch that way.

Music- the diluted, flattened, and strung up to dry type

As of late, I've been randomly skimming and playing through select bits of my parents' "Great Songs of the 60s" from the New York Times (both volumes). I am quite aware that the arrangements can differ wildly from the recorded versions of the songs (this is a piano + vocal book), but here are some impressions:

California Dreamin'- There's something disturbingly infectious about this one, no doubt about it. Maybe it's the bit when the prime vocal melody has a long held note and the chords won't change how I want them to. Maybe it's the (quarter plus 1/3 of a triplet tie) note early in the melody. Who knows? The recording, with the more pronounced harmonies, is much better anyhow.

Bridge Over Troubled Water- I can't say I particularly enjoy "Mrs. Robinson", but this song fits my tastes nicely. It is, very succinctly, an epic spiritual. A giant progression of harmony and whatnot.

Here Comes the Sun- The syncopation in both the vocals and the instrumentals is very cool. I can't say that the time signature changes do anything good or bad for me. The simple melody is pleasing, nonetheless.

A Day in the Life- Ooh! This is a very cool one. Especially when it changes to the dotted rhythm. I've seen similar little descending bass bits everywhere, but they're not a problem. Maybe it's just the dense arrangement of the whole thing, but it definitely piques my interest.

Hey Jude- I do like the melody on this one. The lyrics are nothing to sneez at, either. More later.

Moon River- I actually orignially heard this one as an old R.E.M. B-Side. It was butchered by Michael Stipe's weak vocals. Still, Macini and Mercer (one of the myriad song-writing duos of the time) have something effective. It's not terribly complex, but it definitely captures a sense of the elegiac and romantic (not the Cupid romantic, sir).

MacArthur Park- Say what you will about the lyrics, which I enjoy, this has a superb, driving bridge. The strong melody is almost too-well supported by some amazing instrumental passages. Oh, and the chord changes are kewl. Another bombastic song- I do so enjoy these.

Superstar- Yeah, the Andrew Lloyd Weber. The big-sounding sections with the giant chords and all seem kinda unremarkable to me. But the other, free, "soul"-y stuff is pretty cool- "Israel 4 B.C. had no mass communication!".
Digression: In my theoretically-humble opinion, Phantom, despite its campy-ness, has at least one good song in the splendid "Music of the Night". Methinks Sarah Brightman is one of the most worthwile things about the orignial (I think...?) cast recording of Phantom.

Note that I'm avoiding playing songs I dislike, like "Yellow Submarine", so these data should not be interpreted as representative of my perspective on their respective bands and composers.

My apologies, but considering my meager collection of classic-period recordings, it's better than nothing. It does offer a different take on the songs, with all the information thrown up on the page for me to interpret.

For the record...

The only reasons not to like the Beatles are if you're pretentious, tasteless, or just a dick.