Sunday, January 26, 2014

Non-Generic Pop Music:

But as the year progresses and you’ve had your share of genres, experiments and oddities, sometimes you want a sure thing.  Which for me is guitar based pop/rock, with either a requisite amount of passion or intelligence, from a band that’s put in a strong showing before.  


So I go to a band that made me very happy last year:


Okay, so I played it safe. And I get exactly what I wanted. And as the media constantly tells us, we all deserve the best. (Uh, what happens to all that stuff that’s second best? To paraphrase Homer Simpson, it’s for the poor.)


Finally, a straight ahead rock/pop record with good vocals - by the guys with the guitars and the gals with the drums and bass - and a light on its feet yet loud when it needs to be rhythm guitar. The snarky lyrics don’t hurt a bit, either. They go soft and loud, fast and slow, punk and pop, funny and serious.


This record is everything the two Shoes records aren’t. Unique, in that very pop non-unique way.


You can tell when a pop record has been  engaging from beginning to end - the first and last songs can be slow ones, and you don’t even mind.  A

"Pig Latin"

Monday, January 20, 2014

Great Expectations, or Lucinda Williams vs. Santa Claus, Jesus and Herself

Sometimes I do the worst thing someone can do to an artist. I compare their newer work to their older work, almost knowing I’ll be disappointed. I’m hoping the artist can somehow leap over the Wall of Pessimism I’ve built in my head. Alas, Jaybee’s Wall of Pessimism makes the one in "Game of Thrones" seem like a slight incline.

Why do I do this? Well, there’s, J&R selling what few CDs they still have for $3.99. (The good ones, anyway.) And there’s also how some records insist on showing up on every "Greatest Albums of the Century This Week" list the internets can come up with.



Like this 1990 follow up to her 1988 classic self titled album, which is slightly disappointing in comparison, but also more fun in comparison to the slightly overrated Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

SOW contains a couple of my favorite Lucinda moments - “Something About What Happens When We Talk”, which shows how her quirky singing can find more melody than what’s actually written down, and “He Never Got Enough Love”, whose melody and passionate delivery more than make up for the cliche in the title. Some of these songs kept my Americana station from wearing out its welcome a lot sooner than it did.

But the problem this record has to overcome is how to keep the music fresh when you’re working in a rigidly defined genre, and it didn’t fail to disappoint. LW managed to be bouncy and energetic and emotional all at once. This gets, in turn, serious, moving and melodic but rarely at the same time. It keeps up with its predecessor just fine for the first five tracks, but starts to wear down during “Pineola”, which underlines the mention of a gunshot with a smack of the drums (kind of cheesy), and where I’m supposed to be impressed with the mention of “the Pentecost”. And yet, it’s a good song, as are all the rest, none of which are great, except for the Nick Drake cover.

But I ask too much! Not only was her prior record wonderful, it was also a quintessential holiday record, stamping itself on my December (of what year, I wonder), So it occupies a hallowed place in my psyche. By an unfortunate coincidence, I happened to get SOW during a another pre-Thanksgiving record store drop in, when I set my expectations way too high to begin with.  So there’s another hurdle to jump.

And, as Mrs. Jaybee can tell you, it takes some doing to for anything to make its way into Jaybee’s brain. The fact that SOW hasn't yet just means I have a good album instead of a great one. Check in with me again in six months. B+

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Super Know-Nothings

Well, I’m still cleaning up my 2013 mess. This one from, oh, October, when an innocent trip to the record store (is there any such thing?) yielded a bunch of $3.99 specials, at least one of which keeps showing up on All Time Best Lists (nevermind whose list it is!). I tell you, I could almost feel the gun at my head.




There’s something about Chris Cornell that I just don’t like. Guys with those huge singing voices are not to be trusted around your girlfriend. But I think it was when he went solo and cleaned up his look. He used to look like your typical grunge slob, which didn’t threaten my ego. Now he was doing things like bringing in Timbaland to do production and shaving. He clearly wanted a hit and to be a star. Way too professional for me. And what would Kurt say?


But his old band Soundgarden had its moments. And aside from the superficial Zeppelin similarities it only gets ridiculous on “Limo Crash”, where I can almost overhear the conversation in the studio:

Soundgarden Person 1 (probably the guitar player, but really who knows?): Hey I’ve got this cool groovy atmospheric thing going. Listen! (Plays it.)

Soundgarden Person 2 (probably Chris, but really, who can say?): Oh yeah, that sounds cool!  Let me come up with some lyrics to go along with it. Hmm, something indicating a state of confusion. And perhaps being in a daze… (Begins writing.)

Person In Charge: Hey idiots, you’re totally ripping off “Dazed and Confused” (which would be, oh, let's say ironic).  

SGP 1: Oh sh*t, you’re right.  But I like it!

SGP 2: I’ve got it! We’ll change it midway through.

SGP 1: Cool! No one’ll suspect a thing.

And the rest is not quite history.



And yet. And yet  There’s a lot of references to destruction and death here that probably sounded silly before 9/11, but now give me a little chill.


And Chris Cornell? His stupendous vocals mesh quite well with the big guitar and drums. And yes, it's all been done before, but Chris fills his role (and every available space, too) quite well. For a Robert Plant substitute, we could do a lot worse. As a matter of fact, we have done a lot worse.


An actual loud and fast song doesn’t show up until track 11, but that's okay. We like the loud slow ones just fine.


And “Head Down” is just sublime. I had it in my head all day last Friday at work. Couldn’t get a damn thing done. And really, isn’t rock and roll supposed to get people to stop working and f*ck off more?

So I say good job fellas!


A-


Sunday, January 5, 2014

I Was Expecting Noise, But All I Got Was Beauty

But it was time to get back to this decade century:




Karen O's voice isn't all that strong but she deploys it to great effect.  And her punk band goes along with her, this time opting for lighter textures and fragile melodies.  And it's one of the few records that gave me some immediate - but lasting - gratification. They top it all off with four beautiful alternate acoustic versions of some tracks that, for my money, are better. There's really not much more to say than it may be my record of the year. A