After
17 years of professional music-reviewing, Noel Murray is taking time off from
all new music, and is revisiting his record collection in alphabetical order,
to take stock of what he's amassed, and consider what he still needs.
The
Everly Brothers grew up in a musical family, and at an early age began singing
as a fresh-scrubbed, wholesome duo on their parents' old-time music radio show.
They had their first hit single in 1956 with the light rockabilly number "Bye
Bye Love," and proceeded to record a string of hits for two different record
labels over the next six years before their momentum stalled, in part due to a
stint in the US Marine Corps and in part due to the ascendance of two of their
biggest fans: John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
I
knew pretty much nothing about The Everly Brothers when I happened upon a used
DVD of an old late '60s variety show called The Music Scene. Then, buried among the disc's special
features, I found a standalone performance by The Everly Brothers, whipping
through a medley of "Rock 'N' Roll Music" and a bunch of
not-that-clearly-connected flower-power-era favorites. The medley's a little
silly, but the performance is tight and fiery, and while watching it, I started
thinking about how The Everly Brothers must've felt in 1969, as people they'd
inspired passed them by, while they themselves were barely 30. Then I started
thinking about all the middle-aged, long-haired, leisure-suited Tonight Show guests I remembered seeing
when I was growing up, and thinking about how that phenomenon might apply to
popular music, where the biggest stars are paid to keep up with the trends. I
began to wonder if the Everlys had recorded any albums in the late '60s that
tried to stay current with the likes of The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful
Dead or Buffalo Springfield. So I hit the Internet to find out, and whole new
avenue of cultural study opened up to me.
I've
written some about the idea of "shadowing" before—most notably in the
Popless entries on Bobby Darin and Curt Boettcher—and though I know it's
not any kind of groundbreaking analytical technique, it has broadened my understanding
and appreciation of popular music. Basically, the idea is that if musicians are
successful for a long time, they'll inevitably record in a lot of different
styles, which means you can follow not just their evolution as artists, but also changing trends in
recording techniques, subject matter, genre-popularity, and so on. A duo as
popular as The Everly Brothers between 1956 and '62 had access to the best
songwriters and best studios, and though they didn't go through as many
mercenary-minded changes as Bobby Darin, their post-'62 career is still like a
mini-history of the post-Beatles music industry.
First
off, listen to the Everlys' last big hit, "That's Old Fashioned (That's The Way
Love Should Be):"
It's
straight-up popcorn, from the tail-end of the era when the early vibrancy of
rock 'n' roll was fading, leaving tame "Your Hit Parade" fare behind. But while
the Everlys recorded songs like "That's Old Fashioned" to make their label
masters happy, they still found time for something like this:
Listening
to the clattering percussion and zippy guitar on "Muskrat," you can hear what
The Beatles and other still-fledgling British Invasion acts were spinning for
each other in basement record shops in 1961 and '62. And after The Beatles
built on their hitmaking formula, the Everlys took it right back:
If
anything, "You're My Girl"—recorded in December of '64—is more
raucous and fuzzy than anything The Beatles had recorded by that point. Still,
there are echoes of "She Loves You" in the tumbling drums, twangy guitars and
loosening harmonies. Two years later, the Everlys would actually record an
album in London, using members of The Hollies for backup, and the result was
songs like "Kiss Your Man Goodbye:"
The
amped-up, shadowy versions of C&W; and R&B; that The Yardbirds and The
Who were exploring in the UK here collides with the sunnier jangle of
contemporary California bands like The Byrds and The Mamas & The Papas.
When they returned to the states, the Everlys started hanging out more on the
West Coast, and recorded some experimental singles in psychedelic pop and
folk-rock styles. One of my favorites of the latter is "Empty Boxes," from
1968, which sounds like the Everlys' attempt to show they could out-Simon &
Garfunkel any pretenders:
By
this time, the brothers had begun to realize that what set them apart from
their admirers and peers is that they actually had the strong roots music
upbringing that The Flying Burrito Brothers and the like were starting to
imitate. Inspired by this, The Everly Brothers recorded their best album, Roots, which I've
written up before on this site for our on-hiatus "Permanent Records"
feature. And they followed it up with some wonderful
proto-country-rock singles before consigning themselves to the nostalgia act
circuit, and then breaking up.
What
can be gleaned from listening to a bunch of old Everly Brothers songs? Well,
given that this was an era that wasn't exactly teeming with people writing
about popular music, in some ways the only way for an interested rock scholar
to follow the threads of influence and trends is to examine the evidence
firsthand. It's also a good way to get past the over-familiarity factor that
can make listening to older music difficult sometimes. By the time I bought The
Everly Brothers compilation Walk Right Back (which spreads a good survey of their '60s output
across two discs), I'd heard plenty of The Beatles, The Who, The Yardbirds, and
such. But I hadn't heard a lot of the Everlys songs that dwelled in those other
bands' shadows. And The Everly Brothers songs were often so exciting that they
re-ignited my interest in the era they came from.
But
there's something else I find rewarding about shadowing. I believe it was
Jean-Luc Godard who said that the best way to criticize a movie is to make
another movie, and sometimes with the lesser-known pop songs from any given
era, the artists who recorded them offer a kind of critique of the sound of
their times. Not a refutation, but a true critique, examining what's good and bad about their
industry by trying to mimic it. Unlike actual rock critics, The Everly Brothers
had an insider's perspective, and what they might've found noteworthy about a
band like The Byrds might not be what I'd pick. The Everlys might'be been
interested in the use of a certain guitar pedal, or a call-back to an old folk
song that I'm not familiar with, or something else entirely. With every note,
they (or their producer, or both) told what they thought was important about
the music already on the charts, either in terms of what was marketable about
it, or what they thought was good.
So
in some ways, The Everly Brothers are the best rock critics I know.
*****************
Pieces
Of The Puzzle
Emerson,
Lake & Palmer
Years
Of Operation
1970-78, 1992-98
Fits
Between Rush
and Manheim Steamroller
Personal
Correspondence
I can't really get into the big prog-rock discussion this week, even though ELP
would be the ideal vehicle for an exploration of the marvels and frustrations
of prog. They're one of the few bands that my father and brother liked that I
rarely paid much attention to when I was growing up, although I did listen to Pictures At An Exhibition a few times by choice, and
I've always had a fondness Greg Lake's acoustic ballads. Last year, when the
double-disc The
Essential Emerson, Lake & Palmer came out, I decided it was time to re-approach the
band, albeit cautiously. My logic was: I like arena-filling rock, I like
ambition, and I don't mind jamming (sometimes), so I should be able to hang with Emerson,
Lake & Palmer. But I'd forgotten that there's one particular
prog-trick—the tuneless, chugging break where organ, drums and bass all
collapse into a big mess—that always pulls me up short. A lot of ELP
songs start great, and then suddenly it's like I've been dropped into the
middle of an interstellar battle. Still, the countless spins of Brain Salad Surgery and Works in my household—coupled
with my dad's amusing anecdotes about the band's disastrous orchestral tour in
the mid-'70s—has made Emerson, Lake & Palmer a fixture in my psyche.
Enduring
presence? I'm
still waiting for the breakthrough that'll help me "get" ELP, and I haven't
given up trying. I'll listen to "Take A Pebble" or "Tarkus" occasionally,
though I'm always happier when my ELP playlist jumps back to "Lucky Man" or
"From The Beginning" or one of the reverent Aaron Copland covers.
Eric
Clapton
Years
Of Operation
1963-present
Fits
Between
Stevie Ray Vaughan and Richard Thompson
Personal
Correspondence
No Eric Clapton anthology will ever improve on the "best of Crossroads tape I made back in high
school—a tape long-lost, I'm sorry to say. It was a 100-minute cassette,
and on side one I arranged a bunch of Clapton's biggest hits (on his own and
with Cream, The Yardbirds, etc.) into a non-chronological set with a really
strong flow, while on side two I ran through Clapton's best lesser-known
singles and album cuts chronologically. That tape really captured the essence
of Clapton as a wannabe blues master forced by circumstances (and his own
gifts) into working in a variety of pop forms. Clapton's always been a little
too in love with genre exercises and guitar solos to record start-to-finish
great albums, but nearly every one of his records from the '70s and '80s
contains at least one likable single: "Hello Old Friend," "Promises," "Forever
Man," and so on. He's great at off-hand and catchy; harder to take when he's
being heavy or schmaltzy or traditionalist.
Enduring
presence? My
father was such a major fan that it's all but impossible for me to dislike
Clapton, even when he records the kind of overly burnished urban electric blues
that keeps beer companies and Chicago tourist spots in business. There are
Clapton songs I'd be fine with never hearing again: "Wonderful Tonight," "Tears
In Heaven" and "Change The World" all leap to mind. But between The Yardbirds,
Cream, Derek & The Dominoes, Blind Faith and Clapton's solo albums, there's
about 100 minutes of really amazing music. Now if I could just remember what
order to put it in….
[pagebreak]
Eric
Matthews
Years
Of Operation
1995-present
Fits
Between Colin
Blunstone and Colin Hay
Personal
Correspondence
I wrote some about Eric Matthews a month ago, regarding his participation in
the cult indie-rock band Cardinal, but Matthews' solo career is his real
legacy. He released two albums in quick succession in 1995 and '97—It's Heavy In Here and The Lateness Of The Hour—and at the time it
seemed like Matthews' moody, heavily orchestrated pop was going to make him an
underground icon, a la Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith or Sean O'Hagan of The High
Llamas. (Yes, people cared about The High Llamas back then… people like me,
anyway.) But then Matthews dropped of sight for nearly seven years, preferring
to play trumpet on his friends' records rather than record anything of his own.
He made a tentative return with a more stripped-down EP in 2005, and then
released the teeming LP Foundation
Sounds in
2006, which prompted me to write: "The songs aren't as long as the ones on the
EP, but they're just as conversational, and they all rely on simple
arrangements with very few instruments. They're built around the
fundamentals—the 'foundation'—of composition. And yet the new
Matthews can be as exhausting as the old Matthews. He doesn't vary his melodies
much, and the bursts of molten-lava guitar or Chuck Mangione-style horn solos
in any given song sound, frankly, interchangeable. Still, even when it flags as
music, Foundation
Sounds
remains bracing as a manifesto. At first, following Matthews' musical logic, as
he clips pop back to its skin, is counterintuitive, like listening to a florist
explain why stems are more beautiful than petals. Listen closely enough though,
and it almost starts to makes sense."
Enduring
presence? I
haven't heard Matthews' 2008 album—though I was sent a copy in late '07,
and have shelved it to play when this project is over—but while I've
liked everything he's done during this comeback phase, Matthews' has never
really solved the problem of how to make his breathy voice and similar-sounding
songs entertaining for a whole LP. That said, rarely does a Matthews song come
up on my iPod when I don't brighten a little bit. He's such an original.
The
Fall
Years
Of Operation
1976-present
Fits
Between Can
and Art Brut
Personal
Correspondence
I doubt even the most devoted Fall fan has the band's complete
discography—heck, I bet even Fall founder Mark E. Smith doesn't—but
in a way, that's always been what's made The Fall such a unique and endearing
bunch. I think the first Fall song I heard was their cover of "Mr. Pharmacist,"
which prompted a friend of mine to buy (and loan to me) Doomsday Pay-Off (Triad
Plus), the
bastardized U.S. version of Bend Sinister. It's a much catchier record than anything else in
the Fall catalog, which meant I was in for a rude—but not entirely
unpleasant—shock when I found a cheap cassette copy of the much wilder Escape Route From The
Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall in my university bookstore's bargain bin a
couple of years later. At some point, I need to write about the many odd places
that I've found great records in my life, and how for a time I used to have
recurring dreams about discovering amazing new record stores. (Then I'd be mad
when I woke up and realized that they didn't really exist).
Those
dreams were prompted in part by stumbling across The Wonderful And Frightening World, which I'd assumed by the
title would be an anthology, but was instead a nightmarish (but oddly hooky)
vision of violence and pestilence that stuck me as pretty awesome at age 18.
Now I know that the original album (expanded on the tape I bought) is
considered a Fall staple, but back then, just as it is now, a trip through The
Fall section of a local record store was utterly confounding. They have so many
albums with strange titles and little info—and so much overlap from album
to album—that it's hard for a novice to get his bearings. Luckily for my
budding Fall fandom, they were relatively easy to keep up with in the years
that followed, because they were on a mini-major label, putting out good
records like The
Frenz Experiement, I Am Curious
Oranj and Extricate. And thanks to the
then-popular Manchester scene and the rise of Pavement, The Fall were on the
radio some and even on MTV. (Fun fact: I had a friend who initially hated
Pavement because he was huge Fall fan, and couldn't stand the idea of a
Fall-inspired band becoming successful while The Fall languished in obscurity.
He later relented, because he realized, quite rightly, that if he really liked
The Fall then he should like bands that sound like The Fall. After all, there aren't that many.) But in
the post-MTV days, The Fall's discography has been such a mess of live albums,
compilations and reissues that when they put out an actual new album a couple
of years ago, they called it The Real New Fall LP. And so the knot gets knottier.
Enduring
presence?
It's not easy to be a Fall fan, and it's sure not easy to make other people
into Fall fans. (I gave up trying to convert my wife long ago.) I wouldn't even
call myself any more than a dabbler, even though I've probably bought (or
received from publicists, or duped from friends) over a dozen Fall albums in my
life. I check in and out, which in some ways seems to be what Mark E. Smith has
in mind.
The
Feelies
Years
Of Operation
1977-92
Fits
Between The
Velvet Underground and Dire Straits
Personal
Correspondence
Any time anyone dismisses the necessity of canons in popular culture, I think
about The Feelies, and I push back. Thanks to a 1987 Rolling Stone list of the best rock albums
from '67-'87, I became aware of The Feelies' Crazy Rhythms, which at the time was out of
print. But right before I left for college in the fall of '88, I found a used
copy of the band's 1986 album The Good Earth at a thrift store, and was immediately infatuated.
Two guitars, two drummers—it was like everything good about rock 'n'
roll, doubled. Soon after I arrived in Athens, GA, The Feelies released their
major label debut, Only
Life, a more
muscular record (but no less insinuating), and then they followed with the more
eclectic and vastly underrated Time For A Witness, followed by the long-awaited reissue of Crazy Rhythms. (Lengthy aside: Because I
lived in Athens while the members of R.E.M. were still in residence, I'd often
see Peter Buck or Michael Stipe out at shows or in record stores, and I
promised myself that if I ever had the chance to talk with Buck, my
conversation-opener wasn't going to be, "I'm a big fan," it was going to be,
"Do you have any idea where I can find a copy of The Feelies' Crazy Rhythms?" I guess I hoped he'd offer
to loan me his copy or something. Instead, what happened was that I made the
mistake of mentioning this plan to my then-girlfriend's crazily extroverted
half-sister, who happened to be with me when I did see Buck at Wuxtry Records,
and literally pushed me over to him, shouting, "Hey Peter, this guy has
something to ask you!" Absolutely mortifying. As I recall, Buck mumbled
something about an Atlanta record store that might have an import, and I
thanked him and fled.) Anyway, if it hadn't been for a list in an establishment
rock mag, I might not have had the hours upon hours of pleasure that listening
to The Feelies' mush-mouthed vocals and intricate playing have brought me. So
hooray for canons!
Enduring
presence?
Whenever The
A.V. Club has
given me the chance, I've advocated for one of my favorite bands of all time,
be it in this feature we
wrote on the underrated, or an apparently-gone-from-the-archives blog
post I wrote about memorable live shows. But you know what would really help
The Feelies take their rightful place in the alt-rock canon? If someone would
get their goddamn albums back into print! What's the hold-up? Lack of interest?
Some crazy rights issue? (Actually, according to rumor, the trouble is that
co-bandleader Bill Million is dickering over whether the reissues should
contain bonus tracks, but that's such a mundane excuse that for romantic
reasons, I refuse to believe it.) In the meantime, I treasure my CD copies of
the core four, which I still turn people onto now and then. Drop by my house
anytime, and I'll gladly loan them to you.
Feist
Years
Of Operation
1999-present (solo)
Fits
Between
Rickie Lee Jones and Edith Piaf
Personal
Correspondence
It may be too early to count Feist among the musicians who've helped form my
taste, but I have been pretty knocked out by each of her last two albums, and
by the music-making philosophy behind them. I dig their eclecticism—from
lite-disco to Euro-folk to Nina Simone—and the way every song sounds like
it was created on a rainy afternoon in the empty great room of some country
manse. Feist is like a musical version of Michel Gondry, plucking the pieces of
popular culture she loves so that she can use them to make crafty miniatures.
She's a "wake up late, have coffee and croissants on the porch, go inside and
make art" kind of gal. I don't know if I want to listen to her or be her.
Enduring
presence? I
trust that the Feist backlash is on, yes? Anytime an indie or quasi-indie
artist gets too popular, those who weren't that wild about her in the first
place develop a dislike way out of proportion to the actual quality and/or
cultural pervasiveness of the music. I should probably go ahead and
preemptively add Feist to my growing list of "New Guilty Pleasures."
Field
Music/Figurines
Years
Of Operation
2004-present/2000-present
Fits
Between XTC
and Maxïmo Park/ Modest Mouse and Built To Spill
Personal
Correspondence
Both of these bands are fairly fresh onto the scene too, but both have released
two really good albums each, and they became among my favorite bands of the
'00s almost immediately. About Field Music's first album I wrote: "At least a
dozen bands have been compared to XTC during the recent post-punk revival, but
UK trio Field Music has a specific XTC fetish, stealing from the band what XTC
stole from Steve Reich. Field Music's self-titled debut album delights in
reducing pop songs to a few simple elements, then combining and recombining
them in elaborate overlays. Between the fragments of orchestral splendor, the
sprightly Beatles-esque guitar stings, and the washed-out alto harmonies of
bandleader brothers David and Peter Brewis, the core of Field Music offers the
most righteous deconstruction of pop pleasure since the mid-'90s heyday of Cardinal,
Zumpano, and The High Llamas." About Figurines' first US album, I wrote: The
Danish band's fantastic second album Skeleton is the stuff indie-rock fantasies are built on, with
a gripping, theatrical sound that's like a hybrid of early Built To Spill and
pre-Soft
Bulletin
Flaming Lips, adorned with pieces of the old Neil Young albums that inspired
those bands in the first place. Figurines tap into that great reckless wow
that's drawn out nearly every nerdy crank with a guitar—Skeleton's songs bounce up and down,
unfussy and unhurried, changing tempos and stacking hooks, creating a feeling
of honest yearning."
Both
of the albums that followed by Field Music and Figurines are just as strong, in
my opinion. Yet the fact that I haven't been able to get any of my A.V. Club colleagues to fall for these
bands the way I have has helped me realize that I've drifted out of touch with
the critical consensus. To me, Field Music and Figurines are both clearly among
the best things going in rock today (along with Constantines, whom my A.V. Club colleagues also pretty
roundly dismissed in their SXSW coverage this year). Why does everybody else
have so much trouble hearing what I hear? Believe me: everyone would have such
a happier life if they just liked what I like.
Enduring
presence? "To
me, Field Music and Figurines are both clearly among the best things going in
rock today." –Noel Murray, 4/7/08
The
Fiery Furnaces
Years
Of Operation
2000-present
Fits
Between The
Fall and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
Personal
Correspondence
I rarely get the chance to "discover" bands, but I got a copy of The Fiery
Furnaces' debut Gallowsbird's
Bark from my
uncle (who at the time was working for Sanctuary, the US distributor for Rough
Trade) about three months before it was released, and I had one of those rare
"Okay, this is something I haven't heard
before" moments. Writing for another publication, I said, "This is a punky,
bluesy, medieval-folky take on pub rock, sounding by turns like P.J. Harvey,
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The White Stripes, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Spoon
and maybe even Jethro Tull (minus the flute). It's an insistent and confident
record—the sound of traditional British folk music being systematically
demolished." I wasn't as enamored of the self-indulgent follow-up Blueberry Boat as a lot of my colleagues,
and I've never been able to make it all the way through the atonal oral history
of Rehearsing
My Choir (as
much as I respect the attempt). But after Matthew Friedberger's two half-assed
solo albums, The Fiery Furnaces have been a lot more on-point. No one talked
much about 2006's Bitter
Tea (myself
included), but it's band's best record since their debut, blending actual songs
with more freewheeling genre mash-ups. Last year's Widow City leans heavier on the latter,
but is still cohesive more often than not. The Friedbergers seem to be on the
verge of finding that place where weirdness-for-weirdness'-sake breaks through
to something more rewarding. I know some folks prefer the exploration to the
discovery, but that's one of the things that keeps me from being a major prog
fan (to jump back to the Emerson, Lake & Palmer entry). I'm a journalist at
heart: I like things to be edited and on-point.
Enduring
presence? I
never really listen to my Fiery Furnaces records, but I can't get rid of them
either. There's too much imagination and well-intentioned tinkering charging up
their music, and I feel like one day I'll catch up to it. Very few bands can
deliver an experience that's completely unlike any other, but The Fiery
Furnaces are among them.
[pagebreak]
Stray
Tracks
From
the fringes of the collection, a few songs to share….
Eminem,
"Lose Yourself"
The
elevation of Eminem by my critical brethren has had a lot to do with my
alienation from hip-hop in the '00s. I think Eminem's got good flow, a flair
for clever wordplay, great stage presence, and the kind of deep emotional
problems that often makes superstar artists interesting. But at the same time,
he tends to drive his hooks into the ground, and he's partly responsible for
the trend towards excessive narcissism in popular culture, in which celebrities
both major and minor (and sub-minor) give interviews and produce reality shows
and record songs that are all about how the eyes of the world are upon them.
Yes, I'm aware of the irony of me pointing this out in a column that dissects
how every childhood memory has affected my musical opinions; and I'm also aware
that a lot of Eminem's songs are meant to satirize this very phenomenon. Still,
I can't help but feel that listening to Eminem is a step towards buying into
celeb-worship, and I prefer to engage with that world exclusively via my weekly
half-hour of The
Soup. That's
why—cliché as it may be—my favorite Eminem track is the
Oscar-winning mega-hit "Lose Yourself," which scales back the arrogance and ups
the desperation and, ultimately, the transcendence.
Emitt
Rhodes, "Mary Will You Take My Hand"
Here's
another west coast wunderkind who had flashes of chart success—a la Curt
Boettcher and Harry Nilsson—before disappearing from the pop scene before
the '70s ended. Rhodes is best known for fronting The Merry-Go-Round, a fine
post-Beatles American rock band I'll get to later this year, but Rhodes also
had a brief swing as a solo artist between 1970 and '73. This jaunty
song—incongruous steel drums and all—comes from his solo debut The American Dream, which his label didn't
release until two years after it was recorded, after he'd had a couple of minor
hits. It's what they used to call a feel-good song, and an effective one.
England
Dan & John Ford Coley, "I'd Really Love To See You Tonight"
For
some reason, the mid-'70s were especially kind to these kind of soft, rootsy
concoctions, delivered with a slight southern lilt and a whole lot of
pro-quality studio varnish by neatly dressed, shaggy-haired dudes with epic
moustaches. I've always liked this song because it shines like zircon, and
because it features the squarest lyrics this side of The Everly Brothers'
"That's Old Fashioned." In essence, this song is saying, "I don't want to have
sex with you; I just want to go for a walk." Ladies, any takers?
Esquivel,
"Bye Bye Blues"
The
Esquivel mini-craze of the mid-'90s was largely driven by my generation's
shallow junkshop mentality, which had us cluttering our dorms and apartments
with all manner of retro kitsch—partly out of nostalgia, partly out of
irony, and partly because we thought it was funny. But we also revived Esquivel's
wiggy cocktail party favorites because they're genuinely wonderful—full
of sonic surprises, exotic flair, and creative exuberance. Our motivations may
have been muddled, but if it helped keep Esquivel's name in front of the
record-buying public a little longer, it was well-worth-it.
Eurythmics,
"Here Comes The Rain Again"
For
a somewhat sadder version of shadowing, you could always follow Eurythmics'
strange decline from relatively adventurous techno-pop at the start of the '80s
to adult contemporary mush by the end. Though along the way, Dave Stewart and
Annie Lennox recorded a few amazing singles—and in fact, some of their
best were the ones that balanced the adventurous with the mainstream. I've
always loved three Eurythmics songs in particular: "Love Is A Stranger," "It's
Alright (Baby's Coming Back)" and this aching love ballad. Maybe I was unduly
influenced by the "Here Comes The Rain Again" video, which had Lennox walking
forlornly across windswept cliffs in her frumpy nightgown, but when I was 13,
this song seemed the epitome of romantic yearning—something I was a few
years away from actually experiencing.
Ever
We Fall, "Late Night Dance Party"
Because
I've never been steeped in emo-fandom (or emo-backlash), I don't really have
much in the way of a critical framework to apply when I a song like this comes
up. I can sort of understand why some people would be instantly opposed to it:
It has those boyish, borderline-whiny vocals typical of emo, and lyrics overly
(almost cynically) preoccupied with youth culture. But it's also got the kind
of open-ended alt-rock arrangement that much of emo favors, and at times it
reminds me of some of Minutemen's more elastic later songs, or the work of the
short-lived Tripmaster Monkey. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who
thinks this song sucks, because I've got literally hundreds of songs like this
that've landed on my hard drive over the past several years, and I never know
whether to delete them or not. This is one I'd be inclined to keep, though I'd
be hard-pressed to say what makes it better or worse (or really any different
at all) from the others.
Everclear,
"Fire Maple Song"
Art
Alexakis has really only ever written one song, which he's been rehashing over
and over on album after inexplicably big-selling album. I do like that song—I liked it
when I heard it for the first time on Everclear's debut World Of Noise, and I've liked it every time
the band has had another hit with it—but it's hard to believe that every
time Alexakis has presented his label with "I Will Buy You A New Life" or
"Santa Monica" that the label hasn't said, "Uh, Alex…this is great and all, but
we've already released this song." If you tried to shadow Everclear, you
wouldn't travel very far.
The
Evolution Control Committee, "Spandau Filet"
I
respect the conceptual brilliance of Negativland, but their collage-minded protégées
in The Evolution Control Committee make cut-ups that are generally more musical
and fun, if rarely as pointed. There's not much going on here besides remixing
skill—no point, in other words—but
it's kind of mesmerizing regardless. (And short, which is always a plus.)
The
Exploding Hearts, "Throwaway Style"
While
garage-rock and post-punk were getting revived left and right in the early
'00s, power-pop's best hope for superstardom (at least since the brief,
sputtering career of Material Issue) were the Portland-based clang-and-jangle
purveyors The Exploding Hearts. They were hooky and charismatic, and on the
basis of the stellar debut LP Guitar Romantic and some energizing live shows, they seemed like they
were on the verge of bursting out of the underground, until a van accident
killed three members of the band. At the moment, The Exploding Hearts still
aren't all that well-known, but I get the feeling that Guitar Romantic (and the also-quite-good
singles-and-outtakes collection Shattered) will be passed on from fan to fan as the years go
by, and become revered like Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, and other great records by
bands that peaked early then stopped, by choice or by circumstance.
The
Faces, "Bad 'n' Ruin"
I'll
talk more about Rod Stewart somewhere down the line, but in the meantime I
should say a few words about arguably the best project Stewart has ever been
involved with. The fact that The Faces are down here in this section and not up
with the Pieces Of The Puzzle is only because I've never given them the
attention they deserve. I bought a Faces anthology after "Ooh La La" so
memorably closed out Rushmore, but I only played it once or
twice for some reason. I guess I just wasn't yet in the right place yet to
appreciate strictly groove-based British blooze-rock. In the years since I've
gotten heavily into Free—Free,
for heaven's sake!—but until this week I hadn't gotten around to
revisiting The Faces. That's a grievous error that I plan to spend the rest of
my life correcting.
Fatboy
Slim, "Gangster Tripping"
I
know Fatboy Slim's biggest hits were so overplayed that they became annoyances,
but at a distance, it's easier to hear Norman Cook's best singles for what they
were: smartly assembled club fare, full of familiar sounds and walloping beats.
When it's past midnight, you've had some drinks and you're hungry, you want
something salty and cheesy. Fatboy Slim is the dance floor equivalent of "drunk
food."
Fats
Domino, "I'm Ready"
Every
time I start to forget that "rock 'n' roll" is essentially a euphemism for
fucking, I get a friendly reminder via proto-rock singles like this Fats Domino
classic. Bonus points for the handclaps, which add percussive texture. I love
percussive texture.
The
Features, "The Way It's Meant To Be"
Here's
another in what seems like an unending string of Tennessee rock bands that got
an invitation to the big time only to find nobody there when they knocked on
the door. With The Features though, I'm not entirely sure why they ended up on
a major label in the first place, except that it was the mid-'00s, the
"rockisback" movement still had a little momentum left, and The Features have
always been a band with catchy hooks at the ready. But bandleader Matt Pelham
has also always had an idiosyncratic approach to his musical output—which
has been sporadic during the band's 10-plus years of kicking around the
scene—and he's never been one to just cash in. The Features' early music
was Cars-y about six years before The Strokes and others made The Cars a viable
influence again, and then the band went through an Elephant 6 phase about three
years too late. For The Features' lone LP Exhibit A, they combined the new wave strain with the DIY indie
strain, while adding some arena-rock crunch. The result was far noisier and
more reckless than I think Universal was expecting, and the album subsequently
died on the vine. But I still think it's one mother of a
record—especially this song, which you may notice sounds a little like
Fats Domino's "I'm Ready" at first, before taking a few different turns.
Femi
Kuti etc., "Water No Get Enemy" This one sort of stands in for the "regrettably
unremarked upon" Fela Kuti, who is RUU for one simple reason: I've apparently
lost the kick-ass Fela Kuti anthology I used to have on CD. So Femi will have
to do—which is fine, because the apple hasn't fallen that far from the
tree, and anyway, this is a cover of a Fela song. Femi Kuti may use more modern
recording techniques, and he may have picked up the habits of contemporary
R&B;, from guest vocalists to remixes, but the Afrobeat essence is the same.
It's all about repetition, testifying, and transcendence. (More on the latter
next week.)
Regrettably
unremarked upon:
Emmylou Harris, Emperor X, Ennio Morricone, Eric Burdon, ESG, Etta James,
Everything But The Girl, Explosions In The Sky, Fairport Convention, Fat Jon
and Fela Kuti
Also
listened to: Embrace, Emerson Drive, Emily,
Haines & The Soft SkeletonEmily Lord, Emmet
Swimming, Emulations, End, End Of, The End Of The World, Englebert Humperdink, Enon, Ensemble,
Fashion
The Ensemble Al Salam, Enzo Stuarti, epic45, The Equators, Eric Andersen, Eric
Bachman, Eric Donaldson, Eric Johnson, Erie Choir, Erin
Condo, Ernest & Hattie Stone, Erma Franklin, Eskimo Joe,
The Eskimos, The Esoteric, Espers, The
Essex Green, Ester Drang, Esthero, Estradasphere, The
Eternals, Etran Finatawa, Eugene McGuinness, Eugene Mirman,
Eulogies, Euros Childs, Evan Dando, Evanescence,
Evangelicals, Evelyn Champagne King, Every Move A Picture, Evie Sands, Ex Lion
Tamer, Ex-Boyfriends, eXIT cLoV, Extra Golden, Eyeball Skeleton, The, Face To Face, The Faint, The Faintest Ideas, Family
Fabulettes
Fodder, The Fantastic Four, Fantastic Plastic Machine, Fantômas, Far Away
Places, Fareed Haque, Fat Daddy Holmes, Faunts, Faux Fox,
Federico Aubele, Felix Da Housecat, Felony, Fergus, Fern Jones, Fernando,
McCormickFerocious Eagle, The Fever, The Few, The Field, Fields,
The Figgs, The Fight, Film School, The Films, The Finals and
A Fine Frenzy
Next
week: From Fine Young Cannibals to Genesis, plus a few words on transcendence