Popless Week 46: Confession Of Sins

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.

One of the rules governing
filmmakers who make Dogme 95 projects is that at the end of the production,
they have to write out a statement confessing all the times they broke the
rules. So in the spirit of those ascetic Europeans, I shall now do likewise
with Popless. First a reminder of those rules, as laid out back in Popless
Week 0:

"From January 1st through
October 31st, I'm not going to buy any new music from record stores, online
retailers, or iTunes, and I'm not going to listen to any promo CDs that come in
the mail (including those I received and filed away unopened months ago). I'm
not watching any new music videos or late-night TV performances by bands with
new product to tout, and I'm not going to do more than a cursory scan of any
reviews in any on-line or print publications. I've cancelled all my music blog
RSS feeds, as well as my membership in a cherished music-nerd e-mail discussion
group."

How well did I hold to that
plan? Allow me to enumerate:

1. "From January 1st
through October 31st…"

This is probably my most
egregious sin. Shortly after I returned from Toronto in mid-September, I
realized that I was on pace to finish up listening to my catalog a lot sooner
than I thought I'd be. Knowing I'd need some time to get a handle on 2008
music, I started acquiring records and loading them on my non-Popless-dedicated
iPod. On October 1, I started listening to those records in my car. Which means
Operation Shutdown lasted a month less than I'd planned. Mea culpa.

2. "I'm not going to buy
any new music from record stores, on-line retailers, or iTunes."

This is the rule I violated most often, for reasons
I think are excusable. I tried to stick exclusively with the music on my hard
drive and on the CDs I was just getting around to loading on my hard drive, but
as the project went along, I realized that some key artists were missing,
either because I'd lost their CDs, or DRM issues prevented me from transferring
their files where they needed to be transferred, or because I only had their
music on vinyl or cassette. When I deemed it necessary, I used my eMusic
subscription or the DRM-free wonderland of Amazon.com to fill in some holes. I
wasn't consistent about it—some artists I plumb forgot about—but
for the most part, I only re-bought music I'd already owned. With one major
exception. Prior to the week I wrote about Guns N' Roses, I'd never actually
owned any GNR, on vinyl, cassette, CD, MP3 or 8-Track. My college roommates listened
to GNR a lot, and some of my high school friends did too, so I did know all the
albums fairly well. But I hadn't owned any, and since I knew I'd be hammered
for that, I wussed out and bought the whole discography. Mea maxima culpa.

3. "I'm not going to
listen to any promo CDs that come in the mail (including those I received and
filed away unopened months ago)."

This actually wasn't so hard,
since I convinced nearly all my usual suppliers to cut me off. Still, as late
as a month ago, I was still receiving CDs from some publicists, along with
follow-up e-mails asking if I was going to write about them. Which raised a
question of professional courtesy: Was I required to respond to business
inquiries posed by people who weren't paying enough attention to realize I was
taking the year off?

4. "I'm not watching any
new music videos or late-night TV performances by bands with new product to
tout."

At the start of the year, I
held fast to this, routinely zipping past any musical guests on Saturday
Night Live or The Colbert Report or the like. By mid-year, I allowed myself to watch
the first minute of a performance if it was by a band I really liked, like My
Morning Jacket. Then when The Hold Steady appeared on Letterman, I broke down
and watched their whole song, because it was killing me that I couldn't hear
the album. From that point on, I was more lax. I didn't have that many
opportunities to ignore live music on TV once the summer rolled around, but
ever since SNL came back, I've
been watching the shows from start to finish—including musical guests.

5. "I've cancelled all my
music blog RSS feeds, as well as my membership in a cherished music-nerd e-mail
discussion group."

For the most part, this is true.
I peeked back in on that discussion group recently because my wife—still
a subscriber—told me they were talking about what 2008 music I should
check out. But while I stopped reading all of the music blogs I'd been reading
prior to the start of 2008, I did pick up a couple of new ones, either because
they were kind enough to write something about this project or because I
stumbled across them and was taken with the quality of their MP3 postings. One
of my recent favorites has been Armagideon
Time, which combines three of my loves: politics, old comics, and old
rock 'n' roll. The site's founder Andrew Weiss has just decided to cut back on
the music posting, but once 2008 ends, I'll have about eight months of old
Armagideon Time MP3 downloads to sort through.

6. "I'm not going to do
more than a cursory scan of any reviews in any online or print publications."

Well, yes and no. If I came
across a review of one of my favorite bands, I'd read it, because I was curious.
But if I'd never heard of the band before—or if I hadn't seen their name
pop up in a lot of different places—I didn't really pay attention. As a
result, when The A.V. Club music
writers started swapping their year-end Top 10 lists recently, I felt the way a
lot of AVC readers feel each year
when we reveal our master-list: Who are these bands? Why haven't I heard of them? They can't be any good if I haven't heard of them.

Over the past month though,
I've been doing my best to catch up, and I've found that a lot of those bands
I'd never heard of are
good—while others that my colleagues love have eluded me completely.
Which is which? I'll put off the question for now. I'm going to take next
Monday off so I can keep boning up on 2008, then when Popless resumes, I'm
going to say a few words about the conclusions I've come to over the course of
this past year, along with a few words about what it's been like to re-immerse
after a long time wandering in the desert.

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

Pieces Of The Puzzle

XTC

Years Of Operation 1976-2005

Fits Between Split Enz and The Jam

Personal Correspondence I've learned a lot about separating form from
content, lyrics from music, and artists' public personae from the art they
create as I've tussled with XTC over the years. From borrowing a copy of Black
Sea from a friend back in the
mid-'80s to picking through the likes of Oranges And Lemons and Nonsuch,
looking for the handful of songs that didn't make me want to bash my head in
with a brick, I've spent over 20 years as an all-too-common kind of XTC fan:
one who frequently can't stand XTC. Strictly on a musical level, they remain
one of my favorite bands. Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding have good pop-rock
voices—one spiteful, one sweet—and XTC's jagged guitars and bouncy
rhythms may be the prime example of how to reconcile punk aggression with
hippie beauty. But a significant number of XTC's songs come bundled with
anti-authoritarian messages that Partridge and Moulding couch in condescending terms,
as though they were singing to schoolchildren. I understand that there's an
element of irony to XTC's presentation. Still, I once read an interview with
Partridge in which he confessed he didn't like pop music much, and only wrote
pop songs because he had a talent for it, and when I listen to XTC, I often
hear contempt dripping from every line. And yet I love XTC—I really
do—because of the way the drums keep kicking no matter how complex the
beat, and because the guitars both chime and cut, and because Partridge and
Moulding have written some of the most invigorating, catchy pop music of the
20th century alongside some of the purest and most beautiful love songs. I
stick with XTC because Partridge is right. He is awfully good at his job.

Enduring presence? I was pleased when XTC started popping up as an
influence for multiple British bands a few years back. (Dogs Die In Hot Cars,
The Futureheads, Field Music, and Maxïmo Park, among others.) Even in
derivative form, I can't get enough of that signature XTC sound, in which every
strum seems to pull against every beat, as though the whole composition were
stitched together by dissent.

The Yardbirds

Years Of Operation 1962-68

Fits Between The Rolling Stones and The Who

Personal Correspondence My fondest memory of The Yardbirds actually isn't my
own; it belongs to Peter Bagge's comic book character Buddy Bradley, in the
1985 Neat Stuff story "Rock 'N'
Roll Refugee." My earliest encounters with The Yardbirds were limited to a few
songs on a compilation of British Invasion favorites, a few songs on Eric
Clapton's Crossroads box set, and
the band's memorable appearance in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up. Otherwise, I avoided The Yardbirds for the most
part, because the songs I was familiar with either sounded too frothy or too
trad. It wasn't until I picked up the Ultimate! anthology a few years back that the whole Yardbirds
experience started to make sense, once I heard how radical those pop songs were
in the context of the blues songs—and vice versa. Even at their simplest
and catchiest, The Yardbirds planted mind-bombs under bridges, making pop songs
into happenings. And when they ditched pop and just rode the roots train, they
were the loudest, fastest, roughest band on the circuit—whether Clapton
was on guitar, or Jeff Beck, or Jimmy Page, or who-have-you. I wish now that
I'd been like Buddy Bradley, who in "Rock 'N' Roll Refugee" skips dinner with
his family in order to walk downtown to a used record store and buy The
Yardbirds' Greatest Hits for three
bucks. After his parents bawl him out, Buddy storms up to his room and slaps
the album on his turntable, grumbling, "Stupid fuckin' family!" In the last
panel though, with his headphones on and the LP jacket resting on his legs,
Buddy starts to smile and says, "Hey, this a pretty good record!" I believe I
lived through that exact same moment about a dozen times in adolescence, just
with different bands. It would've been nice to have had The Yardbirds in the
rotation.

Enduring presence? Having devoured Ultimate!, I'm now willing to argue that The Yardbirds should
be regularly mentioned in the litany of landmark British Invasion bands.
(Actually, I think they are pretty
firmly in the pantheon. But they should be higher up the list, on the same
shelf as The Beatles, The Stones, The Who and The Kinks.)

[pagebreak]

Yes

Years Of Operation 1968-present (off and on)

Fits Between Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Crosby, Stills &
Nash

Personal Correspondence Yesmemories: Sitting in the back seat of my father's
car, watching him and my brother simultaneously gesture with their hands in
time to Steve Howe's "ching-ching" guitar noise towards the end of "Yours Is No
Disgrace." Riding in the passenger seat of my brother's car while driving back
and forth to our father's house for the holidays, singing the a capella version
of "Leave It" together as though it were Handel's Messiah. Laughing at the goofy lyrics to the songs on Drama, even though I was digging the music more than my
alt-rock-addled self could admit. Being secretly thrilled when I read that Mark
Eitzel of American Music Club considered Yes an influence. Listening to my
brother describe the Yes concerts he'd been to, and thinking it was cool that
the band used to play Bugs Bunny cartoons on a big screen before their set.
Laying on my bed at age 18, and again at age 28, and again at age 38, letting Close
To The Edge wash over me, then
floating away on the ripples of Chris Squire's bass.

Enduring presence? When it comes to prog, I prefer the bands who either
knew how to work a good groove when it comes along, like Pink Floyd, or the
ones who offer good value for money, like Yes. My problem with a lot of prog is
that the complex multi-part compositions often contain stretches that aren't
especially well-composed, and devolve into flat-out wankery. Yes succumbs to
that temptation as well, but the best Yes songs from the early '70s—and
I'd say 80% of their songs from 1970-74 fall into the good-to-great category—have
intricate structures in which each individual passage is carefully crafted and
entertaining. The attention Yes paid to melody and dynamics made them
formidable. Wait patiently through the virtuoso stuff and you're rewarded with
a triumphant return to an honestly memorable chorus. Listen enough times and
even that virtuoso stuff starts to reveal flashes of wit and veins of emotion
every bit as transporting as Jon Anderson's choirboy voice.

Yo La Tengo

Years Of Operation 1984-present

Fits Between The Velvet Underground and The Feelies

Personal Correspondence I've been both surprised and delighted by the way Yo
La Tengo has endured so long, and become a staple of American popular culture
in their own small way. I don't want to be one of those "I was there from the
beginning" dudes, but I just about was. I bought a copy of the President Yo
La Tengo EP after Robert Christgau
praised it in one of his Consumer Guides, and then I went back and bought Ride
The Tiger and New Wave Hot Dogs, so I was already Yo La Tengo literate before the
wonderful acoustic covers album Fakebook came out in 1990 and made me a fan for life. A few months later, I had
a disastrous interview with Ira Kaplan in advance of a gig in Athens. (I tried
to ask open-ended questions like a good little journalism student, but he got
frustrated with my vagueness and hung up on me.) Nevertheless, I went to the
show—total attendance: about 9 people—and marveled at Kaplan, his
wife Georgia Hubley, and their new bassist James McNew as they raged through
the songs that would become the transitional album May I Sing With Me. At the time Yo La Tengo seemed like a band for
connoisseurs only, and likely to disappear quickly. But then they followed up May
I Sing With Me with the stunning Painful, where Kaplan's previous dabbling in drone became a
full-on obsession. Suddenly Yo La Tengo leapt from being a critics' darling
(that only a few critics were actually touting) to being a staple of Top 10
lists and rockophile iPods. My main quibble with the band post-Painful (or post-I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, more accurately) is that they've become so
comfortable with what Yo La Tengo is and what their fans expect that they've
become a little predictable. Still, I love the way Kaplan, Hubley, and McNew
have written songs about listening to music and about playing music, about
their favorite movie stars and about their favorite movie critics; and how
they've referenced cultural ephemera ranging from The Simpsons to Thomas Pynchon novels. From Fakebook on, Yo La Tengo has excelled at finding something that
they love and presenting it with their own low-key, backyard charm. They're the
sum of their fannish devotions. If you want to know them personally, just check
out their record collection.

Enduring presence? And yet, summing up Yo La Tengo a few years ago, I wrote: "New Jersey
husband-and-wife rock critics Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley began Yo La Tengo
in the midst of Velvets/Feelies-inspired college rock era, and stayed deep in
the likable-but-slight jangle-pop vein for its first few years. Lately the band
has alternated buzzy pop noise with wispily hypnotic ballads, offbeat covers,
and a set of lyrical obsessions that rely on pointedly weird pop culture
references and startlingly personal revelations. And yet it's hard to think of
too many acts that are 'Yo La Tengo-esque;' and though Yo La Tengo has covered
nearly everybody, hardly anybody ever covers Yo La Tengo. As great as the
band's songs often are, they're so bound up in the vocal and guitar
performances that it's hard to imagine anyone else tackling them. In fact,
indie-rock in general has left little legacy, largely because the genre relies
on individuals turning unique cases of rockophilia into sometimes-obscure
personal statements. By making tiny models of the pop past they most want to
live in, indie musicians haven't moved rock forward in any appreciable way." I
don't necessarily retract any of that, but I think I was unnecessarily taking
my frustration with a genre and an ethos out on a band that exemplified what I
once loved about it. Yo La Tengo will always be square with me. I'll let Ira
Kaplan hang up on me anytime.

The Young Rascals

Years Of Operation 1964-72

Fits Between The Four Seasons and Booker T & The M.G.'s

Personal Correspondence In one of the rare cases of my high school self
venturing off-canon, I bought a dusty copy of The Rascals' Time Peace at a garage sale, because I'd always had a soft spot
for "Groovin'" and "Good Lovin'." The Rascals have never been
disreputable—they're reasonably respected as a down-and-dirty garage-rock
band with an R&B; fringe, and admired for demonstrating a level of craft
comparable to their fellow New Yorkers The Lovin' Spoonful—but despite
being one of the premier singles acts of the '60s, they're hardly lionized like
Creedence Clearwater Revival or Sly & The Family Stone. That's probably
because so many Rascals songs sound so frivolous and transitory, like a cheap
thrill that no one feels bad about
exactly, but no one really wants to talk about in public either. And yet, the
first time I put Time Peace on my
turntable, and heard the strangely structured single "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My
Heart Anymore," I felt like I'd found something the rock history books had
largely missed. (I later learned that The Rascals hadn't been missed exactly, just taken for granted.) They sang odd
songs, pretty songs, and ridiculously exciting songs, all with a kind of
inviting spirit that made them sound equally at home in elegant concert halls
and roadside dives. The Rascals' genius was in the way they made everyone feel like they'd discovered something that only they could properly appreciate.

Enduring presence? I called The Rascals one of the premier singles acts of the '60s, but
damned if their albums aren't pretty great too. I especially recommend Collections,
a hard-edged R&B; record, and Groovin',
which finds bandleaders Felix Cavaliere, Eddie Brigati, and Gene Cornish
looking to push pop into the psychedelic era while simultaneously loading it up
with some of the sophisticated elements that had charmed their parents decades
earlier. Groovin' isn't some
ungainly concept album; it's just a compact collection of catchy, rhythmic Top
40 fare, crafted with heart and skill. It's the very essence of "pop."

The Zombies

Years Of Operation 1963-67 (essentially)

Fits Between The Searchers and The Guess Who

Personal Correspondence The Zombies' essential 1967 LP Odessey &
Oracle didn't become a hit until
almost two years after its release, spurred by the belated release of "Time Of
The Season" as a single. The album then entered the rock pantheon roughly two
decades later, when a wave of psych-pop revivalists started claiming it as
their own Sgt. Pepper's. For me,
hearing Odessey & Oracle was a
revelation, because I was amazed by how that record delivers one unpredictable
but impeccably crafted pop song after another, and explores a variety of styles
from baroque to sultry without ever sounding like anything other than The Zombies.
It was just as thrilling to pick up The Zombies' The Singles A's & B's shortly afterward and learn Odessey & Oracle was no fluke. I was already familiar with the British
Invasion standards "Tell Her No" and "She's Not There," but songs like "She's
Coming Home" and "Whenever You're Ready" showed that Colin Blunstone and Rod
Argent had a consistent vision for the band's sound right from the start. The
Zombies' recorded legacy is slight, but it maintains such a high standard.
They're like the 3-star bistro chefs of '60s British pop.

Enduring presence? Following The Zombies, Blunstone had a
brief-but-successful solo career as a twee folkie, while Argent had
chart-topping stint as a progressive hard rocker. The Zombies have reunited a
few times, but the two ex-partners have fallen out of synch musically, and they
now bear little relation to the band they once were. You know, "brief candles"
and all that.

ZZ Top

Years Of Operation 1969-present

Fits Between Cream and The James Gang

Personal Correspondence I'm not sure I'll ever be able to think about ZZ Top
without recalling the "Legs" video, which I watched over and over as a
13-year-old, studying the lingerie-tryout sequence especially intensely.
Somehow, I don't think this association would bother the long-bearded boys (or
the long Beard boy) of ZZ Top, given that adolescent double-entendres and adult
raunch have always been a part of their shtick. In a way, the lecherous winks
helped set ZZ Top apart from the teeming horde of blues-oriented boogie bands
that roared out of scattered American bar scenes as the '60s faded into the
'70s. It also helped that ZZ Top kept the same look and the same three-piece
format throughout their run, and infused their boogie with pop, hard rock and
Tex-Mex elements, all buffed to a dust-resistant sheen. ZZ Top have always
seemed to know more than other
bands of their ilk—from the best pirate radio stations to where to get
laid—and the vision of the trio in their MTV heyday, helping young people
to get their groove on, remains downright powerful. Oh, and Billy Gibbons is
one of the best guitarists The United States Of America has ever produced. So
there's that, too.

Enduring presence? Who are ZZ Top, really? The inscrutable Texans who
crank out machine-tooled blues-rock, or the puckish virtuosos who produce
desert-futurist party records? If you knocked on their door in the middle of
the night, would they pack you into their Eliminator car and show you a good
time? Or would they gaze out at you from behind their hairy faces and wait for
you to utter a password in a language you've never learned?

[pagebreak]

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

Stray Tracks

From the fringes of the collection, a few songs
to share….

Yatsura, "Kozee Heart"

This now-defunct Scottish
combo—known as Urusei Yatsura everywhere except the U.S. and
Japan—borrowed liberally from the slapdash punk irony of Pavement, so
much so that this song opens with an admission that it was "inspired by Stephen
Malkmus." I admired the cheek when I heard the band's singles comp Pulpo back in 1997, but even more than that, I appreciated
their upbeat counter to Pavement's mid-'90s dalliance with mid-tempo grinders.
Yatsura's singles were by no means classics, but they had snap, and were
informed by a wealth of indie rock influences: The Fall, The Wedding Present,
and Sonic Youth, among others. If nothing else, Yatsura's enthusiasm was all
the more refreshing because it came from the UK, a rock scene in which the
greatest sin is to admit that you listen to other bands.

Yaz, "Nobody's Diary"

In my experience, Yaz were
appreciated most by high school theater geeks—gay and straight
alike—who dug the romantic melodrama of Vince Clarke's techno-ballads, as
well as the fact that Alison Moyet could actually sing. Clarke continued this
mix of the synthetic and the dramatic with Erasure, while Moyet applied her
pipes to more traditional pop, with varying degrees of success. But there's
still something striking about Yaz's contrast of chilly electronics and the
warm blood spilled from broken hearts.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Tick"

Of all the derivative bands
that stormed out of New York in the early '00s, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have impressed
me the most with how much they've been able to do with what initially seemed
like not much. Their distorted, bluesy,
how-loud-can-just-a-guitar-and-drums-be? aesthetic is familiar from countless
indie-rockers, but YYY have an elevating element in lead singer Karen O, whose
bratty taunts and worldly boho posturing melts together Chrissie Hynde, Lydia
Lunch, and The Waitresses' Patty Donahue (or is it Romeo Void's Debora Iyall?).
The band's records are assaultive but self-aware, and even vulnerable at times.
I really started to understand the band when I saw them on MOJO HD's London
Live, and experienced Karen O's
pixie-ish stage presence and Cheshire grin. I had the band pegged as
faux-toughs, but live they struck me as far lighter and looser. I confess: I
fell in love a little.

Young Marble Giants, "Wurlitzer Jukebox"

So many indie bands have
followed the YMG blueprint that the first time I heard Colossal Youth, I had a tough time discerning what was special about
it. Eventually I started to find my way into the tight corners of songs like
this spacey salute to music fetishes, but I'm still not entirely sure whether Colossal
Youth is a great piece of music in and
of itself, or if it's only remarkable for being so forward-thinking for 1980.

Young MC, "Bust A Move"

Here's a question that may or
may not be pertinent: Would you classify this song as hip-hop or dance music?
It's not like the genres are mutually exclusive; still, hardcore hip-hop so
sharply defined itself as not pop
in the wake of Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer that party songs like "Bust A Move"
now seem like a crass bastardization of an artform. Still pretty damned
delightful though.

Yvonne Elliman, "If I Can't Have You"

Like our president-elect,
Elliman is both a native of Hawaii and an historic first: She's the first
artist of Asian ancestry to land a #1 single on Billboard's pop charts. This song—the #1 in
question—was a gift to her from The Bee Gees, who chose not to release
their own version until decades later. It's associated with disco, but "If I
Can't Have You" is more like early-'50s pop with a swinging backbeat.

Zero 7 (w/Jose Gonzalez), "Futures"

Zero 7's debut album Simple Things gave those who loved Air's seminal chillout LP Moon
Safari a place to turn once Air left behind
warm romantic Euro-soul for chilly techno-art. Dressed up with muted brass
hangings, supple bass, brittle electric piano, and the coolly fragile vocals of
Tina Dico, Simple Things cast a
spell not unlike hearing a particularly evocative piece of movie
music—perhaps from some existential urban romance, full of heartbreak and
renewal. The band has continued to deliver distilled shots of sophisticated
relaxation—for jetsetters, or for those who just fantasize about being
one.

Zero 7's third album The
Garden captured the sound of youth
turned old before its time, and featured a star turn by José González, the
Swedish folkie whose cult hit "Crosses" received the Zero 7 treatment on The
Garden, stretched out to almost three
times its original length, with González's delicate finger-picking replaced by
bongos, handclaps, vibrating synths, disco strings, and a background choir. The
expansion wasn't necessarily an improvement, and certainly not in comparison to
"Futures," which lets González's foggy voice play more simply across Zero 7's
supple electronics, like a remix of some late '70s Crosby, Stills & Nash
record.

The Zincs, "Rich Libertines"

One of the reasons I started this project was
because I felt alienated from my critical peers for either ignoring or not
fully appreciating good, non-gimmicky indie-rock bands like The Zincs, so it's
wholly appropriate that they're helping me close out the year. The Zincs have a
way of spinning a mood so precise and aching that it makes sadness seem
sublimely beautiful. Even their most uptempo songs contain cores of raw
emotion, pulsing with urgency and need. Bandleader James Elkington builds each
track around a steady rhythm and an unfussy arrangement, allowing his little
guitar flourishes and symphonic traces to stand out, like tiny jewels on a
thick gold necklace. Elkington expanded on the dark, sweet jangle of 2005's
under-heralded Dimmer with 2007's Black
Pompadour, which offers a seamless
stitching-together of Pulp, The Sea And Cake, and Steely Dan. A typical Zincs
song builds from a foundation of humming organ, lightly buzzing and strumming
guitars, and baroque imagery delivered in Elkington's deep, romantic croon. On Black
Pompadour, The Zincs work that formula into
steady-on toe-tappers like "Rich Libertines," which gives off the bright
shimmer of clean-burning energy.

Zumpano, "Some Sun"

I thank The Trouser Press
Guide To '90s Rock for helping me
find Zumpano well before The New Pornographers sent the hipster-American
community scrambling through the "Z" section of used CD racks. Zumpano's 1996
album Goin' Through Changes is one
of the decade's best, taking a generation's borderline kitschy appropriation
for Bacharach & David and rendering it straighter and more modern. The
music is open-hearted but hardly naïve. Honestly, it's hard to believe that the
Zumpano catalog is currently out of print—listening to it again this week,
it was like the ideal soundtrack for this new era of hope.

The Zutons, "Valerie"

I've got major problems with
The Zutons, whose debut album Who Killed… sounded like a hollow knock-off of The Coral (only more practiced),
and whose sophomore LP Tired Of Hanging Around was an unappealing hunk of overbearing guitar-pop,
goosed with faux-gospel, music-hall romps and bombastic homages to movie
soundtracks. But damned if that second record didn't also contain one of the
best songs of the '00s: "Valerie," a broadly theatrical, fun romantic anthem
that's like the long-awaited (and now illegal) marriage of Bruce Springsteen
and Elton John. Why does God put great songs in the hands of lousy bands?
That's an eschatological mystery I'd like to see resolved.

Zwan, "Declarations Of Faith"

The Smashing Pumpkins made their reputation (and
their millions) by fusing the overpowering ambition of prog-rock, the insular
melancholy of post-punk, and the guitar fetishism of both heavy metal and shoegazer dreampop. At his best, guitarist/visionary
Billy Corgan turned sour moods and self-aggrandizement into shiny little
pleasures; at his worst, he made the Pumpkins sound like whiny soreheads.
Corgan tried to start fresh with Zwan, whose debut album Mary Star Of
The Sea didn't exactly set the world afire,
perhaps because Corgan immediately undercut the "band" concept by not letting
Chavez guitarist Matt Sweeney or Slint/Tortoise guitarist/bassist David Pajo do
anything. Nevertheless, I really liked Mary, and especially this song, which nips from the
classic-rock lyric pool, insisting that "maybe we were born to run / forever"
and "maybe we were born to come / together." Like the album as a whole, "Declarations
Of Faith" is a big, melodic rock song with great guitar sounds, and that's
enough to forgive Corgan's continued indulgence of shameless mythopoetics.

2 Live Crew, "Banned In
The U.S.A."

Has there ever been a more
ridiculous musician to become a cause célèbre for free speech advocates than
Luther Campbell? And yet isn't that what makes this song in particular so
fascinating, two decades after its release? I bought the cassingle for "Banned
In The U.S.A." in 1990 purely as an act of solidarity—and because I was
curious to hear how Springsteen would translate in a hip-hop context—but
I still listen to it now for a reminder of the war on indecency during the
first Bush administration, and the strange bedfellows it made. Also, I have to
admit that around the third or fourth time the hook comes around, I start to
get goosebumps.

[pagebreak]

The 5 Royales, "Help Me, Somebody"

The 21st Century, "Shadow
Of A Memory"

One thing I'm going to miss
about the process of going through my library each week is stumbling across
great old soul songs like these two, both from compilations that I've bought
over the years and then consigned to the untamed fray of my iPod (where their
tracks only come up when the shuffle falls right). The 5 Royales
track—from the Vee-Jay box set—is striking for the way it changes
tempo and tone, emphasizing the lovelorn desperation in the lyrics. As for The
21st Century song—from the Funk/Soul Revival anthology—it's a breezy bit of Saturday
afternoon pop, in which the sorrow of the lyrics take a backseat to a feeling
of reassurance.

The 5th Dimension, "Love's
Lines, Angles And Rhymes"

I find The 5th Dimension
absolutely fascinating for a lot of reasons: Because they were one of the few "sunshine
pop" acts to crack the upper reaches of the Billboard charts; because they were such a sturdy vehicle for
the songs of Laura Nyro; because they had more than a little Broadway in their
sound; and because they were responsible for some of the most impeccably
arranged singles of the late '60s and early '70s. Listening to this song is
like taking a neighborhood stroll, lost in thought, yet letting all the
external stimuli shape the mood of the day.

10cc, "The Dean And I"

Much like Blue Öyster Cult, 10cc were a band known
by the public at large for a few hooky chart-toppers ("I'm Not In Love," "The
Things We Do For Love"), but touted by critics for years before their
breakthrough for their cracked sense of humor. I had no idea until I did a
little reading on 10cc a few years back their early albums were held in such
high regard. This song is a fairly typical of early 10cc, riffing on multiple
genres at once—retro-rockabilly, beach party, Thin Lizzy, rock
opera—while telling a story that's entertaining in and of itself.

12 Rods, "The Stupidest Boy"

I heard 12 Rods for the first
time when a copy of their big mainstream push Separation Anxieties showed up in my mailbox, and because I had no prior
experience with the band, I found the record thrilling, and didn't know until
years later that hardcore 12 Rods fans considered Separation Anxieties to be a betrayal. I later heard the earlier 12 Rods
material—of which this song is an example—and it's definitely
artier and rowdier than the songs on Separation Anxieties, though the breathless pop rush and creamy melodies
really aren't that different. Separation Anxieties just pulled to the surface the soft rock hooks and

'70s FM sheen that were already there. Anyway, the failure of that album more
or less killed the band, which is a shame. Based on their '90s output, they had
a shot at greatness.

The 13th Floor Elevators, "You're
Gonna Miss Me"

Here's further proof of why
neo-garage, no matter how fun it may be, rarely approaches the quality of the
genuine article. No matter how meticulous the copy, it's impossible to recreate
the authentic regional flavor and genuinely untamed heart of this band of
drug-addled, mentally deranged Texas rockers. Throughout it's
two-and-a-half-minute running time, "You're Gonna Miss Me" can barely stick to
one style. Is it folk-rock? Party music? Screaming blues? Shitkicker dance
music? It is a thing wholly its own: an artifact of a time and place and state
of mind.

60ft Dolls, "Stay"

1990s, "You're Supposed To
Be My Friend"

60ft Dolls' debut album The
Big 3 was a heartbeat-skipping jolt
of '70s-style storm-punk, albeit cleaner-sounding than the original punks ever
dared to be. The one-two punch of anthems that open the album—the ironic
consumer manifesto "Happy Shopper" and the raging love song "Stay"—established
the Dolls' backbeat-happy ethos from the jump, and the band's emphasis on
simple, verse-chorus-bridge-solo song structures proved pleasingly familiar. The
Big 3 would've sounded at home in any
year after 1976. Unfortunately, 60ft Dolls had a paucity of memorable melodies,
and were practically devoid of style, but their echoing, fist-pumping pop
singles sounded great blasting out of a car window. Fast-forward 10 years, and
the spirit of "turn that shit up" survives in bands like Glasgow's 1990s.
Though more in the recent sleaze-rock tradition of Louis XIV and Morningwood
than the neo-post-punk of fellow countrymen Franz Ferdinand, 1990s similarly
favors sparkly riffs and chant-y vocals, chock full of strut and coo. (At times
bandleader John McKeown seems to be parodying power-pop cockiness, taking the
piss out of every drunken rock God who every ripped off The Stooges and the
Stones.) A little of 1990s' debut album Cookies goes a long way, bouncy, witty anthems like "You're
Supposed to Be My Friend" kick hard, whether they're meant to be ironic or not.

The 101'ers, "Motor Boys Motor"

I
previewed Popless one year ago with an anecdote about listening to
The 101'ers' Elgin Avenue Breakdown,
and here the band is again at the end of the project. Back then, I wrote about
my disillusionment with modern music and the process writing about same, and
about how I wanted to spend a year listening to the songs that made me fall in
love with rock 'n' roll in the first place. I have done that, but the curse of
Popless has been that at the end of each week, I have to shelve the bands I've
just written about and move on to the next batch. I still haven't been able just to pop on The 101'ers for
pleasure at a moment's notice, because there's always something else I need to
be listening to. But now that my collection has been streamlined—if only
a little—I expect to move forward with my favorite songs and albums much
closer at hand. I'm excited for '09.

808 State, "Pacific 707"

Remember that Greyhound Bus I
mentioned last week, where I listened to Willie Nelson's Red Headed Stranger on a loop while traveling between Georgia and
Tennessee? I also spent a long stretch of one trip listening to 808 State's
album Utd. State 90, which,
honestly, was not the perfect
music for a long trip down America's backroads. I popped it on, immediately
fell asleep, stayed zonked through about three plays of the record, and woke up
with a headache. I like 808 State, but every time I see Utd. State 90's pink cover, my head starts to throb a little.

The 1900s, "Whole Of The Law"

The 1900s' debut EP Plume Delivery is full of evocative song-snippets like "Heart Props"
and "Flight Of The Monowings," as well as multi-part psychedelic folk-pop songs
like "Bring The Good Boys Home" and "Whole Of The Law," in which the Chicago
collective finds the connecting point between Stereolab, Buckingham-Nicks, and
high-lonesome bluegrass. I was disappointed with the 1900s' subsequent album,
but I cling to this song as proof of what the band might become.

+/-, "Far Into The Fields"

In the early going, +/- songs sounded like Versus
with the guitars turned down and the percussion more intricate—which made
sense given that +/- was essentially a side project for Versus' second
guitarist James Baluyut and drummer Patrick Ramos. But over time the band began
to nod more to The Feelies and Unrest in their preoccupation with tight
rhythmic patterns and dreamy vocals; and to the theatricality of Cursive and
Arcade Fire in songs that swagger and stomp like a drunken actor. Balyut and
Ramos have their weaknesses, as songwriters and performers. To borrow the
parlance of Project Runway, their albums
are like fashion shows with "not enough looks," as too many songs follow the
same path, quietly pinging back-and-forth before erupting. The band's rock
elements are too clean and hard, and the pop elements sprinkle down like fake
snow. But when a +/- song works, the band sounds like modernist shamans,
performing elaborate incantations to call down a rain of static.

!!!, "Me And Giuliani Down
By The School Yard (A True Story)"

For a time, when iTunes arranged its alphabet so
that symbols came before letters, this song was the first one in my library,
and if I clicked the wrong button on my iPod—which happened roughly once
a day—I'd hear the opening notes of this song, mutter a curse under my
breath, then scramble to get back to where I meant to go. But I don't hold my
incompetence against !!!, anymore than I fault them for their un-Google-able
name. I do however knock the bi-coastal dance-punk ensemble for so far failing
to come up with a song as sublime as this 2003 single. The band's subsequent LP Louden Up Now was a total
whiff—too short, with a good chunk of its running time taken up by
doodling interludes and a reprise of "Me And Giuliani"—though the
follow-up Myth Takes was more
rounded, taking !!!'s tautly funky jams down multiple generic paths. Yet the
major stumbling blocks of !!!'s shtick still pertain. The band's lyrics are
mostly half-assed slogans, and its method of building up songs through hours of
jamming means that they all tend to fall into the same basic "everybody disco!"
pattern. But on Myth Takes, those
patterns are more complex and full, and capable of creating subtle moods, as on
the single "Heart Of Hearts," which rumbles to life like the city streets at
dawn. What "Me And Giuliani" proved—and what Myth Takes confirmed—is that !!! is capable of capturing
the communal warmth of musicians playing together, adding one piece at a time
until everything sounds all chummy.

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

Regrettably unremarked
upon: You Am I, The Youngbloods,
Ziggy Marley and The 6ths

Also listened to: Yacht, The Yachts, Yakuza, Yann Tiersen, The Yarrows, Year Long
Disaster, The Year Of, Yeasayer, Yellowcard, Yellowsecond, Yerba Buena & Lennie, Yes No
Maybe, Yesterday's New Quintet, Yndi Halda, Yonder
Mountain String Band, The Yoshida Brothers, Yoshinori
Sunahara, You Say Party I Say Die, Young Antiques, Young Galaxy, Young
Grey Ruins, Young Heart Attack, Young Widows, Your Black
Star, Yukari Fresh, Yves Montand, Zachary Richard,
Zamfir, Zap Mama, Zapp & Roger, Zard, Zeca Pagodinho,
Ziggydale Zigfried, The Zodiac Cosmic Sounds, Zookeeper, Zoot Sims, ZOX, Zuco
103, 1AM, 4 Non Blondes, The 5 Royales, 5 Spiritual Tones, The 5.6.7.8's, 5th
Garden, 7 Year Bitch, 14 Iced Bears, 18 Visions, 20 Miles,
The 21st Century, 31 Knots, 36 Crazyfists, 44
Long, 60 Watt Kid, 180 Gs, 311 and 999

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

In two weeks: The Grand Finally, Part One.