- joiezabel in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head it really is brilliant, scott. i hate you.
- hotshotrobot in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head Goddammit, Borch, now how am i supposed to review this? I can’t top that!
- Borch in The Avett Brothers - House of Blues - May 14th Good Lord, that’s a beautiful song! The Avett Bros. were in Chicago? Why wasn’t I notified?!
I remember once getting into a conversation with some friends of mine about who had the most embarrassing things in their collection o’ music. They volunteered some examples, and I can’t even remember what they were, because at that point I opened my mouth and said:
“I have all three Ace of Base albums.”
That was the end of the discussion. “OK, dude, you win,” they said, and the topic was never broached again.
For the purposes of this discussion, the point of this story is that I’ve got no shame at all when it comes to my love of pure pop. As such, I’ll happily admit to having actually quite enjoyed Hilary Duff’s albums so far. Something about their plastic chirpiness, their giddy disposability, appeals to me. I think of them as the aural equivalent of marshmallow peeps. (Incidentally, I really like those too.)
At any rate, it’s hard to even try to maintain a straight face and look at the cover of the Dignity Remix EP at the same time. Not only does it have the same kind of perfume-ad picture of Ms. Duff as the proper Dignity album, but it’s also got a blue rectangle in the corner that proudly proclaims: “Wal-Mart Exclusive!” I find that fitting somehow. There’s a level on which Hilary and Wal-Mart fit perfectly with each other; you might, if you were a pretentious English major, or a librarian, or, heaven forbid, both, think of them as synomorphs. Synomorphs, incidentally, is very high on the list of names I’d use if I were going to start drawing manga. But I digress. As usual.
The Dignity Remix EP starts with three mixes by ex-Movement DJ Richard Vission, who, much to my chagrin, declines to use the Richard “Humpty” Vission name. He takes on “With Love,” “Play With Fire,” and “Dignity,” but he’s only got one trick to spread between them. It seems to involve mugging the Neptunes for the synth they used on No Doubt’s “Hella Good,” and then putting it on repeat. Seriously, these three tracks are awful; I think they would irritate me even if I were in a club. They’re also the sort of mixes that obscure the original song to the point where it’s unrecognizable — it’s pretty hard to hear Hilary underneath the sledgehammer synths.
The fourth track, the Vada Mix of “Play With Fire,” seems to be an attempt to turn Hilary into Beyonce. It’s a bad idea on at least two levels: first, because this means that we wind up with the kind of canned radio-R&B backing that could be any of six songs currently in heavy rotation at a top-40 station near you; and second, because Hilary simply doesn’t have the kind of vocal chops necessary to impose any personality on this kind of material. On her regular studio albums, she’s aware of her limitations and chooses not to expose them. If you’ve got the voice of an ingenue, you shouldn’t try a track that requires a diva. Simple as it is.
The last track, the Dance Mix of “Come Clean,” is one that I’ve always liked, with just the right addition of driving bassline and club-ready drums to complement the processed guitars and the melody. Trouble is, it’s the exact same mix that’s already on Most Wanted, so using it to pad an “exclusive” EP is somewhere between very and extremely disingenuous.
It’s exactly the same price at Wal-Mart to buy Dignity with or without the remix EP, so this isn’t a waste of money, precisely. It’s a pretty big waste of time, though.
Release Date: April 3, 2007
Label: Hollywood Records
Rating: 3/10
(note: title jacked from here)
IÂ admit: it’s been a good nine years since I took any interest in Tori Amos’ career. Her current release at the time was From the Choirgirl Hotel, an album fraught with the emotional turmoil of new love and repeated miscarriages. I admit: I listened to it probably twice, and went back to my copy of Boys for Pele, which I continued listening to in the ensuing years. Tori moved on, trying electronica, a covers album, a label switch, concept albums, and all the usual shit that seems to happen to successful musicians midway through their career when they’re not exactly sure what to do next. Then, on top of that, came the greatest hits collection, the official bootlegs, and the retrospective box set. It seemed like Tori was closing the door on an artistic part of her life, and moving into a new phase (in fact, she started mentioning doing something different from her earlier albums in interviews). When the opportunity arose for me to review American Doll Posse, I took it, interested to see what she might be up to. I told my roommate, and she replied “Tori’s gone apeshit!”
And yes, folks, it’s true: Tori’s gone apeshit. If you’ve been following any of the pre-release hype, you may know that Tori has created five “alter egos,” (the “posse,” natch) and they all split vocal duties and writing chores. Um, sure. Except they’re all Tori Amos, right? Well, they sure all sound like her. I can’t say if she’s writing the blogs each of the characters maintains. Oh, and they’re all based on Greek mythology, apparently, although I don’t recall a Greek god named “Santa.” Or “Pip,” for that matter. I realised that I’d have to stop rolling my eyes at some point, ignore all this character creation (which is hardly something she’s never done before, if the Wikipedia entry for Scarlet’s Walk is to be believed) and actually listen to the record if I was going to learn anything I could impart unto you, the reader.
The album kicks off nicely, following the brief ode to everyone’s favorite American citizen “Yo George” with the lead single “Big Wheel.” It’s a somewhat courageous choice, given the burnished, radio-ready sound of “Secret Spell” and “Bouncing Off Clouds,” but it’s a good one, coquettishly kicking its way onto the dance floor while Tori proclaims “I’m an M-I-L-F, don’t you forget.” The mis-steps start early, though, as “Teenage Hustling” tries a mean swagger that comes off self-concious (it should be noted that “Body and Soul” handles the swagger much better.) “Programmable Soda” wastes a fun music-hall arrangement on a song that’s, well, called “Programmable Soda.” What more do you need to know? On the other hand, a string quartet pops up on the lovely, understated “Girl Disappearing.” Another ballad, “Digital Ghost,” mixes quietly ticking electronics with quiet, crunchy guitars. Unfortunately, around the hour mark of this 79-minute album, the songs just run together. It’s a shame some of the wasteful fluff like “Mr. Bad Man” couldn’t have been trimmed.
But I suppose that’s not the point. If I were reviewing this album in one sentence, it would say “Tori Amos makes a Tori Amos record.” All I can really say about many of the songs are that they sound like Tori Amos songs. I’m okay with that, but then, I like her okay. American Doll Posse won’t sway anybody’s opinion; if you’re a fan, I’m sure you’re already making art based on an offhand remark in Clyde’s blog, and if you’re not, you’ve probably given up on this review by now. Which leaves just you and me: the vaguely curious. And what we are left with is the fact that Tori will make the album she wants, and more power to her. But for all her talk of forward motion, why is the music so familiar? Has her search for a new voice led her back to an earlier sound? Is it artistic laziness? I suppose we’ll have to wait for the next album, or maybe longer. Maybe I’ll spend another nine years reaching for Boys For Pele when I want to hear a Tori Amos record. But I’ll keep an ear open.
And to think a long-running, mall punk irrelevance like Fall Out Boy would put all of your panties in a bunch (and I suspect at least a couple of you like your panties that way), just wait ’til you see this wet pile of high gloss harlotry- that’s right, Dr. Pepper, rock mediocrity and reality TV have finally come together in a meeting that only promises to be more historic than that time one caveman stuck his chocolate bar in another caveman’s jar of peanut butter.
As told to me by Wikipedia, the definition of Indie Rock is “alternative rock that primarily exists in the underground music scene.” I needed to visit the experts as this definition undoubtedly varies from person to person every 2 minutes or so and I did not want to blunder. And a compilation, as we all know, consists of a variety of songs chosen from different artists to collectively cover a genre of music.
So we have “Indie Rock” and “compilation” straight. However, somewhere along the line in This is Indie Rock, we lost the idea that a compilation is supposed to further intrigue the listener to investigate the stylings of those bands or that genre of music. In that sense, this album fails miserably.
This album does nothing to give me an idea or inkling of the Indie Rock arena and what I should be cheering for within it. There are a number of songs that make me want to turn the album off and never listen to it again, just like when I heard Vanilla Ice perform “Go Ninja Go Ninja Go” from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. That, by the way, made him lose ALL credibility he built with such hits as “Having a Roni.”
There are 3 categories into which I will place the 12 tracks from this album: 1) songs that I enjoyed, 2) songs that I neither liked or disliked, and 3) songs that made me cringe as though someone was raking their nails against a chalkboard (which in my mind is overrated in terms of annoying sounds–there are many that rank ahead of that).
Songs that fall into the first category are few and far between on this album. They are “Indie Pop Song” by The Blind King, “Frontiers” by Second Hand Stories and “Rooms” by Leaving Lounge (who, by the way, don’t seem to exist–on the internet, at least). Listing these 3 songs also reminds me of the strange band names on this album I wasn’t sure if I was listening to Indie Rock or to an audio CD of short stories by random authors (this is typically not a good sign). These three tracks all featured the aspects that make music enjoyable for me: solid vocals, harmonies and actually singing opposed to screaming. I am also more inclined to follow music with guitar and piano rifts that nicely mesh with the vocals to support the infusion of the sounds melodically. These bands interest me enough to take a gander at their MySpace pages to get a better idea of how they sound and to discover what they are capable of.
Songs that fall into category 2 (those that triggered nary a reaction from me) were “I Must Save the President” The Pit That Became a Tower, “Marionettes” Clair de Lune, “Puzzle: Part One” Winter in Alaska, “Silver and Gold” Joanna Erdos, and “Bells and Hammers” The Kidcrash. On any given album, it’s okay if specific songs don’t jump out or impact you in any way as those albums tend to create that feeling of cohesiveness and the tracks all being part of a larger meaning. With a compilation CD, however, every song should at least have an effect one way or the other. The songs chosen for an album should be tracks that would be most conducive to garnering a reaction of some sort from the listener. A “blah” song detracts from the purpose of a compilation, much like writing this review is detracting from my overall “real world” work production (which is welcome).
Finally, we have songs that fall into category 3 - the songs that are actually painful to listen to. These include: “So Simple” Lakota, Siva, “Saturday” Throat, and “Weekend Warriors” by Dino Velvet. They all have the same qualities in common, a complete disregard for actual singing. Maybe I’m odd or different but music generally doesn’t appeal to me when it is accompanied by indiscernible screaming. Granted, I understand there is an entire genre of music that is dedicated to this style of screaming however, this isn’t a Heavy Metal compilation, even though I did feel that a third of this “Indie Rock” album was dedicated to the metalheads of the world. In a sense, I feel as though I was duped, even deceived, if you will. I’ve learned my lesson. Indie Rock compilation albums will now stay on the shelf when I journey into the realm of music perusing.
Label: Deep Elm Records
Release date: January 26, 2004
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Whatever else Noisettes may be, they don’t appear to be particularly fast workers. Even though they’ve had three years since the Three Moods of the Noisettes EP came out, they still reprise half of the EP on their first full-length, What’s the Time, Mr. Wolf?, which arrived on US shores last week (though it’s been available in the UK since February). I suppose there’s something to be said for sticking with what works, but they’re still only averaging three new songs a year at that rate.
Anyway, any discussion of Noisettes’ music has to begin with the striking instrument that is Shingai Shoniwa’s voice. Half Peggy Lee and half Yoshimi P-WE, Shoniwa almost has to be heard to be believed, but as affectation-laced as her vocals can be, they convey a ferocious intensity. It’s bracing and furious and at least halfway unhinged, but it’s also quite refreshing. Even if they’ve opened for Babyshambles and the Bloc Party, it’s hard to accuse Shoniwa or the rest of the Noisettes of being anything but honest.
Intense, actually, is a pretty good word for the band’s sound in general. It’s based firmly in the sort of garage-rock revivalism made popular by the White Stripes and the Hives, but with generous dollops of both noise-rock and neo-soul. If that sounds like a bizarre combination, that’s because it is, but it’s held together both by passion and restraint. There’s a lot of white space at the edges of Noisettes’ sound. Although they’re usually loud, the arrangements are a good deal less busy than one might expect, and it’s this lack of excess that makes Noisettes really interesting.
The album certainly starts off with a bang. “Don’t Give Up” features a savage guitar line, a primal beat, and Shingai Shoniwa’s searing vocals. It’s like party music for the damned. After the ragged but catchy “Scratch Your Name,” the band turns down the amps and picks up the acoustic guitars for “The Count of Monte Cristo.” It plays kind of like a stripped-down Helicopter Girl — until it makes a left turn into a hypnotic, swirling guitar outro that would make Yo La Tengo proud.
The record never quite gets as brilliant as that three-song sequence again, though the rest of it is still very good. Some of the noisier songs on the second half stray perhaps a bit too far away from the rock side of the equation, and that’s why I can’t give it a full 9/10. But it’s an exciting album, and one that bodes well for the rest of Noisettes’ career. Assuming, you know, that they bother to write any more songs.
Release Date: Feb. 5, 2007
Label: Vertigo
Rating: 8.5/10
File this in the ‘Oh yes we really have run out of ideas’ folder. They are making a Spider-Man musical. And they are getting Bono and Edge to composing a song or two for it. I am already imagining a very delicious biblical image connecting Christ and Peter Parker somehow worked into the song. What’s also amusing about this endeavor is that it’s not the whole band, it’s just Bono and Edge. Hopefully Larry and Adam told them to fuck off when they heard about the project.
