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I doubt that anyone reading this needed to hear this from me, but here it is anyway: Avril Lavigne’s new album is no good. If you’re the sort of person who likes to be told things that you already assumed were true, you and this review are already great friends.
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But why, exactly, does Avril Lavigne suck? After all, I’m no stranger to this defense when reviewing an album like this: “You can’t possibly review this band because they’re not meant for you.” Superficially, this tack of argument is appealing. After all, I’m not a teenage girl, which is obviously the demographic this album is aimed at, with songs like “Girlfriend” (about a girl who wants to be a guy’s boyfriend), “Contagious” (about a girl who likes a guy), and “Hot” (about a girl who likes a — tune in next week!).
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The problem with that point of view is that it, much like Avril’s writing partners and the producers of this album undoubtedly do, assumes that teenage girls are idiots. I was a teenager once. I know that they are often ruled by hormones and angst, and that’s okay. But it is perfectly possible to make a great album for a teenage audience that does not pander so quickly and severely to the lowest common denominator.
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We’ll even make it especially fair to Avril by using her chosen genre as an example. The pop punk scene doesn’t immediately make one think of brilliant music, but there are bands out there who have used it very effectively. Consider The Descendents, particularly the breakout “Milo Goes To College”. The song “Clean Sheets” is a pop punk masterpiece, a fun-sounding lament about a familiar teenage topic — in this case, tough love and heartbreak — that isn’t idiotic or formulaic. Ditto for other tracks like “Parents” and “I’m Not A Loser”.
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Over 20 years later, we can be sure that young Avril has taken no heed of her forefathers. Every single goddamned song on the CD is simplistic, predictable, and repetitive — completely interchangeable with the one preceding it, both lyrically and musically. Random additions of some misplaced piano or a call-and-response section try and break up the monotony, but they’re painfully obvious for what they are. Underneath, the chord progressions and lyrical sentiments remain the same, over and over and over again. The nicest thing you could say is that most of the songs are catchy on some level, but when you’re using the same tried-and-tested hook over and over again — one that we’ve heard a million times before — the catchiness only lasts for the duration of the song; it is instantly forgettable. Which is great for me.
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I realize at this point that I’ve devoted little of this review to what the disc actually sounds like, but really, what’s the point, other than to satisfy my more masochistic tendencies? Take one of Lavigne’s songs — really, any one will do — and play it 10 times. Throw in a slower, more ballad-like song and play it once or twice. Mix well (not well, actually — you’ll need the sound of overproduction), and throw in an occasional inexplicable faux-British accent. Congratulations. You’ve recreated “The Best Damn Thing”, and you didn’t have to do your damndest to avoid the disapproving gaze of the checkout guy at the record store to do it.
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Sadly, Lavigne’s core audience does not care that her new album is trash; in fact, they’re happy. Shrewdly, effortlessly, she and her producers give them exactly what they want. “Iiiiiii don’t haaaave to tryyyyyyyy!” Lavigne screeches on a track bearing the same name. Truer words have never been spoken.
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Release date: April 17, 2007
Label: RCA
Rating: 2/10
The last time that Clint Mansell did the score for a Darren Aronofsky film, we ended with the Requiem For A Dream soundtrack, an incredibly powerful and moody theme that has since been recycled and used in over five million ways, from pulling soundtrack duties in one of the Lord Of The Rings movies to a commercial for epic diaper rash (eventually, mark my words). This time around, Mansell generates something more conventional, but almost just as brilliant — it has less moments of raw power and emotion than Requiem, but it’s also more balanced and consistent.
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The shame here, though, is the album’s paltry length. With only ten tracks — half of which don’t even break the four minute barrier — the theme is left criminally under-explored. If the soundtrack wasn’t great, this wouldn’t be as big a deal, but much of what’s here is nearly as moving as the Requiem theme, and most definitely deserved more.
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The main theme here, introduced immediately on the very first track, is dreamy and brooding, a big departure from the staccato edginess of the Requiem soundtrack. It works quite well as a counterpart to The Fountain, which cast Hugh Jackman as an anguished scientist trying to find the cure to his wife’s terminal illness. I mention this only because it fits so perfectly; those who haven’t seen the movie will still find plenty of value in the moody strings on “The Last Man” and “Stay With Me”, and tribal drums of “Tree of Life” and “Finish It”.
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Mansell’s expansions on the main theme are just as compelling. “First Snow” conveys urgency without breaking from the introspective qualities found at the soundtrack’s core, and the “Death is the Road to Awe” takes ideas introduced there and runs with them, adding a lush background of a pounding backbeat, a backing choir, and additional instruments to compliment the strings. If I had one criticism about the music itself, it would be that tracks like “Death is the Road to Awe” are the exception; such variety and length (it’s over eight minutes long) applied in choice sections elsewhere in the album could have truly made this a classic effort.
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As mentioned, the other albatross here is length. It seems inconceivable that a theme with such potential is limited to a handful of tracks that combined stop short of 45 minutes. I can only hope that this piece of music is shared around as much as Requiem’s was, and expansions on it are generated in the process.
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Had there been more here with just a bit more variety, this would’ve easily ranked as one of the top OSTs in recent memory, handily keeping up with the big boys like John Williams and Danny Elfman. As it stands, what’s here is very good and should not be missed.
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9/10
I must confess, I hadn’t really heard much from Clogs prior to this album, despite the fact that they’ve had three prior releases. In case you too are unfamiliar with the band, here’s Clogs (for the remainder of the review I can tell I will have to resist the temptation to throw a “The” in front of the name, although I suppose that would give the impression that they were a me-too indie rock band) in a nutshell: they’re a four-piece that makes music best described as freeform classical, like a jam band but with a string section and a few woodwinds here and there. A typical song introduces a loop of melody and explores it for the next few minutes, often coming to a jarring halt at the end (on some songs such as “Canon” and “5/4″, this bothered me; it was like being harshly woken up from a dream I had only recently begun to explore).
The members of the Clogs have quite the pedigree, not the least of which is training at the Yale School of Music, and it shows through and through. Each and every instrument is deftly wielded, and many of the songs, while clearly free-form, are filled with rich textures and hooks that could easily compete with carefully-written songs from other bands. Moods are clearly communicated throughout most of the album, such as the tension-laden “Compass” and the precipitous “5/4″. These songs evoke feelings and even visions in the listener without being pretentious or forceful. Read more »
Putting out a fantastically innovative album — or worse, a couple of them — is a tricky proposition. If each album a band released existed in a vaccum, there would be less of a problem; unfortunately, this is not the case, and expectations begin to creep in after a certain level of ingenuity and craftsmanship is established.
Sky Blue Sky falls victim to this phenomenon, making Wilco, in a sense, a victim of its own success. While the band forged new ground with the fantastic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and then followed it up with the not-quite-as-fresh-but-still-pretty-damn-fresh A Ghost Is Born, they seem content to rest on their laurels a bit on this album, in some instances detrimentally so. That’s not to say there’s not plenty here to love for both newcomers and seasoned fans alike, but those who follow the band closely may be a little let down, and those who have heard the various accolades about prior albums may occasionally wonder, on certain tracks, what all the fuss was really about.
It has been said that the manner in which Sky Blue Sky was recorded 
represents a departure for Wilco; while previous albums had songs crafted and fleshed out prior to studio time, the band reportedly developed most of the ideas this time around right in the studio. Whether this is true or not, there’s no denying that some tracks give off this very vibe, as if the band thought, “Hey, this is kind of neat! Hit the button and let’s see where it takes us!”
Fortunately, the group has more than enough talent to carry them admirably through these songs, which include tracks like “Shake It Off” and “Walken”, particularly with the addition of guitarist Neils Cline to the band, who joined shortly after A Ghost Is Born and thus experiences his first time on a studio recording from the band here. Still, Wilco is not the sort of band one listens to for a well-done jam session–the band has made deft composition and clever lyricism a staple of its sound with past recordings, and so unfocused efforts come off as disappointing.
All of that being said, there are some cuts here that stand completely toe-to-toe with the band’s best work. “Impossibly Germany” captures the band doing music the way it does best, with a deceptively simple and laid-back chord progression leading to complex interweaving guitar lines that do as much to stimulate the ear as the backing rhythm does to relax it. Tracks like “Side With The Seeds” proves that the band’s can absolutely still produce top-notch lyricism, as well, with Jeff Tweedy’s lamenting hope working in perfect stride with the alternately laid-back and crescendoing melody. “No one wins but the thieves / so why side with anything?” he asks. It’s a sneaking moment of relevance that can catch you by surprise with how astute it manages to be without being intrusive.
When songs like this are followed up tracks like the repetitive and not-as-coherent “Shake It Off”, however, you can’t help but feel what’s missing here. Sky Blue Sky is a fine album that’s brilliant at times, but it’s not brilliant all the time. For a band like Wilco, this is something worth mentioning.
Release date: May 15, 2007
Label: Nonesuch
Rating: 8/10
Photos courtesy of Newberry Photography and Crayola.
