What is Panda Bear singing about here? Let me paraphrase: Did we have a good time? I think I had a good time but maybe we didn’t? Didn’t we want to enjoy ourselves? Maybe we did? How can we deny that maybe we had a good time? Etc, etc. If you look at a transcription of the lyrics, it seems like a very bad translation from another language. That said, I like how this slippery, confused emotion is expressed in this sweet, earnest, boyish melody within this icy, pretty arrangement. I love the way this track is just shy of feeling entirely graceful, as if there’s some slightly mechanical glitch keeping this from perfection.
Too Pure / On Fire / Skull / Ocean / S. Soup / Mind Reader / Got It / Drag Down / Dreams / Magnet’s Coil / Rebound / License to Confuse / Sister / Drama Mine / Nothing Like You / Crystal Gypsy / Love to Fight / Bird in the Hand / Careful / Together Or Alone / Not A Friend / Beauty of the Ride / Forced Love / Sixteen / Give Up / Junk Bonds / New Worship / Brand New Love // Not Too Amused / Willing to Wait
It’s probably for the best that Sebadoh released their best work before phrases like “TMI,” “emo” and “overshare” became commonplace. Lou Barlow and Jason Loewenstein are indie rock’s all-time beta male shame spiral champs, a duo of songwriters rivaled only by Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham in their skill for articulating neurotic relationship drama from a straight male perspective in song. Their current tour is focused on the band’s mid-90s peak, back when they were basically the rocked-out male equivalent to Liz Phair’s music from the same time.
Okay, but here’s the thing: Whereas I think a person can gain a lot of strength and wisdom from listening to Liz Phair, it’s better not to relate to Loewenstein and Barlow’s songs. Their music is a catharsis for unflattering feelings — pettiness, jealousy, neediness, foolishness and passive aggression. These are valid feelings, but…ugh, you know? I hear these songs and remember a lot of awful things. Worst of all, I hear similar situations repeating over and over.
“Give Up” overflows with self-loathing. Each line comes off as self-condemnation: He’s a burn out man, typically bitter, locked into a vicious cycle, a helpless slob in a dead-end day job, a codependent self-styled nightmare. Not long ago, I shifted my perspective on the words and starting hearing it as a sketch of someone else rather than something to be directed inward. Either way it’s totally brutal.
I love the way the descending, plodding bass line in this song sounds like the body language of a morose, brooding guy pacing around with slumped shoulders. “Nothing Like You” is about trying to make sense of a complicated, painful relationship that is already over. It’s broken, you barely get along, but you want to salvage it somehow, if only to justify the time and emotion you’ve poured into it. The simultaneous attraction and repulsion is perfectly articulated in the double meaning of the chorus: “There’s a lot of girls in the world that are nothing like you.”
Hauschka’s latest album Salon Des Amateurs finds the German experimental pianist playing with rhythms and structural ideas inspired by dance music. I can hear it in some of the tracks for sure, but as usual, the main appeal of Hauschka’s work is not a formalist appropriation of ideas from another genre but rather the striking, elegant beauty of his compositions and the distinct, remarkable evocative tones created by his manipulation of his piano’s strings and hammers. “Cube” is an especially gorgeous piece. I can’t hear much techno influence on this one, but it could be in there somewhere — I find I get too caught up in its ever-shifting melodies, rhythms and tones to get hung up on trainspotting.
“Movement” has the sound of cool sophistication, but that barely conceals its feeling of restlessness and eagerness to break free from an aggravating stasis. Katy B’s vocal performance gets the tone just right, conveying a mild anxiety without overselling it and seeming like a wreck. The sadness in this song is manageable, and possibly even constructive — she sounds like a person with agency who is going to do what she has to do in order to get out of a rut, but is just finding the right moment to act. It could be that she’s waiting for the right beat.
Chinatown / Blue Eyes / It’s Gonna Take An Airplane / Downtown / My Favorite Year / Kaputt / 3000 Flowers / Painter In Your Pocket / Suicide Demo For Kara Walker / Song For America // Bay of Pigs
There was a guy next to me for most of this show who was very, very drunk and very, very high and very, very loud. He was also very, very, very into Destroyer and took every opportunity to express this feeling. Between each song he shouted stuff like “I LOVE DESTROYER!!!,” louder and more emphatically as the show progressed. He seemed a bit flustered because no one else would join in. Maybe a little bit more flustered because no matter what he did, Dan Bejar would not acknowledge his existence in any way.
It wasn’t just him, though. Despite a small amount of banter, Bejar seemed almost entirely indifferent to the audience. He was present in his songs, singing the words but doing nothing at all to be theatrical. I’ve seen Bejar perform before as Destroyer and with the New Pornographers, so it wasn’t a big surprise to me, though I think there’s still a part of me that lives with these records and imagines a much bigger, more flamboyant character than the low-key bohemian I see on stage. And of course the Bejar we actually get is very much a character too, albeit a life-size one — he’s iconic, magnetic, fascinating. He seems genuinely shy. I’m not sure if he likes being on stage, but he obviously loves the music. Sometimes it looked like he was happy to just kneel down and watch the musicians play. Even when he was reading his words from a page, he sounded totally engaged in the songs, if not the “performance.” I never got the feeling that he was trying to entertain anyone, but I definitely got the sense that he wanted the music to be as amazing and transporting as possible. This maybe explains why I enjoyed this concert most when I closed my eyes.
Dance Yrself Clean / Drunk Girls / I Can Change / Time To Get Away / Get Innocuous! / Daft Punk Is Playing At My House / Too Much Love / All My Friends / Tired // 45:33 part one / 45:33 part two / Sound of Silver / 45:33 part four / 45:33 part five / 45:33 part six / Freak Out/Starry Eyes /// Us V Them / North American Scum / Bye Bye Bayou / You Wanted A Hit / Tribulations / Movement / Yeah / Someone Great / Losing My Edge / Home //// All I Want / Jump Into the Fire / New York, I Love You
When I was reading through Pitchfork’s excellent You Were There: The Complete LCD Soundsystem last week, I kept thinking that I was glad that I wasn’t a part of that project because out of all the bands that mean a lot to me, LCD Soundsystem is probably the only one where I don’t think I could successfully write about them in a way that was not personal. Also, I’ve never been happy with anything I’ve written about this band. When the early singles were coming out, it was all about the thrill of discovery for me, and I wasn’t good enough back then to articulate what made the music so compelling. Later on, I shied away from getting at why certain songs connected with me because there are simply some things I don’t want to discuss in public, or in many cases, with other people at all.
My favorite LCD Soundsystem songs are tied to some of the most crucial (and often most painful) parts of my life. “Us V Them” and “North American Scum” are connected to little epiphanies; “I Can Change” is tied to a moment of horrible self-awareness. I saw them play “Jump Into the Fire” on the day I learned that my father had cancer and it provided an intense catharsis. “Someone Great” was exactly how I felt when he died, right on down to the description of the phone call.
The LCD song that means the most to me is “Yeah.” It changed the course of my life. When that song came out I was a recent art school graduate with very little going on in my life, and no direction. This site was still in a very early stage, with a tiny readership mainly comprised of internet friends. At that point in time, it was all enthusiasm. The writing wasn’t there yet, and I didn’t really think of myself as a writer at all. In December of 2003, I posted a leaked mp3 of “Yeah” and it basically put this site on the map. The traffic spiked, and miraculously pretty much everyone stuck around. That set off a chain reaction of press coverage and attention and other people starting similar sites and it completely changed everything for me. It pushed me to take this very seriously, and to become a real writer. I can’t understate the importance of this site in my life: Almost everything good about my life in the past decade is a direct result of doing this site, and I credit LCD Soundsystem and “Yeah” for creating this opportunity for me. At least in some way I owe my career to James Murphy.
“Yeah” happens to be the song that best summarizes what LCD Soundsystem was all about. The major reason why Murphy is an inspiring figure is that he will never half-ass anything. He is all about total commitment, and executing every idea as well as possible. “Yeah” is a song that expresses deep disgust toward those who only talk about their ideas. Murphy houses this loathing and frustration in one of the most ambitious compositions of his career, a work that is even more impressive in concert if just by proving that a live band can absolutely nail a complex house music track with zero compromise. Murphy raises the bar for everyone, not just musicians. His achievement is a challenge to everyone to do better.
In this way, “Yeah” never stops changing my life. I hear the sentiment in this song (and also some very similar words in “Pow Pow”) and I get anxious. His words sting because I know I am implicated and I know he’s right and I just want to prove him wrong. He makes me want to work.
A lot of Britney Spears’ seventh album Femme Fatale sounds like a bunch of talented writers and producers going wild and pushing the limits of what can fly on a mainstream pop album, with Spears mainly acting as muse, mouthpiece and benefactor all at once. Her presence isn’t required, but she can’t be ignored. The best songs take the idea of Britney Spears — or maybe just the representation of her sexuality? — and digitally manipulate it into some kind of abstraction. “How I Roll,” a track by “Toxic” producers Bloodshy & Avant, is especially strange merger of bubblegum pop and electronic tinkering. It’s mad science pop, bursting with energy and unconventional ideas about sound and structure tossed at the audience in a playful but also sort of confrontational manner. Spears isn’t always totally recognizable throughout Femme Fatale, but on this track she sounds exactly like herself, particularly the youthful teen version that everyone remembers and laments in one way or another. Even still, she takes a backseat to the production and the hooks. She’s there to be “Britney Spears,” the zombie celebrity. She’s there to be the eccentric rich person who bankrolls this sort of experiment and puts it out into the world.
Cam’ron always raps with a playful cadence; it’s part of what makes him so easy to like even when he’s being a dick. It’s a slick charm — something about his voice tells you that he’s just playing with you and it always rings true. He’s funny too, particularly when he’s being crass. This track has a classy, sparkling sound to it, but he’s goofy and lewd, talking about a girlfriend so possessive that she insists on sniffing his balls when he gets in the house. She’s uptight and obsessive, but he plays it cool and laid back. He leans into the track like it’s a particularly comfortable chair. Vado is another story. When he comes in, he’s angry and defensive. He’s an interesting foil for Cam — harder but less assured. Vado emphasizes Cam’s effortless vibe, which in turn highlights the raw emotion in Vado’s performance.
Sometimes when I am alone I sing to myself. I find a snippet of melody that I like and follow it where it takes me — sometimes it’s just a loop, other times it keeps rambling and changing to the point that I can’t recall where I started. I make up the words as I go along and sometimes get surprised by what comes out from my unconscious mind. I do this when walking around, just quiet enough that no one can hear, though sometimes they do and I don’t care. For the first minute of this composition, Nicolas Jaar sounds like he’s doing that, quietly singing to himself phrases that spill out of his head, following the melody in circles. But then it shifts. There’s an amazing keyboard bass line that comes in, the kind of sound and melody that would feel natural on a James Murphy track. Then it keeps going — the vocals multiply and tangle as the arrangement gets deeper and richer, and somehow it never stops sounding lonesome and spacious. There are phrases that stick out, that don’t quite make sense but have a powerful resonance. I think I get what this guy is thinking and how he felt when he made it. It feels familiar to me, anyway.
This dream isn’t quite a nightmare, but it’s the kind of thing you wake up from thinking “wuh?” and images and feelings from it resurface in your head later in the day and it feels like an actual uncomfortable memory. But not necessarily bad — just something that reveals something in your mind you don’t want to think about or take responsibility for thinking/feeling. I love the way the smooth guitar part in this song signifies elegant sexiness while the keyboard attack has this quality that evokes both strobe lights and nervous agitation. Conflicting vibes, but they somehow complement each other perfectly.
The Weeknd get a lot out of a Beach House sample, extending and bending it around the vocals and the lyrics until it every twist and shift is as vivid and resonant as a well-shot movie. I feel like I can “see” everything in this song very clearly; it’s like when you read a novel with a perfect vision of everything. If you were tell me your impression of anything mentioned in the words, I would want to argue with you and tell you that you got it wrong if we didn’t see it the same way. Totally ridiculous and subjective, but emotional truth is what it is.
There are other songs on Sloan’s new album The Double Cross that grabbed my attention more quickly, and I’ll get to them later on. Weirdly, those songs were more subtle and understated — the lovely ballad “Laying So Low,” the retro-pop “Shadow of Love,” the stately “Beverley Terrace.” “Unkind,” a Patrick Pentland number, is one of his riffy stompy tunes and it just sorta pushed its way into my brain and has barely left for weeks. The only song that can knock it out of my mind lately is “Friday” by Rebecca Black. Obviously, “Friday” can be a little irritating, but “Unkind” is a joy. I love how assertive it sounds — not angry or pushy, just very clear-headed and forthright. Pentland is dealing with some relationship anxiety and frustration in the lyrics, but even when he’s being mean and dismissive, he doesn’t come across like a jerk. The words do not suggest any kind of resolution, but the music sounds celebratory, like someone realizing that they have the freedom and agency to walk away from someone who is bringing them down.
There’s a Peter Gabriel thing going on here, right? Like someone trying to turn “Sledgehammer” into punk rock. It works for TV on the Radio, mainly because Tunde Adebimpe’s voice has this bouncy, colorful quality that suits the cartoonish exaggeration in the music. “Caffeinated Consciousness” is one of those sneaky songs in which the verses are bolder and catchier than the chorus, which recedes into a smoother, funkier, calmer zone. The “caffeinated” bits are what get you, it’s like being zapped with animated lightning. It’s not surprising that the lyrics are so positive and focused on constructive behavior — this feels so much like the manic buzz of inspiration that comes once in a while, and you basically have to go with it or suffer for ignoring the call to action.
The Pleasure Principle / Control / What Have You Done For Me Lately? / Feedback / You Want This – Alright / Miss You Much / Nasty / Nothing / Come Back to Me / Let’s Wait A While / Again / Doesn’t Really Matter / Escapade / Love Will Never Do (Without You) / When I Think of You / All For You / That’s the Way Love Goes / I Get Lonely / If / Scream / Rhythm Nation // Diamonds – The Best Things in Life Are Free – Make Me / Together Again
For a major icon of pop music, Janet Jackson is not a tremendously charismatic performer. She’s incredibly likeable and extremely talented, but she just doesn’t have that weird power over people where just being in her presence is astonishing. I might not have really noticed this if two of the most recent shows I have seen weren’t Prince and Lady Gaga, both of whom definitely have that freakish charisma. You can’t take your eyes off them; they radiate something indescribable. I’m sure Michael Jackson was the same way.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Janet. Not many people have that kind of power, and a huge number of immensely talented people get by without it. She knows how to compensate for it, that’s for sure. Dancers and choreography can often be this sort of default mode for live pop music, but for Janet, it’s an integral part of her expression. The choreography is careful and detailed. The dancing — both in terms of individual dancers and the overall group — is intuitive but surprising, and focuses your attention on movement without making you think so much about it.
As a singer, Jackson is very underrated. There’s nothing ostentatious about her vocals — there’s no melisma, no belting. She sings to suit melody and she never upstages her rhythm. The songs are often deceptive in their apparent simplicity, often escalating toward demanding high notes. She’s very good at conveying sweetness, and later in her career, subverting that sweetness with a pervy sexuality. I’m a very big fan of her more innocent dance pop songs, like “When I Think of You,” “Love Will Never Do,” “Miss You Much” and “Escapade.” Those are brilliantly composed pop singles, but Janet brings a thrilling lovestruck exuberance that pushes them toward something more potent and profound.
Keren Ann has always an artist that I respect but never held my interest enough for me to actively pay attention to her albums. She has had a tendency to write far too many songs with the same monochromatic palette and languid pace. Decent mood music, but not engaging pop music. I suppose she felt the same way — 101, her first album in four years, is by far the most dynamic record of her career. “My Name Is Trouble” is the most impressive cut, a keyboard-centric arrangement with a simple driving beat that frames a lovely vocal melody. Her voice and the melodic style remind me a lot of St. Vincent, right on down to the way Annie Clark often masks very dark lyrical themes in a placid, pretty tone. Though Keren Ann lacks the sonic contrast and emotive power of Clark’s guitar, her song goes a different way, complementing her voice with brittle, glassy synthesizer tones and fluid, expressive bass runs.
Adventure’s Benny Boeldt is signed to Carpark Records and he’s a member of Dan Deacon’s crew, but he’s not the artsy indie weirdo you might expect from that pedigree. He’s actually a tidy synthpop formalist, a tuneful balladeer who sounds as if he’s spent years obsessing over Human League, Soft Cell, Erasure, OMD, Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys. “Smoke and Mirrors” is his finest composition — it’s the catchiest, probably, but it nails the most charming thing about proper 80s synthpop: An ideal ratio of melancholy melody sung in a handsome voice and perkiness delivered by sparkling keyboards and snappy beats.
The first time I heard this song I was genuinely startled by a moment that comes about halfway through the piece. Now I know it is coming and it’s still disconcerting. This placid, gentle harmony shifts drastically into this delirious, psychedelic state — imagine a folk song getting hit over the head and stumbling around in a daze before fading back to consciousness. It’s like that. The composition has a strange shape and dimension, it’s as much an installation art piece as it is a song.
The first two songs released from the Kills’ forthcoming album Blood Pressures have been rather subdued numbers — good and interesting, but not exactly compelling as standalone singles. They recede rather than explode, they don’t attract attention. “Satellite,” the first single, grafted the duo’s mecha-blues on to a nodding rocksteady beat. “DNA,” the second, comes across as a slightly looser and more organic version of their usual sound. The song is tense, but it sounds more lonely than sexual. (Maybe this is because there is more negative space in the arrangement, and Alison Mosshart sings the song mostly by herself.) “DNA” gets deeper and more interesting as it becomes more familiar. The intensity and desperation builds gradually over the course of four minutes but it never breaks, Mosshart ends the piece sounding steadfast in her resolve. The song is like building a wall — by the end, nothing gets through it.
This video comes courtesy of R.E.M. and Warner Bros. Records. It’s “exclusive” to this site, but by all means, put it on your own site and spread it around. It’s a lovely performance of a terrific song and people should hear it.
One of my favorite things about R.E.M. is how much of their catalog is devoted to expressions of empathy. When you think of it, it’s not all that common in pop music. “Every Day Is Yours To Win” belongs to a long line of Michael Stipe pep talk songs. “Everybody Hurts” is the most famous, but others include “Find the River,”“Why Not Smile?,”“Imitation of Life” and “Get Up.” “Every Day…” echoes themes from the band’s previous songs in this vein — there’s a world out there for you to experience and discover; your misery is valid but hold on — but its sentiment is spiked with some words that acknowledge that “winning” in life isn’t very easy, and we might not notice it when we do come out on top. The lyrics also touch on the running theme in Collapse Into Now, ie, that finding the strength to carry on after a major trauma is a form of heroism. You have to fight hard to be optimistic. Its own gentle, muted way, this song is saying that if you can manage to hold off negativity from within and without, you are a hero and you are winning.
There’s no sense writing around this: Rainbow Arabia sound a lot like the Knife. Not just like the Knife, mind you — just enough that it’s hard to avoid the reference point. It’s in the vocals, it’s in the keyboard tones, sometimes it’s in the sort of melodic quality to the percussion. They go to a different place with a familiar template. They’re more physical, less programmed. More sparkling, less goth. More island, less tundra. Oh, and sometimes there is guitar! “Without You” is a standout, and actually one of the least Knife-ish tracks. It does, however, sound like the kind of early to mid 00s dance pop that has a massive sentimental value to me, so my response is sort of complicated: I instinctively love it, but my critical side wonders how much of this is a Pavlovian thing. But yeah, it’s better to trust instinct on these matters.
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