I’m Here To Sing A Song About Privilege

Nouvelle Vague “I Melt With You” – Though most of the Nouvelle Vague album is a pleasant novelty (80s new wave and punk hits recorded in a bossa nova style, perfect for your next dinner party), they pull off something on their version of Modern English’s “I Melt With You” that is rather similar to what the Scala Choir did with The Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself.” Essentially, they rescue a beautiful love song from I Love The 80s kitsch and Burger King commercials by toning down the intensity and putting the focus squarely on the lyrics and melody. I’m sure that over the years, this song has appeared on countless mixes made for crushes and romantic partners, and that at least half of those people put the song on to express the sentiment of this version – cuddly, low-key sexiness rather than epic romance. In one of the most adorable ad libs that I’ve ever heard, the singer deflates the song’s most bombastic line (“I made a pilgrimage to save this human race”) with a smirky “yes I did!” that brings the lyric back down to earth without disrespecting the earnest ambition of that verse. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Stephen Malkmus “Pencil Rot” -“Pencil Rot” starts off the new Malkmus album with a keyboard riff that sounds like it got lost on its way to the auditions for Blueberry Boat. It’s a move that makes me wonder whether he’s actually influenced directly by The Fiery Furnaces, or if I’ve been right all along, and they just sound a whole lot like him. The similarity to the Furnaces is limited to the keyboard sound on this track though, as the song takes off in another direction once the guitars kick in. It’s sort of like a warped, less predictable version of “Dark Wave” from Pig Lib, with odd lyrics about being tortured by a villainous alter ego named Leather McWhip and crawling (and dancing) to the top of the “human shit pile.” It’s fairly representative of Face The Truth as a whole – familiar Malkmus songwriting spiked with a bit of experimentation in arrangement and production. At this point, the guy can’t help but to be himself, so he’s wise to shift his focus to texture rather than attempt an awkward reinvention. (Click here for the not-particularly-useful official SM site.)

Melinda and Melinda – Speaking of artists who can’t help but be themselves and ought to avoid reinvention; Woody Allen’s new film wisely avoids the severe flaws of his previous picture by sticking to his regular formula to the point of self-parody. Anything Else was a thoroughly mediocre romantic comedy brought down further by Allen’s profound cultural disconnection from anyone under the age of 30 to whom he is not currently married. Though it is important to come into any of his films ready to suspend disbelief, Anything Else pushed the limits of what a viewer could rationally expect of the interests of 20somethings played by Jason Biggs and Christina Ricci. Allen’s artistic and philosophical obsessions haven’t changed much since the mid-70s, and that isn’t such a problem in terms of what he wants to say in his art, but since he uses his characters as mouthpieces for his own tastes and views, he ends up coming off as oblivious to cultural changes and doomed to anachronism.

Melinda and Melinda is focused on characters in their 30s and 40s from a uniformly wealthy and well educated background, so the cultural signifiers make a bit more sense, even if the film seems more like a mid 80s period piece rather than something taking place in this decade. The premise of the film is that two writers – one specializing in comedy, the other in drama – are giving their take on essentially the same story, and the film cuts back and forth between their versions of the events. The drama is heavy and occasionally over-the-top, and very much written as a parody of earnest tragedies. In contrast to the comedy, which includes some of the funniest material that Allen has produced in years, thanks in part to the performance of the currently unstoppable Will Ferrell, it seems rather like Allen wants the viewer to walk out of the theatre thinking “wow, comedy is so much better than tragedy!” I get the sense that this is on some level intentional, and that Allen is defending his legacy against the criticism of self-righteous dramatists. That insecurity is obviously warranted by a film culture that elevates drama and generally disrespects comedy, but it’s somewhat unseemly when it becomes the subject of a film.