March 17th, 2014 3:09am
Saint Pepsi’s music always feels shiny and optimistic, like it’s coming to us from some other world that’s just far more chill than the one we’re in. I think you can definitely take this music at face value and embrace that relaxed, cheerful vibe, but the name “Saint Pepsi” suggests that there’s a bit of irony to it all, and it’s meant to evoke the idealized version of reality in advertising. And if that’s true, it doesn’t even have to be a critique of advertising – in a way, it’s more pointed if it’s just a reflection of a cultural desire to live in a perfect, comfortable, sexy world. You put on a Saint Pepsi track and you’re halfway there.
March 13th, 2014 1:24pm
“Dirty Vibe” delivers on the promise of its components – frantic Diplo club beats, the maniacal energy of Skrillex, and skewed K-Pop rapping from G-Dragon and CL. It is wonderful and hyperactive to the extreme, and it’s basically a club rap track that is moving so fast it feels like it might collapse or disintegrate at any moment. I’m particularly interested in G-Dragon and CL’s performances here – as far as I’m aware, this is the first time they’ve rapped entirely in English specifically for an Anglo audience. Both of them sound great, but rapping in English makes it easier to hear just how much they rely on pastiche, or their interpretation of what American rap sounds like to their ears. G-Dragon can’t help but seem like a weirdo even with this handicap, but CL ends up sounding a LOT like late ’90s Lil Kim. But that’s also totally awesome? I’d really like for both of them to play around with this more; I’d particularly like G-Dragon to become a name in the US if just because we need more flamboyant dandy pop stars.
March 11th, 2014 12:50pm
The interesting thing about Coldplay’s new songs isn’t so much that they’ve moved away from their “U2 Jr.” style so much as dropping that earnest arena rock vibe has revealed the core of their music since day one: They excel at writing romantic songs. Chris Martin is all about passionate Hollywood-style romance, and while that can be cheesy, he knows exactly how to make an audience swoooooooon and does it without any shame. “Magic” is a lot more stark and restrained than a typical Coldplay song, but it’s a heart melter, and approaches a very adult sort of love and commitment without making it seem at all dull or unsexy. Martin seems very confident here – not in a swaggering way, but in a “this is who I am and I’m happy with that” way. He also sounds like a guy who has written enough arena-sized hits that he doesn’t really need to write more of them.
March 10th, 2014 12:49pm
I really don’t mean to diminish Lydia Loveless as a singer or as an artist, but it’s almost impossible for me to listen to her new record without thinking “wow, this sounds exactly like if Stevie Nicks made an alt-country album.” The vocal similarity is striking, though she sings with a force that comes a bit closer to Neko Case or Miranda Lambert. This is all a very, very good thing, obviously – Loveless’ performances are full of emotion and grit, and even if her voice resembles more famous singers, she comes off as a very vibrant and dynamic person. “To Love Somebody” leans more to the rock side of “country rock” with that big chunky riff at the center of it, but Loveless’ voice bridges the gap – brassy, but incredibly plaintive.
March 7th, 2014 1:09pm
Bart Davenport is something unexpected: An expert soft-rock craftsman who basically sounds like a version of Morrissey who opted to sell out circa 1985 to tone down his general vibe and pander to lite FM radio. Maybe that sounds a bit mean, but this aesthetic totally works – you get a very Smiths-like melodic and lyrical sensibility, but it’s all filtered through this clean, relentlessly pleasant production style. “Dust in the Circuits” is a song about romantic frustration built upon an elaborate and somewhat corny set of computer metaphors – “always out of the loop, never mind the network” – but it’s all very charming and sweet. This is very proudly dorky music, but it’s also gently subversive, with Davenport always finding small ways to add a thought or turn of phrase that seems to be at odds with the innocuous style he’s embraced.
March 5th, 2014 1:47pm
I love the way Schoolboy Q’s chorus seems to bounce off Pharrell’s track like it’s a trampoline – even the down beats sound like they’re up in the air. The synth tone is fantastic too: just fuzzy enough to seem a little jagged and abrasive, but still clean and precise enough to have that classic Neptunes feel to it. “Los Awesome” isn’t that intriguing on a lyrical level – it’s a pretty basic ode to gang banging – but Q’s one of those rappers who makes every syllable sound exciting, so this track is really all about an overwhelming and energetic sound. It’s very hard to resist.
March 4th, 2014 1:27pm
Wild Beasts’s fourth album Present Tense is a lateral progression from where they were on their previous record, Smother: They’re still exploring this slow, atmospheric, sensual aesthetic, and if anything, they’ve only become slower, more atmospheric, and more sensual. They’ve filed off their rough edges, so the music can seem a bit tepid at first, though Hayden Thorpe in particular can’t help but throw in some peculiar lyrics and vocal tics when he sings lead. On the whole, I don’t feel as engaged by this record as I have by the band’s more eccentric and energetic earlier work, but it’s certainly effective and intriguing on its own terms. This is band obsessed with exploring the vulnerable side of male sexuality, so it makes sense that they would take this sort of musical turn. I particularly like “A Simple Beautiful Truth” – it’s rather brief and relatively up-tempo, and the chorus contrasts the roguish tone of Thorpe with the more heroic tone of Tom Fleming as they sing about how you can only find true love by confronting fear.
March 3rd, 2014 1:45pm
Real Estate didn’t change that much on their third album, but their music has come into a sharper focus: Suddenly the vocals are as crisp and assured as the clean, Peter Buck-ish guitar parts, and the lyrics articulate specific thoughts and feelings the band had previously let the music carry on its own. Martin Courtney’s lyrics are simple and direct, but leave a good amount of room for ambiguity. He always seems a bit ambivalent – about what’s going on in his life, where he is, how he feels. The in-between-ness suits Real Estate well; this is music for the times in your life where things basically seem ok but you’re confused by either feeling too much of some ill-defined emotion, or freaking out because you’re searching for a feeling and nothing seems to be there.
February 28th, 2014 3:37pm
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Bowery Ballroom 2/26/2014
Chartjunk / Scattegories / Lariat / No One Is (As I Are Be) / Brain Gallop / Rumble at the Rainbo / Shibboleth / Cinnamon and Lesbians / Out of Reaches / Tigers / Vanessa from Queens / The Janitor Revealed / Houston Hades / J Smoov / Baby C’mon / Surreal Teenagers // Father to a Sister of Thought / Kite in a Closet
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks @ Music Hall of Williamsburg 2/27/2014
Cinnamon and Lesbians / Spazz / Lariat / Planetary Motion / Share the Red / Jo Jo’s Jacket / Shibboleth / The Janitor Revealed / Senator / Asking Price / Stick Figures in Love / J Smoov / Jenny and the Ess-Dog / Houston Hades / Church on White / Forever 28 // Outdoor Miner / Stereo / Harness Your Hopes / Wild Thing
Last night I felt so sick and exhausted that I was seriously having trouble standing up sometimes, but there was just no way I was going to miss a Malkmus show. It was worth it! The show in Williamsburg was one of the best Jicks shows I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot over the past decade and a half – playful, surprising, energetic. Despite my state, it didn’t stop me from wilding out to “Stereo” and “Jo Jo’s Jacket” – there’s just no way I could ever stifle my overwhelming joy at seeing those songs played live. The previous night was quite good too, but a bit more sloppy – SM clearly hasn’t memorized the words to “Surreal Teenagers” yet though it’s been in the live set for about four years. Going in to these shows I was most excited about seeing all the Jagbags songs, so I felt a tiny bit guilty freaking out so much over the Pavement songs – I am always thrilled to hear some of my favorite songs of all time, but I honestly would’ve been just fine if he’d played more Jicks songs instead. The new songs were fantastic live, by the way – “Houston Hades” and “J Smoov” were particularly slick and groovy, and “Shibboleth” is even more kinetic and abrasive.
February 26th, 2014 3:10am
A lot of what makes a pop song really stick comes down to some musical element that’s immediately identifiable, but sorta hard to explain without a very specific vocabulary for what’s happening on a musical level. In this song it’s that oddly clipped, sorta swirling wordless vocal hook at the start of the track. The other parts of the song are very well structured and fantastic in their own right – it’s kinda like a more upbeat version of the xx – but that’s the bit that really grabs you and then sticks in your head. The guy in this band produced and cowrote Lorde’s “Royals,” and you can hear his fingerprints on both. There’s something very stark and dry to his style – he’s very good at letting instrumentation frame a melody rather than carry it.
February 25th, 2014 3:40pm
It’s rather nice to hear straight-up unapologetic downtempo instrumental hip-hop these days: It was the coolest thing around back in the heyday of DJ Shadow, but I think over the past decade or so, it’s become a very uncool genre, mainly because it became the soundtrack of so many bougie places. I get chafing at that cultural baggage, but I will always be a sucker for music that has that “late night city” vibe, and this track by Afterhours really nails the form. I mean, it’s pretty generic – the beat, the muted vocal samples, the sax, the atmospheric keyboard parts – but novelty isn’t everything, and literally thousands of rap and rock acts get a pass for doing purely generic things all the time. It’s arbitrary and dumb to underrate something for being a really great example of a genre’s strengths.
February 24th, 2014 5:41am
I was a little slow to embrace Speedy Ortiz because I’m automatically skeptical of any contemporary band who is frequently compared to the likes of Pavement – they almost never sound or feel much like Malkmus – and I distrust the part of me that would be enthusiastic about something because it sounds a lot like the music that was popular when I was a teenager. But Sadie Dupuis and her band really do sound like that stuff, and their execution isn’t merely a matter of knowing the right moves: If their new EP Real Hair came out in 1994 instead of 2014, it would’ve been on par with a lot of the best indie and alt-rock that year. Dupuis’ tendency to write vocal melodies that mirror her guitar parts is very Malkmus-y, but the rest of her band take their cues from the alt-rock side of things, so a song like “Everything’s Bigger” feels more like Veruca Salt than Pavement.
Dupuis’ melodies on “Everything’s Bigger” are very strong, and I love the way they seem to wind loosely around the chords. This flatters her voice, and showcases the expressive, conversational quality of her cadences. Perhaps coincidentally, she calls attention to her own vocal patterns in the song as she wonders why she’s so creeped out by someone who mimics her mannerisms. She seems annoyed by this, but also sorta defeated and compromised.
February 21st, 2014 12:57pm
“Wave” is placed at the center of Beck’s Morning Phase, and this makes a lot of sense: Every other song on this incredibly calm and sober album seems to connect to this track’s egoless, mindful state. There’s a mournful quality to the droning string arrangement and a note of vague sadness in Beck’s voice, but more than anything, this song is expressing a state of zen detachment: “If I surrender and I don’t fight this wave / No, I won’t go under / I’ll only get carried away.” It gets under my skin a bit because as much as it’s a statement of peace, it also feels a little to resigned, as though he’s about to just walk out into the sea and deliberately give in to the undertow.
I wrote more about Morning Phase here.
February 19th, 2014 1:29pm
Cam’ron has had an interesting career of constantly shifting back and forth from critical darling to underdog, and this time around it looks like he’s about to get back in critical darling mode. A-Trak’s chipmunk soul aesthetic suits Cam well – all his best stuff is in that milieu, and the implied warmth of old R&B complements the self-deprecating humor of his rhymes. He’s a little bit sleepy on this track, but it works: Even toned down a bit, he’s got an easygoing charm that feels noticeably different from where hip-hop is at this moment.
February 18th, 2014 3:06am
There’s something very odd about the production on Eric Church’s new album: It’s very clean and professional, but some parts seem slightly off, so perfectly normal things will seem a bit uncanny. It’s exactly the right way to present Church – his whole deal as a country musician is basically being a mainstream country guy who’s just a bit different from the rest. Iconoclastic, but only up to a point. The funny thing about The Outsiders is that part of what Church does to stand out from the pack is occasionally dip into heavy, grungy rock, and he’s basically in the one part of pop culture where that actually would seem like a progressive move to people. But I think he’s better on a song like “Like A Wrecking Ball,” where he’s just doing a low key romantic tune and coming off as totally sincere and unpretentious. The odd bit in this song is the somewhat excessive reverb on his voice – the rest of the album isn’t like that, so it’s clearly an intentional move. But it works, and adds a touch of something a little unexpected to an otherwise very straight forward tune.
February 13th, 2014 2:02pm
To the best of my knowledge and memory, Mary Timony is the only notable indie/alt artist of the ’90s who has never ever looked backwards in her career. No reunions and no oldies in her setlists, just a steady stream of new, finite projects. This has a way of obscuring the natural progression of her overall body of work – there’s definitely an internal logic to her evolution. The funny thing is that her new band Ex Hex isn’t much to do with her album Ex Hex from 2005, which filtered grandiose rock through post punk sensibilities, as much as it’s a sensible next step from what she was writing in Wild Flag. The Mary Timony of 2014 has a more relaxed and groovy sound, and is very pop, but in a “early 70s mainstream rock” sort of way. “Hot and Cold” is sly and feels a bit flirty, and moves along a “Sweet Jane”-ish riff with an unapologetic swagger that seems like a pleasant side effect of playing off Carrie Brownstein all the time for a few years.
February 12th, 2014 1:41pm
No, not the Scottish band Bis, sorry. This is a Japanese idol group who seem to be obsessed with contrasting extreme cuteness with abrasive, grotesque ugliness. That visual aesthetic is very apparent in the video for this track, but it’s more interesting how it comes out in the actual song. “STUPiG” is an extraordinarily harsh industrial track, but the vocal melody is full-on cutesy J-Pop, and the chorus is especially sugary. The song is like this absurd jolt of manic energy, and the trebly melody only makes the heavy digital noise feel more brutal.
February 11th, 2014 1:47pm
It makes some sense that it took Bob Pollard a long while to write a very wry song about being a big shot in a very niche part of music culture – he’s alluded to it before, but I think he now has a pretty unique perspective on the ways it’s both very satisfying and completely hilarious. This is not a bitter or angry song – he’s mocking himself and others a little bit, but I think the key is the humor, and being honest about the ways being a big fish in a small pond is very appealing.
February 10th, 2014 1:30pm
Good lord, this song! This isn’t completely out of the ordinary in terms of trap and Baile funk, but the way this all snaps together with that very Destiny’s Child-ish melody is just incredibly exciting. The level of energy and enthusiasm here is just off the charts, to the point that it’s very hard to imagine a language barrier being a problem for anyone who hears this thing. Who would really need to understand the words when it’s so effortlessly amping you up just to drop down HARD like a particularly intense theme park ride?
February 6th, 2014 1:27pm
When I first heard this Vertical Scratchers record I knew absolutely nothing about the band, so I had a moment mid-way through the first or second track where I was just like… is that John Schmersal? And yes, of course it is, because who else on earth sounds like that dude? Though this new band sounds very much like John Schmersal music, it doesn’t feel like Enon or Brainiac at all – the Vertical Scratchers stuff is far more simple, fast, and brief. He took everything distinct about his melodic style and cut out everything that could distract you from it, to the point that the songs have the tight, relentless structure of jingles. I might still prefer the hyperactive excesses of Enon, but this is a really interesting move for a guy to make this late into his career – it’s like he’s the Benjamin Button of spazzy indie guy and has grown into regression.
