tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102319322024-03-06T23:28:50.323-08:00Surfing in BabylonWhere is this "Babylon"? Could you find it on a map?
<p></p>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.comBlogger326125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-45236559521350460802018-05-05T09:31:00.001-07:002018-05-05T19:04:38.696-07:00Cardi B's "Money Bag": Half-time triplets and hard work<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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“We were in LA. [Cardi B's breakthrough hit] ‘Bodak [Yellow]’ was already out, we were probably No. 8 on <i>Billboard</i> now. The goal was to keep feeding the streets, just keep making records," producer J. White recently <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8301694/cardi-b-invasion-of-privacy-producers">told <i>Billboard</i></a> about making Cardi B's "Money Bag," a deep cut on her fine debut album <i>Invasion of Privacy</i>. (White also produced "Bodak.") "Nobody really said in the studio, ‘we gotta do another Bodak.’ We just gotta do another record that’s dope. That’s what I preach in the studio period, to anybody that I work with. Don’t worry about what we did before, that record is done and out there to the public. We gotta worry about another record. Let’s stay in that grind mode, let’s stay hungry, and it’ll show on the track."</div>
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Earlier this year I <a href="https://twitter.com/joshlanghoff/status/961623045197660160">wrote</a>, "From Southern capitalist rap to corridos alterados to Bach cantatas, sometimes I think 'music about musicians' tireless work ethic' is my favorite genre." There's an urgency to music like this -- a sense that the musicians are using all the tricks at their immediate disposal to communicate with an audience hungry for more. It's not artlessness; more a confidence that, if the musicians can stay out of their own way, the art will simply <i>happen</i>.<br />
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This aesthetic also lurks behind plenty of music about love, dancing, unexplained Appalachian murders, demands to pour sugar, you name it. But when musicians make hard-working music about how hard they work, they work a thrilling, nerve-jangling alchemy on listeners. They suck us into their art without any meta-artsy fuss. We all become part of the musicians' grind.<br />
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(This aesthetic is also central to Bach's cantatas, churned out weekly based on the musicians and appointed texts he had to work with, for a regular audience who knew his work and could possibly pick up on recycled themes and minor variations. Because the cantatas were settings of texts scheduled for specific liturgical dates, they foregrounded their composer's deadlines. But that's a topic for a different post.)<br />
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On "Money Bag," Cardi raps over a hastily assembled collage from J. White's craft cabinet. The focal point is a five-note synth riff, larger than life and pulsing with the echoes of your empty skull. The bassline is gigantic; other weird synth vwoops periodically arrive, make their cases, and vanish. The beat is equal parts percussion sounds and effects; gun shots stand in for snares, while precise screams and growls conjure the image of a studio packed with people. I'd describe the track's overall affect as "sparse and doomy," but as with most rap beats, once you start examining everything that's there, you realize how full and complex it is.<br />
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Cardi's flow is equally complex, without ever grabbing us by the shoulders to insist, "Look how complex I am!" Her most notable rhythmic technique is dividing the beats into triplets, a technique also favored by Migos, Kevin Gates, and others. Triplets are OK, but they get wearing over the long haul because there's only so much rappers can do with them. The thrill of "Money Bag" lies in how Cardi switches up her normal triplet flow with half-time (slower) triplets; and how she makes different sets of half-time triplets sound completely unlike one another.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/uLUinh2q2Kg/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uLUinh2q2Kg?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe><br />
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The first verse begins at 0:58; Cardi opens and closes it with different patterns built from half-time triplets.<br />
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[Esoteric music theory aside: You might call these patterns triplets, or you might call them "the first half of a clave rhythm." To help illustrate this, here's <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/search/label/flowtation%20device">The Flowtation Device</a> with the scenario.<br />
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Classic Clave Rhythm: ONE.*and*.FOUR./*.TWO_THREE_*. Think the Bo Diddley beat; or, you know, a clave rhythm.<br />
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A triplet rhythm at the same tempo is currently impossible to flowtate, so we have to approximate it with the clave. Basically, you'd take the first bar of the clave -- ONE.*and*.FOUR. -- and move the hits on "and" and "FOUR" a smidgen earlier, so that each of the three hits lands at equal intervals. If we were playing classical music, this would matter. But we're not. This is a slapdash attempt to notate a partly improvised vocal line, similar to a transcription of a jazz solo or a praise song. For our purposes, half-time triplets and "the first half of a clave rhythm" will function the same, and the phrase "half-time triplets" fits better into Cardi's triplet-heavy aesthetic.]<br />
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AHEM. Cardi's bars at the beginning of Verse One actually do sound like a clave rhythm, as though she were vocally conjuring the percussion pattern from a mambo or Bo Diddley's guitar pattern. Her pattern:<br />
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PRO.*tein*.THICK./*.YOU_LOOK_LIKEa/<br />
DOPE.*fiend*.SIS./*.HE_MAKE_SURE/<br />
HE.*put*.CARDi/*.DOWN_ON_HIS/<br />
GRO.*shry*.LIST./*.NOW_WHY_THIS/<br />
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-- is the same as the Classic Clave Rhythm flowtated above, only with an extra beat four in every second bar. ("LIKE," "SURE," "HIS," "THIS.") The effect is spare and forceful. From there she goes into her standard, common-time triplet flow, before returning at verse's end to a more complex derivation of half-time triplets.<br />
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LIPS.*like*.AN./GElin*.A_-./<br />
BENTley*truck*.TAN./GErine*.UH_-./<br />
TRAMPS.*jump-in'ON_/MYdick-_*.THAT’S_/<br />
WHY.THEYcall-itTRAM_/POline*.UH_-.<br />
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Notice how the odd bars here -- LIPS.*like*.AN., etc. -- are the same rhythm as the odd bars at the beginning of the verse -- PRO.*tein*.THICK., etc. On first listen you'd never pair these two rhythms, because the even verses are doing something completely different, reframing how we hear the half-time triplets around them. Crucially, notice the long words "Angelina" and "tangerine uh." (Has anyone cited Mark E. Smith as a Cardi influence?) They extend the final syllable of the triplet and turn the beat around, accenting unaccented syllables and vice versa. The result sounds off-kilter and tongue twisty, even though these phrases are rooted in the same half-time triplet feel Cardi used to open the verse.<br />
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Cardi returns to alter this rhythm again in Verse Two, in perhaps the song's most quoted lines:<br />
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(these bitches)<br />
SAL_-ty*.THEY./SOD_Ium*.THEY_/<br />
JEL_-ly*.PET_/ROL_Eum*.*./<br />
AL_WAYStalk-inINthe/BACK.*ground-_DON’T./<br />
NEV_ERcome-toTHE./POD_Ium<br />
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Once again, the odd bars here -- SAL_-ty*.THEY., etc. -- are essentially the same as the odd bars above, while the even bars change their character. Here, Cardi accents beat one of the even bars (SODium, petROLeum, etc.), mirroring the odd bars and giving the whole passage a tone of relentless aggression. In the second passage, Cardi was accenting unaccented syllables by placing them on the downbeat. Here, she's accenting accented syllables, making everything much more <i>on</i>-kilter and forceful.<br />
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That's three different passages scattered throughout the song; three different variations on half-time triplets/clave rhythms; three completely different feels.<br />
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By all accounts, Cardi works fast. White tells <i>Complex</i>, "All she does is work on her craft... She has those headphones on and she be engaging beats. She’s treating it like she’s in the dang NFL or NBA." It's an open question if, per White's earlier claim, an artist's hunger actually can "show on the track" -- and, if so, how exactly that aesthetic alchemy works. Using her own unique musical toolkit, Cardi offers one possibility. Mix things up; don't let your flow stay in one place for too long; use rhythms as signatures; and trust that listeners will see you, and themselves, in your grind.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-6780325084177465372018-05-01T20:15:00.002-07:002018-05-01T20:15:33.812-07:00Best Thing I Heard Today: Diane Renay doing "Kiss Me Sailor"Imagine a world in which "Judy's Turn to Cry" is better than "It's My Party," or "Bristol Twistin' Annie" beats "Bristol Stomp." This is the weird scenario occupied by Diane Renay's two great hits, both from 1964: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Julr7EAPt8">"Navy Blue,"</a> #6 the same week some Beatles hit was #1, and its superior sequel "Kiss Me Sailor," #29 during the week ruled by either "Hello, Dolly!" or "My Guy." (I'd research but I'm typing this from aboard a submarine.)
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Like Len Barry and the Dovells, Renay was a Philly gal, but she fell under the tutelage of Bob Crewe rather than the Cameo-Parkway guys. Crewe has an amazing writing/producing resume, everything from the Four Seasons to "Lady Marmalade," and he co-wrote "Navy Blue" with Bud Rehak and noted Vietnam POW liberator <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Rambeau">Eddie Rambeau</a>. For the sequel, Rehak and Rambeau were writing on their own, and they somehow managed to shamelessly imitate and improve upon the original. "Navy Blue" mourns the absence of Renay's sailor boyfriend and looks ahead to his 48-hour shore leave; "Kiss Me" takes place during the horny fulfillment, when Renay and her boy stay up and watch <i>The Late Late Show</i> and kiss as much as they can before he walks out the door to serve his country or whatever. Renay, on other occasions capable of pristine high notes, spends a decent portion of "Kiss Me" growling. Along with the feral vocal and sense of desperation, there are catchy horn riffs (plagiarized, but don't ask me where from, unless it's from "Navy Blue") and a wordless "ba-ba-ba" bridge from the background chorus. True, "Navy Blue" has more sociological detail; its Drive-By Truckers cover is forthcoming. But when she rips into "Kiss Me" by ripping off the hook of her previous hit, Renay sounds even better. She's insatiable, and she'll make damn sure her boy gets teased for the hickey she's about to give him.<br />
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Renay's compilation <i>Navy Blue: 25 Super Tracks</i> is highly recommended. It's got a few too many slow bleh songs, but she tears into "Soldier Boy" like the Shirelles never dared, and whenever I hear her melisma-crazy ballad "Maybe," I'm surprised nobody's covered it. This post was inspired by my surprise at hearing "Navy Blue" overhead in Wal-Mart; I'm sure there are other Top 6 hits I've heard less in the wild, but few of them -- or their sequels -- deserve to be heard more. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-14438768564964919162014-04-04T12:40:00.002-07:002014-04-04T12:40:52.917-07:00Albums and Singles That are WORTH IT!!! (first quarter of 2014)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm back to neglecting singles this year, since I've been focused on a paper that's made me neglect The Singles Jukebox. But albums, especially the ones without bad words, fit my passive listening patterns in the car and during playtime, and these albums are all pretty good at least. Like, the worst I can say about Braxton/Babyface is I'm usually ready for it to be over with about two songs left; but it still sounds gorgeous, most of its songs are good, and Braxton in particular displays some caustic wit. Writeups for Against Me! and Behemoth follow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>ALBUMS</b></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-fca08433-2e3a-e52b-b06c-89d5ac7de57a" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Against Me! - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transgender Dysphoria Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Total Treble) (indie)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Behemoth - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Satanist</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Metal Blade) (indie, metal)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gerardo Ortiz - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Archivos de Mi Vida</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Del/Sony Latin 2013) (major, Latin) *</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Schoolboy Q - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oxymoron</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Top Dawg/Interscope) (major, rap)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Shrine - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bless Off</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Tee Pee) (indie)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Raoul Björkenheim - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eCsTaSy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Cuneiform) (indie, jazz)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Matt Wilson Quartet with John Medeski - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gathering Call</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Palmetto) (indie, jazz)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Martin Castillo - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mundo de Ilusiones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sony Latin) (major, Latin)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Present - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Le Poison Qui Rend Fou</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Cuneiform) (indie, reissue, prog)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Algebra Blessett - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recovery</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Slim Frances/eOne) (indie, R&B)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frankie Ballard - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunshine & Whiskey</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Warner Bros.) (major, country)</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toni Braxton and Babyface - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Love, Marriage & Divorce</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Motown) (major, R&B)</span></div>
<br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* I’m just sort of hoping this breaks big in 2014.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>SINGLES</b></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-fca08433-2e3b-2f4c-1649-db29706fbf2c" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Los Awesome” - Schoolboy Q ft. Jay Rock *</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Coming of Age” - Foster the People</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Noche de Lokera” - Los Buitres de Culiacan, Sinaloa *</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Turn Down For What” - DJ Snake & Lil Jon</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Drop That #NaeNae” - We Are Toonz</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Hermosa Experiencia” - Banda MS</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Give Me Back My Hometown” - Eric Church</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Twilight” - Louie ft. Boy Wonder</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Tension” - Kach</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Move That Dope” - Future ft. Pharrell, Pusha T, & Casino</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">* I’m just sort of hoping these become singles.</span></span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Against Me! - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transgender Dysphoria Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Total Treble)</span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-fca08433-2e40-af49-9b6c-0935245b6ba3" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sixth album from Florida punks Against Me! starts with a Paul Simon homage so blatant it might be deliberate. While the drums stomp out a martial groove and everyone else plays two chords, Laura Jane Grace’s melody hovers around the notes “do” and “mi” as she sings, “Your tells are so obvious” -- it’s “The Obvious Child”! Obviously! Only, where Simon’s 1990 album opener winked with petulant bourgie resentment, “Talking Transgender Dysphoria Blues” roars with empathy, scraping away the writerly artifice of Paul Simon types to get to What’s Real. This has been Grace’s gift for the nine years I’ve loved her band. Her song structures can barely contain the blunt exuberance of her language, which makes her lyrics seem like diaristic experience even when she’s craftily turning that experience into metaphor.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You want them to notice the ragged ends of your summer dress;</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want them to see you like they see every other girl.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They just see a faggot. They’ll hold their breath not to catch the sick.”</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transgender Dysphoria Blues</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is informed by Grace’s gender transition the way, I dunno, Springsteen’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Rising</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was “informed” by 9/11. The album’s unimaginable without the event. But in those would-be oglers of a summer dress, Grace sees a vision of life’s insolubility -- no matter what, some clubs will forever bar your entry. “Even if your love was unconditional, it still wouldn’t be enough to save me,” she sings in “Unconditional Love”; her band does their best gang-shouty Green Day imitation in an attempt to prove her wrong. Later, two songs about death, the only universal club, take insolubility to its limit. “Dead Friend,” the hand-clappier of the two, opens, “You don’t worry about tomorrow any more ‘cause you’re dead” -- if Grace is scraping away writerly artifice from old dudes’ songs, this would be Springsteen’s “You’re Missing” -- and then the acoustic meditation “Two Coffins” looks ahead to the inevitable, perfect for the recent Ash Wednesday. (This has been a great album for driving to church and funerals, just a step behind </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hallelujah! I’m a Bum</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the 2012 meditation on insolubles from hometown heroes Local H.)</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple songs here get by on their rage -- “Osama Bin Laden as the Crucified Christ” gets by on its title, mostly -- but the worst song, “Fuckmylife666,” shows that a band can’t live on pretty chords alone. I keep comparing Against Me! to hoary classic rock rather than nihilistic hardcore because they have hooks and big bright classic rock chords, and they come up with distinct grooves that actually groove. Atom Willard’s drum parts sparkle with personality, and Grace sings as powerfully as ever. In the stunning second verse of album closer “Black Me Out,” she makes every tremor in her howl count. When life stands in your way, you rage on anyway; and even if it doesn’t get you anywhere, in the raging itself there’s some kind of answer. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<b><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Behemoth - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Satanist</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Metal Blade) </span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back at the Burnside Writers Collective, I kept meaning to write a series called “Should I Really Be Listening To This?” to deal systematically and philosophically with music of questionable moral content. Schoolboy Q and Behemoth would have been prime contenders, given their respective endorsements of Oxycontin and Satan. Satan metal still makes me nervous; I’m suddenly back in junior high youth group watching an anti-rock video and learning about the lurid acronyms AC/DC and KISS and trying to envision an eternity of pain and hairy devils baring their teeth at me. I mean, ETERNITY. So, Behemoth! Should I really be listening to this? On my metaphorical shoulders, Bon Scott and anti-rock institution Jeff Godwin (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Devil’s Disciples</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) are torn.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: It’s a really good album! Bloke! The guitars are amazing and the power and evil of the songs is real show-don’t-tell stuff -- like, they slip free of expected song forms so you don’t need to suspend yr disbelief. You’re no longer listening to mere songs -- THESE ARE THE ACTUAL RANTS OF POLISH HEATHENS (i checked) PRAISING SATAN.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: Which is why you shouldn’t listen to it, because after enough exposure to this music you’ll be convinced to worship Satan too, or at least to not love Jesus --</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: but that’s RIDICULOUS, because it’s an ALBUM and you, Josh, are an OLD MAN and any Jesus love or Satan love is pretty much fixed at this point. You know, don’t let your EIGHT YEAR OLD listen to it. He doesn’t want to anyway. He walks around singing “Let It Go” all day.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: I realize I barely have a case here </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[NOTE: the real Jeff Godwin would never ever say that]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but I’ll go down rocking the hell out of you. Isn’t the mere act of listening to Satanic metal disrespectful to the Jesus you claim to love? How can you look at his sacrificial death and resurrection, and go through life in grace and truth, trying to see Jesus in everyone you meet, and YET listen to music that depicts and endorses his overthrow by the Ultimate Despicable? If you’re dead to yourself in baptism, isn’t Behemoth one of the worldly things you leave behind? Like paying the plumber cash so he can cheat on his taxes?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: Twit, if you’re really going in grace and truth to serve the Lord and remember the poor, the music you listen to is like the smallest part of your witness. It basically has no effect. If anything, it’ll up your empathy with people who also enjoy listening to Behemoth --</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: OHO! That is silly! Because Behemoth does not want you to be a casual observer, spying on Satanists through your… spyglass… You said it yourself -- THESE ARE THE ACTUAL RANTS OF POLISH HEATHENS (you checked) PRAISING SATAN.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: Guys, I haven’t researched Behemoth to know whether they’re actually Satanists. Irrelevance of intention and biography blah blah blah</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: Irregardless, Behemoth’s goal is not to write a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">National Geographic</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> article about Satan’s overthrow of the Kingdom and set it to music. They marshall a visceral power. They want to move you liturgically. They want to rock the hell INTO you. You can’t have it both ways -- either this is music you listen to with a grain of ironic salt (and I’m struggling to turn this into a Holy Pun about losing your saltiness, help me out here), or you acknowledge that Satan rock this grand and powerful is bound to affect you and your walk with Jesus.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: But then do you also deny the thrill whenever Satan shows up in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paradise Lost</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Or should we stop reading </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Paradise Lost</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> because Satan is the best character in the book? And furthermore -- hey, this is my shoulder, who are you?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ted Gioia: What is this, lifestyle reportage? WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: Yes yes. I apologize for not going full Pallett on this, but the characteristic musical effect is slow-ish minor-key harmonic and melodic movement over furious blastbeats, and then the lead vocalist, who did i mention is a leukemia survivor, growls and rasps in an unsyncopated manner. But sometimes there are backbeats with screaming solos, sections that sound more like radio hard rock. Sometimes the band slips into creepy ambient passages and it’s unclear how they’re doing it. The forms of the songs are so unpredictable, they create the illusion of the Natural -- roiling and unfolding with little reference to musical convention. I mean, there are VERSES, you know you’re still on the same song, but any song structure is the bare minimum required to create a sense of cohesion within each song. They keep exploding into new areas of grisly spectacle, sort of like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inferno</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which is obsessively structured but the structure gives Dante the freedom to go off on tangents and create the illusion of life.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: Right! And should we also discourage Christians from reading </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inferno</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Because it makes hell seem cool?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: Are you sure you actually read </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Inferno</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? Because it did not in any way make me wanna end up in hell. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: But </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Satanist</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> doesn’t make you wanna worship Satan! It might make you wanna swagger around 10 feet tall and rage against the presumption of the moral authorities in your life, which isn’t necessarily a bad influence or antithetical to the message of Christ, who though he came to fulfill the law not abolish it nevertheless railed against the presumptuous moral authorities of his day.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gioia: Whoa, Bon Scott is a major theologophile.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: Anyone can see that worshiping Satan is itself paradoxical, because a) Satan is a shifting symbol throughout history and b) Satan’s consistent symbolic character is one that challenges powers and authorities, the anti- figure. So while scary people do actually worship Satan and defile churches, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Satanist</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is less a gateway drug than a meditation on awesome power that rages against ultimate power. Not too far from that Against Me! album, actually. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jeff: Whatever dude, you’re gonna start doing drugs and sacrificing your cats. I’ve seen it man! I was there! Don’t listen to Stryper either. Total gateway drug.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></span></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bon: But that’s just the thing! Everybody draws the line somewhere different, and Behemoth unmoors you from simple line drawing strategies. Music of such exaggerated and yeah I’ll say it EXTREME power demonstrates the futility of our piddly everyday moral lines in the sand. It might even make you stop worrying about such stuff and kick you back into Love God Love Neighbor territory, which we’ll all agree is where Jesus wants us to be anyway.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><br /><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Gioia, listening to </span><span style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline;">The Satanist</span><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"> on headphones, starts cackling and making devil horns and carving little pentagrams into his arm.</span></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-83857134763434522122014-03-17T19:42:00.001-07:002014-03-17T19:43:18.896-07:00These two regional Mexican comps are NOT worth it!<p dir="ltr"><img src="http://images.popmatters.com/news_art/b/banda-carnaval-650x400.jpg"></p>
<p dir="ltr">I <a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">wrote</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">up</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">two</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">mediocre</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">comps</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">for</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/"> </a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">PopMatters</a><a href="http:// http://www.popmatters.com/review/179249-various-artists-las-bandas-romanticas-de-america-2014/">:</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">My wife, God love her, complains that all male country singers sound the same. This is patently untrue. Blake Shelton sings like a smarmy geezer wiling his way into a younger crowd, while Luke Bryan’s blank prettiness belies his terror of turning into Blake Shelton. Big difference. Eric Church is the reedy outlaw, Jason Aldean is the wannabe outlaw who also wants to rap, Brantley Gilbert is the outlaw who can’t sing. Justin Moore, who claims to be an outlaw, is really a big-hearted romantic; Kip Moore celebrates “Young Love” but remains a sociopath. Isn’t this all obvious? You can hear it in their voices!</p>
<p dir="ltr">Regional Mexican radio works in a similar way; all genre radio does, really...</p>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-74654113257516049592013-03-11T03:59:00.001-07:002013-03-11T03:59:11.513-07:00Noel Torres, José Feliciano, y Otros are Worth It!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikP9wArMkpiMikw2fcxHtTFCab3AjnU8O5WDAVsV7dvQoNXqTxlxICEhrHZVtZgequZ7YzNw1ej_zzk7th2CIZlrNayV4_OcKTmi_iUif9xvGf866EZrhdVRQuQ2bK58efxzuG/s1600/noel+torres+guns+accordion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikP9wArMkpiMikw2fcxHtTFCab3AjnU8O5WDAVsV7dvQoNXqTxlxICEhrHZVtZgequZ7YzNw1ej_zzk7th2CIZlrNayV4_OcKTmi_iUif9xvGf866EZrhdVRQuQ2bK58efxzuG/s320/noel+torres+guns+accordion.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<br />
From my latest <a href="http://burnsidewriters.com/2013/03/05/sheep-goats-music-reviews/">Sheep & Goats</a>, over at Burnside Writers Collective:<br />
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You don’t look to the Managing Editor of <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Entertainment Weekly</em> for music tips, but it was still jaw-dropping to read this in his post-Grammy editorial: “Mumford & Sons’ victory established folk rock as the most exciting and artful movement in music right now.” Do people really think that? Apparently so — <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">EW</em> ran a cover story on the “movement” the following week, and worship music has started biting the Mumfords’ style like they’re a new U2. Nothing against the Mumfords, who basically resemble what you’d get if Coldplay replaced ZZ Top in <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Back to the Future III</em>, but surely folk rock is only the most exciting and artful music played by acoustic instruments, covered by<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Entertainment Weekly</em> (a Time Warner company), and directed at English-speaking brains — if that. (I’d still take jazz, fwiw.)</div>
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Where I live, in the northern suburbs of Chicago, the winner of Most Exciting And Artful Musical Movement is currently banda from the state of Sinaloa, Mexico. Like English folk music, banda’s been around for a <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">long</em> time and is enjoying one of its periodic resurgences. If you’re seeking acoustic radio hits, the big swinging horn sections of Roberto Tapia, La Arrolladora Banda El Limón, and Banda El Recodo get as much radio play as the Mumfords, the Lumineers, and their ilk. One of our seven (!) Spanish-language FM stations recently changed its slogan from “Más Y Más Música” to “Banda Y Más,” which seems significant, though several other Latino genres are hot on banda’s heels. This is the cultural bounty of demographic shift, of course; the suburbs where I live and work are both younger and more Hispanic than the country at large. But if the last presidential election taught us anything, it’s that diversificación is sweeping the nation, so with any luck your radio waves and public library will soon carry some of the following, if they don’t already. (Or you can click on most of the titles below to stream them.)</div>
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(... and then you get reviews of the astounding Torres, the suave Felicianos, the dreamy Veronica Falls who don't really fit, the Dovells-like Los Caporales de Chihuahua, and more...)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-13514669160518248202013-01-07T13:00:00.000-08:002013-01-07T13:00:34.874-08:00Happy Birthday To Me! (1977 Playlist)<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Back in August I gave myself a birthday present: 26 songs from my birth year*, </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one for each letter of the alphabet, </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">only one of which I'd heard before that month, and they all had to be good or at least indelible in some way. They also had to be streamable -- I wanted to <i>hear</i> them. Turns out I didn't find a Q or an X (I can't do Rush's "Xanadu" <i>every</i> year), so I supplemented with some others and wound up with 27. They make for a pretty good playlist -- so here's the list with Youtube links, rescued from my Facebook page.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*The Year of Impact Rule applies.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN NIGERIAN POP: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnsf5GrGZ9M">"Arabade"</a> by Sir Victor Uwaifo and the Titibitis. This is probably a minor work (reminds me of Sly's "Dance to the Music") but I dig the rhythm, horns, and brutal shrieking keyboard layered on top of each other -- plus, it's hard to resist a song where the singer tells you, "The song goes like this." First big hit was in 1965, and Ronnie Graham sez: "By the 1980s Victor had established his own TV studio with his weekly half-hour show going out to all corners of Nigeria."</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN LATIN DISCO: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L60SirtGoH0">"Black Pot"</a> by Santa Esmerelda. This is the B-side of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" -- which you know, you've seen <i>Kill Bill</i>! -- and it chronicles Leroy Gomez's swirling mystical trip into a "land of make believe". The swirls are portrayed by Gomez's sax and somebody else's electric guitar darting around a bunch of horns.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN SHOCK ROCK: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYzPvd1Z8bw">"Child Eaters"</a> by Rubber City Rebels. This song is about exactly what you think it's about, though it's very tastefully done. Before the Black Keys were born, Akron had these guys and the Bizarros, who I'll get to later. "Child Eaters" stands in the proud pro-cannibalism tradition of the Buoys' "Timothy", and its fake Brit accent and creepy spoken interlude foreshadow Kix's "Yeah Yeah Yeah".</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN GLAM METAL: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UmRVwfqtuA">"Delirious"</a> by Heavy Metal Kids. This performance kicked off an episode of the German TV show DISCO, which started airing in 1971, which should give some idea of the omnivorous reach and breadth of the term "disco". (Wiki assures us, "The name of the show was devised before disco as a musical style existed.") Other performers on this particular episode included:</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Howard Carpendale - Nimm den nächsten Zug</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Anything that's Rock 'n' Roll</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Bonnie Tyler - Heaven</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Peter Maffay - Andy, Träume sterben jung</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Graham Bonnet - It's all over now Baby Blue</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Didi Zill - Rock 'n' Roll made in Germany</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">* Uriah Heep - Lady in black</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN POMP ROCK: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoFyC-8Mc4k">"Down To You"</a> by the Strapps. I guess it's pomp rock, because it seems to fall halfway between glam and prog -- keyboard solo that sounds like Keith Emerson with an editor, multiple instrumental textures but still concise, even at six and a half minutes, and very very loud. (Martin Popoff says, "The new sound is unlike any other act I can think of," and then he lists, like, six other bands.)</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN NAZARETH: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSOZSDvAuMQ">"Expect No Mercy"</a> by Nazareth. I wonder if Paul Ryan rocks out to this when he formulates budget proposals OH SNAP</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN VINTAGE COUNTRY DISCO: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Fl0216bnQs">"The Feelin's Right"</a> by Narvel Felts. This #19 hit from his album <i>The Touch of Felts</i> - eek! - floats and flutters with erotic expectation, and I hear more than a hint of anxiety too. Felts sounds thrilled by his own vibrato, even as it makes him nervous.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN GERMAN ITALO DISCO IF THAT'S A THING: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsJ5bxEN8Gg">"Get on the Funk Train"</a> by Munich Machine. Basically this is a '77 Donna Summer album without Donna Summer -- Moroder & Bellotte produced, personnel looks the same, and the Midnite Ladies sing "Love to Love You Baby" twice. Not much singing on this song, though -- a 15 minute disco suite with three or four memorable themes, the precursor to Quad City DJs big hit and heir to... some old-timey song where people dance on trains, I guess. There must be at least one of those.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN LATIN FUNK:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utuP8Y5AIKQ"> "Happy as a Fat Rat in a Cheese Factory"</a> by Mongo Santamaria. If you liked that big Fania salsa compilation back in 2011, here's the least Fania-salsa-ish person on it. There's a wild guitar solo halfway through, harmonically and sonically at odds with the surrounding horns.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN COUNTRY WEEPERS: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3XDRBk-8E8">"If You See Me Getting Smaller"</a> by Waylon Jennings. This is a beautiful Jimmy Webb song that I've posted before, although now it occurs to me that it might just be Waylon explaining the principle of linear perspective to an incredulous Willie Nelson.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN INEXPLICABLE CHART POP: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWdcZqG02Ls">"Jeans On"</a> by David Dundas. Or should I say LORD David Dundas? Wiki sez #3 in England, #17 here, #1 in Germany, originally a jingle for Brutus Jeans, sampled by Fatboy Slim, and can't we all relate to its sentiment?</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN EASY LISTENING: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiJ5tToNoZ8">"Kyrila"</a> by Demis Roussos. So the ex-singer of Greek prog band Aphrodite's Child records this song in German, and its parent EP scrapes the bottom of the British singles charts. And from Wiki I learn this: "In 1993, he released <i>Insight</i> to general acclaim, although his attempt at a rap song, 'Spleen', which appeared on the album, was generally seen as a regrettable idea."</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN COUNTRYPOLITAN: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjHg95cCcoU">"Love's Explosion"</a> by Margo Smith. This has a big winding melody that allows her yodeler's voice to swoop all over the place, though there's no actual yodeling here. Produced by Norro Wilson, who -- fun fact! -- would also work on Kenny Chesney's early stuff.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN BRAZILIAN FUNK: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSIqFiJjW8M">"Melo de Lula"</a> by Banda Uniao Black. Atmospheric!</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN PUNK (oh yeah, that happened then): <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXlUSTklXKU">"No Heart"</a> by the Vibrators. A poor millworker comes home every day to find his wife neglecting him for the TV. If this was Gene Watson, he'd turn to drink. But since the guy's a punk, he shoots her. (At least I think that's what happens.) (I can't believe I'd never heard these guys before.)</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN TV SOUNDTRACKS: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_RTEzHVJZo">"O.K.?"</a> by Julie Covington, Rula Lenska, Charlotte Cornwell and Sue Jones-Davies of ROCK FOLLIES OF '77. Plot summary: "Anna and Dee both write songs, but Dee's pop/rock song 'O.K.'" -- sort of a proto- "I Do Not Hook Up" -- "is chosen over Anna's more literary effort. Thus begins a growing rivalry between the two friends." Has anyone ever seen this show? The song's really good, and it hit #10 on the British chart.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN DOWNTOWN CLASSICAL: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4d-Ts9KeZo">"Piano"</a> by Morton Feldman. This might misstate their compositional strategies completely, but for me Feldman's music is like a slowed down, quieted down Cecil Taylor. Both are compelling for their harmonic language, which is dissonant but not haphazardly so (you hear things repeat and themes emerge), and for their rhythms, which are extremely precise but do their best to hide it. If Taylor's found ways to give improv the integrity of composition, Feldman developed techniques to give his composition the character of improv. Anyway, a palate cleanser. Part 2/3 is actually my favorite, but I'm sure you can find it if you're as compelled as I am.</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN CHRISTIAN GUITAR HEROISM: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1or2FNLVr0">"Rejoice"</a> by Phil Keaggy. It's just an OK song until the extremely fluid guitar solo starts around 3 or 4 minutes. Mark Allan Powell calls him "probably the most versatile guitarist who has ever lived, having taken on a wide variety of styles, mastering them all, and putting his own identifying stamp on them. It is easy to imagine both Jimi Hendrix and Andre Segovia smiling down on him, nodding their heads in approval, albeit with reference to completely different projects."</span></b><br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN JAZZ: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLamIKjab9s">"Song of Songs"</a> by Woody Shaw and Anthony Braxton. After a swoony introduction with Shaw's trumpet, Braxton's clarinet, Arthur Blythe's alto, and Muhal Richard Abrams's piano smearing all over the place, the band launches into a waltz full of fine solos and cheek. The interval between the third and the flat six features prominently; nice changes in the second half of the head. Cecil McBee's bass sometimes sounds like a foghorn.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SOUTHERN METAL: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFOuOnnJNkM">"Shame"</a> by Hydra. </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Speedy!</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">SPACE DISCO: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh3KEnoLWiE">"Tango in Space"</a> by Space</span></b><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">A French outfit headed by classical musician and early synth adopter Didier Marouani, Space got very popular in the USSR, in part because (according to <a href="http://news.planetorigo.com/article.php?poarticle_id=92&s=vtXztuEjph2zGUbv&">this interview</a>) the state TV channel would play stuff like the "Tango" underneath all their space footage. Space got to play Russia in the early '80s and did very well, and in 1992 (can this be true?) performed the first major concert in Red Square. "Tango" is not a tango at all, but one of those clean, sparse jams whose pleasure comes from hearing every instrument interact. You can practically see the different musical lines intertwining.</span></span><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">REGULAR DISCO: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTwTD8hpoWQ">"Tattoo Man"</a> by Denise McCann. </span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the <i>RS Record Guide</i>, Dave Marsh gave this album one star and declared McCann "in no danger of being mistaken for Donna Summer" (who, let's face it, basically owned 1977 along with her producers). But this song is really good! It's a tightly wound portrait of a pimp, made scarier because it doesn't overstate its scariness. Horns, background singers, occasional synths, burbling beat, and and a great guitar riff -- it could be any high-flying minor key disco strut, until you notice that it can't escape the minor key. Whenever the "Tattoo Man!" chorus comes around, I expect it to resolve major, but it doesn't, and the mood of tension is inescapable until the fadeout, with McCann babbling "Gotta get away from the Tattoo Man" with increasing desperation.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">COUNTRY GOSPEL: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1-DHepnVLs">"Uncloudy Day"</a> by Willie Nelson. A #4 country hit, voice and guitar inhabiting the song like comfortable cotton, the opening guitar solo just a little bit off-kilter.</span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></span><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">CROSSOVER MINIMALISM: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbWfGsgGPLM">"Victor's Lament"</a> by Philip Glass. Christgau gave the <i>North Star</i> album an A- and said Glass achieved his rhythms "through mechanical repetitions cunningly modified." Which you can hear here -- built over the same ostinato Sonny and Cher used in "The Beat Goes On", this is basically a rondo that keeps returning to the high keyboard theme after it modifies the midrange keyboard theme, I think just by adding a note each time and letting the rhythmic chips fall.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">POST-VELVETS PROTO-PUNK: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpn5E5iDisc">"White Screen Movies" </a>by the Bizarros. A raver, from their split album <i>From Akron</i> with the cannibalistic Rubber City Rebels (see above).</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EXPLICABLE CHART POP: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPHkFIyAwPM">"You've Got Me Runnin'"</a> by Gene Cotton. Like a big shiny hug from your dentist.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1977 IN </span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.03391603101044893" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ZIGLIBITHY: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAENRGTyx9c">"Zibote"</a> by Ernesto Dje-Dje. From the Ivory Coast; Ronnie Graham says, "This is a Bete dance rhythm which [Dje-Dje] sought to modernise, thus demonstrating to fellow Ivorians that they should make increasing commercial use of their indigenous musical heritage. Ziglibithy was a highly rhythmic dance which Dje-Dje mastered completely. He would stop and dance sideways, shaking his shoulders to an irresistible sound which found appreciative audiences around the country."</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bibliography:</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Accidental Evolution of Rock 'n' Roll</i>, Chuck Eddy, Da Capo 1997.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits</i>, Joel Whitburn, Billboard 2010.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>British Hit Singles 8th Edition</i>, Paul Gambaccini, Jonathan Rice, Tim Rice, Guinness 1991.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Collector's Guide to Heavy Metal Volume 1: the Seventies</i>, Martin Popoff, Collector's Guide 2003.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>The Da Capo Guide to Contemporary African Music</i>, Ronnie Graham, Da Capo 1988.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music</i>, Mark Allan Powell, Hendrickson 2002.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Joel Whitburn's Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003</i>, Joel Whitburn, Record Research 2004.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Plus Discogs, ILX, Wikipedia, and robertchristgau.com.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-53250110275220236532012-12-30T04:19:00.002-08:002012-12-30T04:19:34.019-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: Langhoff's Top 40TOP 10 SINGLES!<br />
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.8189756581559777" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” - Taylor Swift</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=5949">Singles Jukebox</a>:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">Taylor’s always done teenpop — she’s effortlessly broadened teenpop’s scope to include country, or maybe vice versa, an accomplishment either way — but in taking on the classical teenpop template here, she’s produced a classic of the form, mostly because of her still-evident songwriting craft. The first ace line — “I remember when we broke up/The first time” — turns out to rhyme with “‘cuz like,” so she establishes the song as part parody, a tone that never lets up. Spoken interlude: bratty! (Shania’s were always so </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">stiff</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">.) Four chords: well-deployed! Whiplash plot developments: impossible to follow! At the end of each chorus, the extra “ever”: clever! And there’s real emotional heft, as well — mostly the giddy joy of a master excelling at whatever the hell she wants. We-EEEE!</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">[10]</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mirando al Cielo” - Roberto Tapia</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=6481">TSJ</a>:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">The big swinging tuba is selling point #1 — this year I’ve hung onto some mediocre music for way too long, simply for the stunning tuba parts. #2 is Tapia’s tuba player interlocking with the rest of the banda, which splits into brass and woodwinds to comment like Pips on the action, deliciously messing around with the beat a couple times. Tapia’s singing is #3. He’s straightforward but heartfelt, warbling on the high notes but never cloying, leading out of the choruses on a hard-hitting string of syncopated rhymes right into the triumphant focal point of trumpet solo and horn tutti, #4, that feels like road and sky opening up and allowing us to take flight. Which is weird, since for Tapia the sky offers no escape, only a reminder that his lover exists only on his cell phone.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">[9]</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“One Thing” - One Direction</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=4898">TSJ</a>:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">The one thing I need is energetic young men singing in octaves over major seventh chords and efficient beats. The verses are utter crap — a moratorium, please, on kryptonite/Superman metaphors — so it’s no “I Want It That Way”, but then only a churl would dismiss </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; font-style: italic; line-height: 15px;">Mission: Impossible III</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;"> for failing to attain the heights of </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">Sneakers</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">[8]</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Springsteen” - Eric Church</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=5351">TSJ</a>:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">“Every time I think of you, I always catch my breath” … that’d make a lot more sense, but this song isn’t about that song. “That song” — the one that means freedom, lust, masculinity, tattoos, a Jeep, amateur astronomy, and a girl not wanting Eric to go — seems to be “Born In the USA,” which isn’t necessarily weirder than “Jack and Diane” for Kenny Chesney or “Sweet Home Alabama” for Kid Rock. Guitar sounds and unnamed drummers evoke what they will and who can understand the connections? Eric doesn’t try, just as he avoids forcing his specific reverie onto his listeners, sneaking the name of the song into the second verse. As an audio madeleine, “Born In the USA” would seem incongruous to most people, but “Springsteen” the song doesn’t even have to be about Springsteen, really, or sound like him — he’s just big and mythical enough to fade into the scenery of a song whose real subject is a night when every listener was seventeen.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">[8]</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Dirty Dishes” - Mark Mallman</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">reminds me of dorky Christian alt-rock from the '80s, though obviously it is not</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Spring of Life” - Perfume</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This reminds me of DDR, in that whenever I listen to it I imagine some dude shouting compliments at me for my dancing. Wish fulfillment!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=5348">TSJ</a></span></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Country Boy Fresh” - the Lacs</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">guitar sounds vaguely like "How Bizarre"</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Gente Batallosa” - Calibre 50 ft. Banda Carnaval</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shoup holla! Humongous brass, brawling accordion coming out of the key change.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Mamireru” - Kimura Kaela</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=5660">TSJ</a>:</span></span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">Either that’s a really long chorus or it’s two choruses battling for supremacy. You’ve got your “HEY let’s go!” chorus and then the chorus where she reaches wistfully for high notes — I say “wistfully” not because I think Kimura Kaela actually feels wistful, but because the tune demands wistfulness, so she checks off her wistfulness box like a station attendant initials the bathroom door. You can tell there’s a verse sandwiched in there because it’s got words (about a rhino and mystery?) but it’s not a chorus. The two different instrumental breaks are also not choruses. Wistfulness is fine and everything, but who’s got time for it?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 11.818181991577148px; line-height: 15px;">[8]</span><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Rooster in My Rari” - Waka Flocka Flame</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We've all been there. One of the more FX-laden and dizzying songs off his current album, and a single, so hey!</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TOP 10 ALBUMS!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8189756581559777" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Wadada Leo Smith - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ten Freedom Summers</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Cuneiform) (indie, jazz) JAZZ-CLASSICAL MASTERPIECES</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/161658-wadada-leo-smith-ten-freedom-summers/">PopMatters</a> review at bottom</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Local H - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hallelujah! I’m a Bum</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Slimstyle) (indie) RECESSION ROCK</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(from P&J comments submission)</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.6511891076806933" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead of Japandroids, give me Local H’s Scott Lucas roaring “I smell like a brewery!” while he bounces another check and gets on his dog’s nerves. This all occurs in “Another February”, one of the many funny and/or sad blasts of bullshit-parting off their spectacular new album </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hallelujah! I’m a Bum</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which I’m hoping other people heard? As duo rock it cuts Japandroids, as recession rock it outdoes Springsteen. The album seized me that increasingly terrible December death week, the one that culminated in Sandy Hook, which still boggles my parental mind if I let it. Until that Friday, it was also a terrible week for many people throughout my various communities in Lake County, IL, coincidentally Local H’s old stomping ground. People just </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">kept dying</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, making it the worst week ever for handfuls of folks I know, and so by the time Friday rolled around I was grabbing for Local H like they were booze. Lucas’s rage, his ability to be passionately cynical, his taste for beauty and off-putting experimentation all gave me permission to feel sad and angry, like any good catharsis should. (Some of us sicko Pollyanna types need permission, you know.) </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lucas refuses to allow easy answers -- mostly while discussing economics and politics, true, but despair is portable. “Your Superman, he says ‘Yes, we can’” -- hey, I have that guy’s bumper sticker! -- “but we’re grains of sand. We get set free in waves again. Jesus saves again. But no one wises up, so no one will rise up,” blah blah blah, that’s just how it goes and no matter how angry this shit makes you, what are you gonna do? (Maybe arm a bunch of teachers and clap like an idiot seal.*) The election and Obama’s first term showed that our country is riven by enormous philosophical chasms, and </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">death</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is an enormous chasm, and if you pause to let this stuff boggle your mind, it will. So I admire a band who doesn’t pretend to have any answers, but can still make beauty from that. I’m guessing Local H’s favorite book of the Bible, like mine, is the beautiful existential downer Ecclesiastes. I wonder if Japandroids have read it? ‘Cause it’ll </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> slow you down, and right now Japandroids are busy with their self-importance, dressing up like hipsters and making fun of their exes. The sooner they learn they’re grains of sand, the better.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">*this is unfair, both to the NRA and to idiot seals, who at least don't want to ARM TEACHERS</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Skrillex - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bangarang</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Owsla/Big Beat/Atlantic) (major, dance) BROSTEP</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">He is a big handful of snot extending a hearty handshake.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">4. Taylor Swift - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Red</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Big Machine) (major, country?) NU-COUNTRYPOLITAN</span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">from <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/165940-the-best-country-music-of-2012/P1">PopMatters</a>:</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Yes yes, Swift filled this album with a “dubstep” song, a U2-style stadium thing, teen-pop for 22-year-olds, and lots of modern rock. But she also wrote ace story songs about troublesome men, grace, partying, home, and fame’s perils—</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">and they’re the same songs</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">. The skills that brought her country fans she applies to new styles with a master’s ease. Her fanbase still loves her, and why not? She sets the intense break-up ache “All Too Well” beside the euphoric “22”, packs an entire world into each, and instantly beats whole genres at their own games. Her singing has never sounded better or more powerful. Her mopey British duet partners don’t take up too much space, and great songs quickly come along to wash them away. Whether Swift’s nü-countrypolitan remains her m.o., or whether </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Red</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"> ends up a Milsap-gone-disco blip, few musicians are packing this much color, craft, and sheer pleasure into their music.</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5. Ja Rule - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PIL2</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (MPire/700 Hit Season) (indie, rap) EMO RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/166263-the-top-10-pleasant-surprise-albums-of-2012/">PopMatters</a>:</span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Eight years after his last hit, on his own tiny label that only releases mixtapes and Ja Rule albums, it’s fair to say nobody expected greatness from the incarcerated Queens rapper. As they teach you to say in job interview seminars, Ja Rule turns his weaknesses into strengths, crafting a first-rate emo-rap album with producer 7 Aurelius. The rapper spends the album hating his own fame and wondering what constitutes real life (a “Bohemian Rhapsody” sample was denied.) Sometimes he slurs his bark beyond comprehension, giving the whole thing a desperate and confused feel, especially when he starts praying in the middle of his sex jams (for reasons unknown, he also shouts out that wack Nine Days song, “Story of a Girl”.) But things still cut through the murk: the hook singers’ clear voices, the producer’s vivid production touches, and especially Ja Rule’s love of syncopation, making his syllables snap even when he seems to lose his tether to reality.</span><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">6. Adrenaline Mob - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Omerta</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Elm City/EMI) (major, metal) HAIR METAL</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solos are over-the-top, the cover of Duran Duran's "Undone" stomps, and they deploy tropes and arrangement gimmicks like the pros they are.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7. Thousand Foot Krutch - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The End Is Where We Begin</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (TFK) (indie, CCM, metal) CANADIAN CHRISTIAN RAP-ROCK</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.5391860401723534" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">More post-Rage post-Tool metal dudes fretting aggressively about their Christian walk, only this time they’re white Canadians and one of ‘em raps! None of this bodes well, but wouldn’t you know -- they pull it off. 12 distinctive singalong tunes with chunky riffs and tricky rhythms, and even their cartoonish aggression is endearing. (Just a courtesy call, brah: they get WICKED.) The melodies are catchy and the rapping’s only slightly embarrassing.</span></b><b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">8. John Surman - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Saltash Bells</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (ECM) (indie, jazz) NEW AGEY JAZZ</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The obvious predecessor is Keith Jarrett's one-man multitracked <i>Spirits</i>, but I also hear a lot of Sonny Sharrock's one-man multitracked <i>Guitar</i>, without the noise but with just as much beauty.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">9. Devin Gray - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dirigo Rataplan</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Skirl) (indie, jazz) JAZZ</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">You want your free jazz to swing, get the drummer to lead it. Often sounds like strutting second-line stuff with all sorts of appealing gobbeldygook over the top. The melodies often sound like parodies of "angular" jazz heads.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10. El Doom & the Born Electric - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">El Doom & the Born Electric</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Rune Grammofon) (indie, prog, metal) PROG METAL</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Funny, heavy, and hairy.</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">THE REST OF THE STORY!</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b><b id="internal-source-marker_0.478400262305513" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="internal-source-marker_0.8189756581559777" style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; white-space: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11. Various Artists - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Giant Single: Profile Records Rap Anthology</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Profile) (major, rap, reissue) RAP REISSUES</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">12. Various Artists - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-12-old-timey-yazoo-comp.html">The Return of the Stuff That Dreams are Made Of</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Yazoo) (indie, country, blues) OLD TIMEY REISSUES</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">13. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-13-nas.html">Nas</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life Is Good</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Def Jam) (major, rap) GROWNUP RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">14. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-14-heart.html">Heart</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fanatic</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sony/Legacy) (major) CLASSIC ROCK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-15-jerrod-niemann.html">Jerrod Niemann</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Free the Music</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville) (major, country) POST BIG & RICH COUNTRY</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">16. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-16-waka-flocka-flame.html">Waka Flocka Flame</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Triple Life</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Warner Bros.) (major, rap) SOUTHERN RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">17. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-17-po-po.html">PO PO</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dope Boy Magick</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Mad Decent) (indie) SLACKER ROCK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">18. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-18-vijay-iyer-trio.html">Vijay Iyer Trio</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Accelerando</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (ACT) (indie, jazz) PIANO TRIO JAZZ</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">19. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-19-van-halen.html">Van Halen</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Different Kind of Truth</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Interscope) (major, metal) VAN HALEN</span></b></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">21. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-21-sleigh-bells.html">Sleigh Bells</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reign of Terror</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Mom + Pop) (indie) INDIE ROCK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">22. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-22-souljazz-orchestra.html">The Souljazz Orchestra</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solidarity</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Strut) (indie, jazz) HORNY DANCE BANDS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">23. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-23-wiley.html">Wiley</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evolve Or Be Extinct</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Big Dada) (indie, rap) GRIME</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">24. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-24-system-of-survival.html">System of Survival</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Needle and Thread</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (BPitch Control) (indie, dance) MICROHOUSE</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">25. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-25-lacs.html">The Lacs</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">190 Proof</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Average Joes/Backroad) (indie, country, rap) COUNTRY RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">26. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-26-coup.html">The Coup</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sorry to Bother You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (ANTI-) (indie, rap) COMMIE RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">27. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-27-karindula-sessions.html">Various - </a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-27-karindula-sessions.html">The Karindula Sessions</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Crammed Discs) (indie, African) KARINDULA</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">28. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-28-first-aid-kit.html">First Aid Kit</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lion’s Roar</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Wichita) (indie, country) ALT-COUNTRY</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">29. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-29-damita.html">Damita</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anticipation</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Tyscot) (indie, CCM) GOSPEL</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">30. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-30-jon-lundbom-big.html">Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No New Tunes</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (indie, jazz) GUITAR JAZZ SKRONK</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.4817844587378204" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">31. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-31-todd-terje.html">Todd Terje</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the Arps</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Smalltown Supersound) (indie, electro) ELECTRO EPS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">32. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-32-hillsong-kids-jr.html">Hillsong Kids Jr.</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crazy Noise!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Hillsong/Sparrow) (major, CCM, children’s) CHRISTIAN KIDDIE MUSIC</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">33. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-33-third-coast.html">Third Coast Percussion</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Cage: The Works for Percussion 2</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (mode) (indie, classical) CLASSICAL CENTENNIALS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">34. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-34-ceremony.html">Ceremony</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoo</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Matador) (indie) PUNK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">35. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-35-flo-rida.html">Flo Rida</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wild Ones</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Atlantic) (major, rap, dance) POP RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">36. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-36-wow-gospel.html">Various</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WOW Gospel 2012</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Verity) (major, CCM) GOSPEL COMPS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">37. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-37-graffiti6.html">Graffiti6</a> -- </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colours</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (NW Free/Capitol) (major, dance) BRITPOP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">38. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-38-batida.html">Batida</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Batida</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Soundway) (indie, dance, African) KUDURO</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">39. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-39-fresh-beat-band.html">The Fresh Beat Band</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Music From the Hit TV Show</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Viacom) (major?) BUBBLEGUM</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">40. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/11/worth-it-in-2012-40-los-dareyes-de-la.html">Los Dareyes de la Sierra</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mis Favoritas</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sony Latin) (major, Latin, reissue) NORTENO REISSUES</span></b><br />
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WADADA LEO SMITH REVIEW:</span></b><br />
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All those descriptions of “monumental” make sense. Wadada Leo Smith’s <i>Ten Freedom Summers</i> is first of all BIG: a four-disc 19-track monument to the Civil Rights movement, performed by the 70-year-old Smith on trumpet along with the nine-member Southwest Chamber Music ensemble and the latest incarnation of Smith’s Golden Quartet (or Quintet, if two people are drumming). Whenever he can corral them all to perform the thing live, the concert lasts three nights and covers audiences with heaps of music: free improv, modal jazz grooves, and classical composition including (why not?) a string quartet movement. Though bracketed by tributes to Dred Scott and Martin Luther King, Jr., the work is so sprawling it can’t even be constrained by its Civil Rights framework. Songs keep spilling off like free-associative ideas with ungainly titles: “Buzzsaw: The Myth of a Free Press”, “The D.C. Wall: A War Memorial for All Times”, and so on. Monuments seek to overwhelm, and <i>Freedom</i> does its best.</div>
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Is there precedent in jazz for such a work? Cecil Taylor’s box sets are even bigger, but they lack a connective framework beyond their performance scenarios. Wynton Marsalis has written extended works for large ensembles, notably the Pulitzer Prize-winning <i>Blood on the Fields</i>, but unlike Marsalis, Smith refuses to put too fine a point on his ideas. <i>Freedom</i>forgoes singers, and you never catch it winking at the audience; there’s no Marsalisian pastiche or cutesy humor here. Smith’s music speaks with a statesman’s seriousness. These pieces transform their subjects into musical invention and moods; they’re not literal or programmatic. <i>Freedom</i>‘s closest forebears are contemporary classical pieces—“Creative Music”, the AACM veteran might say—that invite meditation and make their points through abstraction.</div>
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This shouldn’t imply that you need a music degree to enjoy it. More than anything, <i>Freedom</i> is about sound: the tangible, physically beautiful sounds of Smith’s imperative trumpet and of different instruments in combination, testing their own limits. Most of the lengthy pieces are split into distinct sonic areas, with each area receiving the spotlight in turn. “The Freedom Riders Ride” (song 10, if you’re keeping track) builds from an uncertain opening, the Quartet scattered and thinking out loud, into a ravishing group improvisation. Anthony Davis’s lush piano chords coexist with stripped-bare dissonances, and tempos shift according to some precise telepathy. Then, four minutes in, an ominous stop-start section tumbles into a blazing free walk, with trumpet, piano, bass and Susie Ibarra’s drums all racing along in the sort of collective freedom that jazz exists to celebrate—beautiful beautiful beautiful. But it doesn’t last. Things fall apart, as things do, to focus on the different instruments—sawing bass, skittering drums—building until another fast walk ends the piece. If lightning-fast swing is the reason you turn to jazz, <i>Freedom</i>has plenty such passages, but its explorations of space and stillness are just as crucial.</div>
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Other indelible moments:</div>
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—the fuguelike section in “Emmett Till: Defiant, Fearless”, where strings, harp, and quartet enter bit by bit and swirl into cacophony;</div>
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—in “Buzzsaw”, an aggressive, mournful groove, the contrast of John Lindberg’s bowed bass against propulsive piano, drums, and trumpet;</div>
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—in “Thurgood Marshall and Brown vs. Board of Education: A Dream of Equal Education, 1954” (whew!), the swinging bass groove that gradually disintegrates over the course of eight minutes;</div>
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—the smearing, sliding strings of “Black Church (String Quartet No. 3)”;</div>
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—the times that recall Miles Davis’s “In a Silent Way”, with Smith’s clear tone soaring over wobbly rhythm section drones, and sometimes fighting against them, in “America, Parts 1, 2 & 3” and “Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 Days”.</div>
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For all these and more, credit Smith’s musicians and his compositional methods. Like many modern jazz and classical composers, Smith has developed his own system for organizing improv. He calls it “Ankhrasmation,” a graphic notation that helps musicians coordinate their jumping-off points. While he doesn’t seem to have used that system in <i>Freedom</i>, his goal is similar. Pre-ordained motives move inexorably to moments of spontaneous creation and back again. Even during the slow parts, when the music threatens to crawl to a stop or turn into a hazy Terence Blanchard score, violin and cello and trumpet hold their notes slightly out of tune, vibrato and dissonance beating with portent, and the effect is riveting. Every instrument pops; sound and silences pulse with vitality.</div>
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If <i>Freedom</i> resembles a monument, at least in my mind, it’s the Gateway Arch in St. Louis—“just a big piece of modern art on the bank of the river,” a friend once affectionately described it. It’s abstract and even austere, sure, but that only makes it <i>more</i> universally accessible. A short walk from the courthouse where Dred Scott sued for his freedom, the Arch embodies different shades of symbolic meaning. Depending on your sympathies, it can be a soul-stirring paean to Western expansion, a costly reminder of American imperialism, or a fun place to go on a field trip. All sorts of stuff, good and bad, baked into an inverted steel catenary. <i>Freedom</i> lacks the Arch’s simplicity of line, but its takeaways are just as complex. It’s never simply a celebration or a lament, a history lesson or a big piece of modern art. You don’t have to choose, Smith seems to say; this music contains <i>everything</i>.</div>
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<i>Freedom</i> is even sort of shaped like the Arch; it climbs to a rarefied peak. The album’s 24-minute centerpiece, “Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and the Civil Rights Act of 1964”, stretches austere abstraction to its limits, but it contains moments that rival Stravinsky’s famous Rite chord for time-stopping sound, moments you could reach out, touch, crawl inside, and settle down with. It’s quantum music theory: the strum of a harp contains the world. Live with this music long enough and it seeps into the rest of your life. These days I can’t look at Robert Caro’s massive LBJ biography, or even think about America’s elongated battle over health care reform, without hearing the roiling timpani that define “Great Society”, giving voice to slow-motion legislative wars in every age.</div>
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Monuments overwhelm, but they do so by speaking to us personally. Like visiting a sacred site or reading Tolstoy or Proust, listening to <i>Freedom</i> is an emotional and intellectual luxury, a chance to commune with greatness. Years after I’d taken my last field trip to the Arch, I graduated from school and moved back to St. Louis, for the first time living on my own in a cramped little apartment. One day I parked at the library and walked to the river, and as the Arch loomed before me I was overcome by emotion. Besides being a symbol of Western expansion, the Arch had become <i>my</i> expansion, at once my freedom and homecoming, my destiny tied to the country’s destiny. <i>Ten Freedom Summers</i> speaks like a great civic monument. In four and a half hours, Wadada Leo Smith writes one of America’s defining events in sound, and the story is all of ours.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-82663789488474270132012-12-27T04:28:00.000-08:002012-12-27T04:28:06.497-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #12 - Old Timey Yazoo Comp<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN OLD TIMEY REISSUES</div>
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Various Artists</div>
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<i>The Return of the Stuff That Dreams are Made Of</i></div>
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(Yazoo)</div>
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Here's what I wrote at the <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/166590-the-20-best-re-issues-of-2012/P1">PopMatters Best Reissues</a> extravaganza:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Chances are you’ve already got some of these singles from the 1920s sitting around the house. Charlie Patton’s roaring “High Water Everywhere—Part 1”, Bukka White’s chugging proto-rap “The Panama Limited”, and J.P. Nester’s amazing “Train on the Island”, where fiddle and banjo meld into what resembles an electro-minimalist maelstrom—these are oft-compiled elsewhere. But unless you’re one of the </span></div>
<del style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">demented</del><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">dedicated</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"> collectors depicted in this compilation’s 50-page booklet, you don’t have them all in one place, and you probably don’t have some of the other </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Stuff</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">. Maybe you need Joe Evans & Arthur McClain’s deadpan “Two White Horses” (a.k.a. “See That My Grave is Kept Clean”), complete with church bell and coffin sound effects. Or “Old Molly Hair”—which, according to Fiddling Powers himself, was “lost in the building of King Solomon’s temple,” and concerns the shooting of a bear and cuckleberries caught in hair. Smattered with Irish and Polish rarities, these 46 exuberant oldies invite you to dance away your death obsessions.</span><br />
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Way better than Aretha Franklin's <i>Best Of 1980-1998.</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-39189605554604104662012-12-27T04:01:00.002-08:002012-12-27T04:01:47.620-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #13 - Nas<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN GROWNUP RAP</div>
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Nas</div>
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<i>Life Is Good</i></div>
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(Def Jam)</div>
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You all know how the story go. Here's what I wrote on the <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/166270-the-75-best-albums-of-2012/P3">PopMatters Best Albums feature</a>, where <i>Life Is Good</i> finished #36:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">As he says, Nas must have half-naked pictures of God or something. Eleven albums in, he remains a spectacular rapper, albeit one who doesn’t need to make a spectacle of himself. Whether discussing his divorce, fatherhood, plans to topple investment banks, or summers on smash, Nas has honed his complex rhyme schemes for maximum ease of communication. He taunts young pipsqueaks who kill people accidentally; he sympathizes with a middle aged doctor contemplating uxoricide while performing surgery. He shouts out Kelis and makes their story interesting, even if you haven’t been following along. He hates when people write him hostile texts—who doesn’t? The guy’s turned into a wealthy charmer, and his producers’ opulent beats back him up, peaking with the orchestral banger “A Queens Story” but rarely flagging. In fact—do my ears deceive me?—</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Life Is Good</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"> might be a better album than his revered debut. At least, I’d rather listen to it.</span><br />
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And, just because I like when songs incorporate Chopin's "Revolutionary Etude":<br />
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Way better than Usher's <i>Looking 4 Myself</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-64145497726290858852012-12-27T03:42:00.000-08:002012-12-27T03:42:14.097-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #14 - Heart<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN CLASSIC ROCK</div>
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Heart</div>
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<i>Fanatic</i></div>
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(Sony/Legacy)</div>
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"One of the best bands we have ever had," says Matt Cibula in his <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/163716-heart-fanatic/">PopMatters review</a>, and based on this album you don't doubt him. They've been on a tear recently, getting weirder while singing about trains and travel. Here the guitar tones are huge and indelible, keyboard textures cut in and out at unpredictable intervals, drums rock, Ann REALLY rocks.</div>
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Way better than Neil Young's <i>Americana</i> and Leonard Cohen's <i>Old Ideas</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-88485982137956919372012-12-26T11:26:00.000-08:002012-12-26T11:26:12.986-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #15 - Jerrod Niemann<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN NASHVILLE COUNTRY</div>
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Jerrod Niemann</div>
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<i>Free the Music</i></div>
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(Sea Gayle/Arista Nashville)</div>
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Here's what I wrote in the <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/165940-the-best-country-music-of-2012/">PopMatters Country Best-Of</a>, shortly before learning that Jerrod Niemann is not really country:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Keeping Nashville horn players employed since 2010, this goofball proudly endorses the man in the moon and insists that he is a man, not a fraction. (Maybe that’ll end the rumors.) Niemann’s post-Big & Rich country mixes metaphors and styles with abandon, its exquisitely chiseled production sweeping you from song to song. </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Free the Music</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"> veers from Beck to honky-tonk weeper, the ominous “Get On Up” to the lite tropical “I’ll Have to Kill the Pain”. It all seems like breezy showboating until “Only God Could Love You More”, a massive ballad that’ll awaken your inner 14-year-old to the knowledge that love is </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">awesome</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">. God, too; though he’s less prominent in Niemann’s cosmology than alcohol or Jessie James, who has the courtesy to rhyme with “Guessing Games”, the title of a dark new wave strutter. “Do you know what is completely obnoxious?,” asks Niemann of his mystery woman. Sometimes the answer is Jerrod Niemann, but he’s always real nice about it.</span></div>
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And, just because I'd like to preserve the discussion, traditionalist commenter Al3x 0rr proposed the following:<br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 22px;">"I feel a a good trad country album should top a dance-pop album marketed as country any day in a list of best country releases. A terrific album exemplifying the best aspects of a genre's style should be among the qualities looked for in a great album when talking about releases within that particular genre."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 22px;">He also noted, "</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 22px;">I just gave a listen to the Jerrod Niemann album and I'd love to know what makes this country and not lite-rock pop soul." He went on, "D</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 22px;">id y'all actually hear [Marty Stuart's unmentioned-in-the-list] "Nashville, Vol. 1: Tear the Woodpile Down" and decide that it was simply not among the ten best country albums released in 2012? If you can explain to me how Jerrod Niemann's album is a better "country" album, I'd love to hear it."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.44444465637207px; line-height: 22px;">I responded,</span><br />
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Alex, since I wrote up your three main offenders, I’ll go. Really good comment, btw, but I disagree with your philosophical point that “a good trad country album should top a dance-pop album marketed as country any day in a list of best country releases. A terrific album exemplifying the best aspects of a genre's style should be among the qualities looked for in a great album when talking about releases within that particular genre.”</div>
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I don’t presume to know what country SHOULD sound like; but I do know when something sounds country or seems country. Carrie Underwood and Jerrod Niemann sound country -- at least half their songs deal in standard country tropes and incorporate traditional country instrumentation. I could see the argument that Taylor Swift’s current album doesn’t sound country, but she’s enough identified with the genre and beloved by its fans, who consider themselves country fans even if you don’t, that she counts too. So of all the people who I’m letting into the genre, I pick the ones I like best, in order, because maybe the ones who aren’t as “traditional” are teaching me something I didn’t know about the genre. Maybe Jerrod Niemann’s bizarre sense of humor is one of those heretofore unexplored “best aspects of a genre’s style” that you mention. (Although really he’s not too far from the Statler Brothers.) This is how genres thrive and continue to speak to people! When they stop doing so, THAT’S how genres die.</div>
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I won’t pretend to know the Stuart album well enough for some head-to-head cage match. It sounds good, actually, but I prefer Niemann’s humor, instrumental variety, and occasional goopy romantic excess. (Not something I’m generally in favor of, but he makes it work.) I identify with him more and I’d rather listen to his album. And he’s definitely country! Are you gonna tell me “Whiskey Kinda Way” isn’t country? Regardless of whether he’d have been considered country in any other decade, we’re not living in any other decade, you know?</div>
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(Somewhat better than Dwight Yoakam's <i>3 Pears</i>.)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-10565778980246108172012-12-26T05:43:00.003-08:002012-12-26T05:43:56.200-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #16 - Waka Flocka Flame<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN SOUTHERN RAP</div>
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Waka Flocka Flame</div>
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<i>Triple Life</i></div>
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(Warner Bros.)</div>
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I understand your moral qualms about listening to Waka Flocka's songs of violence, misogyny, and materialism. My defense has three aspects.</div>
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1. Yes, his songs view women as objects intended for male pleasure, and they value cars and guns and swag and other shiny objects over stuff like human interaction and feelings. So, you know, he's doing "Blue Suede Shoes" to a gaudy extreme. But these are not necessarily prescriptive songs -- they're depictions of a culture. ("Strip clubs is our culture, we some heavy spenders," he says in "Candy Paint & Gold Teeth".) I don't know Waka's history, but who among us has come into money and immediately realized the most edifying ways to use it? As Jay-Z pointed out in his Terry Gross interview, young rappers often have unhealthy attitudes towards wealth and women, but they learn and they grow. (As a result, maybe their music turns as uninteresting as Jay-Z's recent stuff?) As Jonathan Bradley put it at <a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=6383">Singles Jukebox</a>,<span style="font-family: inherit;"> "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">Whether you’re broke or rich, you gotta get this: having money’s not everything, not having it is." (Sometimes I feel like the rest of us are writing in Bradley's shadow.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">2. Again: NOT PRESCRIPTIVE. Not even trying to be! Waka's big strip club hit "Round of Applause" sounds morose, a little like Moroder's <i>Neverending Story</i> music for the scenes involving Swamps of Sadness or nihilistic wolves. The lyrics may be celebratory, but the music is anything but -- you feel trapped in Waka's club/Rari, maybe WAKA feels trapped. It's a juxtaposition that cuts way deeper than, for example, Jason Aldean's recent "I feel sad for this stripper" song.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">3. Musically this stuff is a fantastic hall of mirrors, with crazy voices around every corner shouting "FLOCKAAAA" or "SQUAAAAAD" or "BRIIIIIIICK" or "POWPOWPOWPOW," crazy shifts in texture from full synth overload to acapella barking and back again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 15px;">So listening to Waka may be morally ambiguous, sure, but show me a part of your life that's NOT morally ambiguous. Does it sound this good?</span></span></div>
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Way better than Rick Ross's <i>God Forgives, I Don't</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-58493002504123836732012-12-25T21:00:00.001-08:002012-12-25T21:00:14.268-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #17 - PO PO<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN SLACKER ROCK</div>
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PO PO</div>
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<i>Dope Boy Magick</i></div>
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(Mad Decent)</div>
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From <a href="http://burnsidewriters.com/2012/08/30/sheep-goats-kari-jobe-sinead-o%E2%80%99connor-neil-young-and-more/">Sheep & Goats</a>:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">Zeb Malik makes ramshackle little indie rock tunes, snatches of riff presided over by a wafting tenor, a thrift-store Marshall Crenshaw chanting a liturgy of slack. Lucky for Malik his instrumental timbres are catchier than most people’s tunes — cf. “Let’s Get Away”, a suicide drink of Van Halen’s synths, Sonic Youth’s white noise, Kate Bush’s Fairlight flute, and Phil Collins’s drums. (Did you know “Phil Collins” is the technical term for a familiar drum rudiment?) The ‘80s will ALWAYS be back. “Losn My Mind” features a sound I desperately wish was an electrified oboe but probably isn’t. Malik also includes several ingratiating “mood” pieces; their mood is the totally relatable “I feel like messing around with this button on the keyboard.” Pick hit is “Bummer Summer”, an evocation of summers past that gets by on its guitar treatment. Though actually, the tune’s not bad either.</span></div>
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Way better than the xx's <i>Coexist</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-40515474132291977002012-12-25T20:24:00.000-08:002012-12-25T20:24:11.226-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #18 - Vijay Iyer Trio<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN PIANO TRIOS</div>
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Vijay Iyer Trio</div>
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<i>Accelerando</i></div>
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(ACT)</div>
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Those seeking erudite takes on this wonderful music should read <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/arts/music/accelerando-by-the-vijay-iyer-trio.html?_r=0">Nate Chinen's Times review</a>, which nicely covers Iyer's background and musical concerns. The rhythmic achievement is most blatant -- this trio does stuff rhythmically I can't begin to wrap my head around, and that's often what I look for in music, you know? What can I not do myself? Or what do I not already understand? But he tempers it with a crowd-pleasing sensibility that's just as blatant. When they cover (or "deconstruct," or whatever) MJ's "Human Nature", I realize they love it for the same reason I do -- the harmonic suspension in the verse ("looking OUT", the tonic stays in place on "OUT" and scrapes against the rest of the chord) that doesn't resolve until the chorus: "why, WHY", the second "WHY" is on the same chord but now the suspension is resolved... look, I'm sure someone's concocted a better way to talk about this stuff, but let's just say "Human Nature" is in Josh's Top 10 Songs Ever, basically because those Toto dudes know their shit, and Iyer preserves the song's gloopy appeal for me while taking it someplace new, and that's why I love his music and don't just respect his skill and craft. Other good songs too.</div>
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Way better than Charlie Haden and Hank Jones's <i>Come Sunday</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-59987040809807190822012-12-21T04:10:00.001-08:002012-12-21T04:10:51.176-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #19 - Van Halen<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN VAN HALEN</div>
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Van Halen</div>
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<i>A Different Kind of Truth</i></div>
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(Interscope)</div>
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So sue me, I've always been a Van Hagar partisan, which might make me ineligible to write about music with any authority, sort of like my continuing love for Daughtry's voice. (Seriously, he <i>doesn't</i> sound like everybody else!) I could bore you with the long list of journal entries devoted to '80s VH power ballads, the time I found a discarded <i>OU812</i> cassette outside the school and painstakingly took it apart and respooled the tape so it'd play and then drew a beautiful album sleeve depicting my jam "Feels So Good" (little stick dude on an island throwing a bottle), or how singles from <i>Balance</i> (<i>BALANCE</i>!) got me through my wisdom teeth exile. </div>
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Um, what were we talking about? Right. I was thinking my Van Hagar partisanship might explain my ongoing love for the creamily misogynistic chorus of "You and Your Blues." This album is <i>not</i> Van Hagar, it's the return of David Lee Roth and some semblance of caring from the rest of the band. Little Wolfgang is on bass, and each of the three components -- Roth, Eddie, and rhythm section -- has more personality than most of the people on this list. The album's not higher because its tunes sort of peter out, but when they coalesce into hooks, the hooks sound like they could only come from these actors. Roth's lost his little grace-note shrieks, but he still swoops into choruses like a freakin' LOCOMOTIVE driving through SOME KIND OF PORTAL FROM ANOTHER WORLD (i don't even know what that is), Eddie busts out singable solos and unsingable freakazoid solos and fills and riffs that comment on whatever Roth is doing, and the really very powerful rhythm trax would be worth hearing by themselves. Just to clarify -- it <i>doesn't</i> sound like the Hagar years, because Roth would never allow that. But the best of this is continuous with the best of the Roth years.</div>
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Way better than Torche's <i>Harmonicraft</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-42703890012811457272012-12-19T04:04:00.000-08:002012-12-19T04:04:37.608-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #20 - The Very Best<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN EURO-AFROPOP</div>
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The Very Best</div>
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<i>MTMTMK</i></div>
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(Moshi Moshi/Cooperative)</div>
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What I will have written at the PopMatters "Hopes to Hit It Big" feature; honestly, if this album hasn't hit it big yet, I don't hold out much hope.<br />
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Why these guys aren’t topping the pop charts is beyond me. Well, OK, half the time Esau Mwamwaya sings in Chewa, the language of his native Malawi. But if you figure 2012 is the year foreign languages broke with “Gangam Style”; and if you factor in The Very Best’s collaborations with the very familiar Taio Cruz, Bruno Mars, K’Naan, and Amadou & Mariam; and <i>especially</i> if you consider that producer Johan Hugo’s beats are catchier than pinkeye in a preschool, they should be all over the place! They need to release “Kondaine” as a single! (Oh wait...) At least they’re touring Europe now, so catch ‘em on your spring break travels and listen to their excellent 2012 multi-culti dance-pop album <i>MTMTMK</i>, endorsed by NPR. (Hey, it’s something.) I foresee hip licensing deals in their future.<br />
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My <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/160999-the-very-best-mtmtmk/">PopMatters review</a> huffed and puffed to find an angle; I'm not real fond of it.<br />
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(Way better than Death Grips' <i>The Money Store</i>.)<br />
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And now, the story so far:<br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.478400262305513" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">21. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-21-sleigh-bells.html">Sleigh Bells</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reign of Terror</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Mom + Pop) (indie) INDIE ROCK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">22. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-22-souljazz-orchestra.html">The Souljazz Orchestra</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Solidarity</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Strut) (indie, jazz) HORNY DANCE BANDS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">23. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-23-wiley.html">Wiley</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Evolve Or Be Extinct</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Big Dada) (indie, rap) GRIME</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">24. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-24-system-of-survival.html">System of Survival</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Needle and Thread</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (BPitch Control) (indie, dance) MICROHOUSE</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">25. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-25-lacs.html">The Lacs</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">190 Proof</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Average Joes/Backroad) (indie, country, rap) COUNTRY RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">26. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-26-coup.html">The Coup</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sorry to Bother You</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (ANTI-) (indie, rap) COMMIE RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">27. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-27-karindula-sessions.html">Various - </a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-27-karindula-sessions.html">The Karindula Sessions</a></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Crammed Discs) (indie, African) KARINDULA</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">28. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-28-first-aid-kit.html">First Aid Kit</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Lion’s Roar</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Wichita) (indie, country) ALT-COUNTRY</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">29. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-29-damita.html">Damita</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anticipation</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Tyscot) (indie, CCM) GOSPEL</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">30. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-30-jon-lundbom-big.html">Jon Lundbom & Big Five Chord</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No New Tunes</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (indie, jazz) GUITAR JAZZ SKRONK</span></b><br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.4817844587378204" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">31. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-31-todd-terje.html">Todd Terje</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s the Arps</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Smalltown Supersound) (indie, electro) ELECTRO EPS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">32. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-32-hillsong-kids-jr.html">Hillsong Kids Jr.</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Crazy Noise!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Hillsong/Sparrow) (major, CCM, children’s) CHRISTIAN KIDDIE MUSIC</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">33. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-33-third-coast.html">Third Coast Percussion</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">John Cage: The Works for Percussion 2</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (mode) (indie, classical) CLASSICAL CENTENNIALS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">34. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-34-ceremony.html">Ceremony</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoo</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Matador) (indie) PUNK</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">35. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-35-flo-rida.html">Flo Rida</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wild Ones</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Atlantic) (major, rap, dance) POP RAP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">36. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-36-wow-gospel.html">Various</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">WOW Gospel 2012</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Verity) (major, CCM) GOSPEL COMPS</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">37. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-37-graffiti6.html">Graffiti6</a> -- </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Colours</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (NW Free/Capitol) (major, dance) BRITPOP</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">38. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-38-batida.html">Batida</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Batida</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Soundway) (indie, dance, African) KUDURO</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">39. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/12/worth-it-in-2012-39-fresh-beat-band.html">The Fresh Beat Band</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Music From the Hit TV Show</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Viacom) (major?) BUBBLEGUM</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">40. <a href="http://joshlanghoff.blogspot.com/2012/11/worth-it-in-2012-40-los-dareyes-de-la.html">Los Dareyes de la Sierra</a> - </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mis Favoritas</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (Sony Latin) (major, Latin, reissue) NORTENO REISSUES</span></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-86627973121682662012-12-18T19:53:00.001-08:002012-12-20T11:08:02.097-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #21 - Sleigh Bells<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN CHEERLEADER ROCK</div>
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Sleigh Bells</div>
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<i>Reign of Terror</i></div>
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(Mom + Pop)</div>
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Less austere than the debut, album #2 sounds lusher and more varied, but still with loud beats and guitars and brattiness. It's catchy. Hard to find anything to say about it. Is that why many people don't like it? (Minor c<a href="http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=6507">ontroversy at Singles Jukebox.</a>) In a sense I agree with Jukeboxer Z. Ly0n who says, "I'm not sure they were ever supposed to make a second record," except I really like this second record. The Sleigh Bells' problem -- how do you follow up something so formally original? -- reminds me of Mike Figgis following up the four-simultaneous-quadrants-digitally-shot <i>Timecode</i>, except that I'm not sure how he <i>did</i> follow it up. But he didn't launch a career consisting solely of four simultaneous quadrants digitally shot. If he did it might seem forced. If Sleigh Bells kept making austere one-chord cheerleader metal, that might seem forced too. So here they embrace Def Leppard.</div>
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Way better than Madonna's <i>MDNA</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-33876312261079576832012-12-18T04:01:00.001-08:002012-12-18T04:01:51.261-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #22 - The Souljazz Orchestra<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN HORNY DANCE BANDS</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Souljazz Orchestra</div>
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<i>Solidarity</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
(Strut)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2yC6Ck3Q2h3pv8CE2T18X4WNZEJZD2juagpC33m7dVLhdVnr_QYHRlL1QP2iuOaagat8t50ktTFeLR2MNLRp4luOZfUuGODDTG9fztU9NsyMKZzGD7tm0UlSz0UiXg_dP-DF/s1600/SoulJazz-e1345265345232.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2yC6Ck3Q2h3pv8CE2T18X4WNZEJZD2juagpC33m7dVLhdVnr_QYHRlL1QP2iuOaagat8t50ktTFeLR2MNLRp4luOZfUuGODDTG9fztU9NsyMKZzGD7tm0UlSz0UiXg_dP-DF/s320/SoulJazz-e1345265345232.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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From <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/164104-the-souljazz-orchestra-solidarity/">the PopMatters review</a>:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Despite the retrophilia and specialism in all styles, the Souljazz Orchestra never seems to spin its musical wheels. They attack each genre like it’s never been heard before. The album’s longest song and highlight, “Serve & Protect”, speeds along relentlessly like a cop car with its lights on, but it also goes through different levels of intensity, building and backing off, wave on wave of escalation, packing a Fela-style epic into six and a half minutes. Their simple but effective melodies use different attacks and timbres to their advantage, as though Chrétien, his cowriters, and bandmates experimented to see how many effects and techniques they could incorporate into these genres. The ten songs of </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Solidarity</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;"> draw from a huge variety of old music, but the Souljazz Orchestra always knows how to make a simple staccato speak with immediacy.</span></div>
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Way better'n the Robert Glasper Experment's <i>Black Radio</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-23969086356350615252012-12-17T19:29:00.001-08:002012-12-17T19:29:09.945-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #23 - Wiley<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN GRIME</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Wiley</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Evolve or Be Extinct</i></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
(Big Dada)</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.222222328186035px; line-height: 17.981481552124023px;">Voodoodoodoo dadadada voodoodoodoo POW!</span><br />
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From <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/155754-wiley-evolve-or-be-extinct/">PopMatters</a>, a portrait of the artist as a young workaholic:<br />
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First name’s Richard and his middle name’s Kylea, but everyone knows him as Wiley, the UK producer and rapper who’s unusually busy, even by hip-hop’s pro-hustling standards. Last year saw multiple mixtapes and two official albums, one of them released on Wiley’s own label. Now he’s back with the <i>double</i> album <i>Evolve or be Extinct</i>, basically a tribute to his workaholism. “This is just an album,” Wiley raps, “that I made / On to the next one, keepin’ the pace / Ain’t nobody gonna do your work for you.” True to his word, Wiley produces 14 of these 22 tracks himself. That’s down from the 100% of tracks he produced for his 2011 album <i>100% Publishing</i>, but cut the guy some slack—I don’t think he sleeps.</div>
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Instead he makes beats—hard beats, disco beats, herky jerky spazzy beats, beats that are spacey and weird—and raps over them in ways that are indelible and musically adventurous. After the so-so introduction “Welcome to Zion”, <i>Evolve</i> slams into your brain with its title song, a boxing match between track and rapper. Wiley’s track mainly consists of a double-time riff repeated over and over, while his flow is a hyperactive syncopated wonder that darts in and out of the spaces in the production, elaborating and playing off its rhythmic possibilities. A hypeman declares, “If you’re not spittin’ this way on the 140 bpm, you are not evolving, rudeboy,” and you don’t doubt him.</div>
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Wiley also purchases beats from others, a successful strategy because their stuff is frequently amazing. The beat for “Link Up”, by name-to-remember Nana Rogues, is mostly implied, with a huge snare on the fours, a shaker and chime twinkling unpredictably, and a bass vroom that swells and throbs the rhythms of seduction. “Link Up” also provides the album’s most irresistible hook, “Hey sexy gal, how you doin’ / I been hearin’ you speak my language fluent”. Given Wiley’s sometimes inscrutable grime-meets-dancehall rapping, that’s a major point in her favor. Also great is Most Wanted Mega’s mega electro racecar roar “Boom Blast”, which makes Wiley’s heart stutter like “voodoodoodoo dadadada voodoodoodoo POW!” At several points during the song, he touches the ceiling. Prolific veteran Mark Pritchard contributes two gems: the profound bass wobble of “Scar” and the strutting “Money Man”, with computerized bomb sounds backing up its lyrical bombs—“I seen war like a Viking / Got a temper but my name ain’t Tinie.”</div>
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Wiley himself puts up a solid, if less consistent, array of beats. The album loses some steam midway through. “Miss You” sounds like Wiley looped the drum intro from an old soul song (“Best of My Love”?), a good idea that yields a thin and aggravating track. And the skit-into-song “Customs/Immigration” is <i>Evolve</i>’s weakest moment, a one-note rant on getting held up in the customs line. Whether “Immigration” concerns racial profiling or not—Wiley’s verses don’t really go there—it’s hard to sympathize when Wiley reveals in “Customs” that he’s jetting off to Barbados. “If you see Rihanna, tell ‘er I said hi,” says the exceedingly polite customs officer after he’s informed Wiley, “OK Mate, ummm, what’s happened is, you are 69.7% THC level.” That’s high, right? Still, anyone who can create the dancehall banger “Fire”, the drinking cheer “Daiquiris”, and the lush escapist dream “Life at Sea” is working at the top of his game. As a varied production showcase, Evolve impresses like DJ Quik’s <i>The Book of David</i> and Damian Marley’s <i>Distant Relatives</i>.</div>
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As much as Wiley talks about vacations, you wonder if he really takes them. Throughout <i>Evolve</i>, he comes across as driven and self-centered. Not that he’s cruel, he’d just rather be working and he probably brings his smart phone to the dinner table. He certainly has trouble socializing. “Cheer up, it’s Christmas” is one of the most churlish Christmas songs ever, opening with the lines, “I never liked Christmas much / I always tried to avoid it.” Turns out Wiley would rather be up in his room making beats, and though he enjoys his auntie’s food and wine, he feels antsy and restless: “Even though I wanna leave, I gotta spend time.” The production, full of Jay Weathers’s urgent percussion and forlorn strings, sympathizes.</div>
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In the sparse meditation “This is Just an Album”, Wiley reveals that he maintains his breakneck schedule to connect with the public and provide for his family. But his big dance song, “I’m Skanking”, is all about dancing alone. The atonal loner anthem “Weirdo” asserts “You ain’t in the same planet as me / They ain’t in the same planet as me”. And in “No Love Lost”, Wiley acknowledges that he’s lost touch with many homies: “We started together / Now we move solo,” an appropriate motto for a guy who apparently vacations in Barbados by himself. Blame his fans, who double as his enablers: “People ask me every day, ‘Wiley, what you workin’ on?’” No wonder he wants to see what the sea’s like.</div>
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Still, this guy’s so good at his job, it’s hard to imagine him lazing on a beach somewhere, with or without Rihanna. <i>Evolve or be Extinct</i> succeeds as both a collection of songs for public use—dancing, drinking, celebrating Christmas, protesting customs officials—and as a complex portrait of the artist who’s sacrificed his sleep and sanity to create them.</div>
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(Way better than dan le sac's <i>Space Between the Words</i>.)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-10184695143474445852012-12-17T03:59:00.001-08:002012-12-17T03:59:08.081-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #24 - System of Survival<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN MICROHOUSE</div>
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System of Survival</div>
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<i>Needle and Thread</i></div>
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(BPitch Control)</div>
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More good front porch music. I had no idea how to review this until I began imagining scenarios under which I <i>might</i> know how to review it, which included as running music and as a wildly pretentious considering of some metaphysical issue, which is where lots of electro reviews seem to end up. (At least the ones I read. I'm probably reading the wrong ones.) Hence the following review, of which I'm very fond. (Beware cussing.)</div>
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<a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/163032-system-of-survival-needle-and-thread/">PopMatters review</a>:<br />
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Never Let 'em See You Sweat</h4>
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Convinced I’d discovered System of Survival’s m.o. – Deny the body! Abdicate corporeality! – I decided to take them running through the forest preserve. All my family, we all sweat like stalactites (a natural phenomenon, simply what’s expected from us genetically), and these serene Italian DJs seemed the best antiperspirants on the global market. Listening to their debut <i>Needle and Thread</i>, it’s all straight lines and cool, crisp gestures, guest voices cut free from their bodies and processed like daemons severed from flesh (corpses don’t sweat) and jarred in a dry goods pantry, no moisture anywhere. These songs’ll keep for centuries. They’ll still be fresh when the roving hordes of cannibals take over.</div>
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I assume nobody sweats when they dance to SoS at the DJs’ home base of Circo Loco, DC10, Ibiza (address yr fanmail there), unless they happen to spot one of those lunatic clowns that rove in hordes across the dance floor, exacting flesh as tribute. Since clowns held my family hostage in youth, I can’t look at them, so as I was saying I decided to visit the forest preserve instead. At a picnic pavilion, the spectre of a child’s birthday party sent a tremor through my bowels, but fortunately they hadn’t invited any clowns, unless you count the apish Dad trying to finagle kids into the bouncy house – “Cmon Tyler! It’ll be FUN!” – without regard for the sanctity of their youthful limbs and psyches. After staring at this sordid scene a moment with murderous rage settling in my chest like chutney, I decided to run it off.</div>
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As soon as I hit the forest path my iPod did that thing where it shuffles the playlist, I have no idea how to turn that off, so an ordered analysis of <i>Needle and Thread</i> was out of the question. First up was “Phat Trax”, which reputedly has to do with Chicago house, but whose midrange synth squiggles sounded more Krautrock without a backbeat. (But maybe that’s what Chicago house evokes?) Disembodied dude shouts “Bep!” every so often, echoing, and a cymbal trades off with a bass-y squelch and a two-note piano figure for place of prominence, one falling while another rises. As I ran and listened, nature grew neater. Not “neat” like “Wow Tyler, isn’t that spiderweb <i>neat</i>?”, but Apollonian, ordered, the exquisite craft of a spider shitting out thread and organizing it into God’s mathematics. SoS don’t really capture the “shitting out” part of the equation, but they do God’s math like nobody’s bizness, and anyway maybe they’re just taking the broader view: how <i>all</i> nature’s brutality – sweating, devouring, fucking, um, <i>excreting</i>, basically anything involving an orifice that tunnels <i>inside your skin</i> – belongs to a system so logical we can’t even comprehend it. The spider spins the web, catches the fly, numbs it down, spins it ‘round, sucks out its liquefied innards (I may be forgetting a step), and the fly becomes a new web for his friends. It’s a system of survival, at least for the spider.</div>
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We humans have what you might call “extrapolated” on this idea of survival, which is why we created minimal techno and birthday parties. When “Nihil” came on, I thought, <i>OK, this’ll be the one that breaks down the Apollonian facade</i>, but really its rackety denials are just as serene as the rest; it’d slip neatly into the background of one of those swank cocktail parties where everyone struggles to pretend they’re not actually eating or drinking. (As would the smooth-jazz-leaning “I Can’t Find Food”.) Soul diva singing something close to words, switching up with an attackless whoosh of a riff, and then a bare-bones beat and handclaps that aren’t actually handclaps. The beat manages to be tricky but smooth. “Genny Casanova”, which PJ Harvey should cover, is your basic lady muttering in foreign tongue over motorik groove, and its wash of cymbal coincided nicely with me running through a swarm of gnats. Little whip sounds indicated I should be whipping some part of my body, probably arms, abruptly and forcefully, and I complied because that’s what you do with gnats.</div>
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Ascending a hill into a clearing overlooking a sunset field full of cows in various states of repose, and all of them chewing, I stopped to mop my forehead and reflect that of all God’s creatures there’s none grosser than the gentle cow. A real slap in the faces of the anti-corporeal crowd, these beasts: four digestive chambers, endless regurgitation, mountains of feces and sore nipples, and each of them probably knows someone who’s been slaughtered. As their presence saddened and reassured me, my jaw began tapping up and down in time to the music (my wife detests this habit), a sad and reassuring downtempo whose disembodied woman sang “Go to sleep my little baby ... everybody’s gone,” and some chopped snippet of a phrase ... “God is good”? “Body’s dead”? Vice versa? The name of this bovine accompaniment: “Moovin Groovin”. System of Survival understand more than they let on.</div>
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(Way better than Grimes's <i>Visions</i>.)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-46979153381133810002012-12-16T20:05:00.000-08:002012-12-16T20:05:13.710-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #25 - The Lacs<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN HICK HOP</div>
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The Lacs</div>
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<i>190 Proof</i></div>
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(Average Joes/Backroad)</div>
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What I soon will have written in the PopMatters "Hopes to Hit it Big in 2013" feature:</div>
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With hick hop making inroads on the charts lately, most visibly through Jason Aldean’s top 10 pop hit “Dirt Road Anthem”, the world is ready for two Loud Ass Crackers named Uncle Snap and Rooster. On their fine 2012 album 190 Proof, the Lacs visited strip clubs with Bubba Sparxxx (“Wylin’”), stole a skit from Mannie Fresh (“Great Moments in Redneck History”), and released an irresistible, wildly unpopular single with Big & Rich -- “Shake It” is even giddier than Luke Bryan’s “Country Girl (Shake It For Me)”. The duo’s scruffy front porch vibe and taste for hooks redeem even their most hackneyed ideas. The next single “Country Boy Fresh” celebrates living cheap and shooting off-season venison while a fiddle solo wheedles and the guitarist plays OMC’s “How Bizarre”. As long as pole dancing and doomsday prepping remain in vogue, the world is theirs.
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Way better than Marty Stuart's <i>Nashville Vol. 1: Tear the Woodpile Down</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-69768194687819815212012-12-16T03:56:00.000-08:002012-12-16T03:56:18.046-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #26 - The Coup<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN COMMIE RAP</div>
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The Coup</div>
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<i>Sorry to Bother You</i></div>
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(ANTI-)</div>
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<i>Steal This Album</i> changed my life back in 2000. Xhuxk Eddy had picked it on his year-end album list, so I ordered it in to Borders and listened on headphones at one of the listening stations after my shift ended (sometimes I'm surprised at what they let us do), and was promptly blown away. It didn't make me a communist, but it did show me that resistance movements can be human, funny, and immediate. Political engagement and pop music are both communicative arts, and Boots Riley had them down. He drew me in by being relatable, yes, but also by being clever, by commenting on the songs within the songs just like any listener would do -- so it turns out being "meta" is just another form of empathy. When my writing is at its best, whether it's a record review or a Christmas program, there's something in there of what I learned from Riley. (And new journalism, and Philip Roth, but you get the picture.) The Coup has gotten worse as its profile's grown (blahblahblah rock critic)</div>
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Here's a review I first wrote for PopMatters, then altered for <a href="http://burnsidewriters.com/2012/12/11/the-coup-sorry-to-bother-you-review/">Burnside</a> -- removed some cussing and added a punchier Niebuhr quote and a footnote.<br />
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<em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“The Marxian imagines that he has a philosophy or even a science of history. What he has is really an apocalyptic vision.”</em></div>
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—Reinhold Niebuhr, <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Moral Man & Immoral Society</em></div>
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Even if they broached the taboo topics of politics and religion, I bet Boots Riley, The Coup’s chief rapper and organizer, would get along famously with Garth Brooks. Brooks has friends in low places, and Riley’s got love for the underdog. Brooks once showed up in boots (hey!) to ruin his ex’s black tie affair, promising, “Honey, we may be through / But you’ll never hear me complain.” On the new “My Murder, My Love,” Riley hopes his ex’s new guy fits the tux, adding, “Let me clarify things with the way I strut / So I can shout with my mouth shut.” He’s apologetically titled The Coup’s sixth album <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sorry to Bother You</em>, and if you buy that, maybe you’ll believe Garth Brooks doesn’t mean to cause a big scene. They’re both big-hearted populists, in other words—everymen who humanize their lofty ideals with laughter, love, sex, and liquor, causing trouble and mending fences when necessary, and piling on the musical hooks. Squint and you can imagine Riley nodding along to Brooks’ feel-good equality hit “We Shall Be Free.”</div>
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If Riley had actually <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">written</em> “We Shall Be Free,” though, his version would have differed slightly. Both men agree on the problems—Brooks yearns for the day “when the last child cries for a crust of bread,” while Riley hears “stomachs so loud it’ll cancel the speech” in the Coup’s punchy single “The Magic Clap.” It’s the problem solving that’s tricky. Since Riley’s a communist, he favors protests and collective action. (He’s been heavily involved in the Occupy Oakland movement.) Not only that, he often raps about an upcoming capital-R Revolution, in which the people will take over the means of production and share equitably in the wealth they create. This Revolution will likely include weapons and killing rich people. The video for one of Sorry’s best songs, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ" style="color: #bb3932; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial;">“The Guillotine,”</a> ends with an Uncle Pennybags type losing his head.</div>
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In interviews, Riley tends to deflect the implications of violent protest by pushing it off to the future somewhere, a catastrophic event horizon beyond which everything will change. Which, when you think about it, corresponds to Garth Brooks’s vague gospel-derived eschatology: “We shall be free.” How? “Have a little faith.” When? “Hold out.” It’s Revolution vs. Revelation.* At least The Coup is courageous enough to discuss Revolution’s gory details. But the question should be, how do eschaton-obsessed musicians use all this stuff <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">aesthetically</em>? And the answer is, as symbols.</div>
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Which doesn’t mean their apocalypses are pretend. In art or in life, the thing about symbols is that they’re absolutely true, whether or not they reflect literal reality. “The symbol participates in that to which it points,” says theologian Paul Tillich. Well before they materialize, leftist revolutions and religious apocalypses change how their believers talk, how they act, how they strut. “It’s gonna be ending with us winning / You already know,” sings Coup vocalist Silk-E in “This Year,” an encouraging anthem. (Or, as Christian rockers Thousand Foot Krutch put it, “The End Is Where We Begin.”) The fact that people’s revolutions have <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">actually happened</em> doesn’t change their symbolic value at all, though it might determine some of Riley’s aesthetic details. Guillotines, for instance. The lady with the gun in his logo. The name “The Coup.” Riley wants his music to participate, to help bring about Revolution. “My painting isn’t finished till it kills you / And it makes you feel more powerful than pills do,” he says in the agit-punk “You Are Not a Riot,” sounding like Andrew W.K. teaching an art appreciation course.</div>
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Until that glorious day arrives, Riley uses Revolution as a hard edge against which he caroms his song ideas. The hard rocking “Long Island Iced Tea, Neat”—have I mentioned <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sorry</em> is mostly a rock album with rapping?—isn’t just any drinking song featuring nude bar dancing and Ice Cube shoutouts; it’s a post-riot celebration, “a toast to the folks who let action speak.” The impressionistic “Violet” recounts a magical night tearing through the city with a prostitute; over meditative strings and guitars out of Bush’s “Glycerine,” Riley and Violet “made a promise we would never settle,” kind of like in Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” if the goal was taking down pimps and cops.</div>
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That’s another similarity to Christian music: Riley loves taking tropes from pop and rap and twisting them to his ideological ends. He closes this album with “WAVIP,” a straight-up bass/drums banger where Riley, Killer Mike, and Das Racist storm the club—and the one percent—with cries of “We’re all VIP,” <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">everyone</em> in the hood. Compare to Sinéad O’Connor’s recent album closer “V.I.P.” where she storms the club with Biblical judgment and poor people. “A face that never was nor will be kissed / Will show you what a real V.I.P. is,” she seethes. Joke that needs a punchline: Garth Brooks, Sinéad O’Connor, and Boots Riley walk into a club . . .</div>
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Speaking of jokes: since <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Steal This Album</em> in 1998, each Coup release has traded away more laugh lines for slogans, narrative complexity for protest songs, wacky non-sequiturs for points. This may mean they’re getting worse, or it might just mean Riley’s learning new tricks. In a recent eMusic interview, Riley worried that his earlier work seemed “disconnected” and said of his new lyrical focus, “There are still different things that are funny and humorous, but it’s not just a punch line for the sake of having one.” For me, the punchlines on <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Steal This Album</em> were the <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">best</em> way of connecting to Riley’s philosophy. When he threw in dick jokes, or kept coming up with outrageous ways to insult his crappy car, or mocked his own hook in “The Repo Man Sings for You,” he flung open the door of communist ideology to anyone with a sense of humor. (It helped that I was living in minimum wage poverty with a crap car right around the time of Nader for President and the WTO protests.) “Breathing Apparatus” remains one of the great rap songs because it blends political analysis, a vivid sense of location, and the sheer pleasure of hearing men in love with their own exuberantly funny words.</div>
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A <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sorry</em> song like “Land of 7 Billion Dances” is still musically exciting, with its rat-a-tat drums and guitar from co-producer Damion Gallegos. (The video features some great Bay Area dancers.) But lyrically, aesthetically, it closes the door. Riley alludes to hosting a meeting—“If this your first time here, raise your hand”—and then rattles off a bunch of slogans. You long for the details of that meeting: the refreshments, the secret meeting place, the scared looks of the minimum wage kids attending, anything. Riley writes better slogans than most—he’s certainly more coherent than the union reps I met with years ago—but slogans tend to shut songs and imaginations down. As does the heavy-handed allegory of the album’s biggest clunker, “We’ve Got a Lot to Teach You, Cassius Green.”</div>
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Still, Riley’s got the hooks and musical chops to make this a pretty good record. The madcap kazoos on “Your Parents’ Cocaine,” syncopated swagger of “Guillotine,” and eerily grooving “The Gods of Science” are all impossible to forget and easy to love. Riley’s lyrics go to unexpected places—“Even mountains are in flux,” he says at one point, sounding like Zen master Suzuki. The band’s garage-funk rhythms kick; horns and strings are well deployed. True to form, Riley’s best line is scatological: “I’m too damn drunk to continue this debate / Cuz I can’t articulate and I need to urinate.” No matter how well you immanentize the eschaton, real life intrudes.</div>
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*I should probably point out that communist revolution and apocalyptic revelation have obvious differences. One’s caused by people and the other by God, for instance, and each scenario puts very different entities in charge. But if we see divine agency in collective actions like salt marches, bus boycotts, and teacher strikes — and really, we should — then revolution and revelation are closer than we might think. You find this in the various strains of liberation theology, where Christians work to further God’s causes of feeding the hungry and casting the mighty down from their thrones. That such theology requires solemn discernment makes it no less God’s work.</div>
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(Way better than Brother Ali's <i>Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color</i>.)</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-79906549948777271742012-12-14T04:17:00.001-08:002012-12-14T04:17:29.350-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #27 - The Karindula Sessions<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN KARINDULA</div>
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Various Artists</div>
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<i>The Karindula Sessions</i></div>
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(Crammed Disc)</div>
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The karindula is that big banjo the guy's holding. This comp has LONG (17 or 29-minute) songs from three bands; they morph through grooves and calls/responses like "Sister Ray" -- or presumably like something African that predates "Sister Ray". (Karindula itself originated in the '70s in Congo or Zambia; these bands are all Congolese.) A band called BBK has some shorter songs whose chords sound almost new wave-y. (blahblahblahblahblah Eurocentrism etc.) Amazing stuff AND it comes with a DVD, the library copy of which I couldn't get to play on anything but is excerpted below. At about 1:30 a kid starts dancing with a bike tire spinning on his head.</div>
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Taylor Swift fan Nathan Wisnicki reviewed the album with good musical explanations <a href="http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/158427-various-artists-the-karindula-sessions/">here</a>. Way better than <i>Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Friends</i>. (Not that they have anything to do with one another.)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-89439298615963811272012-12-12T03:59:00.000-08:002012-12-12T04:04:29.316-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #28 - First Aid Kit<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN ALT-COUNTRY</div>
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First Aid Kit</div>
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<i>The Lion's Roar</i></div>
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(Wichita)</div>
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At <a href="http://burnsidewriters.com/2012/08/30/sheep-goats-kari-jobe-sinead-o%E2%80%99connor-neil-young-and-more/">Sheep & Goats</a> I wrote:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">Two Swedish folk-singing sisters find their way to Nebraska and a retro-minded Saddle Creek producer, who gussies them up like the Mamas without the Papas — glockenspiel, tambourine, autoharp, and reverb glow with nostalgic warmth. They’ll be your Emmylou if you’ll be their Gram; i.e., you’ll sing along with them, but the songs will be peopled with depressives longing to remember how to love. Things finally cheer up on the triumphant closing song “King of the World”, where special guest Conor Oberst yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater and a trumpet shines like the EXIT sign.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px; text-align: justify;">But here's one of the depressives.</span></div>
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Way better than Alabama Shakes' <i>Boys and Girls</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10231932.post-47008909094174155532012-12-11T19:20:00.000-08:002012-12-11T19:20:09.165-08:00WORTH IT IN 2012: #29 - Damita<div style="text-align: center;">
2012 IN GOSPEL/CHRISTIAN R&B</div>
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Damita</div>
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<i>Anticipation</i></div>
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(Tyscot)</div>
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<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3997170305810869" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given the choice between traditional gospel and the modern, R&B-flavored variety, I’ll choose the modern stuff nearly every time. And Damita does the future really well, lacing her odes to resilience and faith with stuttering electro-snare fillips and synths that signal a freestyle revival. But the real revival comes four songs in, on the more traditional throwback “Amazing God”, where Damita turns hurricane -- whipping the song's opulent cheer into such an unpredictable force that I’m never sure whether to laugh, cry, or pull off the road for safety.</span></b><br />
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Way better than Marvin Sapp's <i>I Win</i>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11847887896879561412noreply@blogger.com0