James Blake (2011)

(A&M)

RECOMMENDED

James Blake's minimalistic, electronic but oddly raw R&B isn't quite as new as it's cracked up to be. Sure, unless you count Radiohead's experiments on The King of Limbs, this is the most mainstream-friendly the dubstep subgenre has gotten thus far, but an extra listen to the more far-flung material Prince was throwing out in the Sign o' the Times era reveals the same sense of another world's underbelly, the processed vocals symphonically backing up against one another to create actual disorientation. Still, as a producer, Blake is a master at creating that out-of-mind feeling and fusing it with almost eagerly heavy emotion.

Blake's EPs were more firmly in the cult mode, with half-formed ideas aplenty. He gets it together fast for this major-label full-length; the first three songs all vibrate and shimmer with bursting invention and drive, marvelously tricky and fun to listen to while carrying just the proper introspective weight. The jewel of the record is "Wilhelm Scream," a parade of paranoid tics and aching beauties -- "Unluck" and "I Never Learnt to Share" build themselves up nicely but end up coming off as bookends.

The problem is that until its finale, the explosively direct and complete "Measurements," Blake's record doesn't expand on the offerings of its first ten minutes. The sounds that throttle you then are more or less what you live with for the rest of the album, which would be fine if it offered real songs in a more persuasive sense, but only the flimsy but funky "To Care (Like You)" and the Feist cover "Limit to Your Love" (which fails to uncover much that its composer didn't on The Reminder) don't seem as incomplete as linking material from Smile.

There is also the sense that indie rock's interpretation of soul and funk is all too brittle, airy, cerebral. The beats titter and tease but never release; that is probably the point, I grant you, but the same way I miss a nice blast of guitar on some folk-indie records that seem to be begging for it, I miss the actual body response when nice boys attempt soulful dance music.

But this is a fascinating album all the same, never overstaying its welcome at just under forty minutes -- one worth multiple investigations, and the sideways beauty of "Wilhelm Scream" and primal sway of "Measurements" are enough to make it noteworthy. "Measurements" escorts Blake out into the night with the transformation of an inward-looking chant into some kind of communal celebration, all excruciating pauses and thrilling explosions. It doesn't matter if this is the future of music when it can feel this present.

[SEE ALSO:]
CMYK EP (2010)

Oasis: The Masterplan (1994-97)

(Epic)

RECOMMENDED

The inimitable, glorious blast of Definitely Maybe aside, Oasis never really fulfilled their promise. Of course they had their commercial moment with (What's the Story) Morning Glory and the beautiful misfire Be Here Now, just the kind of oddball creative idiocy that is the true mark of greatness. But the Great Band narrative they wrote for themselves became, perhaps, too restrictive. It would seem that a b-sides collection could afford an opportunity to witness the band loosening up a little fucking bit for once, and better yet to present some oddities from the brief but unforgettable period when Noel Gallagher was writing one classic after another. It turns out that The Masterplan is worth the Oasis canon, but not at all for the expected reasons.

An Oasis fanatic and tireless defender when this was issued in 1998, I nevertheless did not pick it up, in large part because when I heard the single "Acquiesce" (originally the flipside of "Roll with It"), I thought it was too much like a Bryan Adams record. Hearing it for the first time in thirteen years yesterday, that impulse hasn't changed. The big secret of The Masterplan, the great hidden truth that these discards reveal, is Noel Gallagher's fixation with the FM radio orthodoxy. Three of the first four tracks on this compilation possess traditional and fairly grand low-key Oasis verses then fall into shameless pop-automatic choruses that could make even a diehard cringe.

But there's plenty special in the exceptions. The title track is something of a miracle, a delicate, considered jangle-pop chamber piece that easily goes down as one of the band's most completely realized, lively songs, its lilting melody and building chorus stunningly persuasive. Like it, "Talk Tonight" features Noel on lead vocals, and it provides the same sort of relief that the flooring "Don't Look Back in Anger" did on Morning Glory; it's easy to understand why Liam's personality placed him as the ideal frontman, but does anyone doubt that his brother destroyed him as a singer? On "Talk" and the less defensible "Going Nowhere," he gives vent to worlds of nuance that are never even approached on something like "Champagne Supernova." As ever, one wishes for more like it; there isn't the catharsis and euphoria of "Anger" but there's a knocking at the door. And only Noel could sell a lyric as dubious as that of "Half the World Away" ("This old town don't smell too pretty") but he nails it.

Still, what's remarkable about the live cover of "I Am the Walrus" is not how bizarre the blissed-out arrangement is, or the hilarity of Liam's curious pronunciation ("sittin' on a conn-flayake") and scat singing ("goo goo goo jah / choo choo choo bah")... it's the sheer sincerity of the boys' Beatles fandom, and it's how capable Liam is of slipping in and out of a near-perfect pitch John Lennon impression. This is something beyond Britpop -- this is a strange and semi-wonderful magnification of a memory.

So Liam was always best on the sheer snottiness of "Married with Children" or the reluctant emotion of "Wonderwall," and he seldom gets to wrap his tongue around anything of the kind here (at one point he has to sing "It's the little things that make me feel happy" with a straight face) because, of course, all his shining bits made the albums. "Fade Away," reaching back to the band's shoegaze period, is a notable exception, a hard-hitting track that could easily have made any of the first three albums without any serious compromise, and "Listen Up" gets close to towering (hampered by throaty strain), but the lion's share of these are rarities and b-sides and unheard cuts for rather obvious reasons.

If you dug the first three or four Oasis albums like I did but never sought this out, do so; in part because the first record remained by far their best, it's easy to find it a difficult sell. Were the band more consistent for longer, no one would need persuading to track down their esoteric material. But this isn't noodling; if anything, it has more immediacy than the sometimes labored chugging along of albums two and three. Even Definitely Maybe, great as it is, is never as charming as the goofily sweet "Rockin' Chair." Better yet, The Masterplan is a surprisingly pleasing rush of nostalgia that makes that weird moment last just a tiny bit longer; the rapid-fire, unfettered "Headshrinker" is worth the trouble all by itself. Just don't expect it to have the lasting power of Definitely Maybe or even the addictive curiosity of Be Here Now and you're all set.

[SEE ALSO:]
The Early Years (1992-95)
Definitely Maybe (1994)

Over the Rhine: The Long Surrender (2011)

(Great Speckled Dog)

RECOMMENDED

Read my review at Metro Times.

Read my interview with the band at Metro Times Blogs.

10,000 Maniacs: Our Time in Eden (1992)

(Elektra)

!! CAUTION !!

Try to forget for just a second that it's 2011 and pretend you feel optimistic about our government, our collective humanity, our bright future. Isn't there something to those premature proclamations Natalie Merchant lets loose in "These Are Days"? She says the world is warm, and it's there -- nearly tangible -- a feeling of being on the cusp of halcyon days, golden years, the Revolution. It's like that awful Jesus Jones song only it feels actually good to believe in it. Close your eyes and you're there, back to wide-eyed naivete. That's a difficult and powerful thing to record, and 10,000 Maniacs absolutely nail it on this track. Nearly two decades later, it still leaps out, even from supermarket intercoms, even from telephone company hold music -- which are the primary ways 10,000 Maniacs are now listened to.

Don't let that, or the unexpected delicacy and subtlety of opener "Noah's Dove" -- the band's second-best song behind "Eat for Two" -- fool you: 10,000 Maniacs are as toothless and boring as ever on the majority of this album. The difference between this and Blind Man's Zoo is that the slickness is now claustrophobic. Witness the lifeless brassiness of "Candy Everybody Wants," which sounds like an economics student's vision of funk, and it's just about the liveliest thing here apart from the first two tracks. The others revisit the acceptable meandering of Blind Man's Zoo ("Gold Rush Brides," "Stockton Gala Days," "I'm Not the Man") and the claustrophobic PC dirges of In My Tribe ("Tolerance," the antiseptic, cringeworthy "How You've Grown"). Even the typically reliable Natalie Merchant sounds bored -- "Noah's Dove" and "These Are Days" notwithstanding, she only comes to life in her passionate vocal performance on "Jezebel," which is better heard on the Maniacs' Unplugged album.

Producer Paul Fox lays on so much sweetness you wonder how so many self-respecting adult alterna-rockers put up with this back in 1992 -- the other bands they were listening to were actually doing fairly bold things at the time: U2 reinventing their entire conception with dance beats while investigating ever slower, sadder material; R.E.M. wallowing in Appalachia and self-pity with the exceptionally lovely double threat of Out of Time and Automatic for the People; and the Pixies breaking the hell up. It is, alas, this last lesson that 10KM failed even in duress to adopt. The sole virtue of much of 10,000 Maniacs' music is Natalie Merchant and her sometimes shrill but often wonderfully expressive voice. When Merchant announced an impending departure before this album's release, the band chose to soldier on, leaving time for a surprisingly ethereal Unplugged performance that stands as the band's best recorded moment.

The result wasn't terribly surprising. Though her solo career ended up copping to the same Sting-like blandness and Enya-like boredom that she seemed to be driving at with 10KM, Merchant's first single out of the gate was "Carnival," one of the most tremendously wise and beautiful singles of the '90s, a low-key treasure and her biggest hit ever. 10,000 Maniacs laid low for a couple of years and returned with the anonymous Mary Ramsey, who cooed and chirped her way through an embarrassing cover of Roxy Music's "More Than This," after which we never heard from the band again -- although they do still exist in some odd incarnation, now without even their late guitarist, Rob Buck. You can mark your calendars for their 30th anniversary tour, but I doubt very much any kind of a hip resurgence for this very strange band. Even by the standards of the modern chillwave scene that's renovated music lovers' perception of soft rock, their interest in remarkably bland, bloodless music makes their critical cachet and cult incomprehensible, a reevaluation too boring to conclude.

[SEE ALSO:]
In My Tribe (1987)
Blind Man's Zoo (1989)
MTV Unplugged (1993)

Editorial Note: You might be wondering two things. First, why did I just review the bulk of the discography of a band I don't even like? Answer: I don't know, thought it would be interesting, wasn't even sure I didn't like them until I investigated, etc., sorry if it was lame but it was a fun exercise for me. There will be more stuff like it in the future, so sit yourself down and relax. Second, why did I just disappear for like twelve days? Well, when I'm gone for long periods it's because I'm probably tied up with a combination of my actual day job and my side gig writing rock reviews professionally as a freelancer, which does take up more time than these blog posts even though the reviews are shorter. (I will not write up an album I'm getting paid to review after hearing it just a couple of times, which I sometimes do here.) And also, we went out of town last night to see the Mountain Goats, who I already loved and after seeing the show am now enamored with and I don't think I can talk about anything else for a little while. But I'll try.

Lupe Fiasco: Lasers (2011)

(Atlantic)

!!!!! AVOID !!!!!

One expects the damage-control compromise required by Lupe Fiasco’s painfully protracted third release -- and the many concessions made to get Atlantic to put it out -- to be depressing, so the first few tracks on Lasers come as a bit of a relief: he survives “Letting Go” and the suspiciously catchy “Till I Get There” with his dignity largely intact, his flow still hard-hitting and intelligent.

But then all hell breaks loose: MDMA and Trey Songz invade with already-dated club R&B that’s ill-fitting for Lupe. It gets worse yet, with the brain-melting rap rock of “Break the Chain,” the pandering incongruity of John Legend’s “Never Forget You,” and the total WTF that is the Modest Mouse-sampling “The Show Goes On.” It’s all rather disturbing, and with the artist’s radicalism intact (sometimes comically so), it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t see the irony, suggested by media comments that he “loves and hates” the record and that he contemplated suicide during the battles over it.

Occasionally his wit shines through (there's even a Leonard Cohen reference), but this music is completely unworthy of such a talent -- and it's a pity to hear the mediocre leveling-off of a performer who could potentially be as good as Kanye if allowed. In the end, Lasers plays out less as a downturn for Lupe than as an accidentally searing indictment of the corporate record industry.

Big Star: #1 Record (1972)

(Ardent)

!!! A+ RECORDING !!!

What made Big Star so explosive? The "power pop" label they essentially created doesn't begin to explain it, nor does the almost chemical perfection of their music. Like no one since the Beatles, Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, and Jody Stephens of the legendary Memphis cult outfit took -- in their painfully brief period as an active and functioning four-piece entity -- the idea of the guitar band to its white-hot extreme of impassioned precision: loose in the right places, universally and permanently powerful and pertinent. All these guys knew was what they loved: Southern soul, British Invasion, and Byrds, and like their most hallowed heroes, they made assured hay of it all. In a world in which the marketplace (and their label's distribution) was built to handle this decidedly pure-pleasure, seemingly very commercial music, Big Star would have been one of the most popular bands of all time. That they were not resulted in one of the most fascinating and musically fruitful artistic declines of the twentieth century. But #1 Record captures the Big Star that was consciously intended, the moment before destruction, the initial masters meant to pack a wallop.

Striking the newcomer first is the easiness #1 Record has falling on the ear. Divorced from the self-conscious heaviness that has tainted and dated so much '70s rock, "Feel" breaks down the defenses immediately with its grinning anglophilia, but it's "The Ballad of El Goodo" that will win every heart but the most hardened. Alex Chilton had been the star of seminal teen-pop band the Box Tops, who recorded oodles of moving blue eyed soul singles in the '60s, at which time he was affecting an unnaturally gruff tone designed to match up with the popular R&B of the time. But here he sings in his frayed, sweetly lilting real voice for the first time and unleashes an almost hymnal lament of such unpretentious, ground-level power and personality it threatens to tear apart at any moment, but it never does -- the band maintains their committment to pop throughout this naked emotional moment, leveling all the record-collector rock trappings the production might entail. It's a ballad played by giant Kinks / Who fans, but written by someone of astoundingly personable talent.

The late Chilton was not a prolific master, but he was the greatest white American rock composer aside from Brian Wilson; his compositions inspire well-deserved reverence because to devalue them is to devalue the very idea of rock & roll, and more importantly rock & roll as a beloved youthful force, before it became what Neil Tennant later called "the safest institution of all," before adults pretended to understand it. It is this strange moment of purity that the greatest, most transcendent practitioners of adolescent pop from Martin Gore to Paul Westerberg must tap into, but none ever seemed to have the direct line Chilton did. This isn't to discount Chris Bell's contributions -- he was the force behind this album, and more on him in a bit -- but Chilton's youth-solidarity, lyrically and musically, is a remarkable element of what has lent his work its lasting impact.

An explanation: There is the high school counselor who will tell you that you, the dumb kid, are being naive. There is a better than outside chance that the counselor is quite correct. But the failure -- and the reason you hated your high school guidance counselor -- is in his or her failure to see the humanity in that naivete. That is what "El Goodo"'s magnification of trivial problems, or human reading of massive ones, offers: a pillow of empathy. Chilton's Friday night teen dream "In the Street" and shatteringly beautiful young love anthem "Thirteen" take the concept to its most unadulterated. He is truly speaking a language, an elusive vernacular of never-condescending youth, from a palette of emotions at their most unadorned and intense. "Thirteen" especially, against its snowy-soft acoustic backing, is a love letter of sympathetic arrogance, achingly real and personal: "Won't you tell your dad, get off my back / Tell him what we said 'bout 'Paint It Black'"... with all the awkwardness and false-starts of an early relationship. "If it's over, let me know / If it's no, well, I can go." Chilton's elegant simplicity of sentiment and complexity of expression at this stage recalls Boudleaux Bryant ("Problems") and of course Buddy Holly ("Not Fade Away") and Brian Wilson ("I'm Bugged at My Ol' Man") but somehow, his steadiness seems singular -- a force even he is so afraid to tamper with that he would offer it rarely.

Chris Bell is no less idiosyncratic, but his approach is more indirect. The abstract anger of "Don't Lie to Me" is admirable ("I told my dad, and now I'm telling you, don't push me 'round!") and bears solidarity with Chilton's approach, but he is far more intrigued by contrasts of style than the sheer force of a melody and vocal. "Don't Lie to Me" is a British hard-rock assault, very similar to Badfinger or to Get Back-period Beatles with its hotly compressed guitar solos and general air of chosen, contained madness, but whereas a dichotomy of brash words and gentle music would likely fascinate Chilton, Bell is (at this point) eager to separate the two. "My Life Is Right" is given the album's most rote, conventional arrangement -- an almost by-the-book 1970s torch ballad -- but Bell sings it with such stunning force ("Once I walked a lonely road / I had no one to share my love" seems incalculably serious and real in his context) that it overwhelms its musical context until everything seems gorgeously synchronized, the band sympathetic to Bell's every tic (listen carefully to the way the track skitters and bounces on "Lonely days of uncertainty"). His vision of the rock song as singular emotional force -- his vehicle even more than Chilton's -- is never so elegantly realized. However, it is "Try Again" that comes across as his loveliest success here, a simple and leaden force of sorrow, his equivalent to "El Goodo" and one of the most bracingly sung ballads of the period; calculated or not, the pain is palpable here, and a comfort to behold.

Bassist Andy Hummel contributes "India Song," a moment that escapes all of Bell and Chilton's preoccupations but equals them with its sweetness and adorably untouched lyric ("let no one know until I've gone" as the all-time middle class fantasy). It's neatly placed at the halfway point, but something sadly goes slightly awry with the sequencing afterward. Discarding the ethereal outro "ST 100/6," Side Two is bookended by Chilton masterstrokes: his most complete rocker up to now, the celebratory and perfectly performed "When My Baby's Beside Me" and the jaw-dropping ballad "Watch the Sunrise," a delicate, knowing, alarmingly adult life-saver, Chilton's voice showing delicacy on a level with Nick Drake or Richard Thompson. Three strong ballads make the balance, but stringing them together was perhaps a mistake; "My Life Is Right," Alex's groveling, teasing "Give Me Another Chance," and "Try Again" are all strong on their own, but become numbing when piled together (at least, until you've heard the album five hundred times, by which time all you notice is how much you love every second). This in a sense is a function of Bell's vision for #1 Record (the Beach Boys used to arrange LPs with ballads all on the second half), the album he waited his whole life to make and spent a chunk of it tweaking and perfecting, the project and notion that consumed him, whose commercial failure would truly break his heart, perhaps irreparably.

Everything about the album reflects both the excitement of creation and discovery and a remarkable degree of care. Chilton was just a voice in the process here, a star performer, a featured songwriter. Big Star was Chris Bell's vision and consumption. He had a vision of a permanent youth, a defiance against the widespread adulteration of the music he loved, and he yearned to capture every pop conceit and guitar-rock juggernaut of his world into an LP, a band. #1 Record is not an album about hooks, or an album about emotions... it is an album about well-crafted, perfectly engineered hooks in humane but impressive sync with purest, ebbing and flowing emotions. It's about being young and impressionable and stupid and alive, it is specifically designed to enter the heart and swell, to become part of a life. That was all Chris Bell wanted. The ultimate tragedy is that he would not live to see it become that important to legions of people, as it is today. With Jody Stephens now the only surviving member of Big Star, we are left with a ghostly moment in time, a capturing of moments of optimism and determination that meant so much to these people. The way those aspirations would be ripped to shreds would become the subject of music scholarship and fandom, giving Big Star the extra push to become one of the most seriously beloved and analyzed bands of the last forty years. But #1 Record brings back the moment when they were as they (especially Bell) intended: a guitar band doing absolutely everything right, no stone unturned. It is still a beautiful creation.

[Editorial Note: This review contains some very minor elements from a quite awful piece I wrote about this album in 2004. Just FYI.]

[SEE ALSO:]
Keep an Eye on the Sky (1970-74)

Cut Copy: Zonoscope (2011)

(Modular)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Read my review at Metro Times.

I adore this album. Give Cut Copy all of your money please. And pump this in the car this summer, as I surely will.