Big Boi: Sir Lucious Left Foot- The Son of Chico Dusty (2010)

(Def Jam)

RECOMMENDED

I'll be honest -- I'm troubled by the fact that this record isn't clicking with me more than it is. It gives me no pleasure to brand one of the world's most talented musicians, and one of this year's most universally acclaimed albums, with anything less than highest praise. Straight up, here's the truth: Most everyone is loving this one. I'm digging it a lot but I don't love it; I'm severely outnumbered. Chances are you'll side with the folks who are unequivocally flipping for it, and you're likely to find their smart, articulate reviews more helpful. Big Boi undoubtedly deserves the praise, and this is on its way to being a modern classic. But if you're curious about why I'm not fully sold on it, do read on.

Few things seemed like more a foregone conclusion than Big Boi's solo debut being an excellent record. I almost have this feeling that it's one of those "automatically brilliant" works, the sort of thing everybody's formed an opinion on well ahead of release date. I certainly anticipated this as a landmark, the sort of permanent turntable-fixture that even Outkast's lesser albums have become. I'm not particularly disappointed with it, either. I'm just not blown away -- and in another year, an inferior year, that might not matter much. But this year, I'm just overrun with music that has stabbed my gut and moved me on a level beyond what I'm getting from the Big Boi LP.

Remember what Paul McCartney said about Get Back slash Let It Be? That it was an old album before it even came out? I have that strange, discomforting sensation in regard to Left Foot. Recording began in January of 2007, an entire lifetime ago in musical terms, and far enough back that the year can spark a note of nostalgia. It was supposed to come out in 2008 but label disputes, supplemental material, and other delays kept piling up until the record inevitably becomes a time-lapse photograph of three years of hip hop innovations. If you're nice. If you're not nice, it becomes a final resting place for a number of stale trends amidst all the experiments.

Big Boi is undeniably playing with tricks and ideas new to him, and largely new to us -- the massive, blurping, recontextualized synth sound of "Daddy Fat Sax"; the keenly infectious vocal-beat experiment on "Shutterbug"; the metallic funk of "You Ain't No DJ"; the impossibly heavy, murkily evocative slamming of "Tangerine," one of the album's scattered notes of absolute perfection; Organized Noize's head-spinning juxtaposition of soft rock sound and aggressive rhyming on "Turns Me On" (OutKast heroes ON are the star producers of this record; their tracks come off best of all). Some of these connect and some don't. But one thing I know about music I love is something I can't articulate: there's a spark. Something that comes out and grabs and intrigues, regardless of setting. I keep listening and listening for that certain spark in Left Foot and it all just seems too explicit, too straightforward, too grounded and basic. I almost feel as though Big Boi could make a record like this with one eye open.

Part of what's missing is what I feel is missing from a lot of hip hop far more popular than this. Dance music requires a certain abandon to come across properly; hip hop is much more than dance music, but I think Boi is operating from a body vernacular to craft his work. It's likely just a question of taste, but for me, despite their immense depth of detail, these tracks don't bang and move like they keep wanting to. The beats are almost tentative; as soon as the pupils roll back and that thing starts to happen, it's like he loses interest and moves to the next wild idea. That restlessness is wonderful for an artist and proves he's at the top of his game. I just want the record, the songs to breathe a tad more. Sometimes, when they do, the result feels too familiar; the now nearly expired slow-burn radio rap sound exemplified by T.I.'s classic "What You Know" has the awkward effect of making a few cuts here seem oversized, dated, obvious: "Shine Blockas" is inoffensive enough but "General Patton" grates, with its three central elements -- the stadium backdrop, the choral sample, and Boi's usual quick, breezy vox -- failing entirely to hang together, while the Eminem-like "Follow Us" owes a bit to the heavy rap-rock sound of yore, Vonnegutt's vocal hook sending us back into afternoons dragged into Hot Topic with younger siblings.

The greatest virtue of Left Foot is Big Boi's flow, which is consistently breathtaking; his double-speed flair and wit keep every track moving and falling onto the ear if not the feet with ease. These lyrics aren't the best he's done, but despite a few fallbacks into generic boasting here and there, they're still frequently, effortlessly ingenious. He talks and rants about '08 politics, coke boasting and busting, marital committment, and well, "My heart says 'Do Not Disturb,' and yours is like a doorknob, everybody get a turn." It's never seemed fair to declare Boi the less intellectually stimulating half of OutKast when his time on the mic is so economical, so well-crafted, so damned addictive. (I mean, who listens to rock & roll for intellectual stimulation? Wit and wisdom, maybe, both of which Big Boi offers in spades.) The rapping is so consistently great on this LP I have to conclude all my problems with it are production matters. Tons of great rap albums have as many producers as this one and scamper back and forth from one to another track by track... but I can't remember the last time I heard that happening, so explicitly, until I feel like I'm listening to a years-spanning greatest hits collection. Which, in a sense, I am.

That's probably not the full body of what's bugging me here. While its length (just under an hour) is perfectly reasonable, I think the record has an unfortunate sprawl: there are too many songs -- by my count it can stand to lose three: the only out-and-out failures are "General Patton," the disappointingly annoying "You Ain't No DJ," and the unnecessary Jamie Foxx guest spot "Hustle Blood" -- and the best songs should go on longer than they do: the Prince-like "Shutterbug" (3:35), the exceptional George Clinton pastiche "Fo Yo Sorrows" (3:42), the ideal Big Boi showcase "Night Night" with its blazing momentum (3:45), and the startling "Back Up Plan" (3:43). As with Arcade Fire's The Suburbs -- a record I do love, but with reservations -- the key word is "overwrought." Despite the ability to make their point (and a brilliant album) in ten or twelve tracks, these artists drive the point home with an extra three, five, seven, etc. In the age of shuffle, it shouldn't be an issue, but listening to the album straight through is exhausting, and makes it all sound less interesting and exciting than it is. I'd wager even the act of having to pick up the vinyl to change the side would help it, as it certainly did when I got the Suburbs LP. Do I sound like a nutcase?

There are some notes of total, life-affirming wonder here: along with the aforementioned "Tangerine," there is Janelle Monáe's glorious cameo on "Be Still"; as on her "Tightrope," the cumulative effect of these two breathing life into a track together is a thing to behold. But best of all are the two closing tracks from Organized Noize: "The Train Pt. 2" reverses every problem with the attempts at Tyrannosaurus-clossus production earlier in the LP -- it's intense and dramatic in all the best ways, musically tricky, genuinely new and singular, teeming with modern life. But the most fascinating piece of work here is the finale, the unprotected-sex lament slash PSA "Back Up Plan," not only well-expressed and funny but a fully successful pop move, as catchy and innovatively oddball as anything here. It propels forward in alternately gentle and furious moments, with the logic and thrust of great storytelling. But again, it cuts away just when it's starting to really cook.

And then, I wonder if another personal prejudice is coloring me here. I tend to pout about this sort of thing, when a career that is at its absolute peak is suddenly grounded. I was extremely hesitant to ever listen to Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean's solo records because I was so irritated about the Fugees being gone. I've never been able to objectively evaluate Gorillaz because Blur was so special to me that I spend Gorillaz's albums demanding no one in particular to know why Damon Albarn isn't working on new Blur shit instead. OutKast hasn't broken up; they claim they'll be back in the game in a few years. Truthfully, it's not simply that I miss André 3000; I adored The Love Below and I'm anxious to hear what he does solo next. What I miss is OuKast itself -- these two cats playing off each other, which made for frankly some of the most compelling hip hop of the last two decades. If not for a completely maddening dispute with Jive Records (who inexplicably felt this album was too uncommercial to release), we'd have Dré (who produced "You Ain't No DJ") guesting on Sir Lucious. Maybe that's another reason I'm not jumping as high in the air for joy about this album as a lot of people -- the record industry is still a fuckin' life-taker.

The Beach Boys: Summer Love Songs (1963-71)

(Capitol 2009)

Summer Love Songs is the fifth major Beach Boys hit compilation of the last ten years, following two that were a response to catch-all mass popularity collections like the Beatles' industry-shaker 1 and Elvis Presley's Number Ones. In years of old, EMI's "themed" Beach Boys records and cassettes were everywhere, gathering ten songs here and there about "cars" or "surf" or "girls." Let's hope the balladeering here, which cuts off at a more generous twenty songs but still isn't remotely as long and extensive as the last two discs, isn't a harbinger of similar foolishness to come.

The idea seems to be to gather a set of songs that define the Beach Boys at their most "romantic"; it's hard to take issue with this, because they are among the most romantic of rock groups. And some of the songs selected are divinely good examples of just that -- "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "Keep an Eye on Summer," and especially the woefully underappreciated "Your Summer Dream," a 1963 expectation of the nerd-rock prom turn. But then there are the baffling inclusions, such as "Girls on the Beach," "Help Me, Rhonda," and "California Girls," that seem to promote rather the opposite of romance.

At least the "theme" in this case seems to make actual sonic sense. The songs blend together quite well and will hopefully remind listeners of the depth of the Beach Boys' catalog, thanks to unusual choices like the shatteringly grand "In the Parkin' Lot," never a single but among the band's most evocative productions. The problem is that there are already CDs on the marketplace that serve the same purpose; the best of these is the fine Greatest Hits Vol. 2: 20 More Good Vibrations, a set guaranteed not to make even the hardest BB skeptic cringe, packed with graceful, lovely, often brilliant songs that concentrate on reflection and introspection, easily as noble an idea as Twenty Songs About Girls.

Who is the target audience, then? Chances are even the most casual Beach Boys follower already owns "Wouldn't It Be Nice," "God Only Knows," and "California Girls," perhaps multiple times, and I can't imagine anyone recommending this as an across-the-board introduction (for which purpose Sounds of Summer remains the strongest CD on the market, although I still prefer Endless Summer, in print only on vinyl). Beach Boys expert Bret Wheadon commented some time ago that Capitol's packages of previously-unreleased Beach Boy material were feeling increasingly like bootlegs; in a similar vein, their greatest-hits packages are starting to seem more like fan-made mixtapes. "Here's a few of my favorite Beach Boys songs; maybe now you'll stop bitching about how they're surfing Doris Days. Love, Mark Linett." In that vein, the CD is a fun listen, but that's largely because it has one of the world's greatest catalogs to draw on, and it's hard to screw that up; I grew up on those terrible EMI Special Markets cassettes and they certainly made me a lifer.

Of course, hardcore fans are attracted differently, via the ever-continuing painfully slow trickle down of new Beach Boys stereo mixes. As on Sounds of Summer and The Warmth of the Sun, many of the new offerings are mere revisions for tracks that already existed in stereo, which strikes me as excessive. The Beach Boys' '60s work is almost universally better in mono, and even when it's not, the mono mixes contain touches and subtleties that should be part of the canon and no longer are: on this disc, the primary example is Brian's lead in to the final chorus and fadeout of "God Only Knows," a jarring enough change that I can't for the life of me understand why they continue to use the stereo GOK on every compilation. I'm sorry, but that's not the song, folks.

"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" comes with a newly discovered Brian Wilson introduction, which is quite pretty, and is vastly superior to the older stereo mix; "Fools" was the first full-on Wrecking Crew production made explicitly for the band, and one wonders why this elaborate intro was cut off. (It's been said that tyrannical dad and former manager Murry Wilson wanted Brian to ditch the legendary opening moments of "California Girls"; perhaps therein lies an explanation.) "Don't Worry Baby" fixes the harsh channel separation on old copies and attempts to approximate the emotional punch of the mono version -- it's close, but not quite there. After listening to the new mix of "Girls on the Beach" a couple of times, I'm having trouble working out the difference. Neither "Hushabye" nor "Time to Get Alone" needed a remix in the least; the former was already (no longer, here!) one of the few early songs that worked better in stereo, and the latter is from the extremely well-recorded 20/20 LP. Overall, I don't recommend plunking down cash for any of these except maybe "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," which wasn't a fabulous cover to begin with.

The major bait, of course -- there's even a sticker on the shrinkwrap! -- is the "new Dennis Wilson song" called "Fallin' in Love," or "Lady" if you like. The track offers a double serving of Capitol Records lies: it's not previously unreleased, nor is it actually a Beach Boys song, though you wouldn't know either of these things from any of the information offered. "Lady" was actually issued along with another fine Dennis composition, "Sound of Free," as a solo single in the UK in 1971 under the name Dennis Wilson and Rumbo. There is a new string arrangement, which sounds rather nice, but it'd sure be a lot nicer to have the original back on the marketplace. Capitol's intent was clearly to establish a market connection to Sony's massive, unsurprsing-to-everyone-except-the-boneheaded-music-industry triumph with their reissue of Dennis' solo album Pacific Ocean Blue. It's a great song. I recommend Lush's cover version. Or buying the track on its own. Anything to avoid having to pay money for this pointless compilation.

Fans groaned at the precedent Summer Love Songs seemed poised to set. Next: Summer Car Songs, Summer Songs About Summer, Songs About the Sun, Beach Songs for Summer, Songs About Divorce, Songs About Personality Disorders, Songs That Become Creepy When You Learn More About Brian Wilson, Songs That May or May Not Have Been Cowritten by Charles Manson, Songs Mike Love Sued Over, Songs on Which Mike Love Doesn't Sound Like a Total Fucking Douche? But in just one year, the market for compact discs has shrunken to such microscopic size that we may never have to sort through the one or two New Mixes populating each of these potential classics. Maybe someday the surviving Beach Boys' fragmented consensus will allow for the release of actually substantive new material. But I doubt it.

Fang Island (2010)

(Sargent House)

The highest compliment you can pay this band is that they're really, really enthusiastic. The music Fang Island puts together on their debut album is some seriously pumped-up, fist-in-the-air stuff, ideal for motivation or jogging. While listening to "Life Coach" I found myself thinking of it as an emo variation on Jock Jams -- the voices are whinier but the effect is mostly the same. The aggro-singalong sheen is even more pronounced on "Daisy," which sounds like a mid-'90s Mountain Dew commercial: it's sort of invigorating and you can picture kids screaming and skydiving along with it. But it also sounds a lot like things I tend to avoid, such as all the pseudo-punk dickheads who were so difficult to escape on the radio eight or nine years ago. Or, yikes, Journey. Or, yikes, Queen.

Except, like, without songs. Most of these tracks are less pop music than pop chants, wordless or mostly wordless wailing; witness "The Illnois," opening on what sounds like a men's choir covering My Chemical Romance or something before it starts stomping around with heavy guitars and orderly, nonsensical masculine venting. The intent is for these to feel massive, not just a chorus of vocals but a wall of them, all the citizens of the world yelling along to babadapabadabababa. There are a few instrumentals as well, and while it's hard to tell them apart, these too work off a communal intensity seemingly geared to letting it all out while the heart rate goes up. It isn't so much joy as just asexual expelling of pent-up energy, something that both teenagers and working folk can probably latch on to with no trouble.

I'm not feeling much personality in all this drama, so I tend to relate to a more modest sound; Fang Island does deliver this once, on the appealing "Treeton," which abandons the brashly broad strokes and plays more with rhythm, texture, and subtlety. Otherwise, I have a hard time getting inside this music; it seems designed more for concert throngs than one-on-one contact, but based on a vague, almost unexpressed, connection. An intriguing idea, but at this stage, the trappings still seem too obvious, the influences too easy to spot, the methods too rote, for me to be ready to take the trip.

That doesn't mean you won't. It's just that this is all a bit too bright, sunny, and anonymous for me (and the guitars are much, much too clean; did Mutt fucking Lange produce this!?) -- on the surface, it doesn't really signify much beyond a sort of juvenile good-times celebration, and the music's too loud and proggy to get underneath. I dig musical liberation -- it's just a question of what music you find liberating; this doesn't take me there. It has a bit of Candy Mountain overbearing: it's not bubblegum, but it could still hurt your teeth. Worth a look anyway if you need a new exercise and/or revolution incitement playlist. And at thirty-one minutes, it's not asking for a whole lot of your time. You might even fit it in twice before you finish your workout/coup d'etat.

Hall & Oates: The Essential Collection (1974-2001)

(BMG)

!!!!! AVOID !!!!!

Or, An Examination of the Progression of Mainstream Thinking Vis a Vis Hall & Oates. By Nathan Phillips.

"It really is very bizarre. I remember one of the local radio hosts doing a 'whatever happened to them' sort of thing about ten years ago and I feel like it dragged on over several days. They would have people call in and recount their H&O memories. At that point it still seemed largely ironic, at least to most involved, but it was a long time ago and I was much younger (and didn't really have much of an idea who Hall & Oates were). I could be remembering wrong. I am still largely unfamiliar with their work outside of a couple singles, but one of my friends played a best-of on a road trip once and it didn't do much for me. Some shit about 'where are the italian girls'."

That's my friend Mike giving an account -- at my prodding -- of the one-of-a-kind tale of Hall & Oates' popular appeal. I never knew of anyone who counted Hall & Oates as anything but a juggernaut of VH1 cheese until 2006, when I worked with a lady with legitimately great taste in soul music; we started discussing records regularly when she demanded to know how I knew the words to "My Cherie Amour" while I was singing it and making chicken grape salad. (Fun fact: working in food services is kind of boring.) She is the person who gave me my first compilation of Prince b-sides, specifically so I could hear the immortal "Erotic City." So when I lightly mocked "I Can't Go for That" one day as it played over the Muzak and she countered that H&O was "love makin' music," I tended to let my perception of them sit more than slightly challenged.

In my head, if Daryl Hall and John Oates qualified at all as soul music, they were whitebread. But I'd never even thought of them as anything aside from AM soft rock, what the kids now refer to as "Yacht Rock." To be honest, I kind of enjoyed "I Can't Go for That" whenever it came on, but I like lots of silly songs of the 1980s for various complicated reasons. (For instance, I like Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" because it's blessed with a video that must be one of the most uproariously funny pieces of film ever shot -- Springfield is so consumed with his crush on Jessie that he breaks a fucking mirror with his guitar.)

Some years later, Hall & Oates are everywhere. People with a keen sense of the cool and the cutting edge consider them touchstones. Pitchfork covers them. The Bird and the Bee released a stopgap album this year containing nothing but H&O covers. All their songs were in Six Days Seven Nights or 50 First Dates or whatever that movie was called. A recent poll of music industry types found the duo landing (near the bottom, but still) on a list of 100 Greatest Artists for VH1. Suddenly it's taboo to dismiss Hall & Oates as bland antique welfare cheese as was once the conventional wisdom. And I, for one, am sick of it. What the flying fuck is all this about? The American people -- the people of the world, even -- were right the first time about these boring old lame asses.

Some friends of mine who disagree with me passionately about Hall & Oates recently helped while I attempted to trace their ascendency to hipdom, but none of them would contend that they had not always loved the group. I see no reason not to believe them, but there seems to be a gleeful shared joy in some former guilty pleasure suddenly receiving legitimate acclaim. So maybe these people always loved Hall & Oates; they just only got around to admitting it once the wave of press and criticism was on their side. John Oates' own account bears this out: "We actually never really felt, especially in the ’70s and ’80s, that our music and songwriting was appreciated. I think people didn’t really realize the depth and breadth of our work." Evidently the mountains of money earned from their hit singles wasn't enough "appreciation" for Mr. Oates.

At any rate, every conclusion my friends mustered up about an origin for the Great Hall & Oates Resurgence met a dead end. The first time I ever had much of a clue about this distressing revolution came in December of 2008, when I was wandering around bars downtown in this very community with a woman I was then close friends with and secretly attempting to date, in a fit of insanity I can't really excuse. We stopped at one we both frequented; alcohol was flowing along with about four kids the unimaginative might refer to as "hipsters," pierced hipsters at that, jumping and dancing on tables, the bar, and every other flat surface as the bartender blasted from her iPod what was at first a general "1980s playlist." This, within a couple of minutes, turned into a "Hall & Oates playlist." First "Private Eyes," then "Maneater," then "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)," then whatever. And the dancing got wilder. More enthusiastic. One of the guys -- who happened to co-own the bar in question -- removed all of his clothes and jumped atop the bar. The bouncer informed me that his best friend's mom claimed to have inspired "Maneater." ("She was, like, a groupie, you know. One of 'the' groupies. The major ones!") My friend feigned unwavering enthusiasm, aided by the large quantities of alcohol she was now taking in, but in a loud moment leaned over and whispered to me -- still grinning -- "I fucking hate Hall & Oates." Which, I will confess, suddenly made me feel far less alone.

The night only got more neon crazy from that point. For one thing, the entire Hall & Oates playlist repeated twice, the naked bar-dancing continued, and only when some long-haired holdover grunge kid came in and insisted on putting a dollar in the jukebox for the dreaded bar staple "Creep" (followed by "Black Hole Sun" and, oh lordy, "November Rain") was the barkeep forced to mute her "Rich Girl"-generating device. And god bless the other denizens of the bar; they were so angry at the Radiohead creep they literally threw things at him. Mostly paper and coasters. He seemed not to notice.

The point being, this event predated most explanations I could find for the sudden explosion in H&O adulation from the Cool Kids. I suppose the Cool Kids being wrong about something is nothing new. Some of this sincerity seemed unmistakable, though. Largely because of songs that have sampled it, I have a soft spot for "I Can't Go for That" and played it while DJing exactly once, but received in return no less than five anecdotes from folks in the room about the size and quality of their collections of Hall & Oates 45's, LP's, and twelve-inches, right down to descriptions of the logos on their labels. Aside from Michael Jackson (and sorry haters, this was before he died), no artist I played generated more automatic excitement. There seems to be something there.

To be honest, some of this material is easy on the ear; in addition to the shimmering, unclunkily smooth "I Can't Go for That," the only serious fault of which is this duo's usual annoying-as-fuck stuttering vocals, there is some decidedly well-crafted pop music here in the form of the two massive hits "Private Eyes" and "Maneater," the latter blessed with a damned infectious rhythm and melody, the former overcoming a lot of irritating electric guitar and a discomforting similarity to "Kiss on My List" with genuine energy and smart, concise writing; it's possible to feel just the correct version of 1980s nostalgia rush here, whether you lived through and/or remember the decade or not. (Both Hall and Oates remain desperately unconvincing as vocalists; on even their best songs, the level of their disaffected laziness is staggering.) "She's Gone" as a recording sounds undeniably correct: technically able, untouchably polished pop music. "Rich Girl" actually toys a bit with funk minimalism in amidst its tiresome Doobie-isms. The rhythm section on most of these singles is flawless, and that makes it easier to accept how venerated they are in the music world.

But some of this -- actually, a lot of it -- sounds terrible. "Wait for Me" and "Kiss on My List" are dated embarrassments; I can't wrap my head around the modern attraction to the latter. I can't get even a modicum of pleasure from the generic production, the lazy hooks, and least of all the uninspired, annoyingly smug performances. And even the celebrated "Sara Smile" comes off to me as an amalgam of the worst tendencies in pop music of its time, and of some good tendencies gone awry -- it's too smooth, too logical, too "right": perfectly sliced American cheese readymade for Your Local Forecast. That such music could generate the kind of foot movement I witnessed that night two years ago, well, it does blow this old mind, I can tell you. Because except in "I Can't Go for That," "Maneater," and "Private Eyes," I don't hear the bouncing of rhythms here, I just hear everything disappearing into a depressingly undistinguished easy-listening sludge. This particular collection gets worse as it goes along, too, the second half filled with embarrassing fake hard-rock dickery and corny production and straight up stupid fucking songs, peaking with the incomprehensible "Method of Modern Love," which apes '70s Paul McCartney like "Maneater" apes '60s Motown, with an appropriate sacrifice of coherence and basic stability. The song features remarkably grating wailing and bopping in both channels while the title is (mostly) spelled out like we're all living in Bert and Ernie's house. Ask me for a song I hate more and the only thing I can even think of is either "Silly Love Songs" or "Let 'Em In."

Still, I can see someone getting off on "Modern Love" because it's funny/ goofy/ cornball. But all these people! They don't see it that way. It's not cornball anymore, and I understood the universe so much more when it was. When people heard these dumbasses brooding and mumbling and yelping over the Kenny G rhythm tracks and guffawed in great spirits because it's kind of hilarious and isn't life grand. When people would see the "Maneater" video come on and laugh their asses off at the ridiculousness of it. ("Are you a maneater too, Beavis? Huh huh.") I mean, tell me a Wham! revival isn't next. Please? I fucking miss those days when we all thought back on this in the same context as Oreo Big Stuf and bubble gum soda and Punky Brewster and Foofer and Walter Mondale. Remember when MTV used to run old videos with a "groan-meter?" I vividly remember H&O scoring mightily high on that thing, and somehow they were so much easier to take in that context as now-embattled former superstars, instead of goddamn Art. Or Soul, worse yet.

I begrudgingly admit that Hall & Oates had talent that did go slightly beyond marketing and accounting (they even look like guys you'd see in a Boater's World on a Saturday afternoon), but only when their music isn't headache-inducingly dull, which is when it was trendiest; to argue that these two were innovators seems disingenuous to me. At best, they were cunning followers of fresh ideas. I can't picture them inventing much of anything, but listen straight through to the first nine songs here and you can hear a progression happening, and they were able messengers of new waves in soul and rock, where they presented cool things other musicians were doing in an inoffensive Spam sandwich context safe for the grannies. God bless them.

I'm not crazy, though, right? This was all very, very different ten years ago, wasn't it? I was so much happier then. "Maneater" was not so long ago declared one of MTV's "25 Lamest Videos of All Time," which in all those legions of lame is saying something. But let's go talk to The People, shall we? In 2001, "goatsby" posted on Usenet a topic teasingly labeled "Top Albums of The '80s" that in fact opens thusly: "Well I was gunna do my top songs of the 80s but bugger it Im too drunk know to think of any but heres a list of 80s songs that I hate"; after a-Ha and just before Tears for Fear, he declares: "Hall & Oates - everything - I hate these bastages, every wedding reception there is always a poxy cover band that plays Hall & Oates. Apparentley one of them is not the full quid- hard to tell isnt it!!" Indeed. Now, in 2010, if an unsuspecting lady should dare posit on Amazon that maybe, just maybe, we remember these fuckers as more interesting than they actually were, then bam! 1 of 14 people find you helpful. Take that, bitch. (Just above her, Emily K. Nesington, whom Amazon promises is using her Real Name™, offers this cutting criticism: "Shipment was recieved at a reasonable rate. In great condition, brand new. This product consisted of 2 CD's. The first CD had great classic Hall and Oates songs but the second CD wasn't that impressive. Could have gotten the one CD and been satisfied. Description was accurate and helpful." For some baffling reason, only one person found that helpful as well.)

I suspect this is somewhat akin to the sincere movement within college-rock circles that feels that prog rock and the Grateful Dead and other unspeakable bilge were actually super-hip this whole time and the people who didn't/don't go along with it are just cynical assholes, man, who just want to hate whatever's popular! But a lot more of it can be pared down to the people you ask. Hall & Oates were always reasonably well-regarded amongst their peers, and everyone from ?uestlove to the Bird and the Bee cheerleads for them today. There's a good chance that the lion's share of people with non-ironic respect for Hall & Oates possess it because of what they'd term the technical genius of their songwriting... a distinction that falls upon them courtesy of other people who write songs, who know how difficult it is and can hear how interesting and different something like the verses in "Kiss on My List" actually are. But I don't write songs so I don't give a fuck.

I wouldn't be so angry, but c'mon. Some of this is really a little disturbing. Maneaters, rich girls, bitch girls, she who is gone, she upon whom the private eyes fall... in the narrative of the Hall & Oates repertoire, all of these female crazies are flocking around the family man like Pac-Man ghosts at an alarming rate. Sexism in popular and/or blues-based music is almost a given, sadly, but the cheerful way in which Hall & Oates deliver it is extremely tiresome, and worthy of open dismay; the endless army of whiny, needy bitches knocking on the dressing room door of these two infallible, open-hearted men who have resigned themselves to being practically magnets for hurt will always seem genuine, passionate, loving at first. Then out come the claws to rip our boys to shreds, the Black Widows who will murder them for their sperm and move on to the next all-too-willing victim. It's a songwriting tradition that stretches back to folks whose toilets Hall and Oates aren't worthy of scrubbing, Ray Charles back to Muddy Waters back to Robert Johnson back to however farther still, but the easygoing modern way they appropriated it has unfortunately opened the door for unabashed jerkasses like Ben Folds and Mark Hoppus to sell the story to legions of adoring teenage and college-age boys and girls. Surely this is where Hall & Oates' greatest level of influence lies, the joy and routine they brought to casual misogyny. God bless them, again.

It is very, very difficult to write the following without sounding like I am somehow condescending to the people who love this music, which isn't my intention by any means. I don't think I should have to offer this disclaimer, but you know how the internet is -- so this is just me, okay? But I don't understand. Not a bit. Whether the pleasure you derive is ironic or not, there is so much better music in the world, past but more importantly present, to sink your teeth into and fall in love with and enjoy, and moreover promote, because otherwise I wouldn't even bring this up, but hey -- these guys don't need your help and encouragement anymore! Their legacy's sealed. Let's celebrate pop music that doesn't come with this endless maze of caveats and baggage. By which I mean, stop bothering with the fake shit and listen to Prince. Or Bootsy Collins or something. Getting your funk/soul fix from Hall & Oates is like getting your power pop fix from The Knack or your rock & roll fix from Pat Boone. I can't offer a replacement for the soft rock injection because I don't think normal healthy human beings need one of those.

Daryl and John share inspirations with a legion of others -- it's plain that they loved a lot of the same music I love, that Prince loved, that George goddamn Clinton loved, that Peter Gabriel loved. But there seems to me something deeply and essentially cynical about their delivery of the style that set them off in such a polished, impersonal format. Their music feels bloodless, diluted, an anonymous variation on wonderful things. You can still hear those wonderful things buried in there, but not enough -- I feel as though Hall & Oates' current popularity is born out of a sort of a widespread contrarian tendency. The irony of falling back on something so simple, so easy, so basic seems automatically delightful. I feel as though that same anonymity in expression is being mistaken for universal appeal, a slippery slope indeed. Of course the more blandly vague something is, the more people it can let into its fold. But that's not what comes from the soul of someone. That's calculation. Greed, even. And frankly, it bores me. It is boring music by design, which is why it fills out Muzak playlists the world over. God bless it.

Anyway, here's the definitive statement on Hall & Oates, more eloquent than all the rambling above:



God bless them.

Hot Chip: We Have Remixes EP (2010)

(astralwerks)

RECOMMENDED

Hot Chip traditionally does a release like this after an album, collecting a few tracks treated by a few remixers specially selected by the band. This is the first such release I've actually checked out from them, in large part because I think their new album is their best to date and is special enough to me that I was keen on the idea of hearing a different angle on some of the songs.

I want to preface this by saying that I think One Life Stand is an effort most anyone could enjoy and love; as I've already said here, it's a beautiful, affecting album that's also full of warm disco built to make a room full of people come together and raise their hands and bounce around or whatever. It's the definition of a multi-purpose record. By design, though, We Have Remixes is aimed squarely at the dance floor. It doesn't tread any new ground and only one of the four tracks is really spectacular, but anyone who loves Stand as much as I do will appreciate it, as will anyone who could go for some solid, intelligent club tracks.

The standout of the disc is the closing Osborne remix of "Take It In," also the album's final track. The original is the sort of happy hangover haze of the LP, a declaration of groggy Sunday-morning love. This mix recasts it as a sprawled-out banger with the lovely harmonies sounding more vast and enveloping, the energy amped up and the deliberate laziness withered away until the song barrels forward while maintaining its crucial sweetness. Already a delightful album track, it thus becomes dance music to contend with "I Feel Better" or "Hand Me Down Your Love." It feels large and roomy enough to live in, and that communal feeling is contagious.

As dissected here, "Brothers" offers both the most radical revision of all the selections and is provided by the most famous remixer, the band Caribou. They do a wonderful job recasting this surprisingly touching ballad as an eerie, mysterious, robotic nightlife jam -- aggressive, relentless, druggy, dark, it's manipulative and unsubtle but makes the most distinct and memorable impression of all the EP tracks as compared to its album counterpart.

Prior to those, we get a brighter, almost throwback house variation on "Hand Me Down Your Love" -- the most primal and possibly the best track on the LP -- with the Todd Edwards Micro Chip remix. Just when the thumping beat is starting to wear thin, the track intriguingly loses shape and disintegrates into vocal matter that wobbles and hovers around the listener. The crowd-pleasing Hot City remix of "We Have Love" does more or less precisely what you'd expect someone to do with that song -- make the beat a little harder, expand it a bit, and mostly reemphasize the frantic pounding intensity of the original.

I'm the sort of person who still, to this day, must have every Depeche Mode remix that gets released. I often enjoy their 12" singles more than what makes their conventional releases. But there are very few bands to whom I'm willing to offer that kind of investment. Hot Chip may yet prove to be one, but for now, I mostly enjoy these four mixes as a complement to and recontextualization of an album I adore. One Life Stand is the main course and this is a most agreeable dessert.

[SEE ALSO:]
One Life Stand (2010)

10,000 Maniacs: MTV Unplugged (1993)

(Elektra)

We just talked about 10,000 Maniacs recently in one of the more unkind entries I've posted so far. But I believe in balance, and eventually in offering a fairly complete picture of the bands I discuss here, and there's no getting around it: this live record is pleasant, and the best way to hear Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs. I guess there are two reasons why Unplugged succeeds where the studio LPs fail. First is that the band simply had some power that came to the foreground exclusively on stage; for sure, Merchant's passion seems more genuine outside the studied constraints of the albums, though her spontaniety and control as a singer would soon reach its all-time peak with the brilliant single "Carnival" -- just prior to which she split permanently from the Maniacs -- and never muster up any kind of wonder again.

The other reason is that the tracklist functions as a sort of Weakest Leak scrapbook, preserving only the most durable and (relatively) interesting songs in this catalog. Only "Don't Talk" and "These Are Days" fail to improve on the studio recordings; even the band's best song, the admittedly moving "Eat for Two," attains a sparkle and punch in the new setting. "Candy Everybody Wants" is far less obnoxious with a more muted arrangement; opening up a song like "Hey Jack Kerouac" does wonders for its emotional effect; "Like the Weather" starts to actually sound vaguely like pop music instead of easy-listening; the minimalism of "Trouble Me" -- save a stray electric guitar -- lets its sweetness come out, because its sentiment ("Trouble me on the day when you feel spent") is one worth trusting; and "Jezebel" is, frankly, just a beautiful song. It's on the whole easier in this format to get past the tired clichés in 10KM's sense of texture, which opened the door to the equally questionable Wallflowers; one more bit of organ "atmosphere" and they'd be pushing it.

As with the pointless Nirvana rendition of "The Man Who Sold the World," the best-known recording on 10,000 Maniacs' Unplugged is a cover, otherwise unrecorded in their catalog. "Because the Night" received considerable radio play across several formats; the band is correct to build on the song's drama and give it extra propulsion and size. Where it falls short is, ironically, in Merchant herself, ordinarily the band's strong point by far. She can't keep up with either the letter or the spirit of Patti Smith's (and Bruce Springsteen's) words or melody; a comparison to the Smith original reveals layers of confidence, emotion, and sensual ambiguity that Merchant is all too rote and by-the-book in her performance to suggest. Smith wrote her lyrics underneath an intoxicating haze of love and it comes through in the sweating vibrance of her singing on the track. Only once in the 10KM version does Merchant suggest this kind of energy, adoration, surrender -- it's when her voice breaks in the bridge on the second "take me now," which is precisely the sort of "mistake" 10,000 Maniacs would probably filter out in the studio (but it's maybe the most revealing, lovely moment in her entire career as a singer). All the more dubious are the changes made to the lyrics; every chorus now sings the praises of being "in your command," which seems counter to the song's purpose. Nevertheless, the flourishes, buildup, and excitement the band musters up capture Merchant well enough in the snowball that she goes mostly unnoticed; one's major reaction is wondering why this is the only time they ever sounded this good.

One of the violists (and backing vocalists) audible on "Because the Night" and the rest of this record is a woman named Mary Ramsey. Upon Merchant's departure, an eventuality of which the band was already aware at the time they recorded Unplugged, Ramsey would take over leadership of 10,000 Maniacs and provide them with one of their biggest hits, an inexplicable, odd remake of Roxy Music's "More Than This" that would turn out to be the last almost anyone heard of them. The accompanying album Love Among the Ruins flopped, hurt undoubtedly by the perhaps unfair publicity afforded the band for continuing without Natalie Merchant but perhaps more by its absence even of what songwriting skill Merchant possessed. Say what you will, but she did knock one out of the park occasionally, the key example being "Carnival," her first single without the Maniacs and her first (and only) top ten hit. 10,000 Maniacs continue in some form to this day. Their guitarist Rob Buck died young and their fan base has dwindled, but they go on playing these songs. Someone must care, and there must be enough magic for some in these old recordings to make that happen.

Lastly, it bears mentioning how severely inaccurate MTV's "unplugged" tag truly was. Yes, this record features mostly acoustic instruments, but so what? What's unplugged about having this many fucking people, including a goddamn string quartet, on stage? More embarrassingly, outside of Nirvana's installment (which doesn't move me but I think it probably would if I didn't have some weird gene that prevents me from being able to stomach Nirvana), this might be the best entry in the "Unplugged" CD series. (At least its radio hit wasn't insufferable like Eric Clapton's disgustingly smug AM-lite revision of "Layla.") 10KM remain bourgeois music firmly rooted in culturally oblivious Summer of Love-era protest pop. All that's missing is the flower power. But in this context, all that seems OK. The most embarrassing moment of the record, and the most telling evidence of the time in which it was recorded, is when Merchant's hysterically stupid Oregon Trail and/or Janette Oke-like narrative ahead of "Gold Rush Brides" (which will remind Beach Boys fans of "The Beaks of Eagles") -- "Three babies were born in our company that summer" -- elicits not one laugh from the MTV audience. Wow, just wow.

The Tallest Man on Earth: Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird EP (2010)

(Dead Oceans) [digital only for now; physical release in a few months]

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Don't call it a stopgap. There's no artist who's emerged in the recent past I've touted more than Swedish folk singer The Tallest Man on Earth, birth name Kristian Matsson, discovered last year via my girlfriend Amber. Matsson's first record, Shallow Grave is a gift from ye music gods in a number of respects: the darkly evocative folk songs designed to become burned into the brain permanently; the impressively unorthodox guitar playing; Matsson's haunting throaty yelp; melodies that feel simultaneously familiar and otherworldly. This year's followup, The Wild Hunt, is one of the four records out in 2010 that I think might be a classic -- the songs are subtler, prettier, more shifty, but the album feels like a journey unto itself. Matsson followed it up with a tour spanning several countries, possibly his last in venues so intimate.

To say the least, it's been a busy year for the Tallest Man. But he somehow has still found the time to issue his second EP (the first having predated Shallow Grave), and its most impressive attribute is how little it really feels like either of his long-players.

Musically, the lovely opener "Little River" could have fit well enough on the recent album, but its mood is different; the other four selections are new entirely. The songs are more brooding and longing, for starters ("If just tonight that I could be where you are near / And just forget where I am lost"; "We live so close that we've probably seen the same bird, the same time / They solumnly scream, one day, I'll find just that friend who can see / All this weird beauty thrown right at me"), and more significantly, Matsson has never sounded more soulful. Increasing his palette of influences to hyperemotional sleevehearted R&B (already suggested by the Sade cover we saw him play live in April), much as Joanna Newsom did in her "Baby Birch" a few months back, reveals his most impassioned vocals to date. This is most evident on "The Dreamer" and "Like the Wheel," which offer the powerful climax The Wild Hunt deliberately sidestepped. Following those two, Matsson spends "Tangled in This Trampled Wheat" and "Thrown Right at Me" chiming away into darkness -- achingly distant and delicate, unfalteringly pretty.

As every review of and conversation about the record as noted, "The Dreamer" -- one of the finest songs by anyone this year -- also offers Matsson's first use of electric guitar on a TMOE album. If anything, this fits with tradition: Shallow Grave featured a single track with banjo, The Wild Hunt closed out with a pleading piano ballad. Still, the intensity of feeling Kristian Matsson still gets in the changed venue of amplification is a tantalizing suggestion that there's no limit to what might be coming next from this exceptionally gifted performer.

For the Tallest Man on Earth's expanding cult, this EP is unmissable, offering five (half a TMOE album's worth) more songs to commit to memory, explore, sing along with. It's not unreasonable to assume that by the time album number three rolls around, that cult may have become a legion.