I haven’t thought much of most of the “alternative” New York (I think) bands that have been hyped in the last year or two. I find Interpol deadly dull; The Strokes are just a bunch of snotty rich kids informing the world how much cooler they are than anyone else; and the rhythm/dance bands like Out Hud and The Rapture just aren’t funky enough to play the sort of music they are trying to. But I’ve been won over by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Basic punk, I suppose, but the guitar is edgy and off-kilter enough to keep things interesting, and Karen O.’s voice is brilliant, finding just the right point between pretentious declamation and fevered hysteria. Their new CD, Fever To Tell, also reveals a variety that I wouldn’t have guessed at from their previous EPs. All in all, I’m pleased that Punk Lives, and even manages to sound fresh, so many years later. (I’m showing my middle age here, I know, but so be it).
I haven’t thought much of most of the “alternative” New York (I think) bands that have been hyped in the last year or two. I find Interpol deadly dull; The Strokes are just a bunch of snotty rich kids informing the world how much cooler they are than anyone else; and the rhythm/dance bands like Out Hud and The Rapture just aren’t funky enough to play the sort of music they are trying to. But I’ve been won over by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Basic punk, I suppose, but the guitar is edgy and off-kilter enough to keep things interesting, and Karen O.’s voice is brilliant, finding just the right point between pretentious declamation and fevered hysteria. Their new CD, Fever To Tell, also reveals a variety that I wouldn’t have guessed at from their previous EPs. All in all, I’m pleased that Punk Lives, and even manages to sound fresh, so many years later. (I’m showing my middle age here, I know, but so be it).
Summer Sun, the new album by Yo La Tengo, is genial and relaxed. Their overall musical strategy is the same as it has long been: varied textures and dynamics on top of driving rhythms. The scope of these textures has even broadened a bit, compared to their earlier work–the extra instrumentation on a number of the songs contributes to this. The tempo varies from rave-ups to slow and reflective (but even the slow and reflective songs have a good degree of forward, rock ‘n’ roll drive). What makes this album different from the last several ones, above all, is the mood–it is more upbeat, less tinged with the melancholy that has colored all of Yo La Tengo’s music. There are frequent suggestions of 60s surf music, and one song is even a mambo. I am a devotee of melancholia myself, and this has been the biggest reason why I have long loved Yo La Tengo, but (somewhat to my surprise) I find the new album’s lightness of spirit quite compelling: the edge is still there, but they are on the upward slope of it this time (if that isn’t too strained a metaphor).
Summer Sun, the new album by Yo La Tengo, is genial and relaxed. Their overall musical strategy is the same as it has long been: varied textures and dynamics on top of driving rhythms. The scope of these textures has even broadened a bit, compared to their earlier work–the extra instrumentation on a number of the songs contributes to this. The tempo varies from rave-ups to slow and reflective (but even the slow and reflective songs have a good degree of forward, rock ‘n’ roll drive). What makes this album different from the last several ones, above all, is the mood–it is more upbeat, less tinged with the melancholy that has colored all of Yo La Tengo’s music. There are frequent suggestions of 60s surf music, and one song is even a mambo. I am a devotee of melancholia myself, and this has been the biggest reason why I have long loved Yo La Tengo, but (somewhat to my surprise) I find the new album’s lightness of spirit quite compelling: the edge is still there, but they are on the upward slope of it this time (if that isn’t too strained a metaphor).
DJ Krush makes mostly vocal-less hiphip. His music is all about textures and rhythms. His latest album, The Message At the Depth, is pounding and aggressive, but still seems to me to be mostly dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, as Charles Mudede suggests. The early tracks sound like the music of twittering, highly propulsive machines. The later tracks get somewhat lighter: they sound to me more like the song of birds–not actual birds, exactly, but genetically and cybernetically enhanced birds. (Or even, perhaps, the golden birds of Byzantium).
DJ Krush makes mostly vocal-less hiphip. His music is all about textures and rhythms. His latest album, The Message At the Depth, is pounding and aggressive, but still seems to me to be mostly dedicated to the pursuit of beauty, as Charles Mudede suggests. The early tracks sound like the music of twittering, highly propulsive machines. The later tracks get somewhat lighter: they sound to me more like the song of birds–not actual birds, exactly, but genetically and cybernetically enhanced birds. (Or even, perhaps, the golden birds of Byzantium).
I was a bit disappointed by the American debut of Ms Dynamite on Saturday Night Live last night.
I was a bit disappointed by the American debut of Ms Dynamite on Saturday Night Live last night. I like her music; it creatively mixes UK 2-step/garage (I am not entirely clear on the British subgenres) and US R&B; and the lyrics are sharp, and pointedly both personal and political (or, as a UK radio DJ says on my mp3 rip of one track, “wicked tune, wicked lyrics, very conscious”). Ms. Dynamite has been a big hit in the UK, and now they are trying to import her here. But in live performance on SNL, her self-presentation was a bit unfortunate. She was so smiley and upbeat, it almost seemed as if she were channelling Mariah Carey (not in terms of vocal style, but in terms of performative affect). The question is: is she that way in the UK as well? Or is this a cynical retooling of her image for the American market?
I’ve only listened to it twice so far, but Beauty Party by The Majesticons is the best new album I have heard in some time. Mike Ladd is a genius…
I’ve only listened to it twice so far, but Beauty Party by The Majesticons is the best new album I have heard in some time. Mike Ladd is a genius…
Continue reading “The Majesticons”
The 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards tonight were exactly as lame and stupid as usual–neither more, nor less. There’s nothing to say, that hasn’t already been said, many times. But did anyone else find some of the pairings as hilarious as I did?
The 45th Annual GRAMMY Awards tonight were exactly as lame and stupid as usual–neither more, nor less. There’s nothing to say, that hasn’t already been said, many times. But did anyone else find some of the pairings as hilarious as I did?
- James Taylor accompanied by Yo Yo Ma
- Queen Latifah introducing the Dixie Chicks
- P. Diddy and Kim Cattral together on stage, making lame jokes about “Best Male Performance”
- Coldplay accompanied by the New York Philharmonic
I’ve been listening a lot lately to Prefuse 73, experimental mostly wordless hiphop (if that’s not too much of a contradiction in terms) by Scott Herren. The album is called Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives; there’s also an EP, 92 Vs 02 Collection….
Continue reading “Prefuse 73”
I’ve become obsessed recently with the weird and rarified microgenre of country music adaptatons of rap and alternative rock. So far I only know of two examples: The Gourds’ cover of Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice, and Johnny Cash’s recent covers of a surprising range of rock, especially–and most recently–of Hurt, originally by Nine Inch Nails….
Continue reading “Country crossovers?”
I really like the new video for “Oops! Oh My!” by Tweet. It’s been playing in heavy rotation on VH-1 Soul and BET…
Continue reading “Oops Oh My”