After winning the Mercury Prize (which caused a little bit of controversy), the success of I Am a Bird Now, the second release from Antony and the Johnsons, has slowly but surely nudged the former experimental theater dude into the American mainstream. Throughout the rest of the world he’s already adored as a superstar spectacle: the master of wailing ballads who speaks for outsiders with a beautiful and strange voice.
To my ears, he sounds the way a big dramatic weeping willow might; particularly if the tree were dealing with gender issues:
It’s an eccentric album and one that works best when you're in the right mood; though hopefully, your mood doesn’t have to be quite as blue as most of the song's are. Even the most up-tempo of them, the energetic Lou Reed collaboration Fistful of Love, is a heartbreaking ode to a woman who has accepted domestic violence:
I accept and I collect upon by body The memories of your devotion
And I feel your fists And I know it's out of love.
A new album called The Crying Light (that I hear from a very reliable source is excellent) should be out early next year. In the meantime, sit back and wallow in the pretty pain of I Am A Bird Now.
When Jim brought me an album of video game music interpreted by a rock band, I expected a novelty amusement that would quickly get on my nerves. A few days in listening to it nearly all day quietly at work, I have to admit my preconceived notions about Elf Titled, the cleverly titled second release by The Advantage (which includes members from Hella) were wrong. It’s so fun and listenable and very soothing in an eight-bit way (but it does work best, like the originals, as background music.)
Much of the credit must go to the original writers of the music, who managed to turn dungeon levels, victory stages, and bosses music into audio enjoyment. The re-envisioning of these jingles is a huge subculture phenomena with bands like minibosses, OneUps, and Chromelodeon in the arena with The Advantage. It's quite a trend and one that makes sense considering our generation of sentimental video game nerds and meta musicians.
It’s worth noting that I didn’t grow up playing these games so this isn’t merely an album accessible to those with rose colored glasses of nostalgia. Songs like Solar Jetman’s Braveheart Level, Ducktails’ Moon song, the Castlevania intro, and particularly Tree Trunk, Woods, Victory from Wizards and Warriors are exciting, a bit kitschy, and make me interested to compare the originals. Wonder if my old NES is still lying around my old bedroom?
Having only released four studio albums during their career, The Smiths may be one of the only bands on the planet to have never disappointed fans with a weak record. Their second album, Meat is Murder, is probably my personal favorite.
The melancholy, railroad rhythm of Nowhere Fast with the delightfully snide line:
"Each house hold appliance is like a new science in my town"
At the time of the album's debut, only the sorrowful That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore was released as a single; surely a decision on the part of Morrissey and Marr (who produced the album on their own), who I assume delighted in the irony of releasing just one non-catchy single from an album filled with songs more appropriate for the pop charts.
This band meant the world to me when first I discovered them in my sister's tape collections and on college radio stations as a kid but, unlike many of the things that sparked my interest as a junior high schooler, The Smiths still sound spectacular–I can listen to them any time of day, any day of the week.
Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me is a perfect smattering of all that The Cure does best. Poppy, depressing, slow, catchy, hypnotic, gothy–each song offers something new. Why Can't I Be You, The Perfect Girl, Hot Hot Hot! and Just Like Heaven absolutely shine as the album's big hits but songs with less radio play like the moody, eerie Snakepit; the bass heavy Like Cockatoos; and the albums final song, Fight are just as awesome. They each get right inside and make you shiver with poppy nostalgic melancholy.
There's been some criticism of this album for being all over the place and not as tight conceptually as their next release, Disintegration, but I think the eclectic vibe makes this one of their most fun to listen to.
Robert Smith re-released this a couple years ago with the original long version of Hey You and an entire disc of bonus materials like demos and alternate mixes, but I only have the original version so you'll have to tell me how all the extra stuff sounds.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of those rare times where I not only dipped my toe in the indie rock pool, but dove in for a swim. Eerie and disturbingly pretty, Jeff Magnum's screamy, insistent lullaby whining spins timeless tales of sadness and loss.
In one song he sings about young love with an abused girl:
"And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder
And your dad would throw the garbage all across the floor
As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for"
in another he is lamenting a beloved Holocaust victim:
"The only girl I've ever loved
Was born with roses in her eyes
But then they buried her alive
One evening
1945
With just her sister at her side
And only weeks before the guns
All came and rained on everyone"
The songs, like the striking album art are ancient and modern, creepy and beautiful. It's a unique listening experience and one unlikely to be repeated. All the band members have been busy with other projects and a third release looks unlikely.
From the first notes of the heavy hook to all the spaced out creepiness that ensues, Amon Duul II's master work Yeti is a phenomenal and nearly incomparable double album. Though I do slightly prefer their debut record Phallus Dei which, like this one, is best listened to continuously, as a single piece of music, Yeti is a mind altering excursion into eccentric darkness.
It's widely acknowledged as one of the most interesting Krautrock albums, but the band continues to be ignored as focus is turned on better known bands like Can and Neu! though more and more people are beginning to discover them (the album is now available on iTunes).
Sure, it's not for everybody (or every occasion), it hits hard with its epic, dense, hallucinatory experimentations; but it's one of the greatest trips you can take. Is goth phsychedelia with a thick German accent and bongos awesome? My god, yes!!
Marianne Faithfull fascinates me though I have never dug deep into her varied and hip musical career until now. I found Dreaming My Dreams on itunes and was intrigued by her open, pretty and soft focus face staring back at me and was double ultra intrigued that it was a country album. I was set to love it, and I do.. now. It admittedly takes some getting used to.
Her strained, long time smoker muppet voice mixes kind of unexpectedly with the eighties production sheen. The raw and polish, once you’ve spent some time with it, begin to sound perfectly, weirdly mixed. And though she lacks the accent, her voice is made for honky tonk reminiscing and lamenting.
She is covering lots of great standards both country and rock country, a lot of which are not super familiar, which makes this an extra special discovery because you first discover her version then begin to seek out the originals from Waylon Jennings, Crystal Gayle, and Kitty Wells.
When she gets upbeat, it doesn’t work as well for me, like Sweet Little Sixteen – just a bit too off kilter, with a karaoke feeling. But her best songs are grand and there are a bunch: Honky Tonk Angels, Somebody Loves You, I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight, Dreaming My Dreams, and Wait for me Down by the River.
This was a departure for Faithfull and it’s success encouraged her to keep on going with her career, eventually releasing her most praised work Broken English. It’s an interesting in between album. After she was a doe eyed teen pop star who traded kisses (and dirtier things) with Mick Jagger but before she became the formidable, husky voiced woman that all hip girls aspire to become.
James Rado, Gerome Ragni and Galt MacDermot (1968)
Driving around the other day, Mike and I got on a major roll reminiscing about the Hair soundtrack, an album that kind of inexplicably became a part of our pre-teen lives. Imagine me, or Mike for that matter, singing in our room "Black boys are nutritious, black boys fill me up".
Strangely, my mom was totally cool with me having this fairly explicit album–she even took my friends and I to see it for my birthday when I was only in sixth grade. The actors got naked and I got psyched. But she still got mad when I made her stop the car radio on I Want Your Sex... Which still seems kind of hypocritical.
Anyway, after Mike spent so much time talking about it, I went home and bought the psychedelic looking original Broadway cast recording and... Umm, okay so this might not be for everyone. If you didn't grow up with it (and therefor have a nostalgic connection), or if you don't really like "edgy" off Broadway musicals, go elsewhere. There's lots of theater pizzazz, for example a woman in the song Air couldn't say the word "hayllo" more like a stage actor, but that's to be expected from an original Broadway cast recording. If I recall, there's more than enough of it in the other big original Broadway cast recording from my childhood, A Chorus Line (which I can still remember nearly all the lyrics to). Ask Mike about his part in The Chorus Line.
Holiday by America is a nice combination of mellow AM Gold and topical classic rock. It’s what you imagine the not quite as hip kids who didn’t quite want to rock out on the boat zoned out to on summer afternoons in 1974. There’s some cheesiness here, like the soft “Glad To See You” but it’s just so nice, it makes you want to fall in love over summer vacation with long hair, bell bottoms, drenched in the hazy sunshine of old photographs.
There are a few recognizable hits like The Tin Man and Lonely People, but kind of surprisingly, a lot of the other songs like Another Try and Hollywood, which you might expect to be filler are just as catchy and likable. It's a strong album from a band that gets moderate respect in the grand scheme of classic rock. I've never been a huge fan of their greatest hit "Horse with No Name" (though I might be convinced), but Holiday sounds more like their later song "Sister Golden Hair", and that sounds really good to me.
The Scissor Sisters' debut album was one that grew on me over time, one song at a time. First I was taken in my “Laura”, a poppy diddy that dismissed my fears that the popular band was too 1990s club music for my tastes. Next I totally fell in love with “Tits on the Radio”, another catchy tune that references the pier walkers and Voguers from this week’s film:
"Where are the queers on the piers, heard they gave it their best/ Now they got jobs at a local fast food chain/ Flippin' tricks for the burger, since Lady M jacked their fame"
No idea who “Dark Room Danny” is–if any one knows, do tell.
Then I heard the infectious and fun “Take Your Mama Out”, so pretty soon I found myself a total lover of all the songs on this hit album by the lively and lurid American act (people often think they’re British because they received so much more attention and praise there–this was the best-selling album in the UK in 2004). They prefer not to be defined by their sexuality, though members are openly gay and proud, a fact that journalists worried would stall their climb to stardom–perhaps not without merit, considering the lengths others in the music industry will go to distance themselves from the “g” word.
My brother tells me their live act is not to be missed but no tour dates are currently scheduled.
