Helen Mirren and Al Gore must win awards. Can't wait for their big wins at next year's Jammys.
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entertainment. Show all posts
Sunday, September 16, 2007
New award show requirements:
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
What Does It Say . . . ?
about this society when these are the headline links on MSN’s “Entertainment” section this morning?
· Gossip: Pitt's 'scary moment' with fan
· Birkhead-Stern tryst alleged; each eyes suit
· Berry announces pregnancy in e-mail
· Goldberg defends Vick in 'View' debut
· Jerry Lewis apologizes for anti-gay slur
Well, actually, we know, don’t we.
Monday, September 03, 2007
Superbad
Next to my appreciation of telenovelas, infomercials, and Shannon Tweed late night flicks, I'm probably one of the world's oldest fans of teenage sex comedies, although few of them really have much actual sex. I've thought for years that "The Sure Thing" was one of the best movies ever made, seen "Mean Girls" three times, thought Kate Bosworth was as painfully miscast in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton" as in "Superman Returns," and had the words "One time, at band camp. . . " appear randomly in my head on a fairly periodic basis. So, when "Superbad" came out with the great reviews, by the same guys who did "Knocked Up," well, had to go.
It was good. Not something I'll buy the video of to go next to "Say Anything," but good. I usually go to these things by myself (but I get looked at funny) or with The Boy, but this time The Wife went with me. The Boy and I have long classified movies as those we'd take Mom to and those we wouldn't. This was a "wouldn't," although she was a good sport about it (I thought, since she liked "Knocked Up," she'd give this a pass). She doesn't like loud people, cussing people, or gross people. And that's about what the first half hour is. Well, actually, most of the movie until the end. But it's definitely a movie The Boy and I would have attended satisfactorily.
The story line is straight from teen comedy land, as are the leads. Two nerds, one fat and squat, one skinny and tall, friends forever, senior year, last chance to score with their crushes, facing their own "breakup" as they look at different colleges after summer. Along with an uber-geeky sidekick who manages to get a fake id and then only puts one name on it, they have the adventure of their lives over one night just before graduation. Most of the conventions, including the school bullies, humiliation, threats of beatings, plenty of puke, cute girls with cuter bodies.
But that's where the movie actually turns most teen comedies on their heads. Very little is done conventionally with these conventions. The inevitable liquor store clerk is a tough-looking young black woman who ends up being a veterinary student. The cops who dominate the second half of the movies aren't hardassess, but party animals. (I found them one of the weaker parts of the movie, but The Wife liked them so to each his/her own on this point.) The love story isn't between the boys and their crushes, but the heroes themselves (but not to the "Brokeback" point). The requisite striptease is funnier than sexy and ends up sad and bare boob-less. And most and best of all, the girls are not your conventional teen movie chicks, not even "hot" so much as wholesome. These are two girls you as a nerd yourself might even be lucky enough to have a chance with, so you can believe that the two knuckleheaded leads might have a chance, too. The "smart" one ends up being the stupidest, and the "party" one ends up not even being a drinker. And the ending with them and the leads is believable and warm, even as it brings touching closure to the point of the whole movie. One of the key things in a genuinely good movie is how well it lands the dismount, how well it completes everything that the performance previously provided. "Superbad" surely gets at least 5.8s and 5.9s, except for that damn Czech judge.
Will this be the classic that other reviews and box office totals have indicated? I liked it better than "American Pie" and it's much deeper than "Porky's." (Ever thought you'd hear "deeper" and "Porky's" in the same sentence?) It's not "The Sure Thing" or "Say Anything" but they had Cusack. If you like bodily fluids (did I mention the menstrual blood?), nerds winning, and love (between friends as well as between genders), then you'll get what you want here. If you haven't seen it, it's definitely worth . . . wait. Random words coming in. "One time, at band camp . . . ."
Friday, August 31, 2007
NBC to cut ties with iTunes
So apparently NBC is pulling it’s iTunes contract after it runs out this December. You can get the details here. But this could come as a pretty big blow to Apple. NBC Universal is their top digital video supplier accounting for about 40% of downloads. As a huge Apple and iTunes fan myself, I’m not too happy about the situation. Guess I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed and hope these two will kiss and make up.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Rilo Kiley, Under the Blacklight
“VERY Disappointing” ***These are all from the iTunes page of Rilo Kiley's new album, Under the Blacklight.
“Timeless Classic” *****
“Embarrassing” **
“Unexpected, But Amazing” ****
“What up?” **
“Thank god” ****
“?? Oh come on Rilo” **
“I Think I Just Fell in Love” ****
“What happened to Rilo Kiley?” ***
“Innovative! Awesome! Love it!” *****
“Mixed Feelings” ****
Boy, do I love band/fanbase tension. It’s like crack to me. Or Dunkin Donuts coffee. I’ve read books and books on Bob Dylan and how he has hopped from genre to genre, expectations be damned. I love looking at Neil Young setlists and seeing that he didn’t play a single hit...to the likely frustration of two-thirds of the crowd. I enjoy reading that Wilco’s fans (and critics) are pissed that they’re “selling out” and by selling their songs to VW commercials. I love recalling the chaos that came about on Dave Matthews Band message boards when Dave picked up an electric guitar. The same exhilirating tension that exists in songs that seem about to fall apart before coming together like it was planned all along...that’s what I get when I see a band at odds with its fanbase.
And that’s what I see in Rilo Kiley right now. It’s hard not to. After establishing themselves as alt-country gods, Jenny Lewis (on whom I had a massive crush for the 90 or so minutes it took to watch The Wizard when I was 11), Blake Sennett, Jason Boesel, and Pierre de Reeder pushed back the walls for Under the Blacklight, adding drumloops, harder beats, and somewhat harder subject matter to Lewis’ hypnotic vocals and Sennett’s killer fills. And the reviews from fans are, shall we say, mixed.
I posted this link in a review of Common’s new album Sunday, and I’ll now discuss it in detail here.
[T]his music takes a bit of explaining, since it veers from the bookish bohemian vibe that helped Rilo Kiley become the darlings they are.Okay, first of all, NOBODY should be compared to Fergie. Nobody.
"It has a different tone in a lot of ways," said Lewis. "I don't know if it lacks the feeling from our previous records, but it was an attempt on my part to create something different. The sound on this record is as important as the lyrics, if not more important."
Rilo Kiley won the fussy hearts of indie rock eggheads with three albums' worth of extremely pleasant and progressively more polished folk-pop. Often standing just outside the stories she wove -- "It wasn't me, I wasn't there, I was just watching from over here," reads a particularly telling lyric from her 2006 solo album, "Rabbit Fur Coat" -- Lewis dissected the romantic foibles of chronic overthinkers. Her voice was like orange sherbet: cool, sweet, a bit old-fashioned. The music was intellectually driven too, an amalgam of vintage moves and clever little gestures.
As satisfying as this sound was for lovers of sophisticated songcraft, it became limiting. Lewis eventually found herself writing differently, exploring how a strong groove or rousing arrangement can reshape the meaning of words. She also became more interested in music's erotic pull. Perhaps tired of constantly being labeled an "indie pinup," she came up with songs like "Smoke Detector" and "Close Call," which demanded more openly sensual performances even as they explored the costs of putting one's sexuality on the line.
Some fans have expressed bafflement, even rage, over this new direction. The message boards on the popular fan forum rilokiley.net overflow with arguments about whether the tracks that have made it to the Internet can even be classified as Rilo Kiley songs. Some posters have compared them to the work of Gwen Stefani and Fergie. That's an inaccurate description but not shocking, since "Blacklight" producers Mike Elizondo and Jason Lader have worked with major pop stars including Stefani, Eminem and Maroon 5.
Second, though I need to digest Under the Blacklight a bit more, I have to say I’m leaning more toward 4 stars than 2. When a talented, open-minded band takes a step in a new direction, they usually land on somewhat solid footing. And even more, it goes great the second time around. But I’ll get to that in a moment.
Finally, RK fans really could have seen this coming. Listen to “Love and War (11/11/46)” from More Adventurous...there’s a significant amount of No Doubt (in a good way) in that. Listen to the drum loops on The Execution of All Things’ “The Good That Won’t Come Out” or the artifical sounds in More Adventurous’ “Accidntel Deth”. It’s always been in them. The warning signs were there amidst the alt-country perfection of “I Never” or “Plane Crash in C” or “More Adventurous.” They branched out more and more with each album, and this was a logical—if large—step in an already-established direction. Hell, read some of their interviews, and you realize that they never intended to be labeled 'alt-country' anyway. They've always aimed to be a pop band.
And besides, it’s not like they shelved the instruments entirely and hired Will.i.am and Kanye West as producers here. They’re still Rilo Kiley. Amid the hard beat of “Silver Lining” are still the same syrupy guitar licks and gorgeous vocal exploits. Despite the No Doubtishness of “The Moneymaker”, you still hear the full instrumentation and, again, gorgeous Jenny Lewis vocals. Having such strengths allows you to experiment, and power to those who do just that. Comfort zones are too comfortable.
Anyway, as I said earlier, when a band expands its horizons so definitively, one thing is almost always certain—the second attempt will be better. MUCH better. I mention this because the career track of Rilo Kiley is beginning to remind me of Wilco’s, and that’s very good company.
Let’s compare:
* Their debut (Rilo Kiley’s Take Offs and Landings, Wilco’s A.M.) established their earthen alt-country bonafides but left a lot of room for growth.
* Their second album (The Execution of All Things, Being There) alternated between the expected alt-country goodness and some good old-fashioned genre bending. It was an uneven effort but showed potential beyond what was previously established.
* Their third album (More Adventurous, Summerteeth) took this new direction and made jaw-droppingly good music out of it.
* Their fourth album (Under the Blacklight, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) changed the game entirely.
Two things about that: 1) Wilco’s fifth album (A Ghost Is Born) was their best ever, and 2) I can’t believe I’m saying this, but with each progressive album I think Rilo Kiley has actually been a couple steps beyond where Wilco was. Take Offs is more varied and mature than A.M. Execution > Being There. And honestly, this one’s tough to admit, but More Adventurous > Summerteeth. (I might have to do a “Brain vs iPod” on this one...I may be overstating things, but I don’t think so.) Now, upon first listen, Under the Blacklight doesn't really match up with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (I'm thinking five stars is overstating things a bit), but...well, I wasn’t knocked out by Yankee the first time around either. We'll see what happens.
Either way, I'm looking forward to the next Rilo Kiley album. Is it too early to say that?
Sunday, August 12, 2007
My Month of Entertainment – July 2007
Yeah, I'm really late with this one. It didn't dawn on me until way too late that the beginning of the month was going to coincide with my trip to Chicago. But hey...better late than never. Starting in mid-July, the amount of my monthly entertainment took a hit with the purchase of our lovely MacBook Pro, but thanks to eMusic and Netflix, I'll never be totally, uh, unentertained.
Books
none
Movies
Reno 911!: Miami
Idiocracy
Extras, Season 1
Music
Living with the Living, Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
The Loon, Tapes ‘n Tapes
Plume Delivery, The 1900s
Anhedonia, The Graduate
Icky Thump, The White Stripes
These Days (The Virginia Sessions), Pat McGee Band
iTunes Originals, Flaming Lips
Progress Reform, iLIKETRAINS
Live at Schubas 3-12-2004, The Hold Steady
Live at Bonnaroo (6-16-2006), My Morning Jacket
Frochot Music Sampler: CONGO
Funkadelic, Funkadelic
Thank you, emusic. You made Lollapalooza much more enjoyable for me, both in finding me bands I needed to see and at least one I didn't need to see. I spent a majority of my monthly downloads on Lolla bands in July, and though I didn't find as many Lolla artists on the site as I thought I would, the ones I found were worth it.
1. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists. Like my major June discovery, the Ike Reilly Assassination, this is a band that has developed many albums and a dedicated following completely and totally outside my radar screen. I'm sure there are hundreds of bands out there, that fit that description, and if they all sound like this, I'm going to be a lifetime eMusic subscriber. Either way, they were a perfect way to kick off Lolla weekend for us.
2. Tapes 'n Tapes. This Minnesota band also left me plenty to rave about on Saturday at Lolla, and if I hadn't downloaded The Loon in the weeks before the Chicago trip, I'd have probably settled for going to Pete Yorn with Hear No Evil and his girlfriend. I can pretty much guarantee that I wouldn't have enjoyed that nearly as much.
3. The 1900s. My original plan was to check out The Graduate (11:15) and The 1900s (12:00) first thing on Sunday. The 1900s have a quirky, interesting sound, one that's a bit similar to previous eMusic discovery Elk City. I had every intention of checking them out, and I was looking forward to it...however, getting out of bed and out of HNE's apartment before noon proved impossible.
4. The Graduate. I regretted missing out on The 1900s, but thanks to eMusic, I didn't waste time regretting missing this band. There's nothing wrong with them per say...they just suffer a bit much from Generic Modern Rock Band Syndrome for my tastes. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're going to hit it big for that very reason, but that doesn't mean I'm going to spend much time on this band.
Beyond the Lolla bands, July also provided me with three major Best of 2007 candidates: Ted Leo's aforementioned Living with the Living, the White Stripes' Icky Thump, and Pat McGee Band's These Days. That's a good month, no? I have high hopes for August as well, with Common's Finding Forever (more on that later...this is about July), as well as Ben Harper's Lifeline and Talib Kweli's far-too-long-awaited Eardrum. But that's not even all that July gave me!
Other purchases: I was totally taken advantage of by iTunes with the ultimate impulse purchase, the Flaming Lips' iTunes Originals set. I was on iTunes to buy the White Stripes, and naturally I was unable to pass up something new (sort of) from The Lips, which basically consists of the Lips' greatest hits (plus a couple new/unreleased originals) with Wayne Coyne discussing and/or explaining the tunes. It's fun.
Also, I finished up my monthly eMusic downloads with some iLIKETRAINS (eh), Funkadelic (this month's download: their debut album, Funkadelic), and a live release from The Hold Steady, a 2004 show at Chicago's famous Schuba's (HNE lives roughly two blocks from Schuba's, by the way...I hate him for that).
Finally, one service I'll probably be taking more advantage of in the future due to the fact that a) it's free, and b) I have more live bands to keep track of now, is the always phenomenal www.archive.org, which houses free live recordings from hundreds and hundreds of bands. I'd used the service for some Pat McGee shows, but now I'll be delving into the My Morning Jacket and Ted Leo catalogs as well...no telling who else is on this thing...it takes 30 minutes just to sift through the list of bands...
As for movies...we hopped back on the Netflix train this month. While still renting some movies for The Butterfly's parents, we were far too busy cranking through all five seasons of Smallville (her anniversary present) in May and June to watch movies. But we're back. And we picked some interesting movies in July.
First up was a movie I was strangely giddy about seeing: Reno 911!: Miami. Wow, did it live up to expectations. This movie earned an R-rating in every single possible way. Language, insinuation, nudity...this movie was delightfully grotesque and obscene in every way. I loved it for all the wrong reasons. And the beached whale scene (you saw it in the commercials...the scene where Junior falls into the whale) was even better than I thought it would be. I recommend listening to the commentary on that scene as well.
Another Netflix rental: Idiocracy. I was talking to my high school best friend a while back, and as he has two kids of his own, it was time for his monthly "So...when are you having kids?" inquiry. I gave the monthly excuses ("still living in in-laws' basement", "wife isn't in a position to miss that much work yet", "still enjoying ourselves", etc.)--all very legitimate, I'd say--and he laughed and mentioned a movie he had just seen. Basically the premise is, smart people barely reproduce (having 1-2 kids max) while stupid people have as many kids as they can possibly pop out, so in the future the country just gets dumber and dumber. Honestly, that's a fantastic premise for a movie. However, when the main stars are Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, and Dax Shepard, you know that premise probably isn't going to live up to its potential. It's still at least somewhat enjoyable, though...I mean, when are you going to have another opportunity to see Luke Wilson playing the smartest man in the world?
Finally, we delved into the world of Netflix TV show rentals, checking out the first season of the painful, funny Ricky Gervais comedy, Extras. If you like The Office or Frasier, you'll love this show. It's nothing but that type of uncomfortable, oh-god-please-stop-talking-you're-only-making-things-worse type of comedy, where you're wincing and laughing at the same time. You love and hate the show simultaneously. Honestly, Extras is worth it for the cameos alone...Kate Winslet giving phone sex advice, Samuel L. Jackson being, well, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Stiller quoting the opening weekend figures for all his movies...I love that they were willing to do this, Kate Winslet in particular. Other shows now in the Netflix queue: Firefly (The Butterfly loves Joss Whedon, so it's probably time she gives this a try) and Freaks & Geeks, which I somehow never watched.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
To follow up on berlin niebuhr's post...
Nonsense: as berlin niebuhr mentioned, Friday Night Lights gets a whopping zero major nominations (though they did get noms for Outstanding Casting and Outstanding Directing). I’d mention how big a travesty it is that a show like FNL doesn’t get nominated for Best Drama—and Grey’s Anatomy does—but I’m too busy being floored by the fact that Connie Britton wasn’t nominated for Best Actress in a Drama—and Mariska Hargitay (L&O: Bike Cop Unit), Patricia Arquette (I See Dead People), and Minnie Driver (something called The Riches) were. She’s the definition of Outstanding Casting, and she should be recognized.
Good Nonsense: Friday Night Lights doesn’t get a nomination, but “Dick in a Box” does...for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. It doesn’t right all wrongs, but it’s a step in the right direction.
The Emmys Win Best Comedy
I don't really watch enough regular TV to know or care about most of today's Emmy nominations, but neither Kyle Chandler or Connie Britton of "Friday Night Lights"? Way to prove what an old guard event you really are, guys.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I can honestly say for the first time…
...that I like Jon Lovitz’s work*.
IT was fight night at an L.A. comedy club last week when Jon Lovitz roughed up Andy Dick over the murder of their "Saturday Night Live" colleague, Phil Hartman.
Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada, who witnessed the assault, said, "Jon picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of his nose." Lovitz told Page Six, "All the comedians are glad I did it because this guy is a [bleep]hole."
* That’s not totally fair. I enjoyed The Critic.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Music Bullets, 7-16-07
Okay, now that the "Read More..." function is working correctly again, let's get to some music bullets! And no, there's no connection there whatsoever, so don't bother looking...
- The proprietors of Teenage Kicks have been asked to participate with other bloggers in a WXPN (Philly) discussion of the 885 most memorable music moments. I'm sure my invitation was lost in the mail, right? Ri...right?
- Pop Matters has begun a nice series of posts discussing the greatest protest songs of all-time...all the way back to Beethoven.
- Meanwhile, a win for the music netroots. I don't listen to Internet radio, but a lot of people do...and I'm in favor of anything that helps people discover new artists...I've used Pandora on occasion, and it's really cool...though, as I just discovered when going for the link (I swear), you'll want to make sure to type in pandora.com, not pandora.net...just trust me on this one...
- I have to say, I enjoy this Prince CD giveaway idea...it's really kinda stupid in many ways, but I just can't bring myself to object too strenuously...I do think it's funny that the newspaper is objecting to the fact that it won't count on the charts...
- And finally, keep the volume down, kiddies...
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Once
"The Commitments" is one of my all-time favorite movies, not just because it's Irish but because of the music. So when I heard about "Once," the latest Irish film export, which starred a member of the Commitments' cast, it got my attention. When I saw it had, like, 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, it was on my list.
Definitely worth the 97%. (What movie were the 3% watching?) Not much plot. Couple of lonely musicians who find each other, work together, awed by each other's music, getting a demo made to take to London to find a distributor. Smart music, smart movie. An Irish kind of "Lost in Translation," with the same lingering tone. (You'll have to see it to know why.) The male lead actually did write most of the songs. The film captures the Dublin feel, not all "Irish Springy" but the real Dublin, even grainy and coarse a lot of the time. The relationship between the male lead and his father is touching, and a vacuum player gets a key part.
The thing about this movie that I really appreciate is that I got a great sense, maybe for the first time, of what a musician, someone who lives for the music, actually feels and why. I've seen some documentaries that try to get it across, but they seem like people who know they're being filmed. These two leads, with their earnest appreciation for each other and their talents, do better acting it than those doc subjects living it. The ending isn't American, which means you'll find yourself thinking about it, challenged by it, appreciating it long after. I think this is a movie that musicians will relate to. I'm just glad they made it so some of the rest of us could understand a little better, too.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Days of Transition
Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with thinking inside the box. I know that might sound strange coming from me, but I’m being honest—maintaining form is okay...as long as you’re good at it. I’m telling you this in advance because I’m about to give a really positive review to the new album from Pat McGee Band, These Days (The Virginia Sessions), and These Days does absolutely nothing crazy, experimental, or outside the box.
For those of you who have come to like PMB over the years, this should come as no surprise. Pat wears his influences—Allman Brothers, Eagles, maybe a little U2—on his sleeve. His songs and albums have predictable, short titles (most words to a Pat McGee album: 3, from his pre-PMB debut album, From the Wood; percentage of PMB songs with 3 words or less: 79%—38 of 48—by my count). His songs cling tightly to the verse/chorus/bridge/solo format, almost always in a generic key. The proprietor of the other First Name Last Name Band from Virginia—Dave something or other—takes an almost jazz approach to song structure; some songs have no chorus, some no rhyme, many no bridge, etc. Hell, he’s almost invented his own chords at times. But that doesn’t do for Pat McGee and his band. And that’s okay. I like them as much as I do Dave something or other.
Blues musicians follow strict formats, but plenty have been able to distinguish themselves above others. Hell, Bob Dylan and the Beatles did the same—the fact that they reinvented pop music within set structures makes their achievement all the more impressive. The Beatles stretched the format of the pop song to its limits in every direction, but almost every song followed that verse/chorus/bridge format...and for that matter, they rarely stretched beyond 3 minutes. Dylan changed formats often, but whichever one he settled upon, he stuck almost religiously to it. In his first three albums, he mastered the folk song, raised its expectations, and blew it up. In his career, he’s adopted everything from gospel to the type of almost old-timey music of his 2006 album, Modern Times chorus-less music—he even created an entire album, John Wesley Harding, without choruses. But within each individual album, he rarely strays from the format and theme, and he’s obviously done so with devastating results.
I’m not sure why I felt the need to go into all of that, but I did. I usually praise the work of some bands who experiment with structure and genre, but I don’t want that to sound like I dislike the generic structure. Maybe I also felt the need to justify my positive review because I’ve long since established that I’m a PMB homer. I know them, I like them, I consider them friends of mine. But a) I am capable of being critical of their work, and b) I wouldn’t have grown to like them in the first place if their music wasn’t strong. The appreciation of their music came before the appreciation of the guys who make the music. That said, I will always—consciously or subconsciously—give them the benefit of the doubt when unsure. That’s a given, and I can’t do anything to change that.
To me, there’s less margin for error when your ideas don’t stray from the norm—you can quickly sound tired and bored. PMB almost ran into this issue at times during their 2004 album, Save Me. But that is not an issue on These Days. The October 2006 death of Chris Williams cast a pall on the album as a whole, probably even more than was conscious choice. Some of the songs on These Days were written before last October, but even songs with generic ‘lost love’ topics sound like they could almost be sung to/about Chris, and that (intentionally or unintentionally) makes These Days the most poignant album in the life of PMB.
Another theme that emerges through parts of These Days is change. After moving from a major label (Warner Bros) to a minor, fledgling label (Kirtland), PMB is going it alone these days. This isn’t necessarily a scary thing—back in the late-1990s, PMB positioned themselves as the premier unsigned band in the country. You get the feeling that they are now back in their comfort zone. During their time with Warner Brothers, they seemed to be tinkering with their sound, and their results were decent but mixed. 2000’s Shine was a bit overproduced (though it did produce a decent radio success in “Rebecca”), and the songwriting on 2004’s Save Me seemed a bit too catered to radio—i.e. just about every song was a love song, not the best development for a band whose best songs (in my opinion) are about other topics like conforming and being yourself (“Identity”), personal vindication and reformation (“Pride”), and, well, having passion (“Passion”...duh). With no pressure or expectations, PMB is able to just write, play, and sing.
As has been the case with each of the last three PMB albums, I wish I would have been put in charge of track ordering the album. Whereas “Set Me Free” should have been, without a doubt, the opener on Save Me, “Maybe It’s Time” would have been the perfect opener for These Days. Here’s how it begins:
There’s nothing like waking up lonelyKnowing all that’s happened in PMB World in the last year, no more relevant words have ever been sung, and it should be the first thing you hear on the album. As it is, “Guess We Were” is a capable, if not overwhelming opener, followed by the lovely “I Don’t Think I’m Listening.” The first time I listened to “Listening”, when it was released on their Myspace page a while back, I was relatively underwhelmed; however, the second time I heard it, I got it. Jonathan Williams lays down a strong “Running On Empty”-style keyboard lick, and this song turns into the most indicative-of-PMB song on the album. The chorus of “I can’t sleep without the thought of you here/Waking me up/I won’t make it through today without it/Breaking me up/I try to tell myself/I’m not myself at all these days/But I don’t think I’m listening” has exactly the kind of double meaning I mentioned earlier. This might have, at one time, been a generic rock chorus, but with the thought of Chris Williams in the back of your head, it feels heavier...no matter that the positive vibe of the music is telling you otherwise.
The weight of the world on your mind
You lay there and listen to your heartbeat
And you try to stop wanting someone else’s life
And you think about a change
Looking so hard for the reasons
You swear that you’ll figure it out
And find something else to believe in
And you don’t know why everything is closing in
And you talk about a change
Maybe it’s time
A solid rocker, “Elizabeth,” follows. This is another song that isn’t going to blow you away, but it will make you smile. I mentioned in a previous PMB post that their music is really hard to dislike. You might not love it, but it’s hard to find anything to truly dislike about it. This is the epitome of that concept. Plus the repetition of the word “Elizabeth” in the chorus annoys my wife, so, you know...bonus points to them for that.
The songs that follow are a step above filler, but they’re not totally standout tracks. One tradition with each PMB album is an “I miss you” song...in the past, songs like “Haven’t Seen for a While,” “I Know,” and “Never Around” fit the bill. In this album, it’s “Come Back Home.” The thought of the song might be formulaic, but this one carries the same Chris Williams weight as others.
After another decent song, “All Over You,” comes the highlight of the album, “Maybe It’s Time.” Like “Don’t Give Up” on Save Me, the song comes across in two different ways depending on how much you actually know about the band. If you hear the song with no background information whatsoever, it serves as some sort of motivational tool, an encouragement to someone looking for/needing change in their life. If you know the story of the band, you get a lump in your throat from the (potentially) autobiographical nature of the song. Either way, it’s the best song on These Days. The momentum of this song carries the listener through the next two solid-not-spectacular songs, “Hand That Holds You” and “You Want It All.”
These Days closes with “End of October.” One of Pat McGee’s strength has always been touching on the emotions tied to death in a poignant, but not cheesy, way. On 1997’s Revel, the touchstone was “Elegy for Amy,” a tribute to an early hardcore PMB fan who had recently died. Shine, meanwhile, closed with the title track, a dedication to a friend who had recently died during. Both songs strike deep nerves but aren’t too painful to listen to—unlike a song like The Verve’s “The Drugs Don’t Work”, which makes you want to sit in a dark room and wallow, songs like “Amy” and “Shine” maintain some semblance of hope and inspiration. Knowing this, I had no doubt that Pat would nail the inevitable Chris Williams tribute, and he did exactly that. “End of October” is a simple melody with a bit more instrumentation than “Amy” (which is just piano and bass) or “Shine” (acoustic guitar, slide guitar), and the lyrics, as expected, are just about perfect:
Richmond, Virginia, never seemed colderUpon recording These Days, PMB decided on something interesting. Being that they’re no longer tied to a label and a label’s expectations, they enacted a plan to release two albums in 2007—one in mid-summer (These Days) and one later in the fall/winter. (See? They might not think outside the box during songwriting, but they indeed do so in other ways.) If These Days is any indication, then their next release will showcase a band that is once again becoming comfortable in its own skin, setting its own expectations, and growing. They probably won’t become the giant musical force that I (with my very biased, naïve eyes) hoped they would become about seven years ago, they are not trying to. What they are doing is showing that it’s possible to retread your tires when your time with a major label is finished.
Tryin’ to keep from breaking down
How did we get through the end of October?
Picking the pieces up somehow
It seems so strange
I could hear you singing, “Don’t cry,
After all these years, there’s a song you can hear in the twilight,
Keep a picture of me in your mind,
You’ve got so many reasons to smile”
Monday, July 09, 2007
Walked Ten Miles Through the Snow to Watch Three Channels
A seriously fun (or maybe funnily serious) plea to go back to just three channels (with which I basically agree). And the comments are unusually good, too.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
My Month of Entertainment - June 2007
Books
Tip Off: How the 1984 NBA Draft Changed Basketball Forever, Filip Bondy
Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed, J.C. Bradbury
Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, Glenn Greenwald
Movies
The Cooler
Music
Blue Scholars, The Long March EP
Bob Dylan, Slow Train Coming
Bokoor Band, Bokoor Beats
Elk City, New Believers
Flaming Lips, Hear It Is
Flaming Lips, Hit to Death in the Future Head
Funkadelic, America Eats Its Young
Gorillaz, Demon Days
Ike Reilly Assassination, We Belong to the Staggering Evening
Jaylib (J Dilla & Madlib), Champion Sound
John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band
K'naan, The Dusty Foot Philosopher
Mission of Burma, ONoffON
My Morning Jacket, It Still Moves
Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full
Queens of the Stone Age, Era Vulgaris
The Smiths, Singles
TV On the Radio, Live Session (iTunes Exclusive)
Wiley, Treddin' On Thin Ice
Various Artists, Frochot Music Sampler: MALI
Various Artists, The Now Sound Redesigned
Everywhere I looked, June was My Month of Redemption! Old faces, new names, hip hop, and Oklahoma City redeemed themselves to me, I redeemed myself to the God of Music Nerds, and The Butterfly and I redeemed ourselves in the eyes of Netflix. Let’s take a closer look!My Music Nerd Redemption!
I righted some old wrongs in my own music collection in June, and not a moment too soon. It’s hard to admit that I didn’t already own Plastic Ono Band, Slow Train Coming, Demon Days, It Still Moves, or anything by The Smiths, but here I am, admitting it to you now, throwing myself at the mercy of the court.
I finally got around to reading Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music this month (after purchasing it in February). Really interesting (and nerdy) read. There were interesting chapters on everything from Leadbelly and Jimmie Rodgers to The Monkees to Moby, but the chapter with the most impact on me was the one on John Lennon. Needless to say, any discussion of John Lennon and authenticity is probably going to focus on Plastic Ono Band. It’s funny—sometimes when I know there’s an album I should have bought 10 years ago, it makes it harder to suck it up and go ahead and buy it. I didn’t buy OK Computer until last year. I knew I’d love it (and boy, did I), but I guess buying it would acknowledge that I didn’t own it yet, and you can only pull the “I lost my copy” or “My roommate owned it, so I didn’t need to” excuse so many times (I think I lost my rights to those excuses after using them on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and the Led Zeppelin catalog a couple years ago).
Anyway, it was time to suck it up and acknowledge that I really needed Plastic Ono Band in my catalog. I expected it to be a decent listen, but not an amazing one—I think I’m scarred by the entire post-Beatles McCartney catalog—but I would put this one right up against All Things Must Pass as the best solo album from a Beatle. I think I like All Things better (I think that makes me pretty weird, actually), but it’s to find too much fault in Plastic Ono. A great album. It’s painfully, emotionally raw in parts—duh—but that’s obviously one of the things that make it great. Another thing that makes it great to me is that...well, it’s not just pain and acoustic guitar. Songs like “Well Well Well” and “I Found Out” are a nice balance to the agony of “Mother” and well-known now-standards like “Power to the People” and “Working Class Hero”.
Alright, next up on the “You call yourself a nerd, and you didn’t own this album???” list is...Slow Train Coming. The first of Dylan's three "Christian conversion" albums. When I felt like filling in my Dylan collection over the last couple years, I always looked past this one. Now, in my defense, I already had copies of “Gotta Serve Somebody” and “I Believe in You” on my iPod, so that’s one of the reason I hadn’t ever gotten around to buying this album—the general uncomfortability of being preached at being the other one. But it really is a strong album. Aside from the two classics listed above, “When He Returns” is unbelievable, and even some of the more preachy songs—“When You Gonna Wake Up” and “Precious Angel”, for example, are quite well-done.
Next up? The Smiths. I guess I’ve just read too many Modest Mouse articles and Johnny Marr interviews in the last few months—it was time to take the plunge. It was just a bit disorienting to me to know that The Smiths were one of the most influential bands of the early- and mid-‘80s (it seems if you were in your late-teens or early-20s in 1985 and didn’t worship U2, you lived and died by The Smiths. And while I knew of the major Smiths tunes—“Hand In Glove” and “This Charming Man”, to name a couple—I couldn’t hum a single line of any of them. So now that I’ve listened to all of their major singles, I must say...I’m not all that impressed.
But their music could just be handicapped by their era. I mean, nothing sounds more aged than music from the early- and mid-‘80s. There’s no bass, no groove, too many artifical sounds...it just sounds awful. Music from the early- and mid-‘70s sounds much newer and fresher. I wish all the major albums from the Smiths era could be remixed and remastered with today’s techniques. Could we snap to that please?
Speaking of today’s techniques, I also righted a couple of more recent wrongs by picking up MMJ’s It Still Moves and The Gorillaz’ Demon Days. MMJ is probably quite a rewarding band to have followed over the years—I wouldn’t know...I didn’t get into them until last year. They made a short leap between 1999’s The Tennessee Fire and 2001’s At Dawn, a giant leap between At Dawn and 2003’s It Still Moves, and a quantum leap between Moves and 2005’s amazing Z. I really can’t wait to see what they come up with next, and in the meantime I’m just glad I’ve finally completed the MMJ puzzle.
As for Demon Days, at long last I convinced myself to get it when The Butterfly decided she must immediately own “Feel Good Inc.” It’s embarassing to me that I haven’t gotten into the Gorillaz more; I bitch and moan that not enough bands are attempting to fuse together hip hop, rock, and other genres, and then I don’t pay enough heed to those that do. This album’s good. It’s not amazing, but it still made me feel stupid for letting it sit out there for 2-3 years before giving it a shot. And when these songs fail, they fail in creative—not formulaic—ways. I respect the songs I don’t really enjoy.
So anyway, I feel much better about myself now that I’ve righted these wrongs. Let’s see who else was able to right themselves in my eyes...Macca Redemption!
I’ll say it: I haven’t enjoyed much of the post-Beatles Paul McCartney era. Solo albums...wings...it just hasn’t done it for me. I was working part-time at Barnes & Noble when his last album came out, and though some songs were really pretty decent, it was an in-store play, and I got seriously sick of hearing them pretty quickly. But now I don’t work at B&N anymore, and I’m able to turn Macca off when I don’t want to listen to him. That’s key. In moderation, Memory Almost Full is actually pretty good. It’s uneven—the weak songs like “Nod Your Head” and “Feet in the Clouds” are bad in the ways that all bad McCartney songs are bad—but Memory Almost Full goes in a lot of creative directions. “Only Mama Knows” and “House of Wax” are great, and “Dance Tonight” has the added benefit of annoying the crap out of The Butterfly every time that iTunes commercial comes on...which makes me enjoy it in a very immature way. This won’t crack my Top 5 Albums of 2007 list, but it’s going to end up ranking a lot higher than I figured it would.Hip Hop Redemption!
I’ve complained all year about the lack of recent quality hip hop, and June finally saw that ship slowly righted. First came The Dusty Foot Philosopher, last year’s debut album rapper K’naan. K’naan was raised in Somalia until he was 13, when he (according to his Amazon bio) left “on what turned out to be the last commercial flight ever to do so, amidst a crumbling society and the end to this day of any form of central government.” You think of what he probably saw in Somalia, and you realize that half (okay, probably 90%) of the rapper who try to act ‘hard’ because of what they’ve seen and done...well, they really aren’t hard at all. Though he does drop a few good lines regarding that upbringing (“If I have to talk about home and get descriptive/I would make 50 Cent look like Limp Bizkit”), he doesn’t go far into detail. His attitude basically seems to be “Trust me, it was bad, but let’s move on.” K’Naan has an acquired-taste kind of voice, and his rhymes are hit and miss, but I was looking for creativity and experimentation in hip hop, and this mix of hip hop style and African beats fits the bill nicely.
Next up is London’s Wiley, whose Treddin’ on Thin Ice has been one of the toughest albums I’ve ever attempted to actually review/evaluate. The underground London ‘grime’ sound is unique and creative—and Wiley is probably one of the two best at it, along with Dizzee Rascal—but it’s not always immediate and listenable. It takes a few listens, but I think I’m going to get into this one. I’m not sure by any means, but I’m optimistic.
Of course, neither of these albums are 2007 releases, so for the most part my Top Albums of ’07 list is devoid of hip hop. But I think I might have found the group to invade the list: Blue Scholars. I posted a video clip of theirs last weekend. I started in June with their Long March EP that was released in February. Now that I’ve digested that, I’m moving on to their June release, Bayani. It’s been a while since I heard this sort of clarity and story-telling ability, and when that’s mixed with strong (if not all that creative) beats, good things happen. If I’m optimistic about Wiley, I’m giddy about Blue Scholars.Oklahoma City Redemption!
A year ago, when my parents moved back to Oklahoma City, I discovered an old music store on 36th and Western called Rainbow Records (which I mentioned here)...and it was closed by the next time I visitied OKC. Well I drove by 36th and Western when I was in town a couple weeks ago, and a new store had opened up, called Guestroom Records. I walked out with cheap copies of Slow Train Coming, Singles, OnoffON, It Still Moves, and The Now Sound Redesigned, a neat, $2 electronica/hip hop cd from 2005. Good store. I have a reason to go back to OKC now...other than, you know, visiting berlin niebuhr’s dog, of course.Sports Books Redemption!
Okay, sports books didn’t need redeeming in my book, but I guess it bears mentioning that I bought two of them this month. This week’s Tuesday Pirates Rant™ suggests that I really don’t care much about baseball at the moment, but The Baseball Economist is exactly the kind of book I’ll want to read when Dave Littlefield is fired and I’m interested in baseball once again. Meanwhile, I was very much into the NBA draft (as my posts on a non-NBA blog would suggest) this year, and the 1984 draft is the most talked-about of all-time. I’m starting Tip Off tonight, and I’m looking forward to it.Netflix Redemption!
This hasn’t happened yet, but I was just going to mention that, now that we have officially cranked through every episode of the first five seasons of Smallville (The Butterfly’s anniversary present), we’re open to actually watching movies again. The only Netflix rental we watched this month was The Cooler, and...I really really liked it. William H. Macy absolutely makes this movie all by himself, but Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, and Ron Livingston are fantastic as well. Good stuff.More Good Music!
I will also mention the following things:
Until next month...
Friday, June 29, 2007
Brain vs iPod: Bob Dylan Edition
A month ago, I decided to embrace my nerddom and look into something that only I could possibly care about: how greatly do my perceptions of an album differ from the star ratings I each song of the album on my iPod? In other words, how much does the concept of an ‘album’ actually matter? A lot of albums have distinct feels and moods to them, but does that end up actually mattering when it comes to an evaluation/rating of the album itself? The album can have a really interesting feel to it, but if the songs aren’t good, what difference does that make? My guinea pig for this experiment was Wilco.
Well, now I’m moving on to the Big Dog.
I’ve always had an appreciation for Bob Dylan, but I didn’t become a full-fledged Dylan-phile until around 2001 or so. In one of my BMG “Buy 1 Get 27 Free” binges early in high school, I bought his greatest hits, but I just wasn’t ready to appreciate him yet. Well, during the height of Napster, I decided to give Blonde on Blonde a try. And that very predictably led to one of my patented ‘phases’ (like the Flaming Lips phase I went through last year...and the Funkadelic phase I seem to have entered recently).
In the summer of 2001, I discovered Half.com and purchased about 2/3 of Dylan’s albums (almost all for under $7!), bought a couple biographies, and immersed myself. So after 6+ years of Dylanology, it’s time to rank the albums...I’ll only do a Top 10 here because if I were to rank all of his albums, this would end up around 15,000 words. That, and there are still a few albums I don’t own—Empire Burlesque, Saved, and New Morning.
Anyway, here goes nothing. The following is my “Brain” ranking of the Top 10 Dylan albums.
1. Highway 61 Revisited (1965). As uncreative as this might make me sound, this is my favorite album of all-time. And I know in advance that my iPod will agree with me, as every song on here got 5 stars. Can’t beat that. Dylan was pursuing that “thin, wild mercury sound” that he had in his head, and he said he didn’t capture it until Blonde on Blonde. Well, to me he had already caught and released it. Everything about this album is perfect. Best album opener ever. Best album closer ever. A perfect combination of whimsy and apocalypse.
2. Blood on the Tracks (1975). No matter what mood I’m in, when I listen to this album, I end up sad and a little bit angry. If great art projects its mood onto you, this is as good as art gets. Songs like “Tangled Up in Blue” and “Shelter from the Storm” set the reflective mood, and then Dylan takes you through the different stages of a breakup, from Anger (“Idiot Wind”) to Gut-Wrenching Despair (“If You See Her, Say Hello”) to Acceptance (“Buckets of Rain”). This might be my second-favorite album of all-time.
3. Bringing It All Back Home (1965). I always forget about this one in the overall conversation of Dylan’s discography—Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde are always the first two ‘60s albums mentioned, Blood on the Tracks always gets mentioned as well, and his last three albums start to surface in the conversation—but that always leads to a nice “Holy crap is this a great album” moment. The album title is one of the most apt titles ever. You can see his music and all of his influences coming together to start making the ground-breaking music he had in his head. But more than that, the lyricism is at just about an all-time high. Hell, this might be third-favorite album of all-time.
4. Love and Theft (2001). When I woke up the morning of 9/11, my initial thought was, “Do I buy Dylan’s new album before class or after?” I had intentionally avoided reading any reviews or stories about Love and Theft because I wanted to be surprised by what I heard. Of course, as I was getting ready for class, I hopped on the Internet like I always do, saw what had happened, and that, shall we say, changed my day around a little bit. By mid-afternoon, though, my brain was simply fried, so I headed over to Wal Mart to pick up Love and Theft and allow it to distract me for a while. When I got back I turned off the TV and computer, sat in my room, turned out the lights, and listened. It was a nice one-hour distraction before I headed back into the living room to take in what was happening for the rest of the evening.
Normally, listening to Dylan is (for me) a pretty emotional experience; coming off of Time Out of Mind, I was expecting something similar with Love and Theft. Instead, I turned on the cd player and listened to what is probably the most fun album Dylan’s ever made. You can’t avoid smiling during “Summer Days”; “Honest With Me” is the hardest-rocking song he’s written; even songs with more downbeat subject matter, like “Cry a While” and “High Water (For Charley Patton)”, aren’t all that downbeat. I expected to enjoy Love and Theft, and I did...in a completely different way than I thought I would.
5. Desire (1976). Certain Dylan albums are mood pieces. They're not tours de force of pure songwriting agility and mastery, but the groove and production and instrumentation are perfectly distinct, and it makes for a lovely listen. Desire is my favorite of this type of Dylan album (others I’d throw into this category are albums like Oh Mercy, Planet Waves, Slow Train Coming, Nashville Skyline—my least favorite Dylan album ever—and Time Out of Mind), though let’s face it—anything with Emmylou Harris on it gives it an unfair advantage over anything without Emmylou.
Desire does have a few perfect songs—“Hurricane” is unbelievable even though his protest might or might not have been sincere; “Isis” is intense and enchanting, though better live (check out the unbelievable Bootleg Series, Vol. 5: Rolling Thunder Revue to see how perfect this song can be); and “Oh Sister” is both haunting and Emmylou-tastic. Most of the album, though, is made up of songs like “One More Cup of Coffee” and “Romance in Durango”—great examples of Dylan songs that could have only been captured with that exact lineup at that exact moment.
I should also mention that Dylan’s voice has never sounded as good as it does on Desire, though my ears might be biased because Emmylou’s harmonizing.
Have I mentioned that Emmylou is the greatest backing vocalist of all-time?
6. Blonde on Blonde (1966). While I don’t love it as much as some (I might just be penalizing it because the harmonica on "Pledging My Time" is too shrill), this album is great for four reasons: 1) “Visions of Johanna”, 2) “I Want You”, 3) that “4th Time Around” sounds like Dylan imitating “Norwegian Wood” (John Lennon had a good reason to be paranoid), and 4) that “Absolutely Sweet Marie” sounds like Dylan imitating every Beach Boys surf song. Don’t know if he actually was or not, but I enjoy it more when I think about it.
7. John Wesley Harding (1967). I was late to the party on this one, and I’m not sure why. I just kept skipping over it on my checklist. That was a mistake. When I finally purchased John Wesley Harding last year, I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I knew I’d like “Watchtower” obviously, and I’d seen him perform “Drifter’s Escape” a couple times in concert, so I knew what to expect (more or less...his voice and the instrumentation to every ‘60s song have changed exponentially since then) from that. Otherwise I was a blank slate. But despite the famous lack of hooks or choruses on this album, there is strong emotion and melody at every turn. “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine” has become one of the most played songs on my iPod.
8. Oh Mercy (1989). This one’s #2 on the “Mood Pieces” list...for today, anyway. Some other day, I might put Time Out of Mind in this slot instead. They’re both Daniel Lanois productions, and they both have the same tired (in a good way) feel to them. The difference is, while Time Out of Mind feels like a brittle, cold New York morning, Oh Mercy sounds like a stifling, hot New Orleans night. My opinion of this album might have been enhanced by his long recollection of its recording process in Chronicles, Vol. 1. Hearing him talk so fondly and vividly of it might have made me biased. It’s a damn good album either way, though.
9. The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964). Really, this album is just as unsteady as his first two (Bob Dylan and The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan), but the title track is, to me, the greatest folk song ever written, so for that reason alone I think very fondly of the album as a whole. However, I have the feeling my iPod ratings won’t think quite as highly of it.
10. Modern Times (2006). Actually, no. Make that Time Out of Mind (1997). Modern Times is a lovely listen, but Time Out of Mind is more cohesive and emotional. Cohesion and emotion are usually two of the more important qualities an album can have, so I’m giving Time the nod. See #8 for further details on this one.
So that’s great. Now what does my iPod tell me I like the best?
1. Highway 61 Revisited. Five-star songs: All of them. “Like a Rolling Stone”, “Tombstone Blues”, “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”, “From a Buick 6”, “Ballad of a Thin Man”, “Queen Jane Approximately”, “Highway 61 Revisited”, “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”, “Desolation Row”
2. Blood on the Tracks. Five-star songs: “Tangled Up in Blue”, “Simple Twist of Fate”, “Idiot Wind”, “Meet Me in the Morning”, “If You See Her, Say Hello”, “Shelter from the Storm”, “Buckets of Rain”
3. Bringing It All Back Home. Five-star songs: “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, “She Belongs to Me”, “Maggie’s Farm”, “Love Minus Zero/No Limit”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Gates of Eden”, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
4. Love and Theft. Five-star songs: “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum”, “Mississippi”, “Summer Days”, “High Water (For Charley Patton)”, “Honest With Me”, “Cry a While”
5. Blonde on Blonde. Five-star songs: “Visions of Johanna”, “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)”, “I Want You”, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”, “Just Like a Woman”, “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I Go Mine)”, “Absolutely Sweet Marie”
6. Time Out of Mind. Five-star songs: “Love Sick”, “Standing in the Doorway”, “Not Dark Yet”, “Cold Irons Bound”
7. Slow Train Coming. Five-star songs: “Gotta Serve Somebody”, “I Believe in You”, “When He Returns”
8. Another Side of Bob Dylan. Five-star songs: “Chimes of Freedom”, “To Ramona”, “It Ain’t Me Babe”
9. Modern Times. Five-star songs: “Thunder on the Mountain”, “Rollin’ and Tumblin’”, “Someday Baby”
10. Desire. Five-star songs: “Hurricane”, “Isis”, “Oh, Sister”
Not surprisingly, the ‘mood’ albums I mentioned don’t fare quite as well when they’re evaluated simply for their content—Desire drops from #5 in my head to #10 on my iPod, just as Oh Mercy drops from #8 to unrated.
However, I seem to have discounted Slow Train Coming, Another Side, and Modern Times. I think Slow Train has an easy explanation: it’s a bit of an uncomfortable listen. There are plenty of strong songs, and Dylan sings with conviction, but...well, it’s preachy. Everybody knows this. He suddenly went from well-known Jew to proselytizing Christian, and he seemed to be judging anybody who questioned him or his motives...and for that matter, anybody who wasn’t as faithful a Christian as he suddenly was. Knowing this in advance, I wasn’t in a hurry to buy this album or Saved, even though I’ve owned Shot of Love—the third part of the Christian-esque trilogy—for a while and enjoy it. But there’s no discounting the quality and passion of Dylan’s performance and songwriting here. If he really did ‘go Christian’ go give him something to feel strongly about, it served its purpose.
What about Another Side? Well, quite simply I think it gets lost in the shuffle between his hardcore folk albums—Freewheelin’ and Times They Are A-Changin’—and his electric conversion. How an album with “It Ain’t Me Babe”, “Chimes of Freedom”, “To Ramona” (his most underrated song), and others gets forgotten says something about either my memory or the unbelievable quality of Dylan’s discography. As for Modern Times, I get annoyed with magazines and TV shows when they rank new stuff too high on “Top __” lists, and I think I tend to overcompensate. It’s a damn good album, though it wasn’t the best album of 2006 as everybody tried to immediately anoint it.
So we’re through with two of these experiments now, and I seem to have pretty much learned what I could have guessed I would learn. Just as statistics don’t tell the whole story in sports—one’s impact on team chemistry and his ability to make teammates better doesn’t show up in the box score, just as an album with an interesting mood and groove might not rank high if the individual songs aren’t amazing—they tell a good percentage of it.
Not that this predictable conclusion won’t prevent me from writing a bunch more “Brain vs iPod”’s...
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