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(02/22/01 5:00am)
Noms: Traditional pop vocal album, Female pop vocal performance\nThe Californian by way of Canada spent the \'70s going from coffeehouse folkie (see her 1971 classic Blue) to respected jazz-folk type singer-songwriter (see her 1979 classic Mingus, a collaboration with the jazz legend). She then spent the \'80s and \'90s making excellent albums with diminishing commercial returns, fading into cult status. Last year she released Both Sides Now, a collection of old standards like \"Stormy Weather\" (and a few of her own nuggets), recorded with a full orchestra. It might have been an attempt to cash in on that whole Diana Krall thang, and it\'s certainly no substitute for a new album of her own songs, but the album still is criminally underrated and undersold.
(02/15/01 5:00am)
Last year was the year we finally lost Pavement. Not that anyone was surprised. Persistent breakup rumors had dogged the band since the release of its sixth album, Terror Twilight, in 1999. Those rumors came to a head the same year when the band played what would be its final concert. A pair of handcuffs hung from singer Stephen Malkmus' mic stand, which he explained symbolized "what it's like to be a member of this band." Ouch. \nBut the official word wouldn't come until the next year when Malkmus confirmed that, yes, Pavement was dead, and, yes, he was recording a solo album. Indie rock fans mourned for the former and cheered the latter.\nSo here it is, less than two years from Terror Twilight. It's one of the staples of rock: the "highly anticipated self-titled solo debut." Besides naming the LP after himself (changed from the working title Swedish Reggae), Malkmus' face stares out from the cover in a head shot worthy of the latest J. Crew catalog. Let the cult of personality commence.\nThat said, this record is a super-fine slice of the fractured pop we'd come to expect from latter-day Pavement. In fact, "latter-day Pavement" is definitely the operative term here. It's probably not really fair to compare this with his last band, but it's unavoidable -- some of these tracks sound like outtakes from the Terror Twilight sessions. \nIt's entirely possible that Malkmus had written some of these songs for inclusion on the next Pavement album and then just brought them along for his own record. Album opener "Black Book" uses one of Malkmus' favorite lyrical techniques: Write a phrase that sounds good but doesn't seem to mean anything and repeat it over and over (the black book you took was permanent-a-ly diversified). \nElsewhere, "Phantasies" one-ups the bizarre Sesame Street vibe of Pavement single "Carrot Rope," while the initial guitar line of "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" uncannily mirrors that of Twilight opener "Spit on a Stranger."\nThis album brings to mind the big solo debut of last year, former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's Alone With Everybody. The music isn't similar, but both albums consisted of things we knew they could do, essentially a reprise of the respective bands' last record, with a little of the tension sucked out. Stephen Malkmus is a good album, but the honeymoon doesn't last forever, and now that he's exorcised the Pavement demon, it's time to move on.
(02/15/01 4:36am)
Last year was the year we finally lost Pavement. Not that anyone was surprised. Persistent breakup rumors had dogged the band since the release of its sixth album, Terror Twilight, in 1999. Those rumors came to a head the same year when the band played what would be its final concert. A pair of handcuffs hung from singer Stephen Malkmus' mic stand, which he explained symbolized "what it's like to be a member of this band." Ouch. \nBut the official word wouldn't come until the next year when Malkmus confirmed that, yes, Pavement was dead, and, yes, he was recording a solo album. Indie rock fans mourned for the former and cheered the latter.\nSo here it is, less than two years from Terror Twilight. It's one of the staples of rock: the "highly anticipated self-titled solo debut." Besides naming the LP after himself (changed from the working title Swedish Reggae), Malkmus' face stares out from the cover in a head shot worthy of the latest J. Crew catalog. Let the cult of personality commence.\nThat said, this record is a super-fine slice of the fractured pop we'd come to expect from latter-day Pavement. In fact, "latter-day Pavement" is definitely the operative term here. It's probably not really fair to compare this with his last band, but it's unavoidable -- some of these tracks sound like outtakes from the Terror Twilight sessions. \nIt's entirely possible that Malkmus had written some of these songs for inclusion on the next Pavement album and then just brought them along for his own record. Album opener "Black Book" uses one of Malkmus' favorite lyrical techniques: Write a phrase that sounds good but doesn't seem to mean anything and repeat it over and over (the black book you took was permanent-a-ly diversified). \nElsewhere, "Phantasies" one-ups the bizarre Sesame Street vibe of Pavement single "Carrot Rope," while the initial guitar line of "Jenny and the Ess-Dog" uncannily mirrors that of Twilight opener "Spit on a Stranger."\nThis album brings to mind the big solo debut of last year, former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's Alone With Everybody. The music isn't similar, but both albums consisted of things we knew they could do, essentially a reprise of the respective bands' last record, with a little of the tension sucked out. Stephen Malkmus is a good album, but the honeymoon doesn't last forever, and now that he's exorcised the Pavement demon, it's time to move on.
(02/08/01 5:00am)
It's time to get out the thesaurus on this one, folks, because there aren't enough adjectives for this sweeping, epic, majestic, etc. work. Doves' first record, Lost Souls, is that amazing and increasingly rare thing: an album, a dozen songs that manage to sound similar sonically and conceptually but separately fresh and exciting as well. It's like these three guys saw our plight from their satellite and decided to come down from space to show everyone how it's done.\nBut they've hardly come from nowhere. Manchester's Doves started out in the mid-1990s as a club/house/dance trio called Sub Sub who failed to catch on in England, having missed the leading edge of the Ecstasy revolution there by about five years. Minor club hit "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" was quickly filed away with the rest of history's minor club hits. Then their studio burned down. Needless to say, a regrouping was in order. A name change here, a few self-released singles there, and the result is Doves.\nOpening your album with a four and a half-minute instrumental called "Firesuite" might not seem advisable, unless you're Emerson Lake & Palmer. But on this album, it feels like an overture, and a promise of things to come. It's a big, big sound but never dips into overproduction or self-indulgence. The second track, "Here it Comes," introduces the listener to Jimi Goodwin's unique rasp, and classic misfit anthem lyrics like This is a call/a call to all/it goes out to those/who've been bad evoke unlikely shades of Pulp.\nThe album builds so subtly, you hardly notice until you're in its grip. It would seem to peak with the magnificent "The Man Who Told Everything," that is until the booming drum intro of "The Cedar Room," a seven-minute slice of 21st century psychedelia that will floor you the first time ... and the 50th. There's really nowhere to go after that, so the band bows out gracefully with a brief "Reprise" and the acoustic closer "A House," whose opening line It was a day like this that my house burnt down might refer to Doves' unlikely genesis.
(02/08/01 4:18am)
It's time to get out the thesaurus on this one, folks, because there aren't enough adjectives for this sweeping, epic, majestic, etc. work. Doves' first record, Lost Souls, is that amazing and increasingly rare thing: an album, a dozen songs that manage to sound similar sonically and conceptually but separately fresh and exciting as well. It's like these three guys saw our plight from their satellite and decided to come down from space to show everyone how it's done.\nBut they've hardly come from nowhere. Manchester's Doves started out in the mid-1990s as a club/house/dance trio called Sub Sub who failed to catch on in England, having missed the leading edge of the Ecstasy revolution there by about five years. Minor club hit "Ain't No Love (Ain't No Use)" was quickly filed away with the rest of history's minor club hits. Then their studio burned down. Needless to say, a regrouping was in order. A name change here, a few self-released singles there, and the result is Doves.\nOpening your album with a four and a half-minute instrumental called "Firesuite" might not seem advisable, unless you're Emerson Lake & Palmer. But on this album, it feels like an overture, and a promise of things to come. It's a big, big sound but never dips into overproduction or self-indulgence. The second track, "Here it Comes," introduces the listener to Jimi Goodwin's unique rasp, and classic misfit anthem lyrics like This is a call/a call to all/it goes out to those/who've been bad evoke unlikely shades of Pulp.\nThe album builds so subtly, you hardly notice until you're in its grip. It would seem to peak with the magnificent "The Man Who Told Everything," that is until the booming drum intro of "The Cedar Room," a seven-minute slice of 21st century psychedelia that will floor you the first time ... and the 50th. There's really nowhere to go after that, so the band bows out gracefully with a brief "Reprise" and the acoustic closer "A House," whose opening line It was a day like this that my house burnt down might refer to Doves' unlikely genesis.
(02/01/01 5:00am)
\"…It's about the crash of a drumbeat and a righteous sneer…". That's the beginning of the liner notes to this debut LP from self-described "London 6-piece hate-fueled gospel/trash/punk soul revue," The Action Time. Here's what I know about The Action Time: There are three boys, three girls, and they're all daft as a brush. They manage to rip through 11 garage-punk anthems in a sleek 29 minutes, and there's lots of organ, feedback, and songs about, you know, going out on Saturday night and stuff. \nWe're at a weird place in the pop music world now -- it used to be about British groups imitating American musical forms, but bands like The Action Time are aping those British groups who were imitating the Americans…get it? Totally postmodern, dude. To that end, the semi-manifesto that appears on the inside sleeve ("alcoholic poetry burning cigarette holes in your top 40 trash") is more shorthand for rock 'n' roll hedonism than an exhortation to take to the streets with guitars. \nNot that The Time are betraying any sort of revolutionary punk aesthetic, which was never really indicative of the genre anyhow. Johnny Rotten didn't want "Anarchy in the U.K.," he just wanted wankers to leave him alone so he wouldn't get beaten up after football games. Maybe The Clash were political once, but I saw Joe Strummer on MTV last year enthusing about Blink-182, so there's another insurrection deferred. \nBack to the album: It's really a lot of fun. The members all have goofy stage names like Miss Spent Youth and CC Rider, and there's a lot of guitar slop flying around, a welcome antidote to the big-budget overproduction of some of England's more popular guitar-pop (cough...Oasis...cough). Stax by way of Attractions keyboards are another popular touchstone, as well as girl-group-with-maracas backing vocals. And if it's all been done before, that's really neither here nor there, because it's not a rock band's job to change the world, just to make it fun for the duration of an LP.
(02/01/01 4:53am)
\"…It's about the crash of a drumbeat and a righteous sneer…". That's the beginning of the liner notes to this debut LP from self-described "London 6-piece hate-fueled gospel/trash/punk soul revue," The Action Time. Here's what I know about The Action Time: There are three boys, three girls, and they're all daft as a brush. They manage to rip through 11 garage-punk anthems in a sleek 29 minutes, and there's lots of organ, feedback, and songs about, you know, going out on Saturday night and stuff. \nWe're at a weird place in the pop music world now -- it used to be about British groups imitating American musical forms, but bands like The Action Time are aping those British groups who were imitating the Americans…get it? Totally postmodern, dude. To that end, the semi-manifesto that appears on the inside sleeve ("alcoholic poetry burning cigarette holes in your top 40 trash") is more shorthand for rock 'n' roll hedonism than an exhortation to take to the streets with guitars. \nNot that The Time are betraying any sort of revolutionary punk aesthetic, which was never really indicative of the genre anyhow. Johnny Rotten didn't want "Anarchy in the U.K.," he just wanted wankers to leave him alone so he wouldn't get beaten up after football games. Maybe The Clash were political once, but I saw Joe Strummer on MTV last year enthusing about Blink-182, so there's another insurrection deferred. \nBack to the album: It's really a lot of fun. The members all have goofy stage names like Miss Spent Youth and CC Rider, and there's a lot of guitar slop flying around, a welcome antidote to the big-budget overproduction of some of England's more popular guitar-pop (cough...Oasis...cough). Stax by way of Attractions keyboards are another popular touchstone, as well as girl-group-with-maracas backing vocals. And if it's all been done before, that's really neither here nor there, because it's not a rock band's job to change the world, just to make it fun for the duration of an LP.
(01/26/01 6:42pm)
British music fans owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Manchester, England. The northern industrial city has during the past 25 years produced some of the finest and most influential rock and roll to come out of the United Kingdom, or indeed anywhere. It all started when the Sex Pistols played there twice in 1976, inspiring future members of the Buzzcocks, Joy Division and the Smiths, to name a few. But the first wave is long-gone, and the second wave has slowly dismantled itself during the past 10 years.\nWhich brings us to the new century. Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, was of single-digit age when the Pistols rocked Manchester, but with his first LP The Hour of Bewilderbeast, he now stands as one of the leading lights in what the label-happy British music press have dubbed the New Acoustic Movement.\nBewilderbeast is, to use the rock-crit cliché, a "refreshingly self-assured debut," although it's really no surprise: Gough has quietly been releasing EPs in the UK for the past several years, building a buzz that eventually led to this much-heralded full-length. What really sets this record apart from recent strum-fests by Travis and Coldplay is the Boy's willingness to let it all hang out -- opener "The Shining" (fresh from a recent U.S. appearance in a Gap commercial) is all French horn, cello and classic pop melody but is quickly followed up by the edgier "Everybody's Stalking." Gough's not afraid to use loops, drum machines and distorted vocals, blending it seamlessly into the album's texture with the skill of fellow Northerners The Beta Band. \nEngland has seen some astonishing debuts in recent years, from the Betas to last year's other big Manchester success story Doves (who appear as backing band on a few tracks here). But what Gough does so well is classically British: mixing jaw-dropping hooks and melodies (see singles "Another Pearl" and "Once Around the Block") with a slightly off-kilter sensibility that ensures the music doesn't tire easily. The greasy-haired Gough refuses to play the pop star -- one typically self-deprecating lyrical image on the record has him "pissing in the wind" and "dribbling on my chin" -- but a few more rounds of music of this caliber and he's going to find it increasingly difficult to elude major glory.
(01/25/01 5:00am)
British music fans owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Manchester, England. The northern industrial city has during the past 25 years produced some of the finest and most influential rock and roll to come out of the United Kingdom, or indeed anywhere. It all started when the Sex Pistols played there twice in 1976, inspiring future members of the Buzzcocks, Joy Division and the Smiths, to name a few. But the first wave is long-gone, and the second wave has slowly dismantled itself during the past 10 years.\nWhich brings us to the new century. Damon Gough, aka Badly Drawn Boy, was of single-digit age when the Pistols rocked Manchester, but with his first LP The Hour of Bewilderbeast, he now stands as one of the leading lights in what the label-happy British music press have dubbed the New Acoustic Movement.\nBewilderbeast is, to use the rock-crit cliché, a "refreshingly self-assured debut," although it's really no surprise: Gough has quietly been releasing EPs in the UK for the past several years, building a buzz that eventually led to this much-heralded full-length. What really sets this record apart from recent strum-fests by Travis and Coldplay is the Boy's willingness to let it all hang out -- opener "The Shining" (fresh from a recent U.S. appearance in a Gap commercial) is all French horn, cello and classic pop melody but is quickly followed up by the edgier "Everybody's Stalking." Gough's not afraid to use loops, drum machines and distorted vocals, blending it seamlessly into the album's texture with the skill of fellow Northerners The Beta Band. \nEngland has seen some astonishing debuts in recent years, from the Betas to last year's other big Manchester success story Doves (who appear as backing band on a few tracks here). But what Gough does so well is classically British: mixing jaw-dropping hooks and melodies (see singles "Another Pearl" and "Once Around the Block") with a slightly off-kilter sensibility that ensures the music doesn't tire easily. The greasy-haired Gough refuses to play the pop star -- one typically self-deprecating lyrical image on the record has him "pissing in the wind" and "dribbling on my chin" -- but a few more rounds of music of this caliber and he's going to find it increasingly difficult to elude major glory.
