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(11/29/06 10:56pm)
Perhaps it's due to the extensive marketing for their (supposedly disappointing) compilation, Stop The Clocks, but with every listen to ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's So Divided, I can't help but think of Oasis. It's not that the two sound similar per se. Rather, with So Divided, Trail Of Dead seem to have taken Oasis' road to success (for better or worse): forget originality, artistic merit or profound lyrics; just crank out visceral, well-crafted, satisfying rock that the listeners will like. Thus, before purchasing So Divided, you should consider where you fall in this dichotomy (don't worry -- there's no right answer).\nThe consensus among critics is that, stung by the poor reception of 2005's ambitious Worlds Apart, Trail Of Dead decided to craft something more crowd-pleasing. And, indeed, So Divided is. For one thing, non-song tracks are kept to a minimum (these are the mostly-crowd-noise introduction and "Segue: In The Dreams of the Unreal" which, like Radiohead's "Fitter Happier," is doomed to be deleted from one's playlist after the second listen). For another, propulsive drums, hooky riffs and fist-pumping choruses abound. "Stand In Silence," "Wasted State of Mind," "So Divided" and the Shins-esque "Eight Day Hell" simply demand stadiums full of head-banging, chanting fans.\nHowever, the flip-side is a lingering sense of déjà vu -- one is continually left asking "where have I heard this before?" It's not that Trail of Dead apes anyone specifically (no one that sprung to my mind, anyway), but that the songwriting employs such shop-worn elements. The blues riff in "Naked Sun" is so old, it was probably on Moses' desert-crossing mix-tape. And "Cold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" is an amalgamation of acoustic guitar/piano rock-ballad clichés. Worst, in as much as the lyrics have any meaning, it's standard whining about the hardships of touring.\nBut, then again, avant-garde noise-rock is much harder to sing along to...
(11/29/06 5:47pm)
A sizeable chunk of my Thanksgiving break was spent in the family minivan, traveling with my parents to visit my brother and sister-in-law in Columbia, Mo. \nTo help while away the long hours, we listened to the CD version of Bill Bryson's memoir of his childhood in the 1950s "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir." The book wasn't bad -- some parts were more amusing than others -- but above all, it reinforced my impression that no generation has been so prone to nostalgia as the baby boomers. Sure, people always romanticize the past, but did past generations spend nearly as much time waxing rhapsodically about their childhood snack foods, for example? Bryson, to his credit, doesn't ignore the dark side of the '50s, yet he cannot avoid the conclusion that those days were happier, more hopeful, more genuine, more innocent than our present. I'm not entirely convinced -- but then again, I wasn't there.\nIt did get me wondering, though, whether in 30 or 40 years our generation (or, perhaps, "your and my generations," depending on who's doing the categorizing) will be similarly infected with the nostalgia bug. And I don't mean simply talking about the past -- VH1's ridiculously popular "I Love The (Decade)" shows are about kitsch rather than nostalgia. I mean longing for some (real or imagined) golden time in our earlier lives. Will we ever say, "Ah, the '80s/'90s/naughts, those were the good old days"?\nAccording to research on nostalgia in the fields of advertising and marketing, the answer appears to be yes. A 2004 Journal of Advertising study by Darrel Muehling and David Sprott found that, based on a survey of 159 undergraduates ages 18 to 35, "personal thought patterns are, indeed, inspired among those presented with an ad containing nostalgic cues ... (and) that those who experienced nostalgic thoughts tended to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward the advertised brand than those who did not," according to a Nov. 30, 2005, Washington State University news release. \nBut why? In a 2003 Journal of Consumer Behavior article, Morris Holbrook and Robert Schindler suggest that "via a process called nostalgic bonding, a consumer's history of personal interaction with a product during a critical period of preference formation that occurs roughly in the vicinity of age 20 (give or take a few years in either direction) can create a lifelong preference for that object."\nThus, like some tragic genetic disease, it is only a matter of time before nostalgia is bound to manifest itself -- to grab hold of you and make you soft on whatever junk was around at age 20. Holbrook and Schindler particularly highlight movies, movie stars, fashions and music. So for you youngsters out there -- freshmen and sophomores, mostly -- be prepared to get misty-eyed over James Blunt, the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" and Webstar and Young B.'s unspeakably awful "Chicken Noodle Soup." \nOf course I can make fun of you -- music was so much better when I was a kid.
(11/29/06 5:00am)
Perhaps it's due to the extensive marketing for their (supposedly disappointing) compilation, Stop The Clocks, but with every listen to ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead's So Divided, I can't help but think of Oasis. It's not that the two sound similar per se. Rather, with So Divided, Trail Of Dead seem to have taken Oasis' road to success (for better or worse): forget originality, artistic merit or profound lyrics; just crank out visceral, well-crafted, satisfying rock that the listeners will like. Thus, before purchasing So Divided, you should consider where you fall in this dichotomy (don't worry -- there's no right answer).\nThe consensus among critics is that, stung by the poor reception of 2005's ambitious Worlds Apart, Trail Of Dead decided to craft something more crowd-pleasing. And, indeed, So Divided is. For one thing, non-song tracks are kept to a minimum (these are the mostly-crowd-noise introduction and "Segue: In The Dreams of the Unreal" which, like Radiohead's "Fitter Happier," is doomed to be deleted from one's playlist after the second listen). For another, propulsive drums, hooky riffs and fist-pumping choruses abound. "Stand In Silence," "Wasted State of Mind," "So Divided" and the Shins-esque "Eight Day Hell" simply demand stadiums full of head-banging, chanting fans.\nHowever, the flip-side is a lingering sense of déjà vu -- one is continually left asking "where have I heard this before?" It's not that Trail of Dead apes anyone specifically (no one that sprung to my mind, anyway), but that the songwriting employs such shop-worn elements. The blues riff in "Naked Sun" is so old, it was probably on Moses' desert-crossing mix-tape. And "Cold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory" is an amalgamation of acoustic guitar/piano rock-ballad clichés. Worst, in as much as the lyrics have any meaning, it's standard whining about the hardships of touring.\nBut, then again, avant-garde noise-rock is much harder to sing along to...
(11/16/06 5:00am)
In the years since the invasion of Iraq, critics have occasionally complained about the dearth of protest music today. But it's out there -- it just doesn't sell well or get much mainstream airplay (you can decide which leads to which). And after digging around a little, you'll find modern music that could easily hold its own against what your boomer parents listened to -- including the two albums by The Evens.\nThe Evens are comprised of Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina -- and any punks not familiar with the former best trade in their facial piercings for popped collars. Having vented his spleen in the high-speed blast of Minor Threat, and the more oblique and sophisticated (but still noisy) Fugazi, MacKaye takes a different track with Farina -- the two make stripped-down, melodic, slightly-folky pop with lyrics that will, nevertheless, melt the face off anyone in their crosshairs. And if The Evens' self-titled debut was a heat lamp, Get Evens is a laser. The band's sound has been further simplified to a raw combination of guitar strums, judicious drumming and interchanging male-female vocals that could be performed anywhere from a local open-mic-night to a street-corner demonstration. It's beautiful. \nBut then this is teamed with lyrics like "How do people sleep amidst the slaughter?" ("Cut From The Cloth"), "You and yours and all your wars have run your last campaign -- you're FIRED!" ("Everyone Knows"), "You must be insaaaane" (repeated seven times in "All You Find You Keep") -- and the whole of the devilishly funny "Dinner with the President," where MacKaye and Farina ask why, despite being D.C. neighbors, they never get invited over to the White House. \nThe album's only real shortcoming is that it could benefit from a more personal touch -- it reels off a bit like a laundry-list of progressive gripes. But if your winter of discontent needs a soundtrack, consider warming yourself by The Evens' fire.
(11/16/06 4:18am)
In the years since the invasion of Iraq, critics have occasionally complained about the dearth of protest music today. But it's out there -- it just doesn't sell well or get much mainstream airplay (you can decide which leads to which). And after digging around a little, you'll find modern music that could easily hold its own against what your boomer parents listened to -- including the two albums by The Evens.\nThe Evens are comprised of Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina -- and any punks not familiar with the former best trade in their facial piercings for popped collars. Having vented his spleen in the high-speed blast of Minor Threat, and the more oblique and sophisticated (but still noisy) Fugazi, MacKaye takes a different track with Farina -- the two make stripped-down, melodic, slightly-folky pop with lyrics that will, nevertheless, melt the face off anyone in their crosshairs. And if The Evens' self-titled debut was a heat lamp, Get Evens is a laser. The band's sound has been further simplified to a raw combination of guitar strums, judicious drumming and interchanging male-female vocals that could be performed anywhere from a local open-mic-night to a street-corner demonstration. It's beautiful. \nBut then this is teamed with lyrics like "How do people sleep amidst the slaughter?" ("Cut From The Cloth"), "You and yours and all your wars have run your last campaign -- you're FIRED!" ("Everyone Knows"), "You must be insaaaane" (repeated seven times in "All You Find You Keep") -- and the whole of the devilishly funny "Dinner with the President," where MacKaye and Farina ask why, despite being D.C. neighbors, they never get invited over to the White House. \nThe album's only real shortcoming is that it could benefit from a more personal touch -- it reels off a bit like a laundry-list of progressive gripes. But if your winter of discontent needs a soundtrack, consider warming yourself by The Evens' fire.
(11/09/06 8:44pm)
Allmusic.com is, by far, one of the best music information resources available anywhere. However, its main page on the Deftones -- on the band's sound, on its influences -- is absurdly out of date. "Along with Limp Bizkit," the band's biography starts off, "the Deftones are often considered to be disciples of Korn, but in fact, they've been around for just as long (if not longer)." Ouch.\nThe fact is that since, at least, 2000's White Pony, the Deftones have deserved much more credit regarding the quality of their art -- and, while hardly rock perfection, Saturday Night Wrist only reinforces this. For one thing, the album has about as much in common with Korn and Limp Bizkit as Fred Durst has with, well, anyone with talent. Rather than rap-rock or nü-metal (shudder), think chilly space rock with a few shards of screamy, poundy metal jutting out of it -- much of Saturday Night is more akin to the proggier bands straddling the indie/alt-rock border (...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Muse, Doves, Mars Volta) than the mainstream metal with which the Deftones are often associated. And, yet, despite its arty moments, the album stays fairly accessible, generally avoiding the eye-rolling pretension that afflicts other prog devotees (I'm looking at you, Mars Volta).\nNot to say everything's hunky-dory. For one thing, Saturday Night suffers from a classic space rock problem -- there's so much emphasis on atmosphere and texture and pan-album cohesion, that much of it blends together into a blur that rocks pleasantly, but isn't all that memorable. To employ a music critic cliché: it's easy to like, but not to love. This draws emphasis to the songs that are the furthest from the overall vibe -- the thrashers "Rapture" and "Rats! Rats! Rats!" and the experimental "Pink Cellphone." Of these, "Rats! Rats! Rats!" is by far the best. Lead vocalist Chino Moreno screeches at you to "Decide! Decide!" while the band hammers away furiously -- interspersing a couple of melodic pauses that last just long enough to make the listener feel blasted when the band returns with double the rage. "Rapture" is likewise suited to head-banging, but is more straightforward and less inspired. On the other hand, with its literally phoned-in spoken vocals by Giant Drag's Annie Hardy, "Pink Cellphone" doesn't really work -- it's the one truly "bad-prog" moment on the album.\nLastly, the Deftones deserve credit for titling their mid-album instrumental "U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start". If only the song matched the initial thrill of tackling "Contra" with 30 extra lives. Sigh.
(11/09/06 5:00am)
Allmusic.com is, by far, one of the best music information resources available anywhere. However, its main page on the Deftones -- on the band's sound, on its influences -- is absurdly out of date. "Along with Limp Bizkit," the band's biography starts off, "the Deftones are often considered to be disciples of Korn, but in fact, they've been around for just as long (if not longer)." Ouch.\nThe fact is that since, at least, 2000's White Pony, the Deftones have deserved much more credit regarding the quality of their art -- and, while hardly rock perfection, Saturday Night Wrist only reinforces this. For one thing, the album has about as much in common with Korn and Limp Bizkit as Fred Durst has with, well, anyone with talent. Rather than rap-rock or nü-metal (shudder), think chilly space rock with a few shards of screamy, poundy metal jutting out of it -- much of Saturday Night is more akin to the proggier bands straddling the indie/alt-rock border (...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Muse, Doves, Mars Volta) than the mainstream metal with which the Deftones are often associated. And, yet, despite its arty moments, the album stays fairly accessible, generally avoiding the eye-rolling pretension that afflicts other prog devotees (I'm looking at you, Mars Volta).\nNot to say everything's hunky-dory. For one thing, Saturday Night suffers from a classic space rock problem -- there's so much emphasis on atmosphere and texture and pan-album cohesion, that much of it blends together into a blur that rocks pleasantly, but isn't all that memorable. To employ a music critic cliché: it's easy to like, but not to love. This draws emphasis to the songs that are the furthest from the overall vibe -- the thrashers "Rapture" and "Rats! Rats! Rats!" and the experimental "Pink Cellphone." Of these, "Rats! Rats! Rats!" is by far the best. Lead vocalist Chino Moreno screeches at you to "Decide! Decide!" while the band hammers away furiously -- interspersing a couple of melodic pauses that last just long enough to make the listener feel blasted when the band returns with double the rage. "Rapture" is likewise suited to head-banging, but is more straightforward and less inspired. On the other hand, with its literally phoned-in spoken vocals by Giant Drag's Annie Hardy, "Pink Cellphone" doesn't really work -- it's the one truly "bad-prog" moment on the album.\nLastly, the Deftones deserve credit for titling their mid-album instrumental "U,U,D,D,L,R,L,R,A,B,Select,Start". If only the song matched the initial thrill of tackling "Contra" with 30 extra lives. Sigh.
(11/08/06 3:38am)
Last Saturday, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system has adopted a new policy that not only bans relationships between students and professors, but also requires schools to "ask faculty and staff in positions of power to disclose any existing romances or other 'consensual relationships' that might violate the policy." A professor who doesn't tell the school about such a relationship could face "disciplinary action."\nHowever, the University of Minnesota's policy on "nepotism" and "personal relationships" dictates that "faculty members and advisers are cautioned that personal relationships with current students are unwise and may violate other University policies, even when activities prohibited by this policy have been avoided." Violation of this rule could result in, again, disciplinary action -- "up to and including termination of employment or academic dismissal". \nSo the professor can tell the school and risk disciplinary action or not tell the school and risk disciplinary action. \nBrilliant policy.\nAt this point, many of you are thinking there's a simple solution to this: Don't get involved in professor-student romances. This is essentially IU's reaction. The University's Code of Academic Ethics mandates that "a faculty member shall not have an amorous or sexual relationship, consensual or otherwise, with a student who is enrolled in a course being taught by the faculty member or whose performance is being supervised or evaluated by the faculty member." It also states that "a faculty member should be careful to distance himself or herself from any decisions that may reward or penalize a student with whom he or she has or has had an amorous or sexual relationship, even outside the instructional context, especially when the faculty member and student are in the same academic unit or in units that are allied academically."\nNow I know this is a well-intentioned effort to keep predatory professors from seducing students, but there's one major problem: Based on my informal observations of faculty behavior over the past five years, I'd hazard a guess that, were it not for the professor-graduate assistant hookup, the professorate would risk extinction in much the same fashion as the giant panda. \nOK, that's an exaggeration. But there is a fair number of seemingly happy, normal academic married couples around who started out as professor-and-student and who, had they not been so fortunate as to meet in a decade before sexual harassment litigation, would have been fried by a dean. I can't claim to have the final answer as to where the line between normal relationships and abuses lies, but I think those of us in the younger generations, the grad students and nontenured faculty, should ask: Is it fair that we face such strict restraints, when violating it worked out for many who now have tenure?\nAnd no, I'm not out to date a professor or student. However, if you're neither, ladies, I am still single.
(11/02/06 5:00am)
Noise Floor is a collection of non-album singles, B-sides and covers -- conveniently gathered up for you Conor Oberst completists out there. And that is, indeed, who should get it -- folks who adore Mr. Bright Eyes and can't get enough. Folks who have not only embraced all the things that divide music fans over Oberst -- the quavering, slightly nasal voice; the sincere (or contrived) lyrics; the minimalism -- but who are content to listen to him unleash one very similar-sounding song after another. Because, for a collection of odds and sods, Noise Floor gets surprisingly repetitive -- formulaic, even.\nThings start off relatively well, though. While introductory track "Mirrors and Fevers" leaves you sitting through annoying filler noise (people chattering in the background) for what seems like an absurdly long time, it eventually cuts to a brief, raw acappella piece by Oberst -- then drops into the heavy drum sample beginning, "I Will Be Grateful for This Day." The effect is striking -- a slap in the face that demands your attention. And "I Will Be Grateful..." merits it -- not only is it the best song on the album, it's also a deviation from the tedious uniformity that dominates much of Noise Floor. As fans might've guessed from the words "drum sample," this song takes after 2005's Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Bright Eyes' electronic holiday from lo-fi folk -- and besides employing samples and a dru m machine, it teams Oberst's voice with a droning electronic organ melody to beautiful effect, sounding a bit like Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater."\nThe next few tracks never quite reach the same high -- but, then again, they're more interesting than the monotony that is to come. "Trees Get Wheeled Away" is a countrified bit of singer-songwriter venom whose political ambition leads to unwieldy lyrics. "Drunk Kid Catholic" is a pissed-off piano sing-along slightly reminiscent of Modest Mouse. The Spoon cover, "Spent on Rainy Days," swings and rages nicely. And with its galloping guitar, "The Vanishing Act" has nice momentum even though, like a hamster on its wheel, it doesn't get anywhere.\nBut when "Soon You Will Be Leaving Your Man" comes around, I hope you really like its quiet, slow, sad-boy vocals and meandering guitar -- 'cause all the rest of the album sounds just the same (excepting "Blue Angels Air Show," an electronic piece that never really takes off). We're talking about nine tracks out of 16. Some artists can get away with track after track of very similar songs -- but Conor Oberst is no Motörhead.
(11/02/06 3:58am)
Noise Floor is a collection of non-album singles, B-sides and covers -- conveniently gathered up for you Conor Oberst completists out there. And that is, indeed, who should get it -- folks who adore Mr. Bright Eyes and can't get enough. Folks who have not only embraced all the things that divide music fans over Oberst -- the quavering, slightly nasal voice; the sincere (or contrived) lyrics; the minimalism -- but who are content to listen to him unleash one very similar-sounding song after another. Because, for a collection of odds and sods, Noise Floor gets surprisingly repetitive -- formulaic, even.\nThings start off relatively well, though. While introductory track "Mirrors and Fevers" leaves you sitting through annoying filler noise (people chattering in the background) for what seems like an absurdly long time, it eventually cuts to a brief, raw acappella piece by Oberst -- then drops into the heavy drum sample beginning, "I Will Be Grateful for This Day." The effect is striking -- a slap in the face that demands your attention. And "I Will Be Grateful..." merits it -- not only is it the best song on the album, it's also a deviation from the tedious uniformity that dominates much of Noise Floor. As fans might've guessed from the words "drum sample," this song takes after 2005's Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, Bright Eyes' electronic holiday from lo-fi folk -- and besides employing samples and a dru m machine, it teams Oberst's voice with a droning electronic organ melody to beautiful effect, sounding a bit like Yo La Tengo's "Autumn Sweater."\nThe next few tracks never quite reach the same high -- but, then again, they're more interesting than the monotony that is to come. "Trees Get Wheeled Away" is a countrified bit of singer-songwriter venom whose political ambition leads to unwieldy lyrics. "Drunk Kid Catholic" is a pissed-off piano sing-along slightly reminiscent of Modest Mouse. The Spoon cover, "Spent on Rainy Days," swings and rages nicely. And with its galloping guitar, "The Vanishing Act" has nice momentum even though, like a hamster on its wheel, it doesn't get anywhere.\nBut when "Soon You Will Be Leaving Your Man" comes around, I hope you really like its quiet, slow, sad-boy vocals and meandering guitar -- 'cause all the rest of the album sounds just the same (excepting "Blue Angels Air Show," an electronic piece that never really takes off). We're talking about nine tracks out of 16. Some artists can get away with track after track of very similar songs -- but Conor Oberst is no Motörhead.
(11/01/06 2:53am)
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a story on a process called "calorie restriction," which has been found to significantly slow the aging process in a number of species and might be able to do the same for humans. Calorie restriction "involves eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal while still getting adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients," according to the article. And while the underlying process is still uncertain, calorie restriction has been "shown in various animals to affect molecular pathways likely to be involved in the progression of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson's disease and cancer."\nFurthermore, research into life-expanding drugs has also challenged the idea that we humans have reached the upper limit of our longevity. A researcher interviewed by the New York Times suggested that it might be possible to "increase human life span to about 112 healthy years, with the occasional senior living until 140."\nNow, the article stresses that these estimates could be optimistic and that so far, little evidence has been gathered for whether calorie restriction works on humans. However, without engaging in the debate over the process's merits, I'd bet that within your and my lifetime we'll find ways to, well, extend your and my lifetime. And, as this is coming up, we need to seriously consider what this is going to mean for our future. Leaving aside some of the more obvious issues -- what this will mean for social security, for population demographics, etc. -- which are important but have also been dealt with extensively elsewhere, I'd like to pose a different question: How exactly does an individual go about filling 110, 140 or 200 years, or, even, an indefinite lifespan?\nPerhaps you can do it by watching TV or Web surfing, regularly investing in ever more sophisticated iterations of the Halo franchise -- or simply going about the basic, day-to-day tedium involved in earning a living. But while this might be technically possible, it doesn't sound like a particularly rich life. Instead, I suspect the secret lies in all of us becoming accommodated to the idea of personal reinvention, that we are going to have to get used to the idea that, every so often, it will be necessary to grab the wheel of one's life and give it a hard jerk in a different direction. And I believe, as well, that for many of you readers -- those belonging to the IU student population -- the time for determining your capacity for reinvention is now.\nHere you are: young, mostly healthy, relatively unencumbered (student loans, homework and part-time jobs aren't kids, a career and a mortgage) and in the middle of a community that not only bursts with new things, but positively begs you to try them. So right now, do as many things as you can. Embrace change. Because you don't want to spend the next millennium stuck in a rut.
(10/26/06 7:15pm)
How do you like your mush? If you said, "slathered in cheese," have I got a treat for you!\nAfter carefully listening to Born in the U.K., I've developed the following postulate: the discography of Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, serves as an indie pop cautionary tale.\nThe formula is simple: Take one "lo-fi baroque indie pop singer-songwriter," mix critical acclaim (2000's The Hour of Bewilderbeast), brush with mainstream success (2002's well-received soundtrack to "About a Boy"), then have him stew for several years turning out disappointing follow-ups. Once he's good and hungry for some success again, have him come out with another album. Now, what do you think it'll sound like?\nIf Born in the U.K. is any guide, the answer is Neil Diamond, Donovan and the dark days of 1970's AM radio pop. Death Cab, Sufjan, Bright Eyes -- consider this a warning to you all!\nSeriously, though, with its oft-massive wall-of-sound production and bland everything-to-everyone lyrics, Born in the U.K. clearly just wants to be loved. But it's that creepy, clinging type of love. The type that calls you "snookums" and wants to buy matching outfits. And, in listening to the album, you can't say you weren't warned: Opening song "Swimming Pool (Pt. 1)" is easily the worst introductory track I've heard this year. \nAccompanied by piano, Gough carries on a spoken-word dialogue with himself, saying things like "And what about the world? ... If the world was a better place some of these bad things wouldn't happen." Then he answers: "Yeah, but there's good things all around, you've just got to look longer and harder to see them sometimes." Upon listening to this, even sword-swallowers would have difficulty suppressing their gag reflex.\nThis is fortunately followed by the album's rather good title track -- a Bowie-influenced little number recounting the last few decades of British history -- but "Diamond Dogs" quickly gives way to "Diamond, Neil" and it's onward to the Born in the U.K.'s low-point: "Welcome to the Overground." Sounding something like an unholy fusion of Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight," the 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In" and the Polyphonic Spree, it could be background music for lobotomy recovery wards.\nThe rest is pretty, but bland -- its strengths being Gough's pleasant voice and arrangements, its weaknesses being a samey-ness across the tracks and some absurdly banal lyrics (on first listen, play "guess the next lyric" and see how many you get right).\nAll in all, boring for us humans. But, hey plants and Starbuckses need music, too.
(10/26/06 4:00am)
How do you like your mush? If you said, "slathered in cheese," have I got a treat for you!\nAfter carefully listening to Born in the U.K., I've developed the following postulate: the discography of Damon Gough, a.k.a. Badly Drawn Boy, serves as an indie pop cautionary tale.\nThe formula is simple: Take one "lo-fi baroque indie pop singer-songwriter," mix critical acclaim (2000's The Hour of Bewilderbeast), brush with mainstream success (2002's well-received soundtrack to "About a Boy"), then have him stew for several years turning out disappointing follow-ups. Once he's good and hungry for some success again, have him come out with another album. Now, what do you think it'll sound like?\nIf Born in the U.K. is any guide, the answer is Neil Diamond, Donovan and the dark days of 1970's AM radio pop. Death Cab, Sufjan, Bright Eyes -- consider this a warning to you all!\nSeriously, though, with its oft-massive wall-of-sound production and bland everything-to-everyone lyrics, Born in the U.K. clearly just wants to be loved. But it's that creepy, clinging type of love. The type that calls you "snookums" and wants to buy matching outfits. And, in listening to the album, you can't say you weren't warned: Opening song "Swimming Pool (Pt. 1)" is easily the worst introductory track I've heard this year. \nAccompanied by piano, Gough carries on a spoken-word dialogue with himself, saying things like "And what about the world? ... If the world was a better place some of these bad things wouldn't happen." Then he answers: "Yeah, but there's good things all around, you've just got to look longer and harder to see them sometimes." Upon listening to this, even sword-swallowers would have difficulty suppressing their gag reflex.\nThis is fortunately followed by the album's rather good title track -- a Bowie-influenced little number recounting the last few decades of British history -- but "Diamond Dogs" quickly gives way to "Diamond, Neil" and it's onward to the Born in the U.K.'s low-point: "Welcome to the Overground." Sounding something like an unholy fusion of Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight," the 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sun Shine In" and the Polyphonic Spree, it could be background music for lobotomy recovery wards.\nThe rest is pretty, but bland -- its strengths being Gough's pleasant voice and arrangements, its weaknesses being a samey-ness across the tracks and some absurdly banal lyrics (on first listen, play "guess the next lyric" and see how many you get right).\nAll in all, boring for us humans. But, hey plants and Starbuckses need music, too.
(10/25/06 6:40pm)
It may still be a week before Halloween proper, but one of the best things about the holiday has already arrived: the proliferation of horror movies on your TV. Every year, for a few choice days, traditional programming is swept aside for a torrent of zombies, serial killers, vampires, werewolves, acid-bleeding space monsters and other awful, wonderful things. From the artsy cult-classics Turner Classic Movies will be offering on the 31st, to the Sci-Fi Channel's marathon of comically bad B-movies, to Bravo showing the "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th" franchises, to American Movie Classics' grab-bag of seemingly anything they could afford broadcast rights for, grotesque creatures are splattering hapless teenagers all over the airwaves.\nAnd I do mean "splattering" -- Halloween just isn't the same without heaping helpings of movie gore. After all, it wouldn't be the Halloween that I remember from my childhood in the '80s, if every third boy weren't dressed as Freddie Krueger or Jason Voorhees, wielding plastic weapons and obsessing about blood, guts and slime. Some of us even read Stephen King and played "Doom."\nClearly, our parents must've been raising a generation of bloodthirsty killing machines, right?\nThis was the argument behind last spring's congressional rustling about violent video games, and just such an idea is the gist of a new commercial sponsored by Rep. Mike Sodrel's re-election campaign. The ad features the voices of children as they play a violent video game (the best line being "Hit the hooker with the tire iron!") while white text against a black background criticizes Baron Hill for voting against a 1999 "amendment to a juvenile crime bill that would have prohibited the sale of violent and sexually explicit movies and video games to teenagers" (The Associated Press, Oct. 20). \nHorror movies continue to be tremendously popular. On Oct. 11, CNN reported that "The Grudge" and the "Saw" movie series had made a combined $252 million since their respective releases. Should we be worried?\nLook, I'm no fan of Hill -- but I've also seen the Department of Justice statistics on juvenile violent crime. The fact is that the number of violent crimes committed by juveniles has plummeted over the past decade -- and the number of juvenile violent crimes for 2003 (the most recent year for which data are available) was more than 40 percent below the average for the past 24 years. Murders committed by juveniles have declined 65 percent since 1994 and are now at their lowest level since 1984. Meanwhile, polls of the "millennial generation" (those born between 1977 and 1994) have found that the generation raised under the specter of such violent fare is closer to its parents than the baby boomers were to their own and is more concerned with religion and community.\nThe course is clear: If children really are shaped by watching violent films, we have got to make Halloween a year-round thing.
(10/19/06 4:00am)
"First there came the screams... "\nNot a bad intro for a horror novel, but it also captures the first thing that anyone new to The Blood Brothers will have to deal with: Can you get to like the high, screeching vocals of Jordan Billie and Johnny Whitney or not? Because, make no mistake, the two produce shrieks akin to AC/DC's Brian Johnson being fed into a chipper-shredder. However, just as the Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine buried pop goodies under walls of feedback and white noise, Billie and Whitney's voices provide the challenge one must face in order to better appreciate the band's treasures.\nAnd there are treasures indeed. Five albums in, and the Brothers continue to turn out smart, hooky, multi-faceted punk metal that is oh-so-very pissed off. For its part, Young Machetes manages to straddle a fine line between the relentless sound of 2003's Burn Piano Island Burn and the (relatively) softer, more deliberate style of 2004's Crimes -- the result being somewhat schizophrenic, but often exhilarating. Thus, the album flies from punishing hardcore head-bangers (opening tracks "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" and "We Ride Skeletal Lightning," for example) to swinging, big-bass tunes just slightly reminiscent of Spoon's indie-funk ("Lazer Life," "1, 2, 3, 4 Guitars," "Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank") to songs that incorporate these elements plus more (the sudden turn into piano and Dresden Dolls-esque drama-queen vocals in "Camoflage, Camoflage"; the nearly-disco post-punk of "Spit Shine Your Black Clouds").\nIf you've looked at the grade though, you've probably worked out that there are, nevertheless, a couple of weaknesses to the Brothers' approach. For one thing, just as white noise can be monotonous, so too can their signature vocals -- once listeners get used to Billie and Whitney's caterwauling, they can get a bit bored with it (to their credit, The Brothers change things up frequently enough to keep this from becoming a big problem). Another is the inherent difficulty with producing "relentless," "punishing" music: It wears the listener out. And while there are some people who could listen to Young Machetes over and over again for days and still feel vibrant, chances are that they represent psychological anomalies. For the rest of us, as good as Young Machetes is, it's like a big shot of caffeine which powers you up in the short term, but leaves you drained later -- and after a couple of listens, the album risks gathering dust on the shelf.\nBut upon re-discovering it, you'll be in for a treat all over again.
(10/19/06 3:24am)
"First there came the screams... "\nNot a bad intro for a horror novel, but it also captures the first thing that anyone new to The Blood Brothers will have to deal with: Can you get to like the high, screeching vocals of Jordan Billie and Johnny Whitney or not? Because, make no mistake, the two produce shrieks akin to AC/DC's Brian Johnson being fed into a chipper-shredder. However, just as the Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine buried pop goodies under walls of feedback and white noise, Billie and Whitney's voices provide the challenge one must face in order to better appreciate the band's treasures.\nAnd there are treasures indeed. Five albums in, and the Brothers continue to turn out smart, hooky, multi-faceted punk metal that is oh-so-very pissed off. For its part, Young Machetes manages to straddle a fine line between the relentless sound of 2003's Burn Piano Island Burn and the (relatively) softer, more deliberate style of 2004's Crimes -- the result being somewhat schizophrenic, but often exhilarating. Thus, the album flies from punishing hardcore head-bangers (opening tracks "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" and "We Ride Skeletal Lightning," for example) to swinging, big-bass tunes just slightly reminiscent of Spoon's indie-funk ("Lazer Life," "1, 2, 3, 4 Guitars," "Lift the Veil, Kiss the Tank") to songs that incorporate these elements plus more (the sudden turn into piano and Dresden Dolls-esque drama-queen vocals in "Camoflage, Camoflage"; the nearly-disco post-punk of "Spit Shine Your Black Clouds").\nIf you've looked at the grade though, you've probably worked out that there are, nevertheless, a couple of weaknesses to the Brothers' approach. For one thing, just as white noise can be monotonous, so too can their signature vocals -- once listeners get used to Billie and Whitney's caterwauling, they can get a bit bored with it (to their credit, The Brothers change things up frequently enough to keep this from becoming a big problem). Another is the inherent difficulty with producing "relentless," "punishing" music: It wears the listener out. And while there are some people who could listen to Young Machetes over and over again for days and still feel vibrant, chances are that they represent psychological anomalies. For the rest of us, as good as Young Machetes is, it's like a big shot of caffeine which powers you up in the short term, but leaves you drained later -- and after a couple of listens, the album risks gathering dust on the shelf.\nBut upon re-discovering it, you'll be in for a treat all over again.
(10/18/06 2:46am)
This past Sunday, legendary New York rock club CBGB hosted its last live show, a three-and-a-half-hour farewell by punk-pioneer Patti Smith. Founded in 1973, CBGB was the unlikely launching pad for a revolution in popular music. By being a dive in a bad neighborhood, desperate for acts, it became a place where anyone could play and be heard -- and "anyone" turned out to be The Ramones, Television, Blondie, the Talking Heads and many, many more. Although justly celebrated as the birthplace of punk rock, CBGB was, more importantly, the place where the DIY ("do it yourself") aesthetic crystallized -- the idea that anyone, regardless of technical skill or financial resources, could make great music. And for the last 30-plus years, the DIY aesthetic has powered much of music's innovation, whether as punk, college rock, alternative, indie or, most dramatically, hip-hop. Yet at the end of this month, CBGB will be gone (although there are alleged plans to resurrect it in Vegas).\nWhen something happens to a cultural symbol like CBGB, the question then becomes: What does this mean? To invoke the standard cliche, is this the end of an era? What does it mean for music? For the DIY aesthetic?\nDIY emerged because misfits such as Smith and The Ramones felt alienated by the mainstream music of the '70s, and took it upon themselves to make their own. Upon looking at such guides as the Billboard charts, iTunes' top selling songs or MTV (when it deigns to show music videos) -- and seeing them dominated by slickly produced, mass-marketed, lowest-common-denominator, soulless dross -- the temptation is to say that in its war with the mainstream, DIY lost. Sure, every once in a while it pops up and overturns the mainstream -- punk's late-'70s explosion in Britain, Nirvana, '80s-'90s hip-hop -- but the sound always ends up being corrupted and co-opted. Bands sign to major labels and lose their inspiration, opportunistic copycat bands emerge, a movement runs into its logical limits (you can only play hardcore punk so fast, for example), etc.\nBut this falsely assumes the mainstream actually has that much to do with culture today. Sure, someone still has to be the most popular -- but the major labels' declining sales, combined with the rising sales among independents, show that the world of music is diversifying and decentralizing. Indeed, the question has become whether a band even needs a label to succeed. Other top-down mass media -- Hollywood, the broadcast TV networks -- find themselves severely challenged by a proliferation of competitors armed with cheap, high-quality, easy-to-use recording and broadcasting technology and no one to answer to but their own creativity. In the cases of MySpace and YouTube, media firms have found that their future rests in turning over the reins to you and me. \nThose who say CBGB's closing is an end of an era are right. The war with the mainstream is over -- and we won.
(10/12/06 4:00am)
I'll put it plainly: The Hold Steady are one of the great underground bands of the noughties, and you should get to know their music immediately.\nNow, many of you probably aren't familiar with The Hold Steady yet and, since Boys And Girls In America is their third album, the effort might seem somewhat daunting -- especially when you learn that songwriter Craig Finn has populated their albums with recurring characters, themes and locations. \nBut don't worry, their sound -- big, red-meat, middle-American bar-band rawk -- carries a similar appeal as classic Springsteen. And, on the other stuff -- I'm here to help. So, consider this a very quick and dirty layman's guide:\nThe first thing to know is that every song is a story about "The Scene" -- a world of punk rock, wild parties and lurking violence, all fueled by massive consumption of alcohol and hard drugs. And while The Scene has offshoots in such far corners as Modesto, Calif. (B-side "Modesto Is Not That Sweet") and Western Massachusetts (Boys And Girls' "Chillout Tent"), its capital is Minneapolis, whose bars, squats, churches and shopping malls feature prominently. Now, for all their hedonism and mad adventures, the characters inhabiting The Scene pay a steep price -- ending up physically, emotionally and/or spiritually damaged by their experiences. But then, you only live once -- and like surfers swept up in a tempest only to be battered against the rocks, they get one hell of a ride in-between.\nIn 2004, Almost Killed Me laid out The Scene's basics. In 2005, Separation Sunday was The Scene's version of a Catholic passion play (and introduced three characters: the aging, religious hipster Hallelujah Holly; the shifty street hustler Charlemagne; and the mysterious Denverite Gideon). Now, true to its title, Boys And Girls takes on the subject of love and relationships in The Scene -- which, in a mere 40 minutes, The Hold Steady cover to a stunningly broad extent. From the frustratingly distant lover of "Chips Ahoy!" to the dependence and manipulation of "You Can Make Him Like You" to the sweet (and somewhat goofy) stolen moment between strangers of "Chillout Tent," they go way beyond the typical lust and break-up tropes, even incorporating such secondary themes as addiction, loss of innocence and the divine's appearance in everyday life. And while I suspect that fans will fight interminably over whether Boys And Girls measures up to Separation Sunday (its use of back-up singers will be a major issue of contention), it's nevertheless a satisfying addition to The Scene's chronicles.\nBut most importantly: It really, really rocks.
(10/12/06 2:56am)
I'll put it plainly: The Hold Steady are one of the great underground bands of the noughties, and you should get to know their music immediately.\nNow, many of you probably aren't familiar with The Hold Steady yet and, since Boys And Girls In America is their third album, the effort might seem somewhat daunting -- especially when you learn that songwriter Craig Finn has populated their albums with recurring characters, themes and locations. \nBut don't worry, their sound -- big, red-meat, middle-American bar-band rawk -- carries a similar appeal as classic Springsteen. And, on the other stuff -- I'm here to help. So, consider this a very quick and dirty layman's guide:\nThe first thing to know is that every song is a story about "The Scene" -- a world of punk rock, wild parties and lurking violence, all fueled by massive consumption of alcohol and hard drugs. And while The Scene has offshoots in such far corners as Modesto, Calif. (B-side "Modesto Is Not That Sweet") and Western Massachusetts (Boys And Girls' "Chillout Tent"), its capital is Minneapolis, whose bars, squats, churches and shopping malls feature prominently. Now, for all their hedonism and mad adventures, the characters inhabiting The Scene pay a steep price -- ending up physically, emotionally and/or spiritually damaged by their experiences. But then, you only live once -- and like surfers swept up in a tempest only to be battered against the rocks, they get one hell of a ride in-between.\nIn 2004, Almost Killed Me laid out The Scene's basics. In 2005, Separation Sunday was The Scene's version of a Catholic passion play (and introduced three characters: the aging, religious hipster Hallelujah Holly; the shifty street hustler Charlemagne; and the mysterious Denverite Gideon). Now, true to its title, Boys And Girls takes on the subject of love and relationships in The Scene -- which, in a mere 40 minutes, The Hold Steady cover to a stunningly broad extent. From the frustratingly distant lover of "Chips Ahoy!" to the dependence and manipulation of "You Can Make Him Like You" to the sweet (and somewhat goofy) stolen moment between strangers of "Chillout Tent," they go way beyond the typical lust and break-up tropes, even incorporating such secondary themes as addiction, loss of innocence and the divine's appearance in everyday life. And while I suspect that fans will fight interminably over whether Boys And Girls measures up to Separation Sunday (its use of back-up singers will be a major issue of contention), it's nevertheless a satisfying addition to The Scene's chronicles.\nBut most importantly: It really, really rocks.
(10/11/06 3:29am)
On Monday, search-engine titan Google acquired the post-your-own-videos site YouTube for a cool $1.65 billion. While this deal is significant in and of itself, the major implications will be determined in the coming months as owners of copyrighted content and their lawyers challenge YouTube users' freedom to upload video clips -- the freedom that made YouTube valuable in the first place.\nThe Internet is arguably the most important cultural development of our times, and right now we are in the midst of a struggle over its fundamental nature. Specifically, the Internet has become so influential due to users' ability to readily access information free of charge. Yet many individuals and groups are looking to charge for access to that information -- some rightly (artists, for example, who want payment for the reproduction of their work) and some dubiously (cable companies, for example, who want to direct Web traffic to the sites that pay them the most).\nThis conflict has crossed into the realm of higher education on several occasions, but a new fight is showing its potential to affect the basic conduct of classroom activity. Last January, Blackboard Inc. was granted a U.S. patent for "a system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet." In other words, Blackboard's patent is for its popular online course-management system (akin to Oncourse). \nCritics have argued that this patent is unduly broad -- in effect, awarding Blackboard with the patent not for "any device or even specific software code" but "the idea of putting such tools together in one big, scalable system across a university" (USA Today, Aug. 27). The fear is that Blackboard will wield this patent against competitors and open-source software projects that were developed with the cooperation of the academic community. Those concerns might not be unfounded: In August, Blackboard sued competitor Desire2Learn Inc. for royalties.\nAccording to IU Chief Information Officer and Dean of Information Technology for IU Bloomington Brady Wheeler, IU's Oncourse is not under threat of lawsuit because it "predated the first Blackboard claim by at least 18 months." However, IU "has been following the patent matters very closely and is working with the Software Freedom Law Center (www.softwarefreedom.org) to review the merits of this patent." Meanwhile, for Blackboard's part, its senior vice president and general counsel Matthew Small has said, "It would make no sense for Blackboard to go after open-source programs like Moodle and Sakai ... because they are not commercial providers" (Chronicle of Higher Education, Aug. 2). The current variation of Oncourse, Oncourse CL, uses Sakai 2.1 software.\nNevertheless, the Blackboard case does highlight the fact that academia has a stake in this debate over who-owns-what on the Internet -- and that we must be vigilant to ensure that the outcome preserves its status as an invaluable educational resource.