An Unreasonable Number of Essays

from

FIRST TAKES/SECOND OPINIONS

A Pop Music Blog

Anthony M. Verdoni

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE PART I: PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE
LMFAO, Sexy and I Know It The Walkmen, Heaven Blonds, Run Usher, Climax Frank Ocean, Swim Good Coldplay, Princess of China Animal Collective, Todays Supernatural Bruce Springsteen, We Take Care of Our Own EMA, Take One Two Avicii, Silhouettes The Black Keys, Lonely Boy The Gaslight Anthem, 45 The Vaccines, Teenage Icon Jay-Z, Glory Die Antwoord, I Fink U Freeky Drake, The Motto (feat. Lil Wayne) Joey Bada$$, Survival Tactics Lana Del Rey, Video Games Bobby Womack, Please Forgive My Heart Bon Iver, Calgary

EDITORIAL INTERLUDE
On Morrisseys Holiday Sale On Frank Oceans Recent Waves On Bruce Springsteens Wrecking Ball

PART II: DO YOU BELIEVE IN ROCK AND ROLL?

Madonna, Give Me All Your Luvin Wild Flag, Electric Band Justin Bieber, Boyfriend Gotye, Somebody That I Used to Know Dive, How Long Have You Known? Best Coast, The Only Place Beach Boys, From There to Back Again Redd Kross, Stay Away From Downtown Leonard Cohen, Show Me the Place Ca$h Out, Big Booty Death Grips, Hustle Bones Sleigh Bells, Comeback Kid The Raveonettes, Too Close to Heartbreak Ryan Adams, Lucky Now The Smashing Pumpkins, Quasar Baroness, March to the Sea Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti, Only In My Dreams Kelly Clarkson, Stronger (What Doesnt Kill You) Tanlines, All of Me Pussy Riot, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out
3

Note: Each essay in this collection was pulled live from the Internet. All hyperlinks are left intact, so as to allow the reader to pursue the captive clusters of audio, video, and copy. You are hereby encouraged to follow any links of interest or intrigue, as the material summoned will help contextualize the authors frequently indefensible positions.

PREFACE
I intend this essay to be my last as a serious music critic. You can rest assured that this small gesture of resignation will not leave too troubling a dent in the annals of Western letters. No Popes will abdicate, nor will the Nobel Committee toss themselves en masse from some lofty perch, into some barren fjord. If my opening sentence stirs anything in the way of commotion, itll likely be a general clamor to place ironic quotation marks around the word serious, so as to adorn the adjective with a nod and a wink. Yes, this Mr. Verdoni is a serious music critic in much the same manner as Gallagher is a serious smasher of watermelons. Whats the difference? Its all content, right? Note the ironic quotation marks of my own. They stand as symbols of protest, as my way of indicating that those of us who produce original material be it in type, celluloid, stencil, cloth, pixel, vinyl, or blood are not to be regarded as so many jugglers and clowns, fit only to entertain the court while the royal accountants crunch the numbers. Dont think that this stance athwart the algorithmic mindset portends a parade of liberal-arts hubris. Im painfully aware of what follows this preface, of how my writing is alternately flawed and hyperbolic. In its aggregate, this spotty little endeavor of mine, First Takes/Second Opinions, isnt anything more than a whimsical music blog. But it isnt anything less, either. Though the medium is fragile and unpretty, the message it channels speaks to my incontrovertible position on popular culture, which is that what we, the vulgus, watch, listen to, read about, share, and comment upon is a subject of serious import, worthy of serious contemplation. The following 40-odd essays attempt to affirm this thesis. Sometimes they succeed. More often than not, however, they fail, yet remain all the nobler for their effort. Rather than focus on this puffy nobility, lets train our lenses on the decidedly more evident and interesting failures, both my own and our cultures at large. This brings us back to the domain of quotation marks, to the notions of serious and content or, in perhaps the most staggering of contemporary compounds, serious content. On this matter, Im afraid I must lead with an apology: Given my shortcomings in the fields of intellect and maturity, my forays into seriousness frequently become a touch unserious. I have a stubborn tendency to joke about our culture, our music, our trending motivations perhaps because theyre so fluid and regenerative that there isnt time enough to consider each issue with a scholarly remove. Then again, maybe I opt for the comic voice because the term content is so sweeping and desultory that it serves as a one-word epithet of humiliation. Thrusting the whole of art into a single, semi-arbitrary category is so absurd that it ought to lead to the raising of fists rather than mere objections. Make no mistake: The conception and use of the label content is a value construct, one that asserts the power of the patron by leveling the work of the artist. In our current, ultra-centralized marketplace, we pay the same price for a movement from Mozart as we do for a dubiously remixed single from Katy Perry. And thats if we pay for the content at all, rather than steal it or stream it as part of some all-inclusive subscription plan. Its not my intention to opine as to whether this arrangement is right or wrong; I just want the consumer to realize that hes being sold a false equivalency. Content, I feel, fails utterly as a panacea term. Art is the better descriptive, with subcategories so
5

numerous that they cant be catalogued by even the ablest team of lawyers, M.B.A.s, or anthropologists. Culture should not be held at the behest of the point and click; it needs room to breathe and expand, to succeed slowly and fail suddenly. It can supply its own collar and leash, thank you very much. Before my cast drifts too far astream from its animating agent that is, my meagerly trafficked music blog I want to offer a clear example of how humanity is disserved by the content paradigm. When was the last time you heard someone say, Id like to go to Rome and visit the Sistine Chapel. I hear Michelangelos content is amazing!? Yes, this is a bit of a specious question, tacking toward matters unserious, but Id hope that my light farce reveals a more insidious folly. Because, as a culture, I think weve succumbed to an unfortunate myopia. We mistake the frame for the picture and the network for the news. That which supports the novel work of art or individual agency is granted greater respect than the art or agency itself. To put it in the demotic terms of popular music, once were done marveling at our turntables, our Walkmen, our CD players, our iTunes, our iPods, our iPhones, and our iPads, there isnt much enthusiasm left for the actual songs. This, I feel, is a tragedy of the commons. Public art is undermined by its availability. Its girdled into categories flattering and unflattering, pictured at angles voluptuous and austere, then dissected by the blades of a million critics. What results is a cancerous index of opinions but no intelligible consensus. The culture comments upon itself until its intrigues burn off, engendering a kind of postmodern auto da f. Culture thus becomes another cog in the boredom-killing business a waster of time rather than a catalyst to action, food for mastication rather than calories. At the moment, were stuck in a static culture, with actor and audience alike chewing over the hourly returns. Everything is previewed, reviewed, leaked, and ripped into a state of near irrelevance its a carcass were gnawing at, not a corpus. If First Takes/Second Opinions holds any virtue, its in its authors willful subordination to the music in rotation. Im an advocate of the ars longa, vita brevis mentality, meaning that I feel a critic, credentialed or otherwise, should think before he speaks. Given his junior position beside the temples of art, a lowly blogger is obliged to show a little humility (or, perish the thought, a little humanity!). Art deserves to be offered two kindnesses: the respect of the beholder and the benefit of the doubt. Thats what First Takes/Second Opinions has aspired to do to issue a fair shake in a cruel world, even if the presiding judge is fated to issue his opinions to an empty courtroom. This doesnt mean that every song or subject it tackles was accorded a years indulgence in critical attention. Of the 43 essays that comprise this book, Id say that at least 35 of them were written in one sitting, either before the start of my for-profit labor or during a brief lull from the days hostilities. Where the writing works, its because the source material is righteous and the attitude of the author is healthy. Where it fails, its because the author is unable to reconcile his execution with his intention. Sometimes, idle thoughts or selfish impulses get the best of him, and quickly dash his textual dreams to pieces. No big loss there. At least the son of a bitch is trying. Or, should I say, was trying. From here on in, Im dropping the seriousness from my act. First Takes/Second Opinions will live on, but only as a vehicle for slapdash song reviews
6

and low-rent gropes for the zeitgeist. My motivation for this change of aperture is as base as they come: I need to monetize my loose collection of vain empires, and I hear no ca-ching! emanating from this blogs register. Again, its the platform, not the content, that sets Wall Street aflame. And that platform needs to be both invasive and evanescent, like a gas thats by turns intoxicating and noxious. Facebook and Twitter are the archetypes for this sort of business model: always on your tail, but never leaving too noticeable a footprint; frequently updated but rarely refreshing. Pop culture sites that purport to traffic in serious content that is, no nudie pictures, skateboarding accidents, or misleading headlines about the cut of Scarlett Johanssons dress are laughed off the boards with a resounding guffaw. If youve seen The Social Network, you might remember the Sean Parker characters after-the-fact analysis of Napster, which had recently gone bankrupt: Turns out theres not much money in free music, he says. Well, I can assure you that theres even less in writing about it a fact that many an impoverished music journalist can corroborate. So much for being in the boredom-killing business. By now, I imagine youve grown envious of Oedipus, whose self-induced blindness would have freed him from the shackle of this prefaces run-on glory. But before you log out, please consider tuning in to music, to culture, to the highest frequencies of human potential. If any of the following essays speaks to you, reserve a moment or two to acclimate yourself with the art it profiles. My first takes and second opinions are largely immaterial; what matters is the item under evaluation, whether its the work of Justin Bieber or Bruce Springsteen, the legacy of Morrissey or Frank Ocean, the charms of whats past or the promise of whats next. Capture and cherish each note of this so-called content. For me, its not merely the numinous stuff of life, but the conduit of energies which make life worth living. Thats why I write about it. And thats why Ill continue to write about it, qualifying adjectives and attendant acclaim be damned. This is a commitment that Ill always take seriously, regardless of whether my testimony holds up its end of the bargain. All Im lowering is the ambition of my editorial and the size of my audience. The music that moves me to opinion will remain holy. And the artists who create it will continue to number among my heroes. Anthony M. Verdoni September 1, 2012 Asbury Park, New Jersey

PART I: PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE

LMFAO, Sexy and I Know It I hold some fairly radical theories about how the recording industry intends to sustain itself financially. Now that its pay-to-play model, whereby customers actively pursue and purchase music, has effectively tapped out, I think the major labels are beta-testing a kind of sonic Manhattan Project, in which victory is achieved through negation. During Phase I, corporate interests so assail idle consumers with certain songs and promotions that the pop single becomes weaponized, issuing a form of head trauma. Phase II is merely the response: The listening public, beleaguered by the barrage of Rihanna and Taio Cruz, of Lady Antebellum and Taylor Swift, finally decides to offer cash for protection. The pay-to-play model thus becomes a pay-not-to-play model, meaning that an app is developed which allows its possessor to filter out any song he chooses, at a dollar a pop. This one-time fee blocks the tunes frequency on radio, on TV, and during all potential public interfaces. Once you pay that dollar, youll never have to hear the fucking thing again. (Phase III, alas, is silence.) This concept came to me after I was thrust into my 500th involuntary rendezvous with LMFAOs Party Rock Anthem. This has been, by my unofficial count, 2011s most ubiquitous single. As such, the track is perhaps better described by its inescapability than its harmonic virtue. Sure, the would-be anthem is a pleasant enough piece of dance pop, replete with all the requisite snaps and blips, but I doubt itll be remembered for its sonic charisma or enduring social value. Still, the song somehow endures, with more fortitude than the Occupy Wall Street movement or its myriad of messages. Party Rock continues to rock parties, from birthday to bachelorette, from Democratic to Republican. And now that it appears to be entering its golden years at least as a viable Top 40 concern the club banger has been joined by a younger brother, LMFAOs latest opus, Sexy and I Know It. This single is, in essence, a much more enthusiastic version of the Bloodhound Gangs The Bad Touch, which bore a refrain of You and me, baby, aint nothin but mammals/So lets do it like they do on the Discovery Channel. It finds a level of wit that sits somewhere between 3OH!3s moronic cheerleading and the Black Eyed Peas low-end digital disco. LMFAOs Redfoo raps lyrics that should make a grown man cringe; they climax with the Kipling-esque couplet of I got passion in my pants and I aint afraid to show/Im sexy and I know it. Clearly, what we have here is a song about sex for those whove never had it. And theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. If rock and roll serves one social purpose, its to acclimate minors to the wonders of the flesh. Sexy fulfills this primitive objective. Its fumblings may be galling, but theyre not inexpert. LMFAO build the track like Michael Jacksons Thriller, starting with a pulse, then segueing into a series of syncopated rhythms. If the group has a calling card, its the rippling synth, which seems to slither rather than wail. I call this sort of music electro skank, because it smells like a mnage of Malibu rum and strawberry perfume. It has glitter on its face and lube on its loins, as if auditioning for a scrub down or an oil change. At the moment, I imagine the vibes avatar is Ke$ha, but LMFAO are holding up the rear, in all ways imaginable. Sexy is manifestly silly and staggeringly stupid; it is not, however, a bad song. Redfoo and SkyBlu understand hooks, and this track has a breakdown thats as infectious as an
8

undocumented venereal disease. Its basically a continuation of Party Rock Anthem, with the featured dance moving from vertical to horizontal. I cant claim to dislike the tune not yet, at least. Give me about two weeks. Then check the purchase profile on my noise-cancellation app. If the technology works as advertised, Ill be the one LMFAO, the vulgarity of the acronym be damned. Sorry for schlock blocking, boys. Thats just how I do thangs. (October 31, 2011) The Walkmen, Heaven At the moment, Im uncharacteristically perhaps even irresponsibly bullish on pop music. This enthusiasm will flag with shifts of season and psyche, but, so long as it rings true, consider me gratified to have more songs worth championing than time in which to champion them. Of late, my download finger has been alternately primed and muscled, pointing with athletic dispatch toward recent efforts from rising stars and old favorites. Jack White, the Raveonettes, the Walkmen, and Rufus Wainwright these are just a few of the wily veterans whove astonished me anew with their craftsmanship. Father John Misty, Django Django, Chromatics, and You Wont these are random members of the youth brigade whose work has caught me unawares. (Sure, several of our ostensible rookies have been around awhile, but theyre granted junior status by virtue of being fairly new to me.) Diverse as it is, this roster call leaves out fresh fare from St. Vincent, Gaslight Anthem, and Bobby Womack, each of whom I could (and may) profile at contemptible length. For now, however, Im obliged to stare down the current bounty and choose a tentative favorite. This task isnt easy, but I can simplify its burden by truncating the review period and forcing an immediate decision. In this context, Ill happily surrender to my early morning whim, and go with the Walkmens Heaven. The fact that Heaven was selected rather flippantly doesnt make it a disposable or nondescript pop song. My process is one of cornucopian culling, not petty elimination; as such, its devised to dishonor the author, not the artist. (I have far less pride than all these first-person flourishes would seem to indicate.) The Walkmen win this round because its various jabs and hooks were governed by the rules of dawn, which augur a rising, an anxious energy, an earnest pep talk. Simply put, nobody in indie rock handles this tone better than Hamilton Leithauser, the Walkmens silver-throated frontman. If his vocals dont shatter glass, its only because theyre too intent on eliciting goose bumps. Leithauser uses his voice as an instrument that complements his bands airy yet intense playing, not as a cudgel that lumps passive listeners on the sides of their heads. His mission is three-fold: to lift you to the rafters; to commission the requisite shaking and rattling; and then to reveal the arenas false ceiling. For the Walkmen, the sky isnt the limit; its merely a good starting point. On this account, Heaven doesnt disappoint. As its title would imply, the song is a high-altitude number, both in sound and substance. Many characteristics carry over from 2010s Lisbon, on which the Walkmen employed a jangle that was charged with a mild exoticism one that was less indicative of the Portuguese capital than an island in the South Pacific. Heaven is a more conventional rock single, full of bounce and bass
9

drive. Its not so much peppy as propulsive, channeling an insistent groove which serves to tighten the chimey guitar chords that the Walkmen have recently put on patent. Sonically, Heaven recalls Juveniles and Victory, only with a little more pace and a little less anguish. I think I can pinpoint why the Walkmen sound best in the wee hours of the morning: They have what virtually every other indie band aspires to but lacks a sense of the heroic. They can do epic without a horn section or Mutt Langecaliber production values. The band bring to bear an unassailable gravitas, largely on the strength of Leithausers gallant vocals. Listen to Heavens first lines: Our children will always hear/Romantic tales of distant years. Leithauser delivers them quickly and clearly, as one imagines Homer might have sung the prologue to his Iliad. In fact, the sense I get pushes beyond the heroic to the Homeric. The Walkmens best songs, from The Rat to Angela Surf City, are flush with the qualities that Matthew Arnold attributed to Ancient Greeces most laurelled poet. Here I speak of rapidity, plainness, and nobility or, in a more modern and convenient construction, a kind of no-nonsense verse that pauses only for colorful epithets. By and large, Leithauser follows this species of muse. Not for him are obscure Dylanisms like jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule; more his speed is Dont leave me/Youre my best friend, a couplet that Heaven repeats unblinkingly. The words must be simple because the stakes are too exalted to afford confusion. If the Dont leave me plea isnt a naked supplication, I dont know what is. Theres humility and heroism alike in Leithausers lines, as if he were Hector, tamer of horses, summoning all his mortal power to cajole his cad of a brother, Paris, for the final showdown with their Greek enemies. The fact that death may be on the horizon is merely evidence that heaven isnt too far away. Yes, I acknowledge that those last five words were, if you will, unwarranted, but I didnt want us to drift too far into some numinous mythos. Ultimately, Heaven is a song that triumphs by keeping its earthly tether. The Walkmen, like U2, succeed on account of their elemental fluidity; they can move from the stars to the soil in one quick downstroke. Pop music needs such polymorphous talents, particularly those who can remain on the radar while coasting above the turbulence of our insidiously anticharismatic Top 40. This void is so gaping that its willing to accept a hero with a name so stilted and patrician as Hamilton Leithauser. Is it just me, or does the moniker seem to belong to the antagonist in a Whit Stillman film? Because, lets be clear, Leithauser and company dont derive from peasant stock. Four of the five Walkmen attended St. Albans preparatory school in Washington, D.C., alma mater to the likes of Al Gore and Brit Hume, not to mention several Rockefellers and Roosevelts. A man of my station is inclined to rend his garments when faced with such news, but, rock and roll being the great democratizer that it is, Im content to look past the moneyed roots of the Walkmen and the Strokes, of Arcade Fire and Mumford & Sons. Sometimes you need the great and the good to do the great and the good. The Walkmen certainly hold up their end of the bargain. They make exceptional and accessible pop music, an entity that has historically constituted a blow to the barriers which separate gender from gender, race from race, and class from class. Theres a modicum of heroism in each deft verse and lofty chorus. The passion seeps through, and its colors are unmistakable.

10

Looking at the Walkmen, I see hues that cover the whole of the Pantone palette wheel. Listening to them, Im imbued with the spirit that makes me bullish on pop music. They dont scheme or settle; with Leithauser and company, all you get is all theyve got. This morning, I heartily appreciate the effort. Im confident you will, too. (May 4, 2012) Blonds, Run Let me begin with a muddled disclosure: The subject of this piece is less Blonds new single Run than pop musics dangerous curves. A little over a month ago, I indicated that I was bullish on the going stock of leaks, streams, and mp3s. This optimism wasnt heedless; it was grounded in the knowledge that my feelings would change with transitions in psyche and season. Left unsaid was my suspicion that such shifts in temperament apply to the artistic gestalt as well as the individual listener. Simply put, sometimes pop is aglitter with fresh gems, other times its rendered dull by safe, samesounding fare. At the moment, my serendipity index is registering at a quarterly low. Last week, I picked up the most recent album by the Walkmen, and found it to be quite good. But I expected it to be quite good, as the Walkmen are an eminently reliable band, making eminently reliable music. Their efforts needed to be garnished by sprigs of herb and dashes of spice that is, supplementary material which added flair and flavor to Heavens steady-rocking appeal. Several music titans sauntered up to fill this void. Big Boi dropped a mellifluous (if prurient) one-off number, and Fiona Apple loosed a small train of well-written piano ballads. This work is solid. Only Im not looking for solidity; what I need is a hint of the rapture. As the trade in the bold and the beautiful slackens, my bull turns to bear, and Im resigned to listen to my old Clash and Smiths records. (At least Morrissey still has some fangs, albeit fangs used in the service of bitchy asides and violent vegetarianism.) In this asterisk-laden context, Blonds Run seeps through the static to score a direct hit. Its smoky, sultry, and hypnotic, adhering to a delayed-release formula which deftly builds from stark verse to swirling crescendo. Blonds are a girl/boy duo from West Palm Beach, Florida; they are not, however, disciples of the Jimmy Buffet Cheeseburger in Paradise school. Cari Rae and Jordy Asher make smart, artisanal indie. Their music aspires to the condition of water, in the manner of Tennis, just without the smiley arrangements or the penchant for Sixties revivalism. The first time I heard Run, I thought it sounded like a new release from Cults, yet another girl/boy ensemble with an ear for tone and texture. Cari Raes voice resembles Madeline Folins, but not to a fault. Run travels by the tread of its own sneakers, packing a sharp, rolling guitar figure that kicks up a Country/Western vibe by which I mean outlaw country, like the theme to a cowboy movie directed by David Lynch. Ashers riff imparts the impression that some serious gun-slinging shit is about to go down. But when the track reaches its high noon, the tension is released with a shimmering chorus, not a hail of bullets. Thats the glory of the single: It creeps along quietly, never allowing its spurs to jingle or jangle; then, as if on cue, it sprints desperately toward the city limits. Rae and Asher want out, and fast. Their deliberate intro was a sneaky misdirection, designed to lure us into a narrative of
11

flight. Consider this hook a success. As for the intended escape, well, thats just another desperate plan tossed to the winds of the cosmos. I will not claim to be an expert on Blonds. In fact, Blonds may not even be experts on Blonds. The group is a rather new project, begun during the tail end of last year and lent credibility through the posting of a free EP. This Dark Roots collection is a fine prism through which to peep current trends in pop music. Young bands seem to be operating by an Odd Future logic, in which a self-recorded mixtape is uploaded to a proprietary website and soft PR tactics are used to draw the attention of a semi-prominent culture blog. In Blonds case, the methodology worked: Amrit Singh of Stereogum named them A Band to Watch after clicking through a link to the Rae/Asher Bandcamp, thinking that the communication concerned the group Blondes. For the record, Blondes make electronic dance music of the hipster house variety, all noodle and pulse. Blonds prefer more conventional experiments in indie pop, with verse, chorus, and bridge each holding up its part of the bargain. Rae and Asher are here to entertain you, not to test your patience or to spin your disco ball. Their Dark Roots EP, running six songs and 23 minutes, is a pleasant introduction to their aesthetic. Run, however, is an order of magnitude better. It feels like their first proper release, a simple song made memorable and mesmeric by the counsel of producer Nico Vernhes, whos worked with Dirty Projectors, Deerhunter, and Grizzly Bear, among others. The track says its peace in three minutes, but rambles on for 4:30, if only to sustain its buzz for an additional rotation. It seems to hope that the listener will stay in thrall to its charms, strutting like a pretty girl who takes a second pass through the barroom, just to confirm her admirers suspicions. Blonds have stated that their music is but a day dream in a dreary-painted world. Im not sure I agree, with either the sentiment or the copy editing. (By my reading, it should be daydream and drearily painted, but Im hardly an authority on the matter.) Based on the evidence Ive heard, through laptop speaker and headphone, Run has power and presence in the here and now; its strength is to move from hollow to whole with an animal grace. Ashers chugging guitar primes our endocrine system for a burst of teenage adrenaline, a hormone that affects nervous systems of the sympathetic and unsympathetic alike. This rush is as old as rock and roll, and its been used for purposes vulgar and artful. Quiet and loud are among the most important ingredients in the reigning sonic recipe. Their interplay is, in a sense, the essence of the beat drop culture that rules contemporary pop. Todays DJs twist and twist and twist until, suddenly and gloriously, they shout. All twist or all shout is mere barbaric egotism. What people want are some light introductions, some stretching and jogging, before the athletes lock into their blocks and the starters pistol is fired. Then wed better run like the dickens. It can be argued that rock music was born to run. The verb pops up over and over again in the American songbook, from Chuck Berrys Run Rudolph Run to, say, Kanye Wests Runaway. Blonds settle into a middle sphere, capturing their foot work in slow motion. When Run reaches its brief, compelling instrumental section, Asher leans on some of the lessons learned from Pink Floyds On the Run and Run Like Hell that is, use of echo and dark-side gloaming, so as to hint that the putative daydream might be a nightmare. Thankfully, Raes voice is supple and romantic, qualities which conspire to keep us a few thoughts away from existential crisis. In the end, Run is nothing more or
12

less than a pop song, tilting toward indie on account of the curvature of demotic taste, not because of some anti-commercial ethic. This brings me to my ultimate question: Would I have noticed Blonds had this months indie crop been more fertile? To be honest, I dont know. My job, as I see it, is to stand at a distance, pencil in hand, and trace pop musics voluptuous figure. Some of the curves are sexy and exhilarating; others are indicative of a medium thats too well fed, and thus replete with folds of unsightly fat. When times are good, we get a wonderful Rubens painting, with plenty of rosy flesh to go around. When times are bad, we get a Lucian Freud portrait, where the model appears at once skeletal and obese. Run is neither sterling nor sickly; its not quite fit to entice Rubens full-figured maidens, but far too good looking to sit alongside Freuds melting grotesques. Itll occupy a favored position on my current playlist for another week or two. Then, alas, it will run its course. Theres no shame or infamy in that. Blonds task is to make their retreat only temporary, to come back strong with the next curve. The band has certainly left a blip on my radar screen. Im cautiously optimistic that theyll return, bearing something between filler and rapture. Until then, its back to the drawing board, for both artist and listener. Rae and Asher are poised to build on their auspicious first sketch. What awaits is a mad dash to a finish line of their own devising. Theyve got the pace and the pedigree. All they need are a little good fortune and a sturdy pair of running shoes. (June 9, 2012) Usher, Climax Now that Whitney Houston has finally been laid to rest, and all the attendant encomia have been broadcast, a few words of critical perspective are in order. Lets start with the obvious: Whitney possessed one of the strongest and most beautiful voices pop music had ever heard. She could shatter glass, reach rafters, elicit goose bumps all the clichs hold up, however trite their delivery or frequent their repetition. Ultimately, however, Whitneys story should be divided into equal parts sound and fury. Were pleased to have been party to her remarkable talent, but angry that she didnt get the chance to let it shine with a more dignified ration of luster. Here I refer not only to the scandals of her later years, but also to the studio treatments that bowdlerized many of her most popular songs. Id argue that Whitney was undone by two things: controlled substances and production values. The first took her life; the second mangled her art. And both should be regarded as agents of destruction. As a student of rock and roll history, Im not shocked by premature death, be it by bullet or chemical misadventure. In my lifetime, more stars have slipped from their orbits than merit counting. Each fall is as tragic as it is inevitable a function of too much, too soon, the showbiz fate that manages to inflate heads and boggle minds simultaneously. Despite the demystifying effects of reality TV and the social media, it should remain apparent that our icons of entertainment are not the least bit like us. In addition to harboring extraordinary talents, they hold the assets to assemble and maintain a large retinue of sycophants, confidants, and collaborators. Whitney, clearly, had two pushermen: Bobby Brown, who facilitated her rendezvous with oblivion, and Clive
13

Davis, who slathered her voice over some of the most egregious smooth jazz and active pop instrumentals of the last 30 years. In looking back at Houstons storied discography, we come face to face with an inconvenient truth: Her songs were disserved by their beats, which never matched the majesty of the attendant vocals. RCA/Jive flirted with every non-threatening tone in their archive of synths, thus ensuring that Houston would fail to develop a signature sound. This is no huge betrayal, as she could always display her singular voice in an alternate medium, be it film or the 50 yard line. But when subsequent generations stumble across Whitneys canon, dont you wish they could point to a stripped-down Muscle Shoals record an intense, honest LP in the style of Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding? For Gods sake, Clive, why didnt you just let the woman sing? Houston was a natural beauty with supernatural inflection. She didnt need to be painted like a whore, then marketed like a commodity. Her records only hint at what she was capable of. I issue these opinions not merely for posterity but for the creative well-being of contemporary R&B. The form has few bigger stars than Usher Raymond, that smooththroated crooner of post-millennial party-starters. Usher can hit every note in the avian choir book and dance with all the alacrity of a jungle cat. What he cant do, however, is write a song thats not studded with a stacked roster of special guests. Look at his four top-selling mp3s on iTunes: Without You (a collab with David Guetta), DJ Got Us Fallin In Love (feat. Pitbull), Yeah! (with Lil Jon and Ludacris), and OMG (with will.i.am). Each track can justly be called reactionary, a response to whos hot with the youth demographic and whats trending in the sonics of pop, dance, and electronica. By playing the eager partner, Usher runs the risk of losing his individual identity and stunting his artistic growth. He might be typecast as a high-profile hook man or 1-verse vocalist, content to play second fiddle on what are ostensibly his own records. Again, the production values threaten to undo the voice theyre supposed to support. Climax might seem a return to the precameo-crazy Usher. It exists in the sphere where the singer made his name: slow jam R&B. But when we take a quick look at the production credits, we see that the song has a pair of very special guests. Diplo, the international beat sensation, mans the boards, providing a pulse fit for a Top 40 love ballad. And Nico Muhly, a nu-school classical composer whos more likely to be profiled by the New Yorker than, say, Rolling Stone, handles the instrumental arrangement. This rather mercenary outsourcing sets my main gripe about Usher in stark relief: he prefers groping for the zeitgeist to dictating the terms of play. This puts his songs in jeopardy of becoming disparate artifacts from ephemeral scenes. By neglecting to build his own aesthetic, he forsakes his talent to the caprices of the marketplace. In 25 years, his work could sound as dated as Greatest Love of All, just without the vocal high-wire act. For all this talk of credits, Climax is most colored by someone who wont be listed in the singles liner notes: Abel Tesfaye of the Weeknd. The song is an informal mainstreaming of the Weeknds under-the-radar but all-over-the-blogosphere atmospherics. Usher sets his gorgeous falsetto astride moody, hazy, teched-up textures. The tracks anxious undercurrent contrasts nicely with Raymonds confident vocals; this style is in vogue with your Kanyes and your Drakes technical proficiency amid sadsack beats. Still, everybody hates a tourist, especially one whos a bit of a miser with his
14

travelers checks. If Climax becomes genuinely popular, I doubt that its fans will seek an audience with the Weeknd. Pop moves a bit too fast for earnest reflection. Only when a talent leaves us do the rank and file turn their attention to legacy. Which brings us back to Whitney. At the moment, Houston is remembered as a one-ina-million singer who died an all-too-common death. Yet when news of her passing broke, and the various media outlets went scrambling for stock video, they were forced to choose between images of a young Whitney with a ridiculous weave and pictures of an older Whitney in garish make-up. In each iteration she looked the consummate actress, playing spokesmodel for the reigning line of synths. Her handlers never offered her a chance at purity, at true gospel. I take no pleasure in reporting that the most poignant item bearing the Houston name was, almost certainly, her funeral. There were no synths in Newark on Saturday, merely a sense of community, musical and religious, thats unique to the Baptist church. The afternoons production values were just right which is to say that they were virtually nonexistent. Id like to see Usher take a lesson from Houstons final curtain. Generally speaking, studio adornments should be reserved for experimental, effects-laden records (e.g., Revolution #9, Dark Side of the Moon) and visual artists who feel compelled to traffic in sound (e.g., Britney Spears, Madonna). Soul and R&B are where we go for absolution. A beautiful voice is priceless, but, as Sam Cooke realized after hearing Bob Dylan, its not as valuable or lasting as a truthful one. Usher should hit the pause button until he comes to a similar epiphany. What he needs to learn is something simple: You can impact popular culture or popular culture can impact you. You can be a pioneer or a reactionary, a leader or a follower. But you cant be both at the same time. Mr. Raymond has the gifts to break new ground, but his career strategies seem predicated on skillful plunder and savvy partnerships. Climax is a fine track with a sharp pedigree. In the end, however, it cant help but link back to the same old song and dance. Usher should break this pernicious cycle before its swirling machinations turn him into another disposable hero. Hes got the voice to secure his own legacy. Its high time he used it. (February 20, 2012) Frank Ocean, Swim Good Im not in the business of issuing awards. But if I were called upon by some vaunted Academy or half-baked television network to dole out a piece of commemorative hardware, Id proudly anoint Frank Ocean as Pop Musics Rookie of the Year. This award would come with the typical asterisk: Ocean is not entirely new, so his status as an According to Hoyle rookie is open to debate. He released commercial material prior to 2011, having been signed to Def Jam as a solo artist under his birth name, Christopher Breaux. The intrepid Mr. Breaux contributed to songs that were brought to market, however quietly, by the likes of Brandy Norwood, John Legend, and Justin Bieber. Only after he tapped his inner Ocean did the young fellas floodgates begin to open.
15

We can be thankful for this deluge. Since joining the Odd Future collective in 2010, Frank Ocean has been on a creative tear. Hes moved from collaborating with Tyler & Company to supplying hooks for Beyonc and The Throne. In other words, little man got called up to the majors, and hes been swinging for the fences ever since. His first two singles from this years Nostalgia, Ultra mixtape were tape-measure shots to dead center: Novacane is the best R&B song Ive heard in quite some time, and Thinking About You is a many-splendored pop ballad, fit for the lusty bedroom or a private interlude with your headphones. Oceans latest work, Swim Good isnt quite as compelling as its antecedents, but it easily outclasses the drivel thats being slung by the likes of Chris Brown and Usher. Oceans strength isnt a look or a dance craze; its a sensibility. He can express vulnerability and command in the same note, proving that doubt and swagger are not intrinsically irreconcilable. Franks magic works as a shadowplay; his music has a tenebristic quality, in which dark and light, melancholy and movement, strike a mellifluous balance, speaking to your head and your heart rather than your hips. Swim Good strokes out a slow burn. There are no Lex Luger whoomp-whoomps or LMFAO synth blips, just 808 drums and a buzz-adorned church organ. The track feels organic without settling for the cubby holes of retro R&B. Ocean is showing a way forward that isnt heavy-handedly futuristic or derivative. (Listen up, will.i.am.) Swim Good is powered by man rather than machine, by active emotion rather than idle motion. The songs central appeal is the interplay between verse and chorus specifically, Oceans inimical control of cadence and word. His melody rolls swiftly and smoothly until he places a divot in the road. Listen to him sing funeral in the build-up to the chorus; Frank chops the word into two sections: fnah and ral. Thats his talent in microcosm to elongate the melodic line, like a running back who extends his arms before being brought to the turf, thus thrusting the ball beyond the first-down marker. Tactically speaking, the point to take away is that not every play has to result in a touchdown. Sometimes, you just need to keep the drive alive, to sustain the momentum. Swim Good picks up a few yards and enables an informal moving of the chains. Pretty soon, were going to need to hear an LP. Until then, weve got a full plate of killer teasers, eliciting eager head bobs and loud heartbeats. Its going to be an odd future, and Im pleased to have Frank Ocean lending some class and craft to our bonanza of the bizarre. His debut album makes the prospect of 2012 a little less daunting. Heres to hoping it lands with a splash. (November 22, 2011) Coldplay, Princess of China Coldplay are the Mitt Romney of contemporary rock and roll: Although nobody seems to support them with any measure of genuine conviction, Chris Martin and company would likely emerge in the pole position if the Anglo-American world were forced to elect its favorite post-millennial rock band. This is, in part, a commentary on the sorry
16

state of 21st Century rock and roll the form has been neutered, metrosexualized, and ankle-braceleted. But its also a reaction to the brilliant but difficult incumbent, Radiohead, who make progressive art without regard for popular tastes. Many rock fans believe that Radioheads retreat from conventional melody and verse-chorus-verse song structures represents an abdication. Coldplay, thus, are a right-place, right-time band. At the moment, guitar-based musics brass ring is hanging conspicuously low. And Martin no stranger to high-profile scores (see his wife) has reached out and grabbed it. To Coldplay, I offer a cautious congratulations. I admire their energy and activism, but cant help noticing that theyre a little light on elite-echelon material. For my money, the group have produced just two rock-solid singles: The Scientist and Viva La Vida, the first somber and arresting, the second imbued by an infectious digital jaunt. Their latest release, Princess of China, can be conceived as a distracted muddle of these two hits. It pairs the formers plodding pace with the latters electric ambition, resulting in a synthtacular haze that clouds the guest vocal from pops go-to hook girl, Rihanna. Though its not The Scientist, the track does use the scientific method, opting for experimentation followed by data analysis. Unfortunately, Im not sure the numbers add up. The songs staticky rhythms and stuttering synths neither affirm our daily grind nor mystify the royal experience. The music sounds like One Night in Bangkok grafted onto Baltimora, wherein the exotic is Anglicized into a neat jungle of accidental sterility. Princess of China, alas, makes no sense as a title: Rihanna is no junior heiress of the Orient; shes a full-fledged Caribbean Queen. And Coldplay arent attendants to court intrigue; theyre simply a decent, red-blooded pop band, adrift in the streams of the social media. This, of course, is where we find our out. Coldplay cannot be anointed the Worlds Greatest Rock Band because theyre technically not a rock band. They traffic in digital pop, and Princess resembles Sade more so than, say, the Rolling Stones. Perhaps Coldplay are actually pundits rather than candidates, paid for their ongoing testimony, not their ability to manage essential responsibilities. The band perpetuates old arguments instead of providing novel answers. Theres certainly no shame in this predicament. But theres no glory, either. (October 19, 2011) Animal Collective, Todays Supernatural My initial reaction to Animal Collectives Todays Supernatural was one of stark and harried confusion. I asked myself, possibly aloud, certainly repeatedly, What in Sam Hill is going on here? The song seemed designed to throw its listener for a loop, presuming to spin in multiple directions simultaneously, even as the tape rolled onward in straight time. It felt as if I were hearing the testimony of a malfunctioning merry-goround, whereby a mechanism of light amusement was programmed to spiral towards sonic bedlam. In short, I didnt care for the single or its compositional style. Todays Supernatural was just a bit too contrived for my palate. Looking at the songs title, I
17

was inclined to replace the Super with an Un. I detected no touch of the divine, just a manic medley of mortals, each intent on messing with me. Confusion is not a bad thing in and of itself. There are few more satisfying transitions than that of the furrowed brow suddenly morphed into wide eyes and an open mouth. If youre a slightly esoteric musician, by all means, come at me with your inscrutable wares, and do your best to chisel away at my aural defenses. With me, skepticism often turns to admiration, frequently at a moments notice. When I was younger, I placed a cruel muzzle on such notable acts as Suicide, Captain Beefheart, the Smiths, and LCD Soundsystem. They rubbed me the wrong way, sometimes for years, before finally flipping the proper switches of recognition. As such, they went from exiles to heroes in a single sweep of Eureka! I genuinely hope that Animal Collective follow in this vaunted tradition. Nine albums into their career, however, I just cant relate to the groups music. As regards Todays Supernatural, Im no longer confused so much as disappointed, perhaps even disgusted. Having streamed the single about 10 times, I cant help but think that its the last song I need to hear during this oh-so-contentious election year. The idealist in me felt that indie rock would greet 2012 with a series of brilliant political albums; instead, the form sounds oddly disengaged, opting to offer art for arts sake rather than songs in the key of contemporary life. Where indie has tilted political, its been only in the politics of the person (see Frank Oceans Bad Religion) or in the recriminations of presidencies past (see Killer Mikes Reagan). Animal Collective dont even do us the favor of acknowledging that theyre a terrestrial band. They appear to envy a position on some far-flung astral plane, where they might confer with the constellations and eat copious amounts of freeze-dried LSD. I truly appreciate their efforts to reach for the stars, but Im not sure their booster rockets pack quite enough torque. Todays Supernatural is definitely a stratospheric composition; the problem is that weve been floating in this stratosphere for quite some time now. The various agents of propulsion the digital dyspepsia, the freaky-styley psychedelics, the noodle-pop wiggle, the Caribbean herky-jerky push the track laterally but not forward. The song imagines Pavement crossed with Passion Pit. This is a notion perhaps better left repressed, especially when the resulting compound is subsequently given a Diplo-style remix. (Im exaggerating a little, but the beat is kind of heavy for indie.) Its important for me to admit that Im not an Animal Collective enthusiast. Accordingly, I might be predisposed toward hearing this single in the wrong frequency. Moreover, I probably lack an adequate understanding of the bands history and discography to write intelligently about their work. But even when placed in such a generous frame, Todays Supernatural seems less bold than predictable. It might have initially left me flummoxed, but I managed to regain my mental homeostasis rather quickly. The antic, repetitive wobble, alternately dazed and daring, was not an altogether new flavor. It reminded me of some of the cuts off MGMTs swiftly forgotten Congratulations LP, in particular Flash Delirium, which flickered, pulsed, and sprinted with all the kinetic energy of an Olympic athlete. Flash Delirium is, to my ear, both the better song and the better song title. It describes what Todays Supernatural is: weird, wonky, fleeting, multivariate, lustrous. Animal Collectives single is less sleepy and fog-shrouded than MGMTs, but the tunes share a spectacularly hesitancy to choose a genre.
18

Of course, the pop connoisseur is obliged to point out that the boundary lines between art are a false construct imposed by petit-bourgeois rule mongers. But this explanation shouldnt be used to cover weaknesses in the art under review. Too much of Todays Supernatural is about mood rather than music. The stuttered Let go! line is electrocharged and explosive, but its momentum dissipates as the track lurches ahead, unsure of its path or footing. Avey Tare is in reasonably good voice. His suburban caterwaul builds toward an occasional scream, but its the sort of scream that derives from the throat and the nose, not the heart. The vocals are just a bit too emo. Avey shouts like hes auditioning for the frontman position in Thursday. For better or for worse, that shipped sailed about eight years ago, to very little fanfare. I realize that Animal Collective bring a formidable amount of nuance to their records. I cant claim to be their equal on matters of sound layering or track sequencing; in fact, were I to enter their studio, Id probably be hard pressed to acquire the faintest notion of what was going on. I appreciate this tendency toward the baroque, just not at the expense of underlying coherence. With its various twists and reels, Todays Supernatural seems to score a really bad video game, one involving race cars, zombies, and surreal changes in scenery. I havent been able to get through the whole of Merriweather Post Pavilion, so maybe this odd mlange of techy noises is a logical extension of the bands previous album. My impression, however, is that Merriweather was an indie rock foray into the world of Brian Wilson, lent energy by soaring harmonies and deft digital effects. Panda Bears recent LP, Tomboy, holds a full flight of songs that can be described as gorgeous more hymnal than hipster, despite several knotty and dissonant instrumentals. Todays Supernatural tugs in a different direction, fashioning a recalibration which, at the theoretical level, is not only permitted but encouraged. Indie rock loves new sounds. They just have to show a pilgrims progress from their point of departure. For me, Animal Collective have scurried off the map, precisely at the time when an occupation of the capital is necessary. Again, I cite pop musics current trend toward escapism and indulgence. It appears that the form is incapable of rallying behind any cause more impactful than gay marriage. This is discouraging, as is Avey Tares failure to channel his passions into a meaningful message. He yells, Sometimes youve got to get mad! At whom? And to what purpose? I fear that too many indie acts have othered themselves, meaning that theyve recused their music from the conversations that matter, and are intent on maintaining niche connections with a limited audience. Say what you will about Bruce Springsteen, but theres no ambiguity in Wrecking Ball, the flawed but earnest album that hes been touring behind for the past five months. When the Boss is angry, you can be damn sure that his ire will register and his enemies will be named (even if theyre referred to as robber barons or greedy thieves.) Animal Collective have the requisite animal instincts, but theyre missing the collective soul. Heres the first sentence from their Wikipedia page: Animal Collective is an experimental psychedelic band originally from Baltimore, Maryland, currently based in New York City, Los Angeles and Lisbon. The group has four members and three home bases. No wonder their recent songs sound so disjointed. Ultimately, I gather that Im asking too much of Animal Collective. Scroll down the aforementioned Wikipedia dispatch and youll see that the bands various members
19

were the products of progressive schooling and permissive parenting. Such factors tend to have a positive correlation with robust individualism and a hearty amount of recreational drug use. A turn on, tune in, drop out ethic wins the day, and this yearning to transcend makes the here and now almost immaterial. Todays Supernatural is, purposely, not of this world. Some might consider this its greatest strength. I consider it a disqualifier. In August of 2012, I dont want to hear a single that imagines Iron Butterfly scoring a Red Stripe commercial. As the song plays, I picture Animal Collective floating along Baltimores Inner Harbor, staring at the City Aquariums giant lobsters, cleverly dressed and immaculately stoned. I wish the boys a good trip; but, in the real world, were less than 100 hundred days from ushering in a Romney presidency. (Yes, Im calling the election for Mitt, despite the distemper that the projection stirs in my stomach.) Do you think that someone with ready access to the indie standard might offer even a short tract of commentary on President Max Headroom? (Or at least pull a Phil Collins, and cop to a Land of Confusion?) Perhaps Animal Collective have done the calculations and settled on a strategy: If you cant beat em, join em. Theyve never been a political band, and they arent about to form an action committee this late in their career. I guess Im OK with this. But I dont have to like it. A wise writer would have ended his essay there. But I want to make one final point, even if Im fated to do it clumsily. The music world is impossibly wide, and the Internet provides each sonic sphere with a limitless ceiling. These dimensions are so immense that they more or less preclude a resonant echo. The fallout is that music is easy to make but difficult to hear. There are simply too many choices and too much turnover. So, when a band is fortunate enough to acquire a level of distinction, I think they inherit a responsibility. They have to provide their audience with an answer. Not the answer, but an answer. And its perfectly acceptable for this answer to be, I have no answer! Whats not acceptable is the forfeiture or the muddling of ones office. Animal Collective irk me because they seem to want to bear the mantle of important band without saying anything particularly important. Their music is less a shining star than a black hole. It purports to contain mysteries and multitudes, but, upon repeated listens, the sound resembles a siren from another dimension, imploring you to blast off toward a final frontier of someone elses devising. Me, Im more concerned with the next hurdle, and how were going to jump it. I look to the arts for clues that augur or underpin a manageable path. When I dont find these clues or even a hint that such clues might exist or have merit I become frustrated. Today, Im frustrated with Animal Collective. Tomorrow, I imagine Ill move on to another target. (August 1, 2012) Bruce Springsteen, We Take Care of Our Own Writing about Bruce Springsteen is a thankless task, particularly if you live in New Jersey even more particularly if you, like me, live in Asbury Park. Its not that words fail; its that text is the wrong channel of expression. Springsteen mustnt merely be listened to and critiqued; he must be affirmed, through an action than one might adjudge to be larger than oneself. After streaming a few of the Boss socially conscious
20

anthems, you want to work a double-shift at the local oil refinery, to fire off an angry letter to your senior senator, to march on something (anything!) big, if only to stare it down with all the intensity a pair of human eyes can afford. So it is with We Take Care of Our Own, Springsteens first slice of new material in just under three years. Yesterday morning, upon hearing its sharp call to duty, I was inspired to take a brief leave from my office and search for some meager act of civic responsibility. As it happened, I could only escort a few elderly women across a busy thoroughfare, so that they might reach one of our towns many Dollar Stores without suffering grievous bodily harm. This good deed was probably slightly less ambitious than what the Boss had in mind. But, still, its a start, and not one to be discounted. Speaking of starts, We Take Care of Our Own has one thats vaguely unique in the Springsteen canon: It opens in the manner of David Bowies Heroes, with kick drums giving way to a looping whir, as if an alarm were ringing to wake the complacent. It ends in a decidedly different fashion: with the conviction that we must become the people weve been waiting for, largely by renegotiating the terms of citizenship for the country we hold in our hearts. The Boss message isnt We can be heroes, just for one day; its We need to be heroes, each and every day, so as to render the heroic ordinary. In more topical language, Yes, we can! has been replaced by Hell, we have to! Bruce isnt going to stand idly as the world stands in stasis. Hes going to set the machine in motion himself, with calloused hands and a furrowed brow. Ive got to admit that Im a sucker for this sort of thing. When a major artist speaks out against the cynicism of the times, against the strained logic of the open market, against the toothless policies of his political allies hes showing me a courage I can understand and admire. The first words Bruce sings in Take Care are I been knocking on the door that holds the throne, an image that one cant help but square with the prim interior of the White House. Three years ago, Springsteen was President Obamas go-to musician, the guitar and voice of the changing of the guard. Now Bruce is a few layers removed from the corridors of power, by choice rather than circumstance. His loyalty is to his politics, not his politician, and this distinction is highlighted in couplets such as I been stumbling on good hearts turned to stone/The road of good intentions has gone dry as a bone. Good enough isnt good enough for the Boss. Lip service is a disservice; which means that it simply wont do, however eloquent or engaging the speaker. And that, in short, is what Take Care is all about: The failure of America to live up to the grace and grandeur of its ideals. The song will be misinterpreted, of course. Its already being hailed as an affirmation of national glory, as a song replete with flags [and] loyalty oaths. One cant be sure whether these reviews are the product of willful ignorance or reflexive patriotism; either way, theyre wrong, but eminently forgivable. Take Care is an anthem in the tradition of Born In the U.S.A.: the music is so commanding, and the chorus so compelling, that the banner which the singer waves becomes blurred by the breeze of hot breath and Star Spangled salutes. We take care of our own sounds like a declaration of shared purpose and national pride. In reality, its a firm admonishment, reminding us of our shortcomings from Chicago to New Orleans, from the shotgun shack to the Superdome. Bruce posits that our stars need a polish, that our stripes require a fresh coat of paint. If this song is a flag pin, its one that sits on the lapel at half mast. We
21

grieve our loss of prestige, but, more pointedly, we lament the forfeiture of the American promise that social contract which states that if we work hard and play by the rules, a dignified life will be our reward. To lament, however, is not the same as to surrender. Springsteen is among Americas favorite singer-songwriters because he imbues each track with hope, with an escape route from the current source of despair. Bruce doesnt deliver lectures so much as pep talks, and Take Care is one of his inimitable backs against the wall, heads held high exhortations. Musically, it maintains many of the textures from 2006s Magic, arguably Springsteens best record since his mid-Eighties glory days. The single mixes the forward-leaning postures of Youll Be Coming Down with the clear-eyed gravity of Long Walk Home, but it settles in a sphere all its own. Springsteen has been writing about economic hardship for longer than many of us have lived, and hes keen to the difference between unadorned, acoustic truth telling and raging, stadium-sized singalongs. Take Care is more of the latter than the former, but it touches both bases, then sets off for a third. Its been 30 years since they closed down the auto plant in Mahwah, and more than 25 since the textile mill cross the railroad tracks was similarly shuttered. One gets a sense that Bruce is tired of composing songs of a redundant theme, but that he wouldnt think of stopping until conditions improve. Hes an earnest songsmith, with earnest aims. Which is why Take Care should be considered a departure from the norm, given its tones of mild mockery. As Christopher Phillips of Backstreets points out, the We take care of our own chorus can be heard as cuttingly ironic: we dont. Phillips review is the most thoughtful and complete of the Take Care critiques Ive encountered thus far. I intentionally waited 24 hours to air my own thoughts, as I didnt want to type out a breathless encomium while floating in Bruce-besotted splendor. With a days remove, I find my opinions aligning with the true believers at Backstreets. Most music journalists know a great deal about Bruce Springsteen and his storied discography. They can tell you that he was discovered by the legendary John Hammond II of Columbia Records, that he made the covers of Time and Newsweek long before he breached the borders of the Billboard Top 40, that hes actually from Freehold, New Jersey, not Asbury Park. Phillips and company take their subject a bit more seriously. They can tell you what Bruce had for breakfast. On January 7th. Of 1983. I mention this only to underscore the cult of fanaticism that is more or less exclusive to Springsteen. Teenage girls will pierce their navels for Lady Gaga or inscribe insipid messages on their hands for Taylor Swift, but grown men will dash into traffic for Bruce, either to save the vulnerable or assist the indigent. Springsteens music is aspirational: It tells us that the distance between who we are and who wed like to be isnt so far that it cant be covered by the tread of our own two feet. Again, its our action, our effort, that counts, not our words. Springsteen is the most Catholic of rock stars: He argues that faith, while essential, is merely one line of the cross. There must be works as well, and they must be good. Otherwise, whats the point of all the piety? Take Care is that rare rocker that appeals to the heart rather than the loins. It does the job of progressive journalism, which is to affront the comfortable and comfort the affronted. But it also revises the moral responsibility of popular art, which is to demystify but not to demoralize, to push aside the competing conspiracies and get at the
22

essence of truth. Take Care is a sonic embodiment of empowerment; the song neither bullies nor flatters, neither boxes us in nor leaves us alone. The Boss plays catalyst to a narrative of potential: He makes a move, and were free to ignore him, follow him, or take his example and do it one better. The past may be prologue, but, as the late, great Joe Strummer often said, The future is unwritten. This future is stark and more than a little scary, but I wouldnt trust its dialogue to any other author but Bruce. He has the courage of his convictions, and, through their display, he gives us the strength to stand behind ours. In the end, the task finally falls on us: We can stand up, united; or stand down, divided. The first option speaks to our better angels; the second, to our harsher demons. We have to live with them both thats our burden, and our blessing. If we lose sight of good and evil, of right and wrong, we sacrifice what it means to be human. And that would be neither sacred nor profane, just tragic. (January 20, 2012) EMA, Take One Two Its typical of Americans to consider their predicament atypical. I suppose this phenomenon is a byproduct of our individualist society, through which claims to liberty and choice all too often devolve into garish advertisements for solipsism. Dont get me wrong: Im not the type to hate on America or its ideals. (To quote the honorable Steven Van Zandt, I love my country, because my country is all I know largely due to my stubborn inability to afford an extra-continental vacation.) That said, what I dont like about the contemporary socio-political environment is the notion that All men are created equal should, as a matter of practical translation, be made to mean Every man for himself. Thats not the America I signed up for. Nor is it one for which Id be willing to settle. This mentality is affirmed in the latest EMA production, a stark single called Take One Two, which the artist wrote in tribute to her left-of-normal friends from high school. The song is ostensibly an ode to anti-bullying, but it works just as well as a paean to all thats outcast and misfit. EMA encourages rather than chides, and, impressively, puts her money where her mouth is. All proceeds from the mp3s sales will go to the Jamie Isaacs Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the care and counsel of bullied teenagers. This is quite a generous gesture, and one thats oddly in tune with the times, as hard and soft harassment of high schoolers seems to be a trending topic. More generous, however, is EMAs casual sharing of her old home movies, which have been edited and stylized to form the Take One Two video. The footage dates to the mid1990s, the mise en scene being a trailer park in Ms. Andersons native South Dakota. I cant begin to imagine what its like to grow up punk or alternative in the dark heart of the Badlands, but the video gives me a sense of youth standing athwart its oppressors, albeit as rebels who are forced to take their overtures underground. The song is similarly insurrectionary. Its arrangement is nothing special basically just a dal capo King of Carrot Flowers flutter into a simple acoustic strum but the music
23

succeeds for being aware of its job, which is to offer a clean canvas for the singers testimony. On Take One Two, EMAs vocals arent tarted up or obscured. You can hear her hurt, hear her petition, hear her curse. And then you can hear her rise above the argument. She projects a unity in uniqueness, the value in this particular case being emotional rather than musical. Her message, in the end, is It Gets Better. The sympathy and, more important, the empathy shines through in such otherwise forgettable lines as Sometimes you, baby, sometimes me/I promise you someday you will be free. This couplet hints at the American themes of liberty and choice, but it characterizes these freedoms as rewards for spectacular endurance, not as inalienable rights. To me, this characterization rings truer than the soaring platitudes of our countrys foundational documents. Though I have little experience in the halls of parliament, I have roamed the halls of high school, and they can be corridors of intense conflict. As someone who was regularly taunted by elements of the Bloods, the Crips, and the Latin Kings during the middle portion of his teenage years, I cast a bit of a jaundiced eye at the Jamie Isaacs Foundation, which appears to be led by a 15-year-old private school student from the famously comfortable North Fork of Long Island. Still, the intimacy of EMAs single and, above all, the bravery of her video leads me to my own small act of generosity: giving the Foundation the benefit of the doubt. If it helps one kid, its existence is justified. And if it helps two, it lends further support to the idea that Every man for himself is a mockery of the human condition, not a motto for an esteemed republic. I dont think this position is atypical. Its simply a platform whose time has come, whether or not the bullies on Wall Street and K Street, in the locker room or online, are ready for it. (February 16, 2012) Avicii, Silhouettes Sadly, the recent disruption in the real estate market has done little to diminish the status of house music. Even as the American homeowner marches toward foreclosure and insolvency, his walk of shame is made rhythmic by the electric appeals of David Guetta, Lady Gaga, and will.i.am. Such pure pop personae have acted as the lead interpreters of our music cultures current house moment, repaving the inroads plotted by Madonna and C+C Music Factory. The reality theyve wrought is one of classic compromise: pop becomes a bit more like house, and house becomes a bit more like pop. Daydreams of pulse, nightmares of percussion, hallucinations in 4/4 all are awakened from their fevered states by an influx of hook, chorus, and timely conclusion. A form made to span hours now spans mere minutes, typically as a backdrop to a guest vocal or a sampled melody. The Age of the Superstar DJ that is, the very Age we occupy, whether or not it occupies us is predicated on concession. Guetta, Diplo, Deadmau5, Swedish House Mafia, even Skrillex each needs collaborators, either to ride their beats or to drag their aesthetic from the clubs to the mass media. The DJ doesnt sing or play a conventional instrument. Nor does he operate by an albumoriented logic. His goal is to release a steady stream of buzz-generating singles for other artists. The production credit is what counts, not the aggregate artistic statement.
24

Swedish DJ and producer Avicii is perhaps the poster child for this post-global rhythm nation. His discography is a palimpsest of radio edits and remixes, dropped with casual, one-off flair. This makes his oeuvre an in-the-moment phenomenon, with each release aiming to amp his buzz to ever-higher decibel levels. Levels is an important word for Avicii, as its the name of his breakout track, which is currently playing at proms and Sweet 16s near you. Ive heard the song dozens of times its part of the immobile soundtrack that my gym uses to keep its members moving but never thought to associate the sound with a specific artist. This is, of course, a personal prerogative: I can identify a Keith Richards composition at first lick and name a Glenn Danzig chorus at first note. Spin me a series of dance records, however, and the mix will bleed together, like sheets of wallpaper. Simply put, I dont have an ear for DJ-mediated disco, whether its classified as house, rave, trance, techno, or tribal. To me, music of this stripe comes across as generic and interchangeable. I guess we all have our crosses to bear. Dont think this ethic elitist. To hold the whole of the dance canon in contempt is to miss the point of pop music, much of which was (and is) devised to get your rump shaking. Theres no inherent shame in this objective, and Avicii serves the body-moving muses conspicuously well. The 50 million YouTube views that his Levels videos have garnered cant be wrong: His tracks are speaking to plenty of people, in living rooms and on dance floors worldwide. His latest jam, Silhouettes, isnt quite as undeniable as its forerunner, but it is cut from a similar cloth. Here, Avicii threads pulse into woosh and chime into kickdrum, fashioning an ambient instrumental that neither stirs nor slumbers. I get the impression of a helicopter rototilling in place, ready to zoom off but unwilling to hazard the gear shift. This is not the stuff of Skrillex, in which tension is built gradually then released gloriously. Silhouettes keeps a fairly even keel. It lends plenty of space to vocalist Salem Al Fakir, a Swede of Syrian parentage who sings much like Robyn Carlsson, perhaps his countrys premier pop personality. This is to say that Salem sounds like a Scandinavian who elocutes in the style of an African American, affecting an accent to lend his testimony a token cool. Maybe this is simply how Swedes sing when they adopt the English language. My goal isnt to malign Salems vocal; its merely to highlight that his tone is cosmopolitan to the point of rootlessness. The first time I heard Silhouettes, I thought the singer was a black North American woman. A few Wikipedia visits later, I learned that the featured voice belonged to a European man with a Middle Eastern bloodline. Such would be the fruits of the global market, were the talent on this single not exclusively Swedish. Herein lies my problem with house music: In its attempt to rock nightclubs from Dubai to Denver, it loses the punch of distinction. As it cements itself as the youth cultures drink of choice, it devolves into a wine with no discernible terroir. Every glass tastes the same, regardless of point of origin. Im neither a discomaniac nor a dipsomaniac, but Im schooled enough to know that Silhouettes operates within a deep shadow. Recently, the dance sphere lost two giants: Donna Summer and Robin Gibb. My record collection hasnt made much room for their work, but itd be imbecilic to claim that either artist was only of marginal importance. Summer was the undisputed Diva of Disco, and Gibb was one of the idioms most
25

charming princes. In addition to the obvious hallmarks of status and sales, they both produced a bevy of great songs. I try to keep taste relativistic, to grant each listener a to each his own courtesy. But if you dont like I Feel Love or Stayin Alive, you dont like pop music, plain and simple. As onerous as the excesses of the disco era became, these two singles go a long way toward justifying the genre. And, to be honest, each features a healthy share of deracination. Summer partnered with Giorgio Moroder, bringing a motorik precision to an African-American form; it was part Kraftwerk, part James Brown, and it straddled continents. Gibb and the Bee Gees were British Invasion types gone funky; having sputtered as Beatlesque rockers and sensitive singersongwriters, the band reinvented themselves as jive talkers in leisure suits, keen to show you a good time. Summers wide stretch of competencies helped her launch an international dance craze. Gibbs propensity toward falsetto helped give disco a second wind, one that succeeded in finally folding the squares into the scene. Summers wall of fame is studded with platinum albums and #1 singles. And the Bee Gees? Well, theyve sold more than 220 million records, and continue to move units at an enviable pace for a catalog act. In this context, Aviciis register of YouTube views and Twitter followers, however impressive they appear at first glance, is nothing to write home about. Of course, the rules of music commerce have changed mightily in the past 35 years, so to compare noncontemporary artists in commercial terms is to make a mockery of the juxtaposition. Where the disco-to-house analogy holds sway, I think, is in the musics mindset. And its here that I lodge my complaint. As intoxicating as Summers and Gibbs singles were, they promoted escape at a time when engagement was absolutely essential. Like 2012, the late 1970s were a time of energy crises and civic malaise. Society needed to be shook up, not lulled to sleep or drugged into oblivion. This tendency toward resignation is my prime cut of beef with disco culture, and I feel that its tenets extend to contemporary house. Silhouettes is indicative of the going obsession with timbre and texture, from the hyper-syncopated beats of Top 40 pop to the moody meditations of Beach House and Real Estate. These sonic conditions stand for nothing aside from distraction and indulgence. Again, such aims are not out of character with rock and roll the form can be conceived as a teenage cosa nostra that kept the serious, adult world at arms length. But when this serious, adult world threatens to subsume your more generous and liberated latitude, you damn well better confront it. On this metric, Silhouettes fails miserably, as much of the Saturday Night Fever milieu did before it. This point is relevant only in that were forced to assimilate into a pop culture that champions dance music and singing competitions. Americas Got Talent!, were told. And then our voices and our idols belt out theatrical versions of old songs. Its as if the talent has gone stale, mistaking mimesis for innovation and popularity for progress. I harbor no illusions about an individuals ability to change the trajectory of musical culture. The revolutions usually come via cabal, in which the artist supplies a picture to fit a readymade frame. The Beatles and Bob Dylan needed EMI and Columbia Records, respectively; otherwise their LPs would have lacked the proper promotional push. The songs and albums still would have been great, but their creators wouldnt have become generational phenomena without distribution to radio, television, and the mass media of the mind. The head and the heart are the essential targets: Connect with an
26

audience intellectually or viscerally, and youre half way to stardom. Connect with them intellectually and viscerally, and youre an artist of the highest caliber. My head and my heart are certainly tuned to the latest frequencies. But when they hear the repetitive patter of house, they mostly go limp. Its an odd situation, really. Most of my peers dream about being younger, when nights out were more frequent and their bodies werent marked by the lashes of parenting or career. Me, I dream of being older specifically old enough to have taken the first wave of punk flush in the face. Listening to Avicii or David Guetta, I dont desire teleportation to Ibiza or South Beach; I desire teleportation to the Anglo-American scenes of the mid-to-late 1970s, when the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Television, Suicide, and Richard Hell roamed the CBGB stage, when the Clash were dreaming up the only music that would matter. I like to think of punk as one of the few austerity programs that actually worked. The form slashed spending in ways that could make Paul Ryan erect. It cut the grandeur from prog rock and the glamour from disco, leaving only the amphetamine-addled essentials of the blues. Can you imagine being on the Bowery in August of 1974 and hearing the 1-2-3-4 countoff into Judy Is a Punk? I bet it would have hit me like a sledgehammer, shattering the status of all its antecedents (and possibly cuing a lifelong battle with tinnitus). Then again, the song might have been too foreign and amateur for a reasonably cultured listener of its time. The Ramones didnt get on vinyl until 1976, and the British reaction didnt surface until 1977. The punk ethos thus took a while to materialize, and the lag period between inception and reception reveals more than todays music histories are willing to admit: Clearly, the market needed a few years to prepare itself for the musics brute force. But when punk landed, it stormed the beachhead with riotous, evangelical fervor, holding up scalps instead of light sticks. I wont drone on with my umpteenth iteration of rockist banner waving, but I will note that the best of the punks actually had something to say. My argument is served most nimbly by quoting the Clashs White Riot: Are you taking over, or are you taking orders?/Are you going backwards, or are you going forwards? I ask myself these questions almost every day, and if there should come a time when I become ambivalent to their answers, stick a fork in me, because Ill be done. To be fair, Silhouettes also speaks of upward mobility. At the apogee of Aviciis beat, Salem Al Fakir sings, Weve come a long way since that day. This appears to be a victory lap for Electronic Dance Music, which has slowly matriculated from the provinces to the imperial capital. But if youre going to make that journey, why not make it a coup? EDM hasnt disrupted so much as a single palace guard. It fosters the reigning regimes, acting as a sonic Yes Man whos more than willing to contort himself into the most convenient or humiliating shape. Sure, the house genre has come a long way since its beginnings in the ghettos of Chicago and Detroit. But Id argue that it needs to go further. Turn the escape into confrontation and the indulgence into action. Otherwise, all this dancing is just a waste of calories. Even worse, its a waste of time. (May 30, 2012)

27

The Black Keys, Lonely Boy For those who are partial to blues-based rock and roll, the Black Keys just might be the Last Band Standing. Does any other mainstream concern wield guitars and drums with such deft, dense menace? Is there a second, even vaguely popular act that simultaneously honors the past and advances an idiom? When Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney plug in, they do so as a savvy preservation society, not as fawning, redhanded revivalists. This isnt the quicksilver skank of Guns N Roses or the pummeling thrash of Metallica; the Keys dont purport to be a hard rock group. Instead, theyre round and viscous, stuck somewhere between a river delta and an unfinished basement, like a post-Radiohead Rolling Stones or a less manic White Stripes. Auerbach and Carney are hard rock only insofar as they conger the sort of vibe that makes Rolling Stone editors rock hard. Its throwback, atavistic music. But, generally speaking, its also very good. Lonely Boy, the lead single off the Keys forthcoming El Camino, follows the MOTSOB Formula: that is, More of the same, only better. It sounds, definitively, like the Black Keys, just with a dash of some peregrine, upmarket spice. It starts with a badass Auerbach riff, segues into Carneys sharp kick drum, then treats us to a small serving of ebony and ivory. These keys, electric rather than Black, come courtesy of El Caminos producer, Danger Mouse, who has a talent for weaving warm symphonics into straightforward guitar rock. Here, Mouses impact is felt but not formative. This is clearly Auerbachs track, from instrumental to vocal. He supplies the ribbon-worthy dal capo riff, as well as a Bang a Gong stutter-step that keeps the song taut and limber. Auerbach is a master of chord changes, using the elements of tempo and volume like clay fit to mold. Lonely Boy is a Dont bore us, get to the chorus single, and the Keys dispatch their hooks with a veterans precision. Perhaps this is because they are, in fact, veterans. The band has recently completed its tenth year of service, having progressed from Akrons ramshackle rubber rooms to Nashvilles quasi-professional cool. Where their choruses once echoed and swayed, they now explode, complete with supplemental synths and female backing vocals. Lonely Boy climaxes with Auerbachs thesis statement: I got a love that keeps me waiting. Its I Gotta Woman in reverse no companionship or satisfaction, just a man done wrong. Which sounds about right. The blues eternal subject is man and woman, vainly negotiating their tragic incompatibilities. Lonely Boy is both an expedient title and an all-too-likely outcome. Even rock stars are sometimes fated to fly solo. Us mortals can merely watch from a safe distance, and hope that the forsaken share their testimony. (November 17, 2011)

28

The Gaslight Anthem, 45 What, in Gods name, is a Gaslight Anthem? And where, pray tell, might I go to hear one? As regards the first question, I have no answer; as regards the second, I have too many. If this quick 1-2 of playful responses (to, I admit, inane queries) has stirred some confusion, allow me to explain. The Gaslight Anthem are a New Jersey band, and New Jersey bands, by dictate of geography and class structure, must fall into one of two categories: suburban demi-hipsters who choose to play music because they lack the build and coordination to attend sleep-away lacrosse camp; or blue-collar auto enthusiasts who pick up guitars after realizing that the only alternatives are wrenches, leaf blowers, and bottles of Coors Light. In the Garden State, musical tastes are gerrymandered like voting districts, with the well-to-do trending indie and the less so leaning toward metal, hip-hop, or dinosaur rock. Gaslight Anthem are, thus, an anomaly, both in composition and audience. Brian Fallon and his brothers in arms seem adequately low born and riff oriented to qualify for one of New Jerseys Living On a Prayer rock and roll fellowships; their albums, however, have largely been indie affairs, written and recorded for the type of listener who also pockets mp3s from the National and Best Coast. Gaslight are neither quarantined to a ghetto nor loosed into the general population. Theyre simply an earnest rock ensemble who play each note and sing each harmony as if their lives depend on it. Im not sure if this is a commercial pose or a cultural precept, but I appreciate Fallons lyrical fire and his colleagues electric focus. In studio or on stage, Gaslight may be playing, but theyre not playing around. Still, what is a Gaslight Anthem? Is it a suggestive riddle or a meaningless construct? I ask this because New Jerseys blue-collar bands typically resort to handles that are embarrassingly easy to grasp. E Street Band? They were formed on E Street in Belmar. Bon Jovi? Thats the slightly stylized last name of the lead singer. The Misfits? Thats the title of Marilyn Monroes ill-fated last film. (Not to mention an apt description of Glenn Danzigs motley crew.) Gaslight Anthem drifts into a less obvious sphere, with noun rendered adjective and the resulting compound rendered nonsense. Personally, I think the boys claimed the name for its evocations: it sounds like something distant and cool, something greased up and lacquered down. It also sounds conspicuously similar to the name of another band from New Brunswick, New Jersey: Streetlight Manifesto. For the record, Streetlight formed and developed a following some five years prior to Gaslight so if Central Jerseys skapunk faction had recourse to effective legal counsel, the Anthem might be singing a song about intellectual property infringement. This, alas, is lazy speculation, as unverified as a tabloid rumor. And just as insipid, too. Ultimately, what matters is not where the name came from, but what it represents. Here we get into the guts of my second question, which asks where I might go to hear one of the bands anthems. First and foremost, I could go to the Internet, where the groups new single, 45, is blasting at full tilt. Second, if I prefer a live interface, I could walk about a mile and a half in an easterly direction, and camp out until May 20th, when Gaslight will play Asbury Parks Bamboozle Fest, alongside such heavyweights as Foo Fighters and Skrillex. This homecoming show will be an addendum to the groups Christmas spectacular, which played last December at Convention Hall, and featured a
29

guest appearance from Bruce Springsteen. That concert was, in itself, a sequel to Gaslights deflowering of the Stone Ponys SummerStage, which took place on a regrettably hot and humid night, nearly two years hence. What Im getting at is that the Gaslight Anthem are heard with regularity in these parts. Though theyve moved their commercial nerve center to Brooklyn, as all young musicians must if theyre going to survive these lean times, the Jersey Shore remains their cultural home base, as well as the source of their punk rock credibility. To borrow a phrase from Morrissey, Asbury Park was, for many years, the coastal town that they forgot to close down. Its still chock full of abandoned buildings, defaced monuments, and aborted constructions, each of which looks great on an album cover or a strip of celluloid. (See The Sopranos, The Wrestler, or City By the Sea.) Local artists from Springsteen to Fallon to Southside Johnny have claimed Asbury as their own, if only to lend a little extra romance to their campaign biographies. Its a smart move, and one that allows popular ambition to be threaded with populist verve. In this vein, 45 plays precisely as youd expect a song from an Asbury Park band to play. Theres a sense that the artists are a step or two behind the times, but that theyll make up in passion what they lack in fashion. This tone is, I think, calculated: Those of us who reside in Asbury fancy ourselves boot-clad sensualists, not dandy aesthetes. We scale each meter of cracked pavement and trudge through every clump of windswept sand, alternately pouting, peacocking, and pleading poverty. What do we think about in our leather and Levis? Our girlfriends, of course. And why they left us. Or why we left them. Thats the image that local rockers want to cultivate, from Hungry Heart to You Give Love a Bad Name to Bring It On. In my opinion, they do it quite well, with a clenched fist and a troubled conscience. Which is not to say that they do it cynically. As platitudinous as Springsteen can get, I never question his motives. As corny as Bon Jovi, by definition, must be, he appears to stand behind each of his lovelorn words. And as Look at me, Im Jersey! as Fallon has become, his songs often hit home. He writes with poignancy and precision, and he sings as if hes suffering through a continuous crisis of faith. This is part and parcel of the Springsteen legacy that long specter of lapsed Catholicism. Or, should I say, that long specter of not-so-lapsed Catholicism. Even as Bruce and Brian eschew official Church doctrine, Catholic guilt and humility shine through. New York bands typically lack these qualities. Lou Reed, smart and talented as he is, has never come to grips with the religion of ego, whose central tenet reads, When you cease to worship an awesome God, you tend to genuflect before a petty one namely yourself. The most obnoxious of artists and bankers and athletes conflate the piety of the first condition with the vulgarity of the second; they keep the holy covenant, but apply it by mirror instead stained glass. Worship is directed towards the man, not his maker. Generally speaking, Manhattanites have no qualms with this me-uber-alles arrangement; in Jersey, however, it tears us apart. Where New Yorkers have therapists and paid vacations, New Jerseyans have record players and happy hours. The Garden States secret fertilizer is doubt. Thats why Patti Smith had to buy a one-way bus ticket across the Hudson: Jesus died for someones sins, possibly (probably!) ours. And were awfully sorry about that, even if we cant show it.
30

Yes, Im projecting a bit here, but only in the interest of 45. The singles liner notes could read as a complementary couplet: Psychology by Springsteen/Acoustics by the Replacements. Gaslight balance the Boss super-ego with the Mats id, setting Sunday morning thoughts to Saturday night rock and roll. 45 is alternately roiled and raucous; its opening chords speak to a certain disquiet, resonating like the inner voices of a heavy head. This pensive jangle calls to mind some of the less celebrated stalwarts of Nineties alternative, such as Candlebox and Gin Blossoms. These bands were, in a sense, replacements for the Replacements; once Paul Westerberg went solo, his latent seeds started to bloom, from Green Day to the Goo Goo Dolls. Gaslight constitute a late harvest, one that can jump from pop to punk without much anxiety, as guitar-based music doesnt cast too wide a shadow in this age of the DJ. When Fallon writes a song, he knows its not going to set the Billboard charts aflame. He and the Anthem are, at best, left of the dial, so they have to supply their own energy and buzz. 45 achieves this through sonic detonation, as generated by regular, rapid-fire barre chords. Even at their most polished, Gaslight make it a point never to forsake their punk roots. And dont be mistaken: 45, from the bands forthcoming Handwritten LP, packs a major-label sound thats both unsubtle and unapologetic. Perhaps thats because its the groups debut on Mercury Records, an Island Def Jam imprint that, in its various iterations, has housed such big-ticket acts as Paul McCartney and U2. Whether Fallon is unnerved by this ascent to the majors the Anthem left their independent outfit, SideOneDummy Records, last October is a matter that defies analysis. Gaslight have been successful precisely because Fallons songs are unnerved. The bands calling card is its fusion of vulnerability and ferocity, of heart and hardcore. This hybrid is on display on 45, and it shows no seams. Fallon is declarative and confused in the same sentence; his operative lyric is I cant move on and I cant stay the same. Were made to believe that this testimony concerns a broken relationship, the singer being pulled this way and that by a rough woman. The words, however, could also apply to label drama: Fallons subcultural mores might have impelled him to stick with SideOneDummy, but his commercial designs pulled the band toward mighty Mercury, which has the budget for, say, effective record promotion. After all, what good is an Anthem if no one is singing along? To be fair, the production values on 45 arent demonstrably different from the production values on Gaslights last album, American Slang. The change of tone is in the stakes, as reflected by the logo on the record. Have you seen my hands?/Just look at em shake are the lines that spark Fallons maiden Mercury voyage. This would seem to suggest a somatic unease. But is this confession really any more harrowing than You aint supposed to die on a Saturday night or Everybody leaves so why wouldnt you? Gaslight are offering much the same merchandise, only with a slight upgrade in packaging. When 45 reaches its chorus Turn the record over/See you on the flip side the protagonist is ostensibly raising the needle on his latest girlfriend. In truth, however, I think Fallon is declaring his independence from the indie scene, issuing his version of for me this boardwalk lifes through. Wheres he headed to now? SideTwo, Dummy.

31

I look forward to seeing what Handwritten holds in its cursive. I doubt itll be Gaslights samurai record a label that Springsteen has used to describe his leaner, meaner Darkness On the Edge of Town album. The Boss had instrumental flourishes to cut and opera-like vignettes to edit. Darkness was his reaction to punk and Hank Williams, his response to a world that offered no quarter to the artifice of prog rock and disco. The Anthem had no alternative but to operate in a post-punk milieu. Their sound was built on a commingling of the short-story pursuits of The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle and the rough-house riffs of The Clash. These are solid starting points, but they arrive with the acknowledgment that their interpreters possess a fondness for looking back. Fallons mirror is perennially set on rearview; he uses the phrase when we were young as a leitmotif, even on songs he wrote at the ripe old age of 27. The apogee of this ethic might be found on American Slangs Old Haunts, during which Fallon sings, God help the man who says If youd have known me when. Whats ironic is that he is that man. Fallon likes nothing more than to regale us with tales from his young adulthood, which are often set in some unnamed quarter of New York City and invariably feature a tough-to-tame dame. For him, songwriting is autobiography, fictive or faithful. And autobiography has no choice but to dress in the cloth of memoir. Fortunately, the boring stories of glory days arent always boring. In Fallon, they find a worthy teller, with material to burn. Hes squared his image as an author: the sensitive kid who stops just short of schmaltz; the guy whose white t-shirt and blue jeans conceal a deeper complexity; the poor soul who stumbles upon deliverance in a gear shift or a girl. Some of this is a bit rich and repetitive, but, in the aggregate, Gaslight play enlightened modern rock at a time when modernity and rock run the risk of becoming mutually exclusive. The indie fans among us would be wise to grade the Anthem not against Springsteen or the Clash, but against Hinder and Nickelback. Ask yourself this question: Would you rather be listening to Chris Daughtry? Then come to this realization: All pop music is evaluated on a curve, with reigning trends packing more power than classic currents. Gaslights curve just happens to be a full circle, which spins at 45 revolutions per minute. They treat their vinyl as a medium for civil concern, not as a mechanism for elite consumption. The Anthem want to be a popular band, damn the consequences. 45 might enable a meager bounce, and Mercury might use this momentum to position their Jersey boys as the next Kings of Leon or Black Keys. I doubt this marketing ploy would work, but I wouldnt object to its ethic. More pop music needs to be as pained and passionate as Gaslights best singles. Its not the rock that matters, its the role: The role of artist as toiler and craftsmen, as the last line of defense against synthetic rhythms and bogus blues. Gaslights hearts are already in the right place, and their handwriting, however diminutive or obscure, is on the wall. What they need now is for a critical mass to read it. (May 14, 2012) The Vaccines, Teenage Icon In the current issue of Rolling Stone, Jon Dolan calls the Vaccines the Strokes with a better sense of humor. As comparisons go, this is a pretty good one, particularly when your editors charge you with reviewing a Top Single in 45 words or less. (For
32

perspective, this is my posts 47th word, and, title line notwithstanding, Ive yet to name the song to which its devoted.) Given his space constraints, Dolan couldnt flesh out the arithmetic of his assessment: The Strokes + a better sense of humor may very well = the Vaccines. But the sum could just as easily be tallied as the Virgins, Tokyo Police Club, Franz Ferdinand, or Art Brut. Me, Im inclined to drill down into the last party cited, as Art Brut are more a standing joke than a working band. I like the Vaccines because they seem to have heard and appreciated Eddie Argos quip-checked routine without internalizing his wise-guy ethic. They dont make art brut; they make finely polished, immediately accessible, undeniably British pop music. Accordingly, they bring a welcomely sardonic smile to the sceptred isle, trading in the sort of cheeky guitar rock that can still catch fire in the greater U.K., even if its kindling is too wet to ignite on this side of the Atlantic. In the end, I think the Vaccines are less a sum than a quotient: Theyre the Strokes divided by the Smiths; that is, American, angular, and hip divided by English, prissy, and romantic. Somewhere in this muddled calculus you get a worthy rock and roll band, one intent on choosing riffs over ripples and drum breaks over bass drops. If this attitude sounds rockist or pass, so be it. Youre free to turn your attention to the EDM tent. Lest this devolve into yet another rock vs. dance punch-out, allow me to posit that the Vaccines have no real quarrel with Skrillex or Avicii. Where I think they hold value is within the thinning corridors of guitar-based music. At the moment, most of the rock groups I admire are dead-on-balls earnest. Japandroids do the work of four men with just two official members, clawing their way through punky blasts stained with sweat and blood. The Gaslight Anthem are, if anything, even more sincere. Brian Fallon is knee deep in memories of his favorite song and worst relationship, alternately growling and crying along to a guitar tone that seems smuggled from Bruce Springsteens Jackson Cage. When every note matters, the music can get mighty heady perhaps heady to the point of exhaustion. Come August, the pop enthusiast doesnt necessarily want to pass his leisure time marinating in someone elses misery. This is where the Vaccines aim their needles: Theyre the antidote to bands like the xx and the Dirty Projectors, here to supply regular shots of uptempo simplicity. Their hooks latch but dont pierce; their lyrics amuse but dont ingratiate; their harmonies buoy but dont confuse. Add these factors together and you get the sound that this particular season is lacking. Ill go so far as to say that the Vaccines new single, Teenage Icon, delivers what rock and roll once claimed was impossible: A cure for the summertime blues. This is not a novel high, of course. (Hell, even Summertime Blues provided a strong bulwark against the summertime blues.) But its not like the Vaccines are making an argument towards being unique. Singer Justin Youngs first words are Look at me, so ordinary. This line has a nifty internal rhyme scheme, but, more critically, it has that passive-aggressive quality which is so important to commercial rock and roll. Look at me is a demand; so ordinary a self-effacement. The first implies a certain power; the second a willingness to surrender it. Young therefore makes himself affable well before he cues his chorus, a clutch of couplets which follows the established theme of resignation. Listen to the first rhyme: Im no teenage icon/Im no Frankie Avalon. What an absurd citation! Frankie Avalon hasnt been a pertinent pop personality in 50 years. His invocation gives the song a humorous, slightly satiric edge, in the manner of a Smiths song that refers to a frumpy Manchester headmaster or the clueless, graying
33

Mr. Shankly. I like to think of Justin Young as Morrissey without the stakes. Hes not pushing out poetry, but he channels his taut tenor into material that can be fun as well as ironic. Teenage Icon has a touch of grease and leather about it. The song reminds me of the Smiths Rusholme Ruffians, which uses Elvis-like bounce and wiggle to chronicle a vain and violent night at a county fair. Only where Morrissey is solitary, and finds solace in his detachment, Young sounds pleased to meet you, and seems eager to make a connection. This connection is brokered by way of the Strokes. Teenage Icon features the kind of jangly guitar peels that Albert Hammond Jr. popularized some 10 years ago. Id say the Vaccines ought to distribute royalties to Prince Albert, but they appear to be operating with his expressed consent, as Hammond produced the bands late-2011 single, Tiger Blood, in his private studio. This production credit aside, the Vaccines debt to the Strokes was made plain on their debut LP, What Did You Expect From the Vaccines?, a solid if unspectacular album that Columbia Records squeezed out last spring. Teenage Icon is more a continuation of What Did You Expect?s aesthetic than a pivot in a fundamentally new direction. It builds on the quivering pulse of songs like Wolf Pack, only with the vocals a bit higher in the mix and the guitars a grade sharper. The Strokes themselves negotiated a similar transition as they matured. On Is This It, Julian Casablancas sounded like he was singing to us through a soup-can telephone; Hammond, meanwhile, was playing a rhythm guitar that was set on chime rather than stab. By Under the Cover of Darkness, Julians voice was more immediate and Alberts ax more cutting. (Listen to the chug-and-reel chords that Hammond employs to spice up the tracks verse; theyre brilliant.) The Vaccines have telescoped this movement toward clarity, and have done it with greater pace and less internal animus than their forebears. Teenage Icon nods to indie rock but isnt ashamed to flex its major-label polish. This isnt music for the margins. It aspires to be popular. Im sure the Vaccines will garner continued success in the U.K. Here in America, however, theyll likely be relegated to the second stage. We never went all-in on the sound of the Strokes or the Smiths, regardless of what you might have read in our bowdlerized rock histories. Having lived through the whole of the Eighties and having been vaguely conscious for most of the decade I can report that I never heard a Smiths song either on the radio or at a private gathering. (For those too young to know, the going New York-area playlist during the Reagan years was Madonna, Springsteen, Prince, Phil Collins, and, especially, Billy Joel, peppered with dashes of interchangeable synth pop.) As for the Strokes, I saw them at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park a month or so after the release of Is This It. They played the inside riser, and were thus beholden to a room that held hundreds rather than thousands. Despite getting to the show later than I intended, I was able to position myself comfortably mere feet from the center mic stand. At the time, 311 was drawing larger and more raucous crowds. And this loyalty to mook rock remains ascendant in American hearts, hence the success of Nickelback, Daughtry, Sublime with Rome, and the Summerland 90s-Revival Tour, which recently brought Everclear, Sugar Ray, Lit, Gin Blossoms, and Marcy Playground to my neck of the woods. Im ashamed to tell you how many of my friends succumbed to Summerlands bygone siren. And Im not particularly heartened by the fact that a fine number of those buddies who missed Everclear et al. took the train up to Hoboken to catch Mumford & Sons on the Hudson. Its a good thing that the Vaccines have a better
34

sense of humor than the Strokes. Because with so much middling music around, Im going to need it. The Vaccines may not be a panacea, but they carry the banner of plangent rock as well as any junior outfit on the touring circuit. I grew up in the I am not a role model age, where the closest thing pop had to a teenage icon was Kurt Cobain. American Idols and Canadian Biebers therefore seem silly to me, even when they sing songs that are meant to drip with sincerity. I imagine I admire the Vaccines for their refusal to take themselves too seriously. After Morrissey/Marr and Casablancas/Hammond Jr., theres a hint of Tilbrook/Difford about them; that is, a Squeeze-like predilection toward playing the fool. Im not magnetic or mythical, Justin Young sings, Im suburban and typical. Maybe so, Justin, but youre also a lot of fun. In pops final calculation, likability is more important than novelty. Winsomeness is its own form of charisma. And the Vaccines, however generic their formula, have it in spades. They wont grab any golds during this Olympic summer. But, at the very least, they deserve a spot near the podium. Applaud as you see fit. (August 9, 2012) Jay-Z, Glory Given my age and my romantic history, its unlikely that Ill ever know the joys of fatherhood. But even if I did manage to impregnate some befuddled woman and, more miraculously, to stave off her irate relatives as the child came to term my rendezvous with fatherhood would be dramatically different than the one accorded to the celebrity daddy of the hour, Jay-Z. First, for me and my betrothed, the place of conception would not be a luxury hotel in Paris but a dimly lit alleyway in one of Newarks lesser precincts. Second, its unlikely that my childs mother would be given the opportunity to reveal her luscious baby bump through the machinations of a live performance at the MTV Video Music Awards. And third, should the little bugger come through its tunnels happily and healthily, I probably wouldnt mark its birth by streaming an oddly personal rap ballad on my proprietary website. Well, if I needed any further reminders that I am not, in fact, Jay-Z, they came yesterday, when Hov posted a track called Glory on his Life + Times culture blog. The song is a simple one, essentially a pro-forma strut through the ecstasies of fresh parenthood. Jay tells us that the most beautiful thing in the world/Is daddys little girl. This little girl, if you havent heard by now, goes by the lovely name of Blue Ivy Carter. Shes clearly a child of destiny, the first living issue of Shawn Carter and Beyonc Knowles, which is akin to being the progeny of, say, Zeus and Hera. Im jealous of Blue Ivy already, if only on the point of pedigree. And though Glory is no gift from the gods, it deserves kudos for being so unguarded. Jay-Z indicates that Beyonc, at some earlier, unspecified time, suffered a miscarriage. This is sobering news, perhaps even a shock. Fortunately, the teary headline is rendered mere body copy by the bundle of joy that Hov and B now hold in their arms. Jay isnt at the top of his game here, but, really, who
35

among us would expect him to be? I cant hate on a man for being happy and not only knowing it, but showing it. To borrow a line from Peter Cetera, thats the glory of love. Rolling Stone has called Glory the hip-hop Isnt She Lovely. The magazine is correct in terms of tone and feeling, if not craft or stakes. Jay mimics Stevies drunken splendor, but hes basically recording his ode on the fly, while still arrayed in his daddy-to-be delivery room scrubs. Wonder had some time to let the music hit him, to have his emotions and his chords align. From a sheer reportorial standpoint, perhaps the better touchstone is Bruce Springsteens Living Proof, which the Boss wrote just after his wife, E Street Band member Patty Scialfa, gave birth to their first child. Springsteen understood that sometimes words fail, yet nonetheless managed to express this sentiment in direct verse: In his mothers arms, it was all the beauty I could take/Like the missing words to some prayer that I could never make. Like Jay, Bruce was around 40 years old when he became a father, and, as an artist of international acclaim, had been around the block more times than one might care to mention. What made Bruces song special was its authors refusal to ignore his inconvenient truths, to remain hostile to puffed-up platitudes. On Living Proof, he sang, I put my heart and soul, I put em high upon the shelf/Right next to the faith, the faith Id lost in myself. By showing such vulnerability, Springsteen characterizes his first child as a son to redeem that is, as a little man who might prop up the bigger man, not the other way around. Jays Glory speaks from the same awestruck perspective, but paints its pictures from the reverse angle. Hovs first child is not a son to redeem but a daughter to adore. The gangsta vibe may be on short-term sabbatical, but the swag still runs in papas veins. If he cant exult in himself, Jay will exult in his youngblood. He says, Get ready for Part 2/A younger, smarter, faster me. Even in the afterglow of fatherhood, this man is thinking in sequels. Thats what makes him the face of grown-man rap music. I wish him a thousand happy returns, from the maternity ward to the recording studio and beyond. Keep doing your thing, Shawn. No guts, no glory. (January 10, 2012) Die Antwoord, I Fink U Freeky I find myself in an awkward position when I pause to assess Die Antwoord. Ive long considered their work a silly shambles of cut-rate beats and volitional unintelligibility a pose more so than a pander, an effect more so than a cause. But something funny has happened to hip-hop in the three years since these zeffy South Africans first appeared on U.S. radar. The idiom has gotten increasingly theatrical more prone to changes in costume and personality, not just from LP to LP but from verse to verse. Weve entered an age of schizo MCs, drama-club types who rap in different voices and shelter alter egos. Look at Nicki Minaj, who will soon release an album under the nom de guerre Roman Zolanski, as if contemporary pop were nothing more than an ongoing SNL skit, in which the characters rotate with the punch lines. Better yet, listen to Azealia Banks, the It Girl of a thousand voices, be they spit, sung, or summoned from some inner demon. The head-bobbing, foot-tapping rap of folks like Rakim, Nas, and Raekwon is
36

beset by both the glamour of couture crews and the weirdness of backpack-toting upstarts. Street knowledge is trading at a 20-year low. The facts being what they are, I have to give credit to Die Antwoord for presaging hiphops pivot toward outr elements. The genre has been a global form for decades, but only recently have foreign rappers become confident enough to pair their native tongues with native tones. (Or, at least, semi-native, less overtly American tones.) Die Antwoord rhyme over rave and techno beats, almost all of which reek of Euro trash. This odor, I imagine, is intentional: South Africa is plugged into two outlets indigenous-African township rhythms and Euro-African dance culture. Ninja and Yo-Landi, themselves as pale as alabaster, lean toward the crunkier corners of white rave. Their music sounds like an Ibiza for the underclass, making up in pace what it lacks in pedigree. The sound is too minimal to be bananas, too charged to stand in for plain vanilla. As such, it provides an ideal canvas for the vocal stylings of Die Antwoords two MCs, each of whom is strong enough to battle any rippling beat into submission. Yo-Landi raps real horrorshow like. (Yes, thats my feeble attempt to get at the Zef vernacular, by way of Anthony Burgess. I promise not to do it again.) On I Fink U Freeky, she shifts between a harpy-esque purr and a buck-wild tintinnabulation, alternately channeling an amphetamine-addled Marilyn Monroe and Nicki Minaj on a helium bender. Ninja is, if possible, even more unhinged. He spits like a sprinter, bursting out of the block with a manic intensity. To me, he sounds like Jack White impersonating Busta Rhymes. This would appear to paint an abominable picture, but it somehow plays like gold. Ninjas verse is positively exhilarating, at once a showcase for virtuoso skill and a mockery of music itself. You can barely understand a word the man is saying; still, you hear him loud and clear. Some backhanded credit is due to I Fink U Freekys beat. Its the stuff of second-tier Jock Jams, taking origin from the inane noise that descends from MSGs JumboTron when the Knicks are down by three in the fourth quarter. Its job is to impart energy, not meaning or genuine mood. Accordingly, the Freeky beat is upfront but unobtrusive until it suddenly vrooms into overdrive, just as Die Antwoord had scripted. After this rush of sound and fury, I find myself crouched in the aforementioned awkward position: Im holding my nose at the stench of this acts circus quality, but Im keeping my ears wide open for their next release. Die Antwoord are novelty performers, full of smoke, mirrors, and foreign accents. But once you push past the optics of the situation, you have the actual music, which is utterly unlike any other bands on the planet. Die Antwoord arent wack MCs; theyre wacky MCs. And, against my better instincts (not to mention my better angels), I think theyve earned the right to be heard. (January 18, 2012) Drake, The Motto (feat. Lil Wayne) In retrospect, Ive come to see that Drakes debut album, Thank Me Later, was perfectly titled. The record initially rubbed me the wrong way, as I felt its author had benefited from friends in high places rather than elite-caliber flow or game-changing talent. But
37

after hearing his latest leak, a snappy single called The Motto, Im obliged to offer Drake my belated gratitude for a job well done. The Motto is easily my favorite rap track of the season. Moreover, its a good, old-fashioned nut flex, in which the MC coughs out prime-grade lyrics over a barebones beat. Whats audacious is how casually Drizzy does his thang. You get the sense that hes half asleep and opening his mouth begrudgingly, just to prove that hes better in batting practice than most rappers are in full uniform. He only needs one verse to close the argument. In fact, a solitary, hyperspeed couplet Howya feel, howya feel, howya feel/25 sittin on 25 mil pretty much says it all: Drake is Young Money, literally and figuratively. The guest verse from Lil Wayne, croaked out with king toads abandon, is just gravy. The Motto may be a vehicle for two hip-hop thoroughbreds, but it doesnt aspire to be epic or regal. Consider it the opposite of couture rap like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne. The sound isnt sumptuous, nor do the production values appear particularly exalted. This is rap in lo-fi, beholden to an anti-aesthetic, guided only by voices. Thankfully, those voices belong to one of the most celebrated duos in contemporary pop music. Just dont let their star power fool you. Motto is a turn away from the spotlight. As noted above, the song is marked by a dashed-off brilliance, in which a lack of stakes engenders a larger share of freedom. Athletic analogies abound: Albert Pujols in the on-deck circle; Dwayne Wade shuffling through his pre-game warm-up; Aaron Rodgers taking practice snaps, then letting er fly. For me, Motto conjures memories of a childhood visit to Shea Stadium, to watch the Mets play the St. Louis Cardinals. Hours before the first pitch, I recall watching the great Ozzie Smith field grounders. Hed snare the ball at the dirt-ridden depths of his shortstop position, swing the pellet into his throwing hand, and then nonchalantly toss it behind his back to the first baseman all in one fluid motion, with no hitch or calculation. Such a toss, of more than 100 feet, to a fairly small target, is difficult from a standard overhand position. To do it behind the back is all but impossible. Yet Ozzie did it four or five times, to no demonstrative effect or applause. He made it look easy which is to say that he made it look natural, even if it violated every rule of our national pastime, not to mention a few fundamental laws of physics. Drake achieves a similar feat on Motto. Conventional wisdom says he needs to go H.A.M., with million-dollar beats and A-List divas in his arsenal. Im sure the forthcoming Take Care LP will find the space to indulge this particular compulsion. Here, however, Drake is content to catch a skeletal track in mid-flight and casually flip it back to sender, like an all-pro who breezes through things that are beyond the ken of mortal players. This song is a flag in the ground, marking a vulgar brand of genius. The future of Top 40 rap is Drakes, provided he decides to focus on music and not pull a Will Smith or Justin Timberlake. This, I feel, is our dilemma: Young Money is all good and well but Hollywood has got that Grown-Man Money. In the long run, Drizzy probably wont be able to turn it down. So, for the interim, lets merely pump up his jams and be thankful that the boy is still sharing his gift. (November 3, 2011)

38

Joey Bada$$, Survival Tactics Generally speaking, rap and I have gone our separate ways. The fact that I use the term rap, and not the culturally preferred honorific, hip-hop, should indicate that I address the idiom from a graybeard perspective, flashing green Cross Color jeans and a high-top fade. This caveat notwithstanding, I think Im adequately qualified to bluster out a few opinions on the sound, regardless of whether its official name bears three or six letters. During my formative years, I listened to virtually nothing but rap, as drums and samples seemed to complement my milieu better than guitar and bass. This milieu was Dickensian, specifically in a best of times/worst of times sense. Mine was a tale of two cities, one industrial and urban, the other quiet and suburban. I went to school in the second but worked, weekended, and summered in the first. A decent avatar for this duality comes courtesy of the Leonardo DiCaprio character in The Departed (just without the deep-cover police work). One day, youre in tree-lined comfort; the next, asphalt-addled unease. You belong in neither setting, yet youre compelled to operate in both. I am by nature an awkward and anxious character, so my time in the city was typically fraught with peril. To get to my job in low-rent retail, I had to catch a bus which cut crosstown, thus wheeling me beyond the borders of my neighborhoods demilitarized zone. As one might imagine, a short white kid, riding solo and scared, doesnt fare particularly well on an inter-ward bus route. To drown out the various taunts and intimidations that scored my daily ridership, I began making the trip in improvised body armor, a hoodie atop my head and a Walkman aclutch in my hands. In retrospect, this was not an especially smart move. The hoodie drew more attention than it distracted, and the Walkman, yellow as a canary and only slightly less fragile, marked me as a prime target for petty robbery. As it happened, I had my cassette player and my wallet removed from me, forcibly, in the summer of 1994. Contained in the first was a heavily worn Nas LP; in the second there was, maybe, $10. The theft came at night, on the bus, as it was stopped adjacent to one of my citys myriad project yards. A kid not much older than me pulled the old gunin-the-jacket-pocket trick. It was probably just his fingers, arranged in a sinister point, but I wasnt taking any chances. I handed over what little I had and remained on the bus until it reached my customary destination, some five blocks west. When I got back to my grandmothers apartment my veritable home away from home my live-in uncle asked me what had happened to my Walkman. I confided in him that it had been stolen, along with my wallet. He inquired as to where the jack had taken place, then advised me to never, ever, under any circumstances report such goings on to the police. He said he knew how to take care of these things. The next day, my uncle accompanied me to the public housing complex that sat astride the scene of the crime. Being the only whites in the ZIP code, we had to walk with purpose and pride. (Give us an A for effort and a D for execution.) My uncle approached a couple of loiterers and said, Whos in charge here? I need to talk business. Within a minute or two, we were in the vestibule of the projects main building, speaking with the
39

man who claimed to run the joint. My uncle did all the talking; he noted that his nephew had been robbed and needed his shit back. There was likely a horse-trading aspect to this conversation, but, being 15 and ill-equipped for such high-stakes negotiations, I remained deaf and dumb, hoping that the incident would end without grievous bodily harm. Soon, nods were exchanged and hands were slapped. Our negociant disappeared for a moment, but returned shortly thereafter with my wallet. (It was an historically cheap and ugly Philadelphia 76ers Velcro-fold number; I have no idea how it fell into my possession in the first place, as I was a New Jersey Nets fan without any contacts in the City of Brotherly Love.) The wallet was empty aside from the library card and bus schedule I kept tucked within. The Walkman which, in truth, was probably not a real Walkman but some sort of South Korean knockoff was not recovered, nor was my Nas tape. Accepting our meager take, my uncle and I made a break from the premises. But before we got to the projects exterior gates, we were robbed anew. At least this time the gun was real. Whether it was loaded or unloaded, I cant say, but its mere presence obliged us to cough up our holdings. My uncle protested even while capitulating, perhaps a bit embarrassed that wed been played for the fools we were. I just kept my mouth shut and waited for this fresh terror to pass. A touch lighter in the pocket and a drop less confident in the power of civil discourse, my uncle and I galloped to the bus stop with defeated postures and shattered expectations. So much for our recovery mission. So much, too, for my love affair with rap music. By the summer of 94, the form was already starting to degrade. It was trending toward pop and profit margin, with each new rapper selling a vibe rather than a flow. One cannot overstate how destructive Suge Knight and Sean Combs were to the core of the idiom. In the early 90s, hip-hop was essentially bi-polar: New York was the imperial capital, Los Angeles the #1 contender in every weight class. NYC had what I considered to be the liveliest scene, peppered with innovators like Eric B. & Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, the Native Tongues crew, and, most immediately, Wu-Tang Clan and Nas. L.A. and its environs could boast of the N.W.A. family, from Ice Cube and Eazy-E to the West Coasts true crossover star, Dr. Dre, who brought Snoop Dogg in tow. Looking back at that era, pop culture enthusiasts are prone to see the feuding coasts rolling inexorably toward the Biggie vs. Tupac showdown. To them, this was the genres main event; to me, however, it was a much-hyped undercard. Ill always hear Biggie as a better produced, less lispy Erik Sermon. And Tupac will remain a sinewy break dancer in the Digital Underground posse, who, though strong on the mic, was no legitimate match for New Yorks heavier hitters. The Death Row/Bad Boy beef was so silly and overblown that it got in the way of making honest, earnest, progressive music. While Brooklyn and Cali were busy devising murder plots, the Dirty South was slowly capturing the genres flag. No Death Row or Bad Boy record from the mid-90s can hold a candle to the albums that OutKast were producing contemporaneously. Side shows killed commercial raps aesthetic momentum, and I fled the theater shortly after surrendering my Nas cassette. Illmatic was probably the last rap LP I bought in the 90s. Once it was taken from me, I more or less became a classic rocker, effective immediately. I dont know if this shift in loyalties was conscious of coincidental, but I know that it happened with incredible speed. Now, what, in Gods name, does this tract of autobiography and opinion have to do with Joey Bada$$? Well, lets start with the obvious: Joey is a practitioner of time-machine
40

rap, treating 2012 as if it were, say, 1994. The beats on his debut mixtape, 1999, are repurposed from MF Doom, Lord Finesse, and J Dilla, among others. This is not the stuff of the digital age; indeed, it predates the 1999 in its title, recalling the period when hip-hop was both fierce and jazzy, pocked and principled. Also relevant is Bada$$s age; the kid is just 17 still in the student body at Brooklyns Edward R. Murrow High School, and almost the same age as I was when I had my Nas tape lifted. The hard facts of his beats and his birth certificate trigger a kind of nostalgia for the Golden Era, a period that may glitter only because those who champion it were young and impressionable when its wares flowed forth. Not everything we lionize actually roars. But, in this case, I think the rap music of the early 90s deserves to be remembered fondly, even if it caused me to miss Nirvana, Pearl Jam, My Bloody Valentine, Pavement, and countless other hallowed and hirsute acts. Joey Bada$$ reminds me that urban Walkmen were once worth stealing, even if they held just one cassette and needed to be squeezed tightly to keep the tape-flap from opening. It really was a simpler time, with fewer electronic distractions. Age and youth are our currencies, I guess. Joey is comparatively young and his style is comparatively old. That makes for an interesting narrative, in rock (see Yuck, Smith Westerns) as well as hip-hop. What is it with todays ascendant rappers? Why are so many of them minors? Joey, as noted, is 17. Earl Sweatshirt is 16. Chief Keef is 16. Whos working the discovery desk at the major blogs and indie labels, Jerry Sandusky? The tenderness of these artists ages is almost obscene. It seems that the critical communitys healthy desire for prodigies and up-and-comers has begotten a kind of contempt for adult perspective; we bank on the kid, from Bada$$ to A$AP Rocky, because he has time and novelty on his side. One could argue that this fast-tracking toward fame (albeit parochial, hipster-mediated fame) robs a young MC of the need to pay his dues, but thats probably just 1994 speaking. Truth be told, rap has long been a young mans game, precisely because the senior circuit was tied up in ostensibly more complex art. LL Cool J was rhyming and scratching at 11 years old; by the time he was 23 (A$AP Rockys age), hed racked up three platinum albums and sold nearly five million LPs. Such heady days are over, of course. But you cant fault a teenager for wanting to spit fire of a similar intensity. The drive comes from a place beyond economics. Even if there was no money in rap, kids would still be rapping. Thankfully, Joey stands to make a few bucks when his mixtape gets mastered by a professional studio. Minors on major labels is a going theme in pop music, from Bieber & Gomez to the recent spate of U.K. boy bands. Bada$$ may not tilt toward straight pop, but he has a commanding enough voice to capture a double slice of the urban market. His lead single, Survival Tactics, wouldnt feel out of place on a Hot 97 playlist; in fact, for all I know, its already in heavy rotation. (I havent switched on the radio in years. Its just too painful.) Joey brings the concussive, braggadocious, in-yourface flow that New York is famous for. He even drops the requisite borough check, announcing Brooklyns the residence, the best and its evident. This testimony is consistent with the Biggie Frame of Mind, which is lent further ballast by a series of resonant, rapid-fire rhymes that come just before the songs midpoint: Cause when ni**as start equippin/And throw the clip in/Your blood drippin, etc. Ultimately, the words are less important than the emphasis on the last syllable in each line. Here, Joey is advertising attitude, of which he holds plenty in store.
41

Survival Tactics doesnt have a chorus; it has an interlude. In the midst of this hazy transition, the baton is passed to Joeys teammate, Capital STEEZ, who takes his lap like a champion sprinter. Theres genuine chemistry and comity between the two MCs, as both have a confident, intelligible Golden Era sound. This sound is brokered by the tracks beat, which is redolent of the time when hip-hop was more soulful and less mechanical. The instrumental is composed in the manner of DJ Premier or RZA, enabling forward propulsion to co-exist with side-to-side sway. Gunshot effects and spoken word passages are also inserted, setting memorys bliss adrift to the halcyon days of President Clintons first term. If Bada$$ is a rough collage of classic voices, from Nas to Raekwon to B.I.G., STEEZ is lightning rod that we cant quite pinpoint, channeling volts from such Zeus-like rappers as KRS-One and Jay-Z. The beat, too, is a tapestry of extant cloth. To my ear, its not one repetitive tone but a general echo of early-90s East Coast hip-hop. From voice to dove, the power is in the confluence of hallowed forms. This has all been done before, but it hasnt been especially popular in a generation or so. Which brings me to an essential observation: Given the merciless pace of pop culture, Im inclined to reassess the conventional understanding of the term generation. As I was taught, a generation usually refers to a cluster of about 20 years in effect, the age separation between parents and their children. Simply put, this reading no longer holds water. Even as the gap between ones birth and ones initial adventure in child rearing continues to grow, the length of a de facto generation continues to shrink. Id say that a generation is now five years, thanks largely to advances in technology and regressions in traditional, collectivist values. I seem to have very little in common with early twentysomethings. Theyre of the cohort who were always adangle in head gear, always driven to and picked up from, always treated as if their safety were the front-and-center concern of our worthy republic (as was perhaps inevitable in the aftermath of 9/11). Where I was being robbed on buses, they were traveling in a kind of amber-alert cruise control: God forgive the motorist who pulls past a yellow-and-black school vehicle; the police are on him like white on rice, if only to issue a sordid lecture on traffic violations and a solid hike in car insurance premiums. Yes, this is a tangent, but not a totally impertinent indulgence. My argument is that todays reasonably young generations are so distinct from each other that pop culture can repeat itself prematurely. You can start a second Spiderman movie franchise before its predecessors DVDs have stopped spinning. You can premiere an unapologetically nostalgic I Love the 90s television program before the decades principal actors have gone gray. And you can reanimate Golden Era New York rap without alerting the youth demographic to the fact that its a volley, not a serve. This is all good and well, or at least fair game. But it speaks to the absence of true invention in contemporary American culture. The echo of an old standard is, by definition, derivative. Which is not to say that its necessarily destructive. In musical terms, think of pasty white British boys impersonating Little Richard and Muddy Waters, or John Fogerty pretending to have been born on the Bayou. Great music came of these imitative impulses, largely because what started as imitation matured into a sound of ones own. Fantasy hardened into flesh, and once, say, the Rolling Stones found a unique identity, the satisfaction was all ours.
42

Thankfully, on the matter of origins, Joey Bada$$ can boast of strong roots. Hes a native Brooklynite (something of an endangered species these days, particularly in Williamsburg and Dumbo) and he carries a torch that went cool in recent years but was never truly extinguished. He calls his crew the Progressive Era, a designation which shouldnt imply that a roster spot is being held for William Jennings Bryant or Jane Addams. PE looks back, but not that far back. In fact, its telescope stops short of the original PE: Public Enemy, a group that Joey and STEEZ reference on Survival Tactics, but never really account for. The MCs offer social commentary only in passing, and its mostly about the contemporary escalation in violence (false the 80s were far more dangerous) and the wholesale degradation of our public school system (true enough but inner-city education sucked in the 80s, too). Retrospective rap can encounter some trouble when it tries to get topical. In stressing its presumptive intelligence, it comes to resemble Damon Wayans great In Living Color sketch, in which a convict prone to bawdy malapropisms unwittingly does the bidding of the United Negro College Fund. Keep your a$$ in school, Joey. But dont stop preaching. In its aggregate, Survival Tactics is refreshing but not revelatory. Joey offers less an Odd Future than a Standard Past. Luckily, this is a standard that he meets and should soon exceed. Mixtapes merely spark buzz; an official release will raise the stakes, as well as the Progressive Eras profile. One imagines that Bada$$ will be to PE what Rocky is to A$AP and Tyler is to Odd Future: the gang leader, packing rhymes in place of bullets. Commercially, much has changed since the mid-90s. A PE album wont explode like Enter the Wu-Tang, and a Joey solo record wont simmer like Method Mans Tical. This gives the artist the ability to follow his own five-year plan, to either drop a full-crew LP and then segue to solo work (like Odd Future), or to establish a central figure around which the posse can coalesce (like A$AP Rocky). At the moment, Joey appears to be more inclined toward the latter than the former. That said, the kid is still in high school, not on the board of directors at Bain Capital. Let him grow and grimace, age and ache. Maybe hell have something taken from him. Maybe hell give us more than we bargained for. Either way, I hope he proves immune to the flattery thats emanating out of the more feckless corners of the blogosphere, and engineers a career path thats built to last beyond graduation day. He claims to be trained in survival tactics. Now lets see him put them to use. Rap is unrepentantly Darwinian, and the processes of natural selection have been in continuous motion since the days of my youth. Whether Joey is to greet this cycle as predator or prey is function of his talent and his smarts. All things considered, I like his chances. When his full-length cassette tape drops, my Walkman will be there to pick it up. Lets just hope no one comes along and steals it. (June 29, 2012) Lana Del Rey, Video Games The Internet hath decreed that all fans of indie pop shall publish their opinions on Lana Del Rey. Mine arent particularly ambitious or well-informed, as they come on the heels of a few rushed spins of her breakout single, Video Games. Still, my views bear the
43

virtue of being honest and unposed, largely because I have no stricture of cool to uphold. I can just come right out and say it: I like Lana, and I think that her signature song is among the better indie ballads of the year. Del Rey doesnt possess the voice of a Beyonc or an Adele, but when you cut her, she bleeds. Video Games is conspicuous for featuring this open wound instead of a welltread path to revenge. From verse to verse, Lana is a woman in love. She sings of her infatuation with a nameless beau who seems to prefer digital pleasures to tactile connections. This is a candid rebuttal to the Judd Apatow filmography, written from the female perspective; it reveals the horrors that todays man-children have wrought, particularly in matters of the heart. Better yet, its a short story, in which the protagonist adores her antagonist, even as she acknowledges that the lead characters are temperamentally incompatible. This is how real life actually works: Relationships fade with a whimper rather than a bang, although the bang is certainly a viable concern, to male and female alike. Lana wins my affection by striking a kind of stoic vulnerability. She makes me feel sorry for her, even as she asks for no pity. Unfortunately, the poignancy of Del Reys art has taken a back seat to her appearance and her pedigree. Shes a conspicuously attractive woman, but her profile is dominated by lips that look to have been injected by a thousand Botox needles. The resulting face is not just pretty but pretty bizarre: It has no sense of proportion. From this observation, we can easily drill down to the supposed superficiality of the girl beneath the inflated pucker and the turned-up nose. A quick Google search informs us that Lana Del Rey is the stage name of one Lizzy Grant, a fledgling pop singer from a family of means. The new name was meant to engender a new direction, suggesting a spiritual union of Lana Turner and the Ford Del Rey, both constituents conjuring images of a storied past. So, yes, the Del Rey persona is a calculated farce. And this marks the first time in the history of show business that a performer has changed her name or cultivated a false image. Lets move beyond the lips. Can we agree that Grants obsession with cosmetics speaks to a striking lack of confidence? And isnt this lack of confidence, this total surrender to the knife and laser, what informs Video Games? Del Rey is a living remix, prone to the sorts of nips and tucks that are utterly foreign to the sound board. The surgery may be plastic, but the hurt is genuine. The name may be artificial, but the pain evoked under its imprimatur is very real. Video Games is an agonized track, stirring a sort of glamorous despair. All were given are piano, harp, and longing, a mixture that imparts hypnosis. When Lana sings Heaven is a place on earth where you/Tell me all the things you want to do, were made to hear the melancholy of Rufus Wainwright, not the SoCal mall-pop of Belinda Carlisle. Only this melancholy isnt operatic; its hushed and harrowing. Imagine a very, very sad Zooey Deschanel, or Fiona Apple without the specter of vengeance. Theres no melisma or pitchy acrobatics, just the slack vibrato of a doe-eyed chanteuse. Del Reys phrasing is lazy, but her cadence is alive, implying a romantic curiosity that belies her rote, white-girl delivery. In the chorus, Lana asks her man, I heard you like the bad girls/Honey, is that true? We get the sense that the answer could break her to pieces.

44

Then again, the answer might embolden her to further inventions in identity. Del Rey will be whoever her man wants her to be. This is a professional strength but a personal weakness. And its absolutely heartbreaking to see a fragile young woman dragged into crises of body image, all for a man who devotes his leisure time to something as frivolous as video games. Though I might question Del Reys tendency toward fawning navet, I dont question her talent. Video Games is a strong, well-crafted song in the confessional mode. It deserves to be heard, even by those who remain hung up on the singers lips. Millions of women have been Botoxed. Only one has written Video Games. Lets give Lana the benefit of the doubt, at least until she generates enough material for an EP. If her subsequent songs are as alluring as her first, the music will finally drown out the gossip. (November 4, 2011) Bobby Womack, Please Forgive My Heart Bobby Womack is a desperate man. Hes been in a perpetual plead since the early Sixties, when he followed his mentor, the great Sam Cooke, from sacred to secular spheres. This balance or, should I say, this conflict between Sunday morning and Saturday night is what makes Womack so compelling. He sings the devils music, but he does it in heavenly voice, with a Midwestern sense of humility and a Baptists flourish of conscience. Each song seems an act of contrition or a prayer for absolution, covering sins past, present, and future. Only when a tacit tipping point is reached, and the subject in play lapses beyond the realm of being redeemed, does the Preacher drop from his pulpit and take up the language of the streets. The resulting testimony is just as passionate, but a great deal less generous to its target. The cheek is turned in exclamatory disavowal, not meek acceptance. Every word is sung as if it were a matter of life or death. Look at some of Womacks loudest lines: Girl, dont pull the rug from under my feet!; I cant take it like a man!; I used to love her, but its all over now!; If you think youre lonely now, wait until tonight, girl! These arent the accounts of a man whos content to stake middle ground. No, Bobby is out there on a limb, either begging his woman for mercy or telling his old lady to fuck off. His default condition is one of extremity. To borrow a hoary motif from Peter Shaffers Equus, Extremity is the point! Bobby simply wont traffic in Smooth R&B; if it aint rough, it aint him. Please Forgive My Heart, Womacks most recent collaboration with Damon Albarn, fits nicely into the Preachers pantheon of pleas. As its title should indicate, the song falls into the begging for mercy school, complete with admissions of guilt and weakness. This thematic structure is nothing new, of course, as any student of Bobbys catalog can attest. The paradigm shift comes in the backing track, which aches and sways under the influence of the Gorillaz head ape. In its aggregate, Please is a formal apology set amid an informal idiom. What have Womack and Albarn created here? Is it R&B? Indie? Electronica? Indie electronica R&B? Im inclined to call it all of the above, then to submit that the classification doesnt especially matter. Albarn gives the track an electronic throb, circling in soft piano, subtle bass pops, and a steady parade of synth
45

ripples. Near the songs end, however, the pulses and the echoes, the clicks and the clacks, retreat to reveal the unadorned chime of Womacks acoustic guitar. The Preacher plays us out, but only after making his necessary confessions. In true Womack fashion, Please offers the singers plea upfront. The singles first line is, I could try to say Im sorry, but that wont be quite enough. What follows is a forensic study of the narrators shortcomings nothing explicit or lust-charged, just a vague outline of me-first living. When Bobby sings Im a liar! (as he does several times on the track, just before the refrain) you tend to believe him. Then you start to wonder why such torn-up regret has to come from a 68-year-old soul survivor. Chris Brown ought to be singing this song, not Bobby Womack. The Preacher deserves a victory lap, not another station of the cross. Then again, Womacks victories almost always arrive as gestures of self-flagellation. For all his spiritual leanings, Bobby is caught up in the flesh, specifically in that dour window where its pleasures become its pains. Please has been well received by the indie electorate, most likely because Albarn was at the helm of its production. The ostensive avant garde likes to see an old dog learn new tricks, particularly if those tricks are midwifed by a collaborator of proper pedigree. Personally speaking, I approve of Womacks arch-contemporary turn, but I hasten to point out that the studio effects would be meaningless if they didnt have a solid tune to decorate. Critical tastes and hipster prejudices notwithstanding, people still like conventional songs. Adventurous listeners tolerate sound loops and sample collages for the sake of feeling cool, but, really, what they want is verse-chorus-verse, executed with efficiency. Please succeeds by keeping a classic framework, adding the digital thumbprint merely as a colorful garnish. To drown out Womacks desperation would be a crime punishable by death. Thankfully, Albarn checks his hand, all as Bobby checks his pride. The Preacher is still pleading his case, largely by testifying for the plaintiff, whatever the eventual costs. Were obliged to find him guilty as charged. Then were happy to commute the sentence. Consider your heart forgiven, Bobby. It might lead you astray, but itll never lead you wrong. (March 18, 2012) Bon Iver, Calgary To close the back cover on this years edition of First Takes, I thought we might debut a feature called Second Opinions. This is not a contribution from a guest writer, just another look at a previously released song, glimpsed from the heights of minor posterity. Whether my binoculars focus on folly or truth will be up to the reader. (The art of criticism cuts both ways, though the blades being flashed come in varying grades of sharpness.) This morning, well tackle Bon Ivers Calgary, the most accessible free download from the most critically acclaimed indie rock album of 2011. When I first stumbled upon the track, in mid May, I found it utterly lacking in oomph. It struck me as the sort of ambient-toned ballad that mistakes glimmer for glory, thinking that both variables could be achieved through a fizzy muddle. In opting for mood over message, the
46

composition came perilously close to qualifying as elevator music, whereby the true rises and falls were provided by the mechanism, not the musicians. Seven months later, my Second Opinion largely corroborates my first. Calgary is a ghost town, all chirping crickets and softly twirling tumbleweed. The song isnt barren of womb so much as bereft of testosterone. Pardon my vulgarity, but Bon Ivers fourminute serenade seems fit to soundtrack a vaginal rejuvenation. It would calm both surgeon and patient, providing a sponge bath of synths to cleanse the somewhat scandalous nip and tuck. Justin Vernon sings in a hushed falsetto, as if to ascribe profundity to words that dont merit such an exalted measure. The music holds some mystery, but the band clings a bit too desperately to its secrets, perhaps in fear that its puzzles, once unlocked, will puzzle no one. Clearly, Im missing something here. Bon Iver couldnt have risen to indie rock Mt. Rushmore status without certain discernible talents. The problem is that Ive been in the company of Vernons singles for the better part of two years, and Ive yet to be thunderstruck. This, I think, is a function of the Bon Iver aesthetic. The bands wares shimmer and glow but never truly shine. Calgary has an aura but no backbone, a mirage but no muscle. Its simply not the music of the broad shoulders, and it wont be starting a weight training program anytime soon. Still, I feel compelled to ask a few questions: Can Mr. Vernon play a major key? Can he strike a power chord? Theres a difference between being contemplative and going limp a difference that indie rock had better recognize before its bouquet is dominated by shrinking violets. Calgary is remarkable only for its flaccidity. Ive given it as many chances as one could reasonably accord, particularly in light of the daily onslaught of new releases. Now Im obliged to tuck the tune into my archive, face down, and wait for whatever pleasures 2012 has in store. May those of us who enjoy non-commercial sounds finally move beyond this infernal phase of tone poems. Nuance has a way of dulling the senses, of lulling us to sleep. But lets not surrender to oblivion just yet. In new years, we often find new wonders. And Im hoping that some rough beast will come slouching around the corner, guitar in hand and mic at the ready. The sound neednt be sweet so long as its resonant. At the moment, the bar of inspiration is set perilously low. (December 29, 2011)

47

EDITORIAL INTERLUDE
On Morrisseys Holiday Sale I come from that betwixt/between generation the one thats too young to feel a meaningful kinship with X, but too old to assert preferred membership in Y. The consequence of this peculiar estrangement, at least in sociological terms, is utterly beyond me. From a musical perspective, however, the fallout is clear: I hold no loyalty to genre or idiom. No singular sound or style is irrevocably my own. Rock, rap, and R&B are all pop, regardless of whether theyre actually popular. Each item is part of an interconnected substrate, into which my cohort can drill down, until we reach the exotic, the exhilarating, or the unlistenable. Sometimes the three are one and the same. My approach to contemporary pop music is, essentially, come as you are. You can pine for Rihanna or Radiohead, Justin Bieber or Leonard Cohen, Taylor Swift or Kanye West, provided your interest is genuine. I get ornery and inflexible only in the realm of ideals. To me, its not what you listen to, but how you listen to it. Its not the price you pay for a CD or an mp3, but the premium you place on music as a vessel of transport to nobler planes and more ambitious mountains. Im not one to buy into the white noise theory, which posits that music should be omnipresent, slithering out of suspect speakers or inadequately secured mobile devices. I dont need symphonic Top 40 to loosen the contents of my billfold or truncated rhythms to induce desires that are better left untapped. I have principles, goddammit principles which possess me to occupy the borders between art and commerce, rarely allowing the latter to sully the former. This preamble serves to reveal my point; namely, that the ascendant trend toward the licensing of pop songs for television commercials ought to be regarded with hostility. Ive brandished this torch of admonition before, to strikingly hushed effect. But still I flame on, like a man out of time, defending moral standards that were more the product of circumstance than internal conviction. The holdouts on the music licensing extravaganza your Neil Youngs, Tom Pettys, and Bruce Springsteens can afford to hold out only because theyve made untold millions through the legal sale of their art. Things are different for, say, Kurt Vile or Battles, who move fewer units than blackmarket Viagra. The debate can thus be conceived as a generational issue. The Baby Boomers who lined their pockets with rock and rolls glorious dividends should be able to resist the temptation to sell out. The youth brigade, however, is as broke as our nations healthcare system, and can be forgiven for raising revenues by whatever means possible. Where, then, does that leave Morrissey? He, like me, is betwixt/between: too young to have garnered the sultanesque cash of the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix, but too old to pose as a spring chicken or starving artist. I imagine Mozs annual income, even at its low ebb, is adequate to cover his veggie burger and hair putty expenses. And Im all but sure that his Smiths residuals enable him to live with a reasonable inventory of creature comforts. So what possible defense can he invoke to justify his recent sale of Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want to U.K. retailer John Lewis?

48

This is not a rhetorical question, and two responses immediately come to mind: 1) Morrissey is now a solo artist without a record contract. Perhaps he needs the cheque from Monsieur Lewis to finance the release of his next album; or 2) Maybe Moz just really likes the John Lewis franchise, and holds a heretofore unarticulated soft spot for their conspicuously well-tailored holiday adverts. The first explanation is difficult to corroborate, but packs the virtue of upholding the classic arrangement between patron and artist. The second sounds crass to the point of parody Mr. Scrooge recast as Father Christmas, rosy cheeked and ready for the exchange of gifts. It seems completely out of character for a songwriter of Morrisseys disposition. (The man is known as the Pope of Mope, for goodness sake!) That said, I must admit that, against my initial instincts, Ive come to approve of the Mozzers decision. Though I tremble as I type this sentence, its words ring true: This years John Lewis holiday commercial is impossibly poignant and surprisingly human. Yesterday, I cued it up with a mix of punk-rock outrage and righteous anger, fully expecting to put my fist through the monitor. I placed my Bona Drag CD at my side, indignantly prepared to burn it in a bonfire of vanities. Then I watched the advertisement in toto, and was moved to a condition just short of tears. To be clear, Im not the lachrymose type. In the past year, Ive lost friends and relatives, to circumstances tragic and inevitable, yet I never failed to maintain my composure. Some people consider my stoicism to be positively unhealthy; they poke me with sticks and stories, trying to engender an outpouring of emotion. Little did they know that all they had to do was screen a sentimental Christmas spot for the British Macys. Call it the Miracle on Oxford Street. I wont provide a complete action summary of the commercial. Suffice to say that a young boy is depicted in the hyperanxious countdown to December 25th. The greedy little bugger wants his presents, were made to believe, and, as a twinkling cover of Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want plays in the background, were prone to resent the boy for his galling self-concern. As an extension, were prone to resent Morrissey, who amorally licensed his song for the most literal of meanings, only with the triple please being usurped by a triple want. Then something amazing happens. The boy wakes up on Christmas morning, scampers past the cluster of presents that sits beside his bed, and takes a carefully wrapped package into his parents room. In the gloaming of a fine yuletide morn, the implication becomes clear: The child wasnt waiting to receive a gift; he was waiting to give a gift! I realize that, with this spot, a premier British ad firm is simply toying with my emotions. Still, the piece is fucking beautiful. Boorish materialism is turned into a humble offering to our betters, without slapstick humor or CGI histrionics. The unexpected change of tone hits us like a haymaker, knocking aside our presumptions and prejudices. As a result, Morrisseys ironic blast of complaint is transformed into an earnest prayer of generosity. Against all odds, the commercial somehow improves on the message of the song. Rather than reify the affected desperation, it redeems the implicit longing. It argues that a good man turned bad can once again turn good.

49

By way of disclosure, I work in the dimly lit peripheries of advertising, and cant pretend not to have some passion for the form. As each flash of marketing becomes more and more insipid, I like to fancy myself an avenging angel, swooping down from the heavens to slay the tone-deaf monsters who are responsible for those heinous Geico spots. I am, of course, delusional: When you take a job in the for-profit sector, youre essentially at the mercy of your client, who invariably thinks hes Steve Jobs. Every ad firm wants to recapitulate Apples Think different campaign, as if that trite construct of motivational pap was somehow Tennysons Ulysses in concentrate. Generally speaking, I want my ads to be clever or comical, not heartrending. John Lewis, however, wins my acclaim by not just thinking different, but acting differently. Recruiting Morrissey, that evercrabby bastard, to score their holiday advert was a small stroke of genius in a discipline thats largely bereft of intelligence. So please, please, please, let me issue my special dispensation: I hereby forgive Morrissey for selling out. Hell, I downright applaud him. The commercial isnt just poignant; it is, in fact, subversive. Imagine a 70-second Christmas ad that shows no salable items, just a child in the restless run-up to the holiday, all pure thoughts and youthful agitation. Imagine our yearly bacchanal of buying and greed-mongering distilled down to the impulse of the Wise Men, lending visit to the Holy Family. For gifts you cant wait to give is both the John Lewis tagline and my inspiration for the upcoming season. Its wonderful, life-affirming stuff. And its come from the most surprising of places. Now, if youll forgive me, I have to get back to the business of earning money if only so that I might subsequently spend it on those I hold dear. If Ive been duped, so be it. The means are immaterial as long as the ends are charitable. Consider this ad the vanguard of a salvation army, sent to prop up a holiday thats in jeopardy of losing its claims to piety. No shots need to be fired for the message to take root as Morrissey sang during his time with the Smiths, a rush and a push and the land is ours. All thats left to do is plant our flags and wrap our presents. Lets do it with all the appropriate spirit. (November 15, 2011) On Frank Oceans Recent Waves Last week was as good a time as any to feel sorry for Dave Longstreth. Though he managed each facet of his bands album release with an adroit hand, his efforts were ultimately derailed by an 11th-hour sideshow. After ticking off every item on the responsible modern artists checklist conceiving and recording a great LP; loosing the lead singles in savvy anticipation of the albums premiere; picking a strategic date to accommodate its commercial drop; offering a free stream of the entire record on NYTimes.com; appearing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon; performing a series of live tracks for KEXP; webcasting a full concert via Bowery Presents; sitting for lengthy interviews with Pitchfork and Stereogum; headlining the first night of the Pitchfork Music Festival; even allowing his discs cover photo to be debased by a silly, Internetmediated caption contest Dave was served with a bill of goods that tragically undercut the Dirty Projectors relevance in the marketplace. And that bill came courtesy of Frank Ocean.
50

Lets not pussyfoot around the facts: Longstreths is a band built on smarts but sustained by buzz. For the Projectors to launch beyond the curved walls of the indie establishment, they would require a media accomplice, a charmed transmission, and an awful lot of luck. Last week, it seemed like the stars might align, that the cosmic reel-toreel would finally project Longstreth past the provincial caves in which his group had been forced to dwell. Then, mere minutes before D-Day, the Projectors momentum was unceremoniously submerged by Frank Oceans precipitously rising tides. Frank had published a poetic tract on his long-suppressed sexual agony (shared, not coincidentally, in the shadow of Independence Day), and he subsequently decided to telescope his debut albums digital release date, so as to take advantage of the many new ears his confession had the good fortune to capture. I doubt he meant Longstreth any harm. But the numbers describe a beating thats just short of concussive: As of this morning, Frank Oceans Channel ORANGE is the #1 album download on iTunes. Meanwhile, the Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan is checking in at #42. Call it a TKO, with the mercy rule refusing to stand up and be counted. Magellan was instructed to swing lo, but not this lo. In the end, the analysis is clear: Longstreth was given short shrift, and theres really nothing he can do about it. History will now repeat itself, as tragedy, farce, or some lamentable combination thereof. Ahead of this sentence, our prime object of concern has been Dave and his Dirty Projectors. In the blink of an eye, however, our sights will shift to Frank Ocean, the R&B arriviste whos currently all aglitter in the indie rock firmament. To be clear, Im not a new listener to Mr. Oceans wares, as my previous writings on his junior discography should attest. To be even clearer, I possess nothing short of a glowing admiration for Franks songs, and have for some time. Regular visitors to this blog will recall that I named Novacane the second best track of 2011; that I had kind words for Oceans Nostalgia, Ultra cut, Swim Good; and that I waxed ecstatic about Channel ORANGEs first single, Pyramids, which I called my favorite song of 2012 in any genre. For me, Franks music has constituted something of an obsession, each new release redoubling my faith in the mans genius. At this heady moment, with Channel occupying the airwaves of the cultural cognoscenti, Im pleased to report that my faith has been redeemed. ORANGE is a remarkable album, and Ocean is a talent one comes across only a few times in a generation. In the aggregate, I prefer his new record to Longstreths, and his waters clean currents to the Projectors dirty broadcast. Franks work is simply more pop and accessible than Daves. This may seem an immaterial point in the crags and furrows of modern art, but, in the end, its a distinction that makes all the difference. Its a long way from #42 to #1. And familiarity plays a huge role in bridging the gap. So, too, do the ceaseless echoes of the social medias sound chamber. Last week, Ocean was pronounced a transformational figure, flagged to bear a banner reading young, black, and gay. These adjectives havent always fit well together; hip-hops out homophobia has been a cause for concern that sits just a notch or two below its thinly veiled misogyny. Having come of age with the idiom, I think much of the cited prejudice is overblown the product of ignorance playing to the ignorant, not a legitimate hatred with an attendant call to action. Still, a quick review of my recent clips (to which Im ascribing perhaps more importance than they merit) reveals that, vis--vis hot rapper Joey Bada$$, I tacitly referenced an EPMD song called Rampage, which starts with
51

the lines, You could get rugged, rough, hard like P/You tried to play my man but you couldnt touch me/You faggot. Parrish Smith wasnt groping for controversy when he articulated these bars; he was simply spitting in the image of his form, which depicted homosexuals as weak and worthy of ridicule. This was not a critical stance; it was a reflex, and one which Ive been trying to kick for the better part of my adult life. Moral shortcomings beget a parade of bloodless apologias, but theres an element of truth to what I have to say. When youre born powerless, raised powerless, and grown powerless, you direct your jibes at a marginalized group. That is, you bully those who are easily bullied. Though you and your target share a certain feeling of disenfranchisement, you relish your rare shot at authority and rule-setting. One of the freedoms that America has been so enthusiastic in protecting is the right to persecute. Because if we can convince ourselves that were better than the next guy, those who are several positions removed from the vulgate will be secure in their command centers. In American history, intra-class warfare always trumps inter-class warfare. Let that be my social statement for the day. More pertinent than my spotty insights are my failures of musical comprehension. As regards Frank Ocean, there were signs aplenty that the boy wonder had an attraction to men. I missed each of them, as did every pop journalist from North Cak-a-laka to Compton. Look at the lead verse from one of his most celebrated singles, Thinking About You, which features the passage, My eyes dont shed tears but boy they pour when/Im thinking about you. I imagine we all took that boy in one of two ways, either as an oh boy!/ by God! or as a professional songwriters lyrical device. Frank has a history of writing for female artists, and Thinking was ostensibly a number devised for Roc Nations Bridget Kelly. She, in theory, was the figure who was reduced to tears at the mere thought of her beau. This was a perfectly reasonable explanation. It was also perfectly wrong. This leads me to an unkind conclusion: Ive been listening to Frank Ocean without truly listening to Frank Ocean. Granted, the artist was communicating in code, with a variety of convenient disguises. But that doesnt excuse the fact that even his most ardent fans never considered that something unexpected might be rumbling beneath the covers. To say that I was shocked by his confession would be an understatement of epic proportions. I truly didnt see it coming, perhaps because of the model broad with the Hollywood smile in Novacane; the Cleopatra character in Pyramids; and an entire fucking single called Songs for Women (sample lyric: Everytime somebody ask me if I sing songs to get at women/I say Yeah.)! Of course, Rock Hudson played the romantic lead in two decades worth of major motion pictures before he was outed by the AIDS epidemic, Rob Halford embodied a macho strain of British metal before he admitted to same-sex relationships, and Tom Cruise has been married three times, only to see each bond bust with suspicious flair. Despite its claustrophobia, the closet is safe and, I imagine, relatively warm. Or at least warmer than the perceived alternative. Just ask Anderson Cooper, who has been the subject of more gay jokes than Liberace. If you suspect that this essay is slowly leading up to my own coming-out party, please disabuse yourself of that notion. I am unremittingly hetero, and this is a source of shame and agony in its own right. Such burdens notwithstanding, Id be remiss if I didnt confess to being a step or two behind the sexual vanguard. This has repercussions in the pop sphere, as much of the hot programming has a campy or hyperprogressive scent.
52

Im not speaking of Glee or the left-footed features that constitute the Bravo networks unsavory block of ratings-grabbers. Im thinking more of Against Me!s Tom Gabel, who recently announced that hed be changing genders, to live and perform as a woman named Laura Jane Grace. I encountered this news via Stereogum, courtesy of a post published by a fine and prolific writer named Tom Breihan. Mr. Breihan took major shit (read that as some 200 largely hostile comments) for dressing his brief in less than radiant colors. He was understandably caught off guard by the surprise headline, and reported its story with a discernible trace of disbelief. My reaction was essentially the same. The guy who barked anthems of social justice with leonine fury is now a girl? Thats tough for a thirtysomething to compute without the manifestation of a defense mechanism. For the majority of your life, youve been called gay or a homo each time youve missed a tackle or botched a lay-up. You come to find comfort in such terminology, even if its just a lazy vestige of muscle memory. This nostalgia, as it were, is not ultra. But it is the truth, however damning. I travel down this back road because I think it runs parallel with hip-hops appraisal of homosexuality. The words are harsher than the underlying feelings, and the disposition is largely a product of provincial histories. These histories are starting to unravel, but they still flash the occasional regressive mark slurs that land less as gut punches than head scratchers. I mean, Frank Ocean is a member of the Odd Future collective, the leader of which, Tyler, the Creator, uses the word faggot as if it were a completely innocuous term. Yet his crews DJ, Syd the Kyd, is an out lesbian. And now his go-to vocalist, Mr. Ocean, has confessed to a homosexual relationship. Did Tyler respond by flogging Syd or exiling Frank from his inner circle of friends? No, the Creator has always been cool with his DJ, and his reaction to Oceans latest wave is one of the few instances of grace on his sordid Twitter feed (the last sentence of this Tweet notwithstanding). Frank came out to considerable fanfare, but it was almost exclusively supportive. Trolls and pranksters aside, I dont see any evidence of homophobia in the R&B or rap communities. What I do see is the endorsement of hip-hops first family, Jay-Z and Beyonc. One can even presume that Dave Longstreth is in Oceans camp, despite the ill effects that Channel ORANGE has had on the Dirty Projectors bankroll. Ultimately, Channel came out early to counterbalance the fact that Frank came out late. His beautifully gymnastic statement on Tumblr describes a long period in the wilderness, referencing several summers of quasi-forbidden love. The relationship under inquiry is never painted salaciously; this is a connection of souls, not flesh. Frank confesses to nothing more than a kiss, but nothing less than a complete and utter game-changer. By the time I realized I was in love, Ocean writes, it was malignant. Thats an apt description. It implies that his affections were inescapable, terminal, beyond chemotherapy. Those of us whove felt similar flutters of heterosexual longing will relate to the artist, even if hes batting for the other team. Dont let my use of team be misunderstood: With it, I intend neither humor nor insult. In fact, Im not entirely sure what I intend. In reading the stories of Frank Ocean and Tom Gabel, Ive come to acknowledge that I lack the vocabulary to properly contextualize my opinions on their highly personal disclosures. Throughout this essay, Ive been using the word confession, as if we were in the stacks with St. Augustine. I dont know if this is an adequate label. Nor am I sure that coming out is the accepted phrase for what Ocean has done. Just because hes been in love with a man doesnt mean hes a homosexual.
53

He could be polyamorous that is, batting for both teams. Ill make my peace with the climate of confusion if youll make your peace with my drought of delicacy. When a sensitive topic is so fawningly glad-handed, it fails to develop the calluses necessary to sustain the hard work of brokering recognition and approval. Thankfully, the one entity in this cultural crossfire thats beyond the reproach of critics is the actual music. Channel ORANGE broadcasts at a frequency that may be deserving of the label masterpiece. Im slow to sticker it with the highest of superlatives, as its release is enfogged in a nebbia of easy praise and shameless hyperbole. The uniformly positive response reminds me of the immediate reaction to Kanye Wests My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which received perfect scores across the board, from Pitchfork to Rolling Stone. Channel is in no way a perfect album; it lags in certain spots, and gets a touch repetitive in others. Still, Im glad to hold it up as the years best record, just ahead of recent discs from the Walkmen, Japandroids, and Bobby Womack. This is great company, and more fitting than it might initially appear. Ocean has many knives and forks in his cutlery drawer: he packs the verse-chorus-verse chops of the Walkmen; the sharp, uncompromising blades of Japandroids; and the copious scrapes and scars of Bobby Womack. Then he has something thats inimitably his own: a veterans perspective held in a tenderfoots valise. Ocean is at once free-form and efficient, indulging in the caprices of an up-and-comer without checking the tact or trajectory of his flight. I could draft 5,000 words to describe this quality. But why dont we settle for a welcome shortcut, and simply call it talent? What does this talent entail? Well, Ive answered that question before, at great length and with rabid enthusiasm. Given that todays ruminations have left me in analytical rather evaluation mode, Im keen to fall back on my earlier takes, which I think have held up fairly well. Heres the first take, from last November:
Oceans strength isnt a look or a dance craze; its a sensibility. He can express vulnerability and command in the same note, proving that doubt and swagger are not intrinsically irreconcilable. Franks magic works as a shadowplay; his music has a tenebristic quality, in which dark and light, melancholy and movement, strike a mellifluous balance, speaking to your head and heart rather than your hips.

And heres the second opinion, from my Best of 2011 commentary:

[Ocean] is an R&B singer with a rappers instincts, prone to syllable extension, word repetition, and close-knit rhymes that sustain the tracks forward momentum. This adds up to a truly transfixing sound a fever dream reshaped as an unlikely love story.

It turns out that this unlikely love story was more unlikely than I expected. Which is not to say that my initial impressions regarding Frank were off the mark. The tenebrism that I cited was a characteristic of Caravaggios painting, which I conveniently interpolated into the arenas of contemporary pop music. Like Ocean, Caravaggio was a troubled creator, albeit one prone to a risible temper and clashes with the law. Franks unease is more internal; the dark and the light battle within but are loath to manifest externally. To my knowledge, Ocean has been involved in no bar fights or diveby shootings. The electric charge in his music communicates a drama unreconciled, a
54

desire unresolved, a dignity deferred. These feelings managed to sublimate from their instrumental ballast, and the impact was resounding. We all heard the pride and the passion; we merely heard them in the wrong key. PostChannel ORANGE, its more or less impossible to miss the grace notes. Im sure Frank had many reasons for coming out, and had planned the great reveal for some time. (His Tumblr post is a screen grab which lists its date of composition as December 27, 2011.) Some cite the date of the post as evidence of a publicity stunt, pulled off in the homestretch of Channels promotional cycle. Im not quite so cynical. I think Frank came out because he had to. Too many of the albums songs use masculine pronouns for the artist to deny a same-sex attraction. In addition to the boy in Thinking About You, theres the I could never make him love me in Bad Religion; the What do you know about him? in Pilot Jones; and the one-two whammy of You run my mind, boy and Youre so buff and so strong in Forrest Gump. This last song seals the deal. Its the LPs final track, and a happy one at that. By the time its over, Ocean has been exposed, and he knows it. To cloud or disavow his identity would have been an act of cowardice. Franks bravery is perhaps encoded in his albums title. I can conceive of the ORANGE component being an acronym for something subtextual, like the OMFUG on the CBGB sign. Ill make no blind predictions as to what it stands for, but I will state that orange is a word thats long befuddled the rhyming dictionary. The implication is one of originality nothing rhymes easily with this forsaken color. Its a hue unattached, bearing no significant other. Read into that what you will, but, please, dont miss the forest for the trees. Ocean doesnt beat around his battles with the disappointment of star-crossed romance. By now, I imagine youve heard the chorus to Bad Religion, including the couplet, This unrequited love/To me its nothing but one man cult. This one man is the animating spirit of the entire record; he is the great unnamed, the muse of Oceans breakout moment. Were fortunate that Frank has rode the inspiration all the way to shore. Bad Religion is among the best singles of the year, running neck and neck with Pyramids for pop supremacy. In a better world, Ocean would be 2012s Adele, crooning his love story to the masses, through channels of every shade and frequency. Unfortunately, the amorphous entity which Ill call Middle America is not too eager to hear a black man sing about his would-be boyfriend. Such testimony simply doesnt square with the expectations that underpin a visit to the nail salon or a step class. I hear so many terrible, plainly derivative pop songs during my daily toil in the gym. Why Frank Ocean has yet to penetrate the playlist isnt beyond me, but its galling nonetheless. Bad Religion features a novel theme for contemporary R&B. Again, boy-meets-boy is a subject typically greeted with the umpteenth ejaculation of Its Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! (Like anyone under 35 really gives a shit.) Still, the song doesnt represent Year Zero on the pop charts. Its composed in the commercial R&B vein, bearing the thumbprint of the artist eternally known as Prince. For me, Bad Religion is to Princes Lets Go Crazy as Adeles Rolling In the Deep is to the Rolling Stones Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker). Thematically, the pairs couldnt be more different; sonically, however, theyre chiseled from the same marble. Just as Adele borrowed a touch of Muscle Shoals grit from Mick and Keith, Frank pinched the Purple
55

Ones penchant for setting the scene with a churchy organ roll. The keys on Bad Religion are kin to the Lets Go Crazy intro, wherein Prince offers his sermon on this thing called life. Ocean isnt preaching in the same tone, but he is performing his own brand of liturgy. There may be no church in the wild, but, in domesticated spheres, the religion shines through, for better or for worse. With that concluding phrase, were pulled inexorably into the tar pits of the gay marriage debate. I wont waste any polemical fire on this hot-button issue; Ill simply remind you that Ocean has been on the record in support of marriage equality for quite some time. He said, I believe that marriage isnt between a man and woman, but between love and love. A little mawkish, perhaps, but hardly a weak argument. Fortunately, Channel ORANGE provides a stronger position, manning the desks of both prosecution and defense, but never losing the narrative thread. The album is not a seamless experience. Like OutKasts landmark Stankonia album, Channel maintains its integrity through the use of numerous interludes, which slowly lead the narrator from decadence to dawn. ORANGEs front end takes a Hollywood Babylon angle, calling out the towns lack of substance on Sweet Life and Super Rich Kids. The back end of the album is more personal, delving into matters of the heart, Oceans in particular. This is not meant as an official Cliffs Notes on the opus. It simply implies that Ocean is writing fiction and pulp in addition to autobiography and confession. As he told the New York Times, You always being the focal point is innately unhealthy. I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films. Even though its my voice, Im a storyteller. Sounds like Frank is hip to all projections, private or public, sparkling or dirty. Hes outing the cult of celebrity as a bad religion in its own right, quick to canonize then exile. This claim has been taken up by such worthy artists as Woody Allen (see the Roberto Benigni vignette in the Woodmans current film, To Rome With Love) and Aaron Sorkin (see last Sundays episode of The Newsroom, which took aim at TMZ). Ocean is not allergic to the spotlight. He just doesnt want to be famous for being gay; instead, hed like to be famous for being great. Can you blame him? Smart money says hell get his wish, though probably in a tranch of fame well below the lofty heights of Gaga and Rihanna. The sensation regarding Frank Ocean and his Channel ORANGE will fade with the flip of the going news cycle. The music, however, will endure, at least through the compilation of this years Best-of lists. On a personal level, Im pleased to reaffirm my endorsement of Oceans portfolio. His channels programming is hereby renewed, and the prospect of further seasons colors me citrus. I still feel a little sorry for Dave Longstreth, but this temporary quiver of conscience is overridden by my evergreen affection for next-level pop music. Frank Ocean was last years R&B revelation and last weeks OMG! headline. May the revelation spread as the headlines go dry. As Frank wrote in his attention-galvanizing Tumblr post, I dont have any secrets that I need kept anymore. So lets lift the artificial ceiling on his work, and see if the truth has the effect that it should. Ocean is a better songwriter than any contemporary singer, and a better singer than any contemporary songwriter. You can call that talent unique; just dont call it queer. Frank has suffered for his biological impulses, for his unsolicited longings, for the dissonance between his private life and his public art. Now he gets to enjoy some long overdue catharsis. As for us, we get the
56

greatest privilege of all: to listen to a rising star whos ascending on his own merits. Enjoy it while you can. New weeks bring new wonders, whether were ready or not. (July 17, 2012) On Bruce Springsteens Wrecking Ball Part I. Location, Location, Location The bald absurdity of my adult life is perhaps best expressed in a quick dispatch from my real estate diary: Three years ago, I moved to Asbury Park, New Jersey; in the process, I somehow managed to increase the geographical distance between myself and Bruce Springsteen. For though the Boss and Asbury are linked in lore like the Beatles and Liverpool or Biggie and Brooklyn, Springsteen has largely treated the town as a preferred performance venue one that serves as a living museum for his formidable mystique, not as an actual, factual home. Springsteen was raised in Freehold, New Jersey; made his name as a musician while living in Long Branch, New Jersey; and now resides in Rumson, New Jersey. Each address represents a red dot on the Monmouth County road map: factory town turned McMansion emporium; low-rent Shore point turned oceanfront-condo central; financier getaway turned financier hideaway. Yes, the Boss has changed places, but the lash and, as such, Springsteens mission as a topical songwriter goes on. Whats so special, and, ultimately, so inspiring, about Bruce is his ability to absorb the trials of hard times and spin them into popular art. He takes the disconcerting and makes them fit for a concert. Thats no small achievement, and its brought far from meager rewards. Id argue that the Boss is worth every penny his audience has tossed his way. Hes one of the few entertainers who can speak to our better angels without sounding glazed over or lachrymose. He offers Catholicism and catharsis, tension and release, twist and shout in expertly conceived measures, and he rides this holy admixture to peaks of poignancy that even the all-time greats, including Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, cannot match. This is not to say that Springsteen is a better songwriter than Dylan or Cohen; such comparisons are pointless, tantamount to a grudge match between fire, earth, and air. All I claim is that Bruce is more practiced and accomplished at demotic art, where big ideas are distilled down into the language of the little guy. I say this not as a music critic but as one of the truly minor characters on our grand stage. I say it also as a native New Jerseyan, whos seen Springsteen up close, in lights favorable and demeaning, and has only come to respect the man more and more with each passing year. Thats why I begin this essay, ostensibly a review of Springsteens 17th studio album, Wrecking Ball, with a first-person flourish. The Boss pens big-tent pop music with strikingly personal appeals, so my Bruce Springsteen story is not impertinent to the general understanding of the subject. Around here and, by here, I mean the Jersey Shore everyone seems to have a Boss encounter of at least minor significance. Mine is perhaps more symbolic than substantive, but Ill tell it nonetheless, with another brief excerpt from my real estate diary. Prior to moving to Asbury Park, I lived in a town called Red Bank. My address was just over three miles from Springsteens Rumson
57

estate. Were talking three miles as the car drives, not three miles as the crow flies. So, through regular terrestrial excursions, I developed fairly intimate knowledge of the stretch of asphalt that separated the Boss home from mine. There were a few sharp turns and a series of heavy climbs, a topography that served to indicate that the road from subsistence living to genuine wealth was a gauntlet that could break the cardiovascular system of an underconditioned man. I can recall running the expanse in my younger, more idealistic years, acknowledging that the six-mile round trip comprised a sweaty tour of progressive tax codes. The trek to Rumson was marked less by the grit of the individual mile than by the pedigree of the attending revenue bracket. Id never seen such wealth; and, on my weaker days, I grew quite envious of the excesses on display. This envy would pass rather quickly, however, when Id notice that I was being tracked by a black-and-white squad car bearing the emblem of the Rumson Police Department. By the cruisers second pass, the envy would turn to worry. By the third, the worry would turn to anger. I mention this seemingly indulgent tread of autobiography because I think it highlights what Wrecking Ball is all about: The stark disconnect between the haves and the have nots, represented not just in net worth but in access to the exclusionary provisions of the legal system, the security apparatus, and the markets of stock and commodity. This is the 21st Century, and the realists among us long ago laughed off the notion that All men are created equal. What we refused to laugh off truly, what got us out of bed each and every morning was the notion that these deficiencies in equality could be worked off, by means of sheer effort and carefully honed skill. Not too long ago, I could pass the mansion on the hill, be it in Rumson, Saddle River, or Newport, with a flicker of admiration, thinking Someday, if I catch a few breaks, that home could be mine. Now that dream is dead and buried, replaced largely by distemper and steely resolve. Thats the mentality that I hear in Wrecking Ball a declaration of despondence, followed by a few reasons to believe; an assertion that the fix is in, but that were obliged to play the game nonetheless. Resilience and courage, brothers! To give up is to give in. Ive previously written that Springsteens records should be affirmed rather than reviewed, that their purpose is found in actions rather than words. Obviously, its difficult to present action on the page, so, here, Im attempting to affirm Wrecking Ball in geographical context. Rumson, Red Bank, Asbury Park all are mentioned to get at the singular importance of geography in the Springsteen canon. His sound took shape in Asburys miscegenated bar scene and negotiated its adult identity on the boardwalks that link rich and poor, sinner and saint, man and woman. I dont believe he could have made his most affecting music had he not held a New Jersey drivers license in his blue-jeaned pocket. (As evidence, Ill submit the two rock albums he made in L.A., Human Touch and Lucky Town, which, by general consensus, form the nadir of his recording career, Queen of the Supermarket notwithstanding.) Those of you who arent from New Jersey may resent this Locals Only approach, particularly considering the Boss immense national and international popularity. Id advise you to reserve your resentment for my actual writing, not its frames. I place the focal square around the Jersey Shore because its among the best exemplars of the cancer that afflicts contemporary America. In our little patch of paradise, splendor sits astride squalor, a remnant of the days when the possessors of robber-baron wealth vacationed on our shores. Second, third, and fourth homes still abound on winter nights, you can drive
58

through tony neighborhoods and not see a single houselight illuminated, as the owners are in New York, or Malibu, or Aspen. Cross a bridge, and youre in the quarters of the help or, at least, the descendants of those who used to clean the adjacent estates and cook at the local resorts. Its the Two Americas, sitting side by side but talking only through the intermediations of crime and punishment. Wrecking Ball is unique for flipping the syntax on Dostoevskys famous title. Springsteen posits that, sometimes, the punishment precedes the crime, and that the criminal often acts less out of malice than impotence. Ill offer more on this concept in a moment, but, first, a few words on the actual music. Or, more to the point, a few words on how the music has been received by credentialed American listeners. Rolling Stone, that graying megaphone of rockist disposition, lends almost a full page of type space to its best, most knowledgeable writer, David Fricke. Fricke posts a predictable 5-star review, but he does it with tact and insight, highlighting the albums palpable anger. He writes, This is darkness gone way past the edge of town, to the heart of the republic. For him, and for Rolling Stone, whose national affairs correspondent, Matt Taibbi, famously called Goldman Sachs a giant vampire squid, this ire is appropriate and long overdue. I agree. On the reverse side of the critical matrix, we have Pitchfork, that proud avatar of indie predilection. The writers at Pitchfork are often exceptional and rarely underinformed. In taking issue with their 5.9/10 rating, I seek not to insult their institutional knowledge, merely to submit that their lenses arent grinded at the correct angle to see Springsteen in all his glory. Ryan Dombal makes a number of cogent points in his review, but most pertain to failures of mood or production value rather than weaknesses in the underlying songwriting. (No, Ron Aniello, formerly mixmaster for such artists as Jars of Clay, Lifehouse, and Barenaked Ladies, isnt a great production partner for a musician as dead-on-balls earnest as the Boss. But I wouldnt deduct more than a point or so for this offense.) Reading Dombals tuition, I couldnt escape the feeling that his sentiments could have been expressed in a single sentence: Wrecking Ball isnt as good as Nebraska, and thus is unworthy of more than a superficial listen. As regards the first part of this compound, I agree: Wrecking Ball isnt as good as Nebraska; few records of the last 30 years have been. But are we really in the business of comparing a four-track bedroom recording to a big, brawny, major-label affair? More importantly, can the album be disqualified for what its not? I dont think so. Which is why Im glad Dombal takes aim at one of the LPs affirmative characteristics: its short fuse. Here, however, Pitchfork and I are on opposing teams. Dombal considers Wrecking Ball to be too angry a record; I think, categorically, that its not angry enough. What sticks with me from the Pitchfork review is the pieces last line, which serves as something of a backhanded compliment to the Boss power of message and melody. Dombal writes, Hard times come and go why spew anger when exultance is in your grasp? Sure, Springsteen is known for his ability to cue spiritual risings and pedal-tothe-metal, skin-of-our-teeth escapes. But must we hold him to the encore portion of his set? In this time of gross economic inequality, I find it ridiculous that an intelligent listener would look to the Boss solely for balm. Why spew anger when exultance is in your grasp? Because sometimes the bastards need to pay for what theyve done. Because we reject as false the idea that every insult should be met with a turned cheek
59

and a docile posture. Because the defeated do not exult, and for their spokesman to do so would be disenchanting, dishonest, and, in the end, more destructive than any ironclad wrecking ball. By posing the question, I think Pitchfork reveals that theyve missed the point. The indie spheres penchant for hedonic aesthetics that is, the hankering for sensual, synthetic transport rather than an identifiable human touch underscores the importance of an album like Wrecking Ball. For all intents and purposes, Im an indie rock writer, and I derive a rich bounty of pleasure and meaning from the idiom. Id be remiss, however, if I didnt admit that the form has bequeathed too much of its landshare to the stuff of dreams. These are fantasies of a false past borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered Eighties, as James Murphy put it or a digi-drunk future, where haze and repetition act as amiable counterparts, promising an ambient chemistry. Springsteen cannot be judged in a milieu so boldly detached from reality. He finds his muses in the soil and the street, and will never retreat from nor surrender to an ethos of artful distraction. Prior to developing the song suite that would become Wrecking Ball, Bruce was working on a gospel record. This gesture toward the heavens, though temporarily shelved, leaves a thick residue on the Boss latest production. Wrecking Ball is where church music and folk music collide, and what results is a kind of secular soul a hymn for the here and now. Its neither a perfect album nor an unassailable tract of cultural commentary, but it earns its right to anger through narrative ambition and relentless topicality. Bruce has conscripted himself in a good, old-fashioned stare down, and hes betting that his enemies will blink before he does. Bring on yer wrecking ball, indeed. Because when the irresistible force meets the immovable object, theres going to be hell to pay. Part II. How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? This is probably the appropriate pivot point for our feisty little jeremiad. Having offered a touch of historical context and geographical specificity, I should now get to the essays titular concern, a rock and roll record comprising 11 songs and 51 minutes. This is precisely what I intend to do, albeit through another paragraph or three of locals-only intrigue. Im a bit late to the Wrecking Ball review party; reams of paper and untold quantities of ink have already been dedicated to Springsteens latest release. (You can read most of the reviews here, if you have seven or eight spare hours.) What Ive noticed is that almost every take is either too effusive in its praise or too damning in its criticism; the goal is not an honest assessment of a contemporary LP, but the wholesale deification or vilification of its author. Bruce is like that. He encourages his listeners to swing for the fences, even when a bunt might be the smarter move. All opinions are fair, meaning that they have the right to be voiced, with or without regard for press credential or grammatical correctness. There needs to be a distinction, however, between folks who listen to the record and offer a considered opinion, and folks who skip the heavy lifting and head straight to the loosing of laurels or the commentary of character assassination. Its the rear guard of this latter tribe that troubles me the most. They cant get beyond the fact that Bruce Springsteen is both a millionaire and a populist. In their minds, the two conditions are mutually exclusive, with empathy and activism spinning in an orbit thats utterly divorced from those at the
60

top of the economic pyramid. Time and again, Ive gotten pulled into the rich man in a poor mans shirt debate an argument that takes its name from Springsteens own pen, courtesy of Better Days. The notion that the working class can only be studied and/or depicted by the working class is foolish to the point of absurdity, particularly in music, where humble origins often provide fodder for a careers worth of albums. (See Jay-Z, Bob Seger, Johnny Cash.) Art is part real life, part imagination, and every artist is free to braid both elements to his preferred coil of authenticity. The Boss neednt apologize for his wealth or his wardrobe. Practically speaking, however, he cant make it rain in strip clubs or license his songs to any two-bit corporate concern that needs an injection of sonic Americana. His records demand that he uphold a very basic moral standard: that of the congenitally decent man. Im here to tell you that he does uphold this standard, with minimal PR or fanfare. In my more generous seasons, I donate a little time and muscle to the Monmouth County Food Bank. At the onset of last autumn, I can attest that pantry provisions were at an historic low. Then, just a week or two before Thanksgiving, the shelves started to swell with canned goods and nonperishables. I thought it was the fruit of a call-for-donations mailer that the Food Bank had recently deployed in a number of well-to-do areas. Turns out it was Bruce Springsteen. According to a source very close to the Banks secret vault, the pleading holiday mailer was met largely with indifference. (Were talking negligible response rates, as in less than 1%.) Springsteen was made aware of the drought and quickly filled the void. Thats why hes so highly regarded around here: He takes care of his own. Of course, some of our more conservative local residents view such charity as an affront to the wisdom of open markets. After all, food on the shelf works fine in practice, but, really, how does it hold up in theory? This is the logic of those who call the Boss a traitor and a hypocrite. Ideology trumps actuality, as it is prone to do in a country based on internally inconsistent principles. (Universal equality and the 3/5ths Clause simply do not square, however cockeyed your vision.) The cries of the every-man-for-himself contingent used to bother me. Now I hear those cries for what they are: An attack on the man rather than his message. The more savvy agents of the right understand that Bruces message one of a fair shake, replete with mercy for those who dont succeed is far too popular to be tackled head-on. So, instead of opting for direct confrontation, they shine a light on the mans pocket book, and suggest that its bulging with socialist currency. Such malicious misdirection is a sign of the times. In contemporary America, no good deed goes unpunished, not even the feeding of ones neighbors. Any act of municipal trust, however altruistic or discreet, can be portrayed as an unforgivable compromise of national ideals. Beyond the Glenn Beck contingent, we have well-meaning, blue-collar conservatives who cant stand to imagine that their beloved hot-rod angel might be caught up in a political crossfire. Theyll say, Yeah, I know you listen to Bruces music for its politics, but I just want to hear some rock and roll. Is politics really so onerous a word that it needs to be placed in the soft quarantine of ironic parentheses? I hope not. In fact, Id hope that we can agree that politics is not the art of the possible or the science of getting things done, but a thrice-knotted branch of moral philosophy. Were all political creatures, whether we wield a jackhammer or a guitar, whether we work at an
61

investment bank or a food bank. Politics may provide only a rough link between divergent elements of the citizenry, but its a tie that binds nonetheless. Lets not forsake it. Through this lens the spot where the local meets the universal I see Wrecking Ball as the latest chapter in the Boss Great American Novel. In a recent interview, Springsteen said, My work has always been about judging the distance between American reality and the American dream how far is it at any given moment? Well, at this particular moment, its far enough to induce despair or exhaustion. Thats the catalyst for Springsteens anger trend. Its also the modus vivendi of the entire Wrecking Ball project. This album runs on the ire that comes concomitant with moral and fiscal uncertainty, and it gets remarkable fuel economy. Bruce has always been keen to thread thoughtful rhetorical questions into his lyric sheet, ranging from Does this bus stop at 82nd Street? to Have you ever seen a one-legged dog, kicking at nothing but the breeze? But his most poignant query to date almost certainly comes from The River, where the narrator asks, Is a dream a lie if it dont come true, or is it something worse? Wrecking Ball answers this question some 30 years after it was first articulated. And the answer is something worse. In fact, something like a travesty. Wrecking Balls 11 tracks (call it a bankers dozen) examine the color and character of this travesty. Its both a civic reprimand and a peoples history, a call to order and outrage alike. I find it interesting that the album is bookended by We songs We Take Care of Our Own and We Are Alive. This act of titling seems to suggest that the document the songs bracket was written in the name of We The People. Its an alternate Constitution, with a little less slave-driving and a bit more peasant foolery. The lead track was also the lead single, and it stands as a fine opening salvo in the battle to extricate right from wrong and posture from practice. The song is not entirely sincere by which I mean that its face value is different from its interpretative dividend. Am I the only one who hears a tone of mock heroism in the first few bars? Theres a clear siren effect, reminiscent of David Bowies Heroes, just without the disco blare or the highpitched vocals. I consider this less a tolling of the Liberty Bell than a ringing of the alarm, to signify another dream on the verge of dying. We Take Care of Our Own finds its power in its implied question mark; in essence, what the Boss is asking between the lines of his title is, Do we? Normally, he leaves such queries rhetorical, but here his answer is fairly transparent: Not as often or as vigorously as we should. (See Katrina, the foreclosure crisis, or the healthcare debate.) Less transparent is the songs third meaning, which can be discerned only by microscope. First, we have the jingoistic, flag-to-the-fore interpretation. Second, we have the chiding, condemnatory vibe. And third, we have the most cynical reading of all: Business taking care of business, to the detriment of society at large. When the bottom fell out on the U.S. economy in late 2008, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson extended a $182 billion bailout to A.I.G. It just so happened that Paulsons old firm, Goldman Sachs, was one of A.I.G.s largest creditors, and stood to lose billions of dollars if A.I.G. went the way of Lehman Brothers. They neednt have worried, however, because Comrade Hank covered their exposure and then some, propping up a thoroughly diseased company with taxpayer money under the rubric of too interconnected to fail. He took care of his own, as per the revolving-door rewards program that exists between
62

Big Government and Big Business. As for the rest of us, whove seen our aggregate home values drop a whopping $7 trillion (yes, trillion) in the past five years, well, we need to beware the dangers of creeping socialism. The Chamber of Commerce Keynesians who control the flow of cash and credit have steadfastly refused to prime our pump, all while rolling in record profits. This is the source of the acrimony which informs Wrecking Balls next three songs. Easy Money presents an inconsequential mans plot to get even, to step out on the town with a Smith & Wesson .38, in the hope that crime will pay where labor hasnt. Its a folksy number, prone to a simplistic swing and rollick, but it epitomizes the sense of unfairness that Springsteen has espoused in the press. A basic theft had occurred that struck at the heart of what the entire American idea was about, he opined. People lost their homes...and nobody went to jail. Its those last five words that really stick in ones craw. Civil society is based on rule of law, which, while by no means infallible or efficient, is supposed to protect those who abide and punish those who infract. Easy Money, Shackled and Drawn, and Jack of All Trades make plain the double standard that confronts the atomized working man and comforts the well-connected business man. An undercurrent of violence runs through each song, hinting at the dispossesseds hunger to take back what he considers his, through means honorable or brutish. Occasionally, this undercurrent becomes a wellspring, as in the flashing of the Smith & Wesson .38 or the Jack of All Trades statement reading If I had me a gun, Id find the bastards and shoot em on sight. Here, its important to note that righteous anger can manifest in the form of vicious acts, acts that the average citizen simply cannot entertain. Only a trouble maker would suggest that the Boss is sanctioning vengeful murder in his parable-laden songwriting. He does, however, run the risk of inducing a form of Jean Valjean Syndrome, through which the bleeding-hearted listener is bound to see every criminal as an emotionally desperate man, forced to steal a loaf of bread to feed his sisters dying children. In truth, there are plenty of scoundrels in low places, who rob for kicks, giggles, and spending money. But these are not the people that Springsteen depicts. He writes of good men pushed just a little too far, like the protagonist of his classic Atlantic City. Last night I met this guy and Im gonna do a little favor for him isnt a pre-conceived, volitional strategy; its the result of being caught on the wrong side of the winners and losers line, with no legitimate chance of crossing over. Shackled and Drawn would appear to be an anthem of defeat, but its actually rendered buoyant by a stomp-along beat and a tried-and-true work ethic. Freedom sons a dirty shirt/The sun on my face and my shovel in the dirt thats not a guy who feels sorry for himself, nor is it someone whos looking for a handout. Jack of All Trades is more somber but still infused with the seen-it-all spirit of a hard-luck handyman. Springsteen uses his characters voice to name check the cyclical nature of boom and bust: The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin/Its all happened before, itll happen again. The narrator remains philosophical even as he contemplates violence. The song has the elegiac, down-tempo quality of Youre Missing, from 2002s The Rising. Theres a void in this mans life, and hes doubled over in pain trying to plug it. Still, he keeps a brave face, as he feels he must.
63

This quiet hurt, this yearning for basic fairness, is a totem of the Springsteen discography, particularly from Darkness on forward. The first half of Wrecking Ball is adrip with morality plays, pitting the underdog against his master. The record is positively haunted by the ghost of Tom Joad, the Steinbeck character from The Grapes of Wrath who, more so than any of his literary colleagues, throws Fox Business into fits of frenzy. Tom saw his parents farm repossessed by corporate interests, endured a western sojourn that claimed heavy casualties, and then arrived in a promised land that had been puffed up by false advertising and kept down by police brutality. Late in the novel, his anger gets the best of him, and he takes an axe handle to his local agent of oppression, striking a resonant blow for the salt of the earth. Many of the characters on Wrecking Ball aspire to Joads example, only they cant find an oppressor to strike. Death to My Hometown, the albums most evident raised fist, reveals that the greedy thieves who crashed our economy never paid us the courtesy of a physical showdown. No cannon ball did fly/No rifles cuts us down.../But just as sure as the hand of God/They brought death to my hometown this is a stark declaration of the enemys cowardice, a martial repudiation of the back-room, computer-clouded dealings that shuttered millions of homes. The music takes a Celtic air, calling to mind the lead up to the opening brawl in Gangs of New York. In that film, however, at least Butcher Bill had the courage to enter the fray of the battle, knife in hand; in this mini-movie, the army is ready, but it has nobody to charge. Death to My Hometown draws me back to this essays opening passage, which examined the geography of the Jersey Shore. My one-time hometown, Red Bank, is now referred to as Dead Bank, given its empty storefronts and collapsing housing market. A financial insophisticate who, say, bought a garden apartment there in 2007 or 2008, stood to lose an astonishing portion of his net worth, for reasons which still arent entirely clear. Springsteen sings for this citizen. He implies that the common man doesnt expect diplomatic immunity from the exigencies of the market, just a semi-fair fight, complete with the disclosure of who, precisely, owns his mortgage and who, through institutional channels, is trying to screw him over. He didnt seize his property by decree; he worked for it, often for decades, under conditions that frequently insulted his dignity. So when it crumbles in his hands, like a cut-rate saltine cracker, he wants an honest explanation, not an eviction notice. To be clear, I wasnt evicted from my Red Bank property; I simply sold it at a gigantic loss. (Or, in the preferred euphemism of CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, I took a haircut, as if a team of barbers were somehow involved in the chicanery.) This is to say that my analysis isnt merely a personal sob story, tucked into a convenient vehicle of pop culture. It is, however, a criticism of a system that works in black maths and scented ethers rather than common sense. America, like virtually all First World nations, uses a fiat currency, which is tied neither to a precious metal nor a nonrenewable resource. The paper bearing pictures of dead presidents is, in and of itself, worthless. As such, the essential currency of the economy is confidence in ascribed values. So how is shorting in which unnamed brokers of invisible leverage bet against a business concern, thus undermining confidence in that entity not an act of treason? Each hedge is a pernicious strike against the stability of the system, a knee-capping perpetrated from behind an opaque curtain, for the express purpose of short-term personal profit. This is the wrecking ball that Springsteen cites: cheap shots against sitting ducks, spun as big64

boy capitalism. Hes not impressed by these late-model masters of the universe, and he wants them thrown in jail. So do I. The failure to see this wish fulfilled is one of the frustrations that fuels This Depression, the LPs most agonizing moment. Springsteen cries, Baby, Ive been down/But never this down, his words trickling along a stream of synths and confluent harmonies, reminiscent of Pink Floyds Learning to Fly. I dont pretend to hold any credentials in the field of psychology. In fact, where I come from mental health professionals are visited only if the course of therapy is court-ordered. But in perusing the psychological literature, Ive been made to understand that anger and depression are flip sides of the same coin. They both find their source in a feeling of impotence. Some folks rage against the absence of options; others succumb to the numb sulk of stasis. Sometimes the flare and the retreat happen more or less consecutively in the same person the mind is a truly complex instrument, almost as byzantine as a creditdefault swap or a mortgage-backed security. What our more unfortunate souls need to do and I dont say this flippantly is to listen to Wrecking Ball, Springsteens spirited title track. Where This Depression flirts with a kind of resignation thats unprecedented in the Boss work hes allowed disenchantment, but never demoralization Wrecking Ball mainlines the we tore it apart, well put it together again mentality thats made Bruce the poet laureate of hard times. It also rocks hard and heavy, as both a mission statement for the huddled masses and a colossal taunt at the arrogant auspices of power, who know how to topple but cant seem to build. It instructs the listener to destroy the fears that keep him shackled and drawn, to blow away the lies that leave you nothin but lost and broken hearted. Most brazenly, it tells the oppressors demolition crew to swing away, cause this Boss aint movin. Springsteen barks Take your best shot/Let me see what you got, like the Clint Eastwood of the Meadowlands. He uses the sort of no-nonsense, combative language that my states double-stuffed governor, Chris Christie, frequently employs at town hall meetings and press conferences. Bruce, however, is on the right side of the moral divide. Hes not a suburban school yard bully, intent on heckling the last remnants of the middle class; hes a Motivator In Chief, and one who makes President Obama seem a bit limp-wristed. Wrecking Ball is a many-splendored composition, featuring more contributors than can be counted by fingers and toes. Its a communal effort with one shining star, placing sing-along largesse beside distinctly personal testimony. Wrecking Ball proves that the Boss is a job creator: 36 musicians, a chamber consort, and a gospel choir play on the album, and virtually all hands are on deck for the title track. Strum builds to shout, and shout to holy holler, but no poignancy is lost in the mix. Springsteen sings of youth and beauty being given to the dust and victories and glories turned into parking lots (the song was originally written as a fond farewell to the old Giants Stadium), yet he makes the entire rabble sound triumphant. This is creative destruction, an organic part of the cycle that binds poverty to prosperity: Hard times come and hard times go/Yeah, just to come again. Dont despair the wrecking ball or, for that matter, fear the reaper because you have a responsibility to bear the brunt and carry on. As Dostoevsky put it, in the words of Ivan Karamazov, Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows. Death traps are inevitable; suicide raps arent.
65

Wrecking Ball is the albums emotional peak, reanimating the ghost of Tom Joad for another fireside dance. Itll have me shadowboxing images of accountants and lawyers for weeks to come, however vain the punches. For me, Bruces hefty downstrokes at the 1:42 and 4:00 marks are worth the whole of the Bon Iver catalog. Though the lyrics, like those throughout the LP, are chipped to angles that reflect a certain talk-radio oversimplicity, they handle their appointed task with aplomb that is, starting a fire in the face of despair. These Promethean effects cannot and do not last. After Wrecking Ball comes Youve Got It, a slick, sultry reason to believe that takes the albums sole shot below the belt, albeit in the service of lust. The song is sung in the vein of Red Headed Woman, offered in praise of thy wife, with the intention of getting properly laid. Theres no shame in that; nor is there a problem with the music, which hints at Roy Orbison by way of Fats Dominos Walking to New Orleans. The problem, for me, is that the song is out of character with its neighbors. This is a bedroom number lying in the tool shed. It might be the best pure pop single on the album, but it just doesnt fit the theme, even in the afterglow of Wrecking Balls uplift. The back end of the album returns to the concepts of struggle and sanctuary. Rocky Ground is biblical by way of the Baptist Church; its a story of diaspora, of souls in the wilderness who refuse to surrender the notion that theyre Canaan bound. Call it the Gospel According to Bruce but hear it as contemporary pop-rock as interpreted by Ron Aniello. Rocky Ground occupies the stretch of gravel where production values begin to undermine the strength of the preaching they purport to frame. Earlier in the LP, Aniellos hand claps and boot stomps served the Boss well, bringing digital fire to fight songs which are impelled by wisdom thats as old as the hills. Midway through the album, Aniello and Bruce seemed to have settled into a hot-tempered Celtic current packing a fierce populist undertow: a postmodern Seeger Sessions, done as history rather than farce. By Rocky Ground, were trading in mile-a-minute metaphors and sound loops that sully rather than sanctify. Springsteen chokes out some killer lines, including Before we cross that river wide/The blood on our hands will come back on us twice. This is Old Testament logic, issued in a voice that could be Daniel Plainviews: There will be blood...we just hope its not ours. The Victorious Gospel Choir is featured on Rocky Ground, with singer Michelle Moore getting the spotlit solo treatment. Unfortunately, her vocals were recorded at a low ebb, and the rap she delivers, authored by Springsteen, sounds strained and bored where it should be rhythmic and righteous. This is a case of miscegenation that just doesnt work an inverse of the E Street creation myth, in which Scooter met the Big Man and the whole goddamn city busted in half. Land of Hope and Dreams allows the Big Man, the late Clarence Clemons, to ride again, this time toward a horizon of good intentions. Here, the city isnt busted in half; its stitched up in musical unison, like a prayer to an awesome god. The song retains the Gospel Choir, but improves on the secular-as-sacred formula by weaving in a little electric guitar. The single is familiar to Springsteen fans, as the Boss wrote it in anticipation of the E Street Bands reunion tour, back in 1999, and has been playing it live ever since. This album version does the track justice, churning every last mile out of its coal-fired motions and locomotive meanings. David Fricke described it as Phil Spector gone to church with help from Curtis Mayfield, and this seems about right. Its a hymn of praise for People Get Ready,
66

ensconced in an electric wall of sound. Clarence offers one of his large-lunged sax solos, calmly cajoling the track forward to its last verse and victory lap. Land is important because it shows why Springsteen needed a full horn section to replace Clemons: Clarences sound was absolutely huge too broad to scale, too big to fail. Land shares more than a few similarities with one of its original contemporaries, My City of Ruins. Both were written in fairly innocent times, then repurposed to cleanse wounds and lift spirits. City started as a lamentation for Asbury Park, which, by the late Nineties, had fallen into disrepair. What it became, however, was a dirge for Lower Manhattan, the final track on Bruces essay on 9/11, The Rising. Land has been a barnstormer since its inception, often called upon to close out the third hour of an E Street Band concert. On Wrecking Ball, though, it stands as a seat of inspiration, one for which any man, woman, or child can claim a ticket. This train carries saints and sinners, the Boss yells, This train carries losers and winners. Just dont look for the vessel at your local Amtrak hub, as the all-aboard call is strictly hypothetical. This is one of the Boss intermittent Hallmark moments dreams will not be thwarted...faith will be rewarded one thats a grade or two too huffy and celestial to compare with the down-in-the-dirt entreaties of Badlands or the bended-knee exhortations of Thunder Road. It needs a little less metaphor, a little more muscle. If Clarence were still around, perhaps he could have provided it, if only by campaigning for another blast of sax. The records closing bow, We Are Alive, is another just-missed opportunity. Though Springsteen writes a truly compelling script, through which the dead, who were killed in their individual pursuit of happiness, come back in a communal channeling of the American Dream, his words are once again undone by the perils of obtrusive production. Im no studio pro, but even the premier sound men of our age would be hard pressed to convince me that We Are Alive needed all its extracurricular adornments. Aniello and Springsteen fold in a sample from Johnny Cashs Ring of Fire, all tarted up for the 21st Century. I understand the allure of phoenix-style imagery, whereby immolation begets resurrection, but topics of such grand import are ill served by the silly wiggle of this truncated loop. If the Boss had cut We Are Alive as a spare, acoustic ballad like, say, Matamoros Banks, the criminally underappreciated closer to 2005s Devils and Dust he would have etched a fitting epitaph for the living dead. Instead, hes got sainted bones interred in the service of bolero blare. The instrumental caricatures the story its been conscripted to fortify. Its a real shame, considering that Bruce has told this tale before, with very little fat: Everything dies, baby, thats a fact/But maybe everything that dies someday comes back. Ultimately, We Are Alive is redeemed by the spectral presence that flits about its verses. Again, I speak of a visitation from the ghost of Tom Joad. Joad is the hero of this album, insofar as the album has a hero, and not just a general aura of conviction and engagement. Hes also a more than incidental figure in the annals of Springsteen history. Recall that, in 1995, the Boss released an album named The Ghost of Tom Joad, and that the title track closed with the following lines: Wherever somebodys fighting for a place to stand/A decent job or a helping hand/Wherever somebodys struggling to be free/Look in their eyes, Ma, youll see me. Springsteen took the literary concept from Steinbeck, and the musical impetus from Woody Guthrie, but the poetry was all his own.
67

Joads value lay in his ability to be in many places at once, wherever freedom, liberty, and basic self-respect were threatened. One of the virtues of pop music is that it has a similar physical elasticity it can be on the radio in Detroit, in a CD player in Salinas, on an iPod in Red Bank. Wrecking Ball aspires to cover this ground, to be a peoples response to the wages of neoliberal contraction. Dont get me wrong: Its not a standalone rebuttal to 30 years of economic dislocation; its simply an artifact of the times, a rallying cry from a man who dares to remain topical while musicians of comparable entertainment-industry clout turn their attention to the dance floor, their love lives, or the financial imperative of a covers album. Its amazing how much America has changed in the three decades or so that Ive had a working memory. The folks who survived the Great Depression, and could list the tangible benefits they derived from the efforts of Big Government the Federal Labor Relations Act, Social Security, the G.I. Bill have more or less died off. Some fairly basic collective bargaining rights have died with them. My generation sees this happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, and New Jersey, but we dont know what to make of it, as were reasonably young and mostly private-sectored. The irony of the situation is that as workers have effectively lost the right to powerful union representation, Big Business has been unionizing with a Communist relish; they just call it mergers and acquisitions, and color its ethic as inviolably American. I work in advertising, an industry that was once diffuse but is now controlled by four holding companies: WPP, Interpublic, Omnicom, and Publicis. Get an asterisk next to your name in one of these behemoths employee databases, and you may never work in the field again. Capital is holding all the cards, as well as all of the opportunity. People at the Jersey Shore used to joke that the only Boss they listened to was Bruce Springsteen. Now this isnt a joke but a sad reality: Blue-collar folks are unemployed, and they often lack the skills to secure a proper footing in the tech-based service economy. This recession isnt a quick shakeout or correction; its a final shift in paradigm from body work to brain work. Unless youre manufacturing cars or militarygrade weapons, the assembly line isnt going to provide you with a living wage or a worry-free retirement. The prime tragedy of the recent financial crash is that its lashes struck our more vulnerable populations disproportionally, crippling Americas marginal workers and pulling a plurality of the middle class into a climate of uncertainty. When a 60-year-old middle-executive cant retire because he has debts no honest man can pay, that means two 30-year-olds dont get promotions. A bottleneck occurs: The older worker hangs on in quiet desperation, and the younger worker wonders when his time will come really, if his time will come. These are the ripple effects of fiscal calamity, and they comprise the true trickle-down economics: Wall Street screws up, Main Street closes down. The facts are written in every For Rent and For Sale sign in my hometown. Springsteen is essential because he argues that this top-heavy economic arrangement is not OK, that a raw deal is no deal at all. Wrecking Ball aims to knock some sense back into the system. Yes, it packs an unusual amount of anger. And, yes, its weaker souls come close to enacting a course of violent retribution. But even strong characters eventually get tired of words. Who is Tom Joad? Not just a defender of the oppressed, but a convicted murderer. Our hero killed two men, one before the plot of The Grapes of
68

Wrath swung into motion, the other at the climax of the novel, when the Preacher needed an avenger, and the ostensive agents of the general peace were nowhere to be found. Thats more than self-reliance; its civil disobedience for the greater good, consecrated in blood. I can applaud the gesture while maintaining sympathy for the victim, as all People of the Book should. For the meek to rise, theyre going to have to negotiate their own inheritance in modern terms, by good fight or moral example. Tom Joad combines the two, demonstrating that when Atlas shrugs, nothing much happens, as the earth has something called gravity, which keeps the sphere and its inhabitants locked in place. Theres gravity in our stories and gravity in our songs. But no contemporary artist exerts quite the pull of Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps you consider this Atlas stuff a little galling or sanctimonious. But this is the standard that the Boss sets for himself, with no apologies or caveats. He recently said, I enjoyed artists when I was young who tried to, one way or another, take on the world. Its a bit capricious to argue that salvation can be found in a three-minute pop song, but the thesis holds the distinction of being true and being proved millions of times over. Wrecking Ball tries to be such a record, one that changes dispositions and opens minds. Personally, I dont think its quite as seismic as some of Springsteens previous work. Still, this newest offspring doesnt suffer any irremediable embarrassments alongside its older siblings. If Darkness is a perfect 10, and Born to Run, The River, Nebraska, and Born In the U.S.A. are all high 9s, Wrecking Ball is about 8.5. After less than a week in rotation, I like it better than The Rising, but not quite so much as Magic. These rankings are inane but necessary, if only for in-themoment documentation. What matters is not what I think of the record now, but how it holds up in five years time, 10 years time, 20 years time. Springsteen makes music of the calloused hand and broad shoulder; his albums are built to last, as his hallowed discography can attest. A wrecking ball may someday come for Wrecking Ball, and destroy the sonic momentum that its collected within my spirit and psyche. For now, however, the record plays like a necessary musical corrective to our insidious cultural malaise. To his credit, Bruce doesnt insist that we hear his music in such exalted terms. Were free to make of the album whatever wed like, provided we acknowledge that no reading is sacrosanct. Speaking personally and holistically, I experienced Wrecking Ball as a three-part harmony, processed in staggered but interlinking parts: The early tracks left me enthused; the middle songs left me enthralled; and the closing suite left me ennobled, if not mouth agape in awe. All in all, Im happy with what Ive heard, despite the production problems and a mix thats a little light on snap, crackle, and pop. My review cant be considered objective, of course. Im much too big a Springsteen fan. But if I werent such a partisan, Id probably lack the evidence to support my claims and the nerve to press each argument to its conclusion. Passion is an intoxicating elixir, and it can mobilize attitudes that ought not to be indulged in good company. If Ive offended you with some of my more strident language, I apologize. The Boss frequently pushes me to polemics and pointed fingers, to the debate table rather than the dance floor. Whats beyond debate, however, is the enduring importance of Springsteen as a cultural icon. Time and again, hes able to engender the near-impossible: a belief in the basic
69

goodness of human nature, even in the context of great evil; a faith in the essential strength of the mortal spirit, despite the hint of disqualifying weakness; an allegiance to the notion that it aint no sin to be glad youre alive, regardless of what the Republican Party legislates or the Democratic Party concedes. In short, the Boss gives us power and perspective we didnt know we had, using nothing but melody and words. He claims to write about the distance between the American reality and the American Dream, but, really, his subject is the distance between the person you are and the person youd like to be. Perhaps these topics are one and the same, the first couched in the language of aggregates, the second in the language of individuals. This is an issue fit for further discussion, both publicly and privately, at volumes of your own choosing. The battle for the soul of the American republic, and the 315 million Americans it houses, wont be going anywhere anytime soon. Thankfully, neither will Bruce Springsteen. Hes standing sentry, and, now more than ever, hes looking out for you. Youre free to withhold your gratitude, but, please, dont withhold your attention. (March 12, 2012)

70

PART II: DO YOU BELIEVE IN ROCK AND ROLL?

Madonna, Give Me All Your Luvin If we squint long and hard, we might be able to determine the precise moment when Madonna became a preening absurdity. This moment need not be the same for all spectators, as Madonnas career can be viewed from a variety of vantage points, through a plethora of peep holes. Many observers will orient their binoculars toward Swept Away, the 2002 film directed by Madges then-husband Guy Ritchie, in which our aging Material Girl played an industrial bitch an epithet from the storys original screenplay, by the great Lina Wertmller in a primitive, Survivor-like setting. Others will harken back to a more innocent but equally unlivable island, La Isla Bonita, from 1986s True Blue, Madonnas third album of turgid dance pop. By the onset of this Blue period, Ms. Ciccone had already placed herself on a pedestal, and rightly considered her persona to be more important than her music. Like Lady Gaga today, she folded high art pretensions into vulgar forms. A few Andy Warhol references, in either concept or packaging, and her place in contemporary culture was secure. Madonna swiftly became an international lampoon, caricaturing the very vocation she purported to serve. Rather than settle for being a mere pop star, Madge vamped and vogued until she fit the measure of a Marilyn Monroestyle icon. And who, pray tell, remembers Marilyn for her acting? Ms. Monroes job was to be a bombshell, a temptress, a lump of flesh on which to shine a spotlight, day in and day out. Madonna aspired to a similar role, and she earned it by means of her blonde ambition. This is perhaps a roundabout of way of saying that Madonna has always mattered more to fashion and celebrity culture than to music culture. Many of her songs are excellent among them, Hung Up, Ray of Light, and Like A Virgin but theyre almost always variations on an earlier theme. Madge specializes in the sleek bubbling up of underground sounds, not in chancy sonic innovations. Just as David Bowie reappropriated the more commercial aspects of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, Madonna ripped material from New Yorks mutant disco scene and, later, the digital grooves of the Spanish and French dance milieux. Unlike Bowie, however, she never quite managed a Ziggy Stardust or a Low. Her art was too superficial to change the complexion of rock and roll; it was merely a hit of ecstasy, an intense burst of fun that wore off in the daylight. Her genius lies in realizing that her musical shortfalls dont matter, that the cheap high of 150 BPMs can act as an advertising jingle for a far more upmarket property: transgenerational superstardom. Give Me All Your Luvin, the first single from Madges forthcoming, nakedly narcissistic MDNA LP, plays a bit like a valedictory. The current boom in scantily clad solo-female performers, particularly Gaga and Katy Perry, represents a triumph of Madonnas material will. Her impact on the pop charts (if not the musical avant garde) has been considerably larger than those of her Big 80s contemporaries. Prince is utterly brilliant but seemingly tapped-out. Duran Duran is essentially on the cruise circuit. And Bruce Springsteen, though strong and steady, remains strong and steady, continues to be hamstrung by outdated notions of artistic principle and civic commitment. It ultimately comes down to conviction. Where Prince is too accomplished at the electric guitar to holster it in favor of a more happening instrument; where Duran Duran place
71

limits on the scope of their commercial exposure; and where the Boss cares too much about his employees (i.e., his listeners) to condescend to them in his songs, Madonnas defining virtue is her acrobatic opportunism. When her label or her living expenses call for a new album, she can simply lick her finger, gauge the air temperature, and release a record thats vaguely suited to the contemporary marketplace. Give Me is just such a record: teched-up, transcontinental, and unapologetically self-congratulatory. The digital vibe is borrowed from will.i.am, who ripped it from a panoply of daft punks and house enthusiasts. The transcontinental aura stinks of David Guetta, who makes middlebrow dance music that shows equally well in Ibiza and, say, Poughkeepsie (thus rendering it meaningless). Finally, the self-congratulations come courtesy of hip-hop, an idiom that now seems to live on drank and swagger. Such a multivariate track is the result of market testing, not meticulous artistry. In this way, Give Me resembles a Michael Bay film a gigantic, unreasonably expensive production made for a global audience. The goal is awe and merchandising, not engagement. But heres the thing about epic motion pictures and musical events: Sometimes the content isnt half as bad as the underlying motivation. Give Me, for example, is a mellifluous tour through the boulevards of couture pop. The beat has a nice angularity, as if Goldfrapp had collaborated with Phoenix on an arpeggiated riff, then hit the repeat button. Madonna sounds fine and, as the songs video attests, looks amazing an eyeover-ear priority balance that has long dictated the trajectory of her career. She is, above all, a visual artist. Her costumes and her dance moves have always been more compelling than her singing, so we shouldnt be surprised that Give Me isnt buoyed by rafter-shaking vocals. Madge employs the sexier of her two default voices: the eternal teenage chirp, sung high and crisp. (The other voice, for the record, is a deep, sultry moan, used in such songs as Justify My Love and Papa Dont Preach.) She is clearly projecting youth and sound body, the central precepts of contemporary pop. What I like about Give Me is its immediacy and its tunefulness. No experimentation here, just unabashed fun. What Im less keen on is the songs built-in cheering section. At the very onset of the track, Madonna enlists Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. to chant L-U-V Madonna/Y-O-U You wanna. This is, in a word, asinine. But no more asinine than the contrived ripples and flourishes that adorn a majority of our #1 singles. To hold Madonna to a higher standard would be unfair, as I imagine she doesnt self-identify as a musician. She is more of a personage, a moneyed madam wholl work in whichever medium she pleases. Almost simultaneously with the release of Give Me comes the premiere of her latest film, W.E., a period drama about Wallis Simpson and King George VIII. Madge directed and co-wrote the picture, an endeavor that was certainly time and labor intensive. This is perhaps why Give Me sounds like a happy afterthought: The hard work done, Madonna returned to her wheelhouse, and cranked out a short, snappy dance number, perhaps in an afternoon. I guess theres no harm in that. But do we really need the earnest repetition of the following lyric line: Every record sounds the same, youve got to step into my world? Madonna is one of the prime reasons why every record sounds the same! More than any other pop star, she represents the intersection of the risqu and the corporate the spot where the Lower East Side met Disney. Shes the Rudy Giuliani of the popscape, a hyper-ambitious scrapper who gentrified a few rough sonic neighborhoods, then sought to replicate the task worldwide. Where Lord Giuliani has failed, Lady Madonna has succeeded, and spectacularly at that. For this, she
72

deserves our attention and our respect. Our love, however, is out of the question. (February 5, 2012) Wild Flag, Electric Band Can a Nineties band reasonably be accused of Nineties revivalism? If Pearl Jam, for instance, were to release a new record that sounded a lot like Vs. or No Code, would the group be beating the drum for a bygone moment, or would they simply be playing in their preferred style the same style theyve been exhibiting for a generation? Too often, the wages of muscle memory are confused with the mechanisms of nostalgia. Sometimes a band isnt trying to bring anything back. They just havent assented to the notion that their signature sound has been left behind. So it is, to a certain extent, with Wild Flag. They are, technically, a new band. For all intents and purposes, however, theyll be regarded as a post-Riot grrrl super group, composed of members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium, and the Minders. The fact that their music isnt particularly riotous will be overlooked, as an easy narrative, of girls playing like boys, with multiple guitars and choice amplifiers, is whats preferred by contemporary marketers of content. Based on the tracks Ive heard from their debut album, Wild Flag are a good deal less strident than their three mother ships. Their current single, Electric Band, actually resembles mid-Seventies power pop, albeit through a post-Nevermind filter. The song features riffs menacing and melodious; in its aggregate, it sounds like Pinkerton-era Weezer covering Sweet Jane. Singer Mary Timony channels a vocal texture that moves from flat to falsetto, implying an irony thats belied by lines such as All we are is dust and air/Play the role of the dragon slayer. Who, exactly, is this song trying to kill? Stone Temple Pilots? These questions are posed winkingly, both by yours truly and Wild Flag themselves. The grrrls are merely having some fun with the guitar, bass, and drums combo, at a time when conventional rock bands are on the endangered species list. To get a sense of this particular singles sound, imagine Patti Smith without the stakes, the armpit hair, or the run-on poetics. Or, more immediately, imagine Free Energys Hope Child, which also plumbed rockist themes for a head-bobbing good time. If this is Nineties revivalism, let there be a thousand Lazaruses. And if this is Seventies romanticism, let Wild Flag plug in and sing their story. I imagine it goes something like this: Standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand/Jack is in his corset, and Jane is in her vest/Me, Im in a rock and roll band. Consider this band electric, with no shortage of kilowatts. Theyre fueled by something special, and will likely be sticking around for the long haul. All power to them, I say. May their outlets be as reliable as their musicianship. (November 1, 2011)

73

Justin Bieber, Boyfriend If I had me a dollar for every teen pop track that featured the word boyfriend in its title, I could retire from the rat race and live off the mere interest on my principal. Relationships fleeting and temporary are the engine of Top 40 bubblegum, an engine that purrs like a pack of livewire tomcats. Some gaze upon this boy-meets-girl material and deem its subject love. But, really, what do the likes of One Direction and Justin Bieber know about love? They work in flesh-toned fantasies, bringing body to the Prince Charming stereotypes that adolescent girls thought theyd wished off upon graduation from the 4th grade. Disney has its bases covered: Their cartoons transition seamlessly into carbon-based figures of animation and intrigue, replacing smiles of innocent joy with quivers of forbidden desire. Bieber is the archetype of this anthropomorphic reckoning; hes the undisputed king of contemporary Disney pop, largely because hes an order of magnitude better looking than a picture-book Prince Charming. Untold millions of young girls would scratch, maim, and slander to have him as their boyfriend. For them, Selena Gomez is the anti-Christ or, in Disney terms, the Evil Queen to their Snow White. Lest this turn into an Epcot-sponsored dispatch from Tiger Beat, lets fix our lens on the music. Justin Biebers Boyfriend both the #1 single on iTunes and a three-word possessive that could set the gay community in rapture is a big-ticket pop production from a kid with a spectacular stylist and better-than-average pitch. In terms of sheer craft, the song is nearly faultless. It starts gingerly, with a hollowed-out electronic whistle that seems to portend a quiet storm. This pulse soon ripples into a quirky synth pattern a bizarre bird call reminiscent of the Diplo-designed beat for Chris Browns Look at Me Now. Justins voice comes in with a +1 of percussion, folding a fairly silly white-boy rap into the tracks finessed wobble. The song peaks in the climb to the chorus, where Biebs is finally permitted to unleash his glorious croon. His vocal chimes in perfect tune with a series of plangent guitar chords, notes so simple and unadorned that virtually anyone reading this post could play them with their off hand. The strumming gives the track a Babyface quality, meaning Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, not Biebers own soft-featured visage (though Justins pretty face is, of course, far from immaterial). Im not sure who engineered the single, but he/she demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the post-millennial pop dynamic: Mumbled tension gives way to rhapsodic release. Three times. In 2:52. The formula may be hackneyed, but its still quite effective. Hearing this single, one wonders where to place Justin Bieber in Americas cavalcade of heartthrobs. The golden child recently turned 18, which signifies a certain teen idol Bar Mitzvah, in which the erstwhile minor must begin to negotiate a workable adult identity. All things considered, I think the Biebs sits somewhere between Jesse McCartney and Rooney. Here I speak sonically, not sartorially or in regard to status. Bieber could buy and sell each of these acts a dozen times over, on the strength of a half-years earnings. That said, McCartneys blue-eyed soul and Rooneys sunkissed melodics are part and parcel of Boyfriend. Justin has reached the stage where he must mean all things to all people, where he must mature in line with his target audience but also attract new listeners. As such, his handlers have him borrowing sections of road-tested pop templates, just to make this Sure Thing more of a sure thing. Evidence for this assertion
74

comes in Boyfriends coda, which is studded with na-na-nas and ehs. Its as if Bieber had conscripted Rihannas top-line writer to pen his songs final bow. The emotive phrases are unnecessary for a single this hook-laden, but perhaps they serve to point toward what comes next: A brasher, more overtly sexual sound. Feel free to place a question mark at the conclusion of that last sentence. Its just a hypothesis, cooked up after one-too-many cups of coffee and three-too-few hours of sleep. Still, even the purveyors of Disney pop know that, at a certain age, a Mouseketeer needs to shorten her skirt or bare his torso. Team Bieber looks at Joe Jonas, Chris Kirkpatrick, and Nick Cater and despairs. This gravy train must roll on. And, for it to do so, the epicene idol in its front car might need to be replaced with Seor Macho Solo a bigger, better, brawnier, braver Bieber. This can be done successfully; look at that other fair-haired Justin, the frequently laurelled Mr. Timberlake. Unfortunately, the odds are long and the market fickle. Bieber neednt worry about being usurped anytime soon, but his people better be planning two EPs down the road. I foresee a cute Asian interloper or a sultry Latin lothario. Pop years are like dog years frustratingly short and mercilessly taxing. Before the industry gets the better of the Biebs, hed be wise to broker an escape route. Soon, the boyfriend will need to become the husband. Put a ring on it, Justin. And, for Gods sake, dont forget to sign a pre-nup. (March 30, 2012) Gotye, Somebody That I Used to Know In his 1999 HBO comedy special, Bigger & Blacker, Chris Rock referred to Ricky Martins Livin La Vida Loca as the Puerto Rican Whoomp! (There It Is). This analogy was meant to compare the relative ubiquity and endurance of both songs, not to imply that Martin and Tag Team shared some sort of governing artistic vision. Coming off a riff on race and ethnicity, Rock celebrated the catchall charisma of Loca, quipping This shits gonna be out for a while. His words, translated from the vernacular, served to indicate that the single was bound to be played in every medium imaginable for a gallingly long stretch of calendar. Because, during our oh-so-innocent end of century, thats how pop music worked: The idiom was comparatively starved for content, so songs could land, loiter, and linger, gaining more rotations than an overworked roulette wheel. The Internet had yet to become the inviolable master of the music trade, and indie labels were yet to metastasize like so many cancer cells. A song came on the radio and you were forced to listen to it, as the only alternatives were silence or CD, neither of which proved popular in a social setting. The amount of terrible music I listened to in the late Nineties and early Aughts, in bars and apartments, merely to share the company of reasonably attractive young women, would be ample to fill the largest of dung heaps. If I never hear Eve 6s Inside Out again, itll be too soon. I harken back to days of yore largely to punctuate a point that has only recently occurred to me. Though contemporary mp3s turn over at a dizzying rate, a number of tracks seem to find a sweet spot between immediacy and antiquation. They may not arrive with
75

a bang, like, say, Lady Gagas Born This Way, but they dont flame out prematurely either, like, say, the latest dispatch from the diehard testicle-shrinkers at Glee. This rare breed of song maintains a respectable level of buzz from one season to the next, and from one demographic to another. To return to the criteria of La Vida Loca, the singles bona fides are proved by means of its ubiquity and its endurance or, in perhaps a more exacting phrase, its enduring ubiquity. Only a track that achieves a prolonged presence on the central indices of our cultural radar can claim to dance alongside the big-ticket hits of yesteryear. In 2012, two such tracks stand out: fun.s We Are Young and Gotyes Somebody That I Used to Know. We Are Young may be the more conventional pop number, but Somebody is the article of greater intrigue. The song is an import, rolled through customs by the Belgianborn, Australian-bred Wouter Wally De Backer. His Gotye stage name can appear alternately strange and proprietary, foreign and unique. Bear in mind that we live in a country which has accorded A-List status to folks named Kanye, Beyonc, and Barack so Gotye holds novelty only in that belongs to a white man. And this particular white man is not some late-comer to a fading scene. Gotye went multi-platinum in his native Australia with Like Drawing Blood, an album that was dropped in 2006. Hes been a Down Under sensation ever since, but is only now trotting the globe on the strength of his breakout single. Somebody was released in July of last year, and its worldwide popularity arguably hasnt peaked yet. Thats a remarkably impressive reign of relevance, especially given the short shrift that Billboard and its ilk typically pay to new material. Given these banner credentials, Im going to go ahead and call Somebody the Caucasian Whoomp! (There It Is). This shits gonna be out for a while, whether we like it or not. The question that remains, then, is whether the song is any damn good. My guess is that its neither as laudable as its supporters would claim nor as dreadful as its detractors would petition. Of course, in the interest of fighting off a false equivalency, were obliged to admit that Somebody has far more supporters than detractors. So it must be doing something right. And I imagine that something can be summarized in a rather unglamorous virtue: Keeping it simple. Gotye grounds his track with a two-note guitar sample, then uses a regular xylophone plink to add a measure of flair. His singing is initially subdued, barely registering above a whisper. The bells and whistles arrive in the chorus, where Gotyes vocals jump an octave in pitch and several decibels in volume. Here, Mr. De Backer graduates from marble-mouthed mumbler to Northern European tenor. He sounds like no one so much as Sting. This talk of transitions and arrivals may cloud my point regarding Somebodys simplicity. I would argue, however, that Gotye consciously avoids the kind of ultra-luxe production values which color lead singles from the likes of Katy Perry and Justin Bieber. He is employing a relative minimalism, whereby angles are kept acute and tones are kept sharp. Somebody doesnt purr or buzz; it slinks and warbles. This is the songs differentiating factor its weird, curious, otherworldly. So peculiar is its rhythm and so lanky its host, one might even be inclined to call it Australien. Still, 175 million YouTube views indicate that Somebody isnt exactly extraterrestrial. The song is very much ingrained in the American psyche, having penetrated radio, TV,
76

and the social media. What Gotye has popularized is a mini-genre that Ill label wonk pop. This idiom is less about noise or timbre than a precise noise or timbre. The sound sits just outside the borders of normal, and frequently champions a sensibility over a formal structure. Somebody is unique for using its chorus sparingly; the ice-breaking You didnt have to cut me off! doesnt arrive until the tracks 1:34 mark, and its testimony is repeated only once, to close out the affair. Sandwiched in between these refrains is a guest verse from Kimbra, a pop personality from New Zealand whose name sounds like the title of a Talking Heads B-side. Over the course of its four minutes, Somebody never loses its weird factor. It locks into a reliable time signature but revels in things unexpected and austere, refusing to give its listeners a warm synth bath or an Auto-Tuned escape. I can appreciate this aesthetic. But, being ignorant of Gotyes other wares, Im hesitant to extrapolate beyond my wonk pop conjecture. Based solely on Somebody, Id say that our ascendant Aussie resembles a slightly more commercial tUnE-yArDs, trafficking in miscegenated beats and sonic novelty. Maybe this comparison is cogent; perhaps its absurd. Ultimately, Im less interested in Gotyes single than its surprising success. Of late by which I mean, in the last decade or so Billboard pop has trended away from the genuinely bizarre. This is mostly a function of merger and technology. Any song that fell outside the normative standards of the Clear Channel Corp. was effectively cleared from all monetized channels, thus falling under the purview of the Internet. Informed tastes became more and more demassified while demotic tastes became increasingly unidimensional. Ive made my peace with this arrangement, and have long ceased to regard the radio or MTV seriously. But it merits mentioning that the marginal form which I term wonk pop was once wildly popular. Missy Elliots Get UR Freak On was legitimately freaky, yet lingered on the FM and basic cable lees for a dogs age. OutKasts Hey Ya!, arguably the best pop song released in my lifetime, was both ATLien and Bar Mitzvahapproved. I distinctly remember the first time I heard the single, just as I remember where I was when I heard that O.J. had been acquitted and Lady Di had passed. Hey Ya! was a significant cultural event, premiered on major radio stations in my case, New Yorks Z100, now known for its Morning Zoo (honk, honk! squeak, squeak!) and its gutted playlists. Shortly after the songs first spin, I called my friend Chico, who picked up the phone and said, Did you hear that shit? People was pullin they cars over! (I can attest that this vehicular veering really did happen. Hell, I was one of the beat-drunk reprobates who almost drifted off the road.) Somebody wont trigger any untimely gridlock. Its not Get UR Freak On or Hey Ya! (Frankly, its not even in the same echelon as Hollaback Girl.) That said, the song reminds me, however briefly, of our bygone era of charting oddities. In pining for that period, I express less a contempt for the present than a disgust with the current guard of taste makers. Theres more good music being made now than at any other time in pops history, yet were loath to hear it, given the blocking and tackling techniques employed by M.B.A.-addled programming managers. Everything is market tested into a toothless oblivion, so that it might soothe the soccer mom or becalm the harried bureaucrat rather than rally the surly adolescent. (For some wry and hilarious commentary on this matter, please see Noel Gallaghers official Coachella interview, in which he says, repeatedly, that customers are idiots, with a frequent interjection of expletives. Per Noel, The
77

consumer didnt fucking want Jimi Hendrix. But they got him. And it changed the world. I agree with his viewpoint entirely. Well, almost entirely.) The fallout from pop musics semi-amiable apartheid into mass and micro scenes is a reduction in the aggregate status of stylized sound. Today, most Billboard fare is treated as background noise, fit to score a FaceTime session or a Twitter scroll. Where Somebody wins applause, its for refusing to blend in with the ambient tones of the day. The songs chirps and quivers demand at least a token portion of your attention, and its chorus straightens your spine just as you might have succumbed to the desire to go slack. Its queer alchemy has enabled Gotye to leave the Land Down Under and live some worthy variant of La Vida Loca. May the quotient of crazy continue. And may Mr. De Backers next single pack a bit more panache than She Bangs. Anything that shakes up the pop charts ranking algorithms is a step in the right direction. (April 24, 2012) Dive, How Long Have You Known? Im convinced that the leading music blogs operate by a kind of flash mob logic. Pitchfork, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Gorilla vs. Bear their collective market share, enviable as it may seem to us mom-and-pop scribes, is still small enough to manage from a single nerve center. The sites various stakeholders realize that it makes more sense to be in cahoots than in competition. Accordingly, they strike clandestine agreements to promote a given artist on a given date, then quickly slacken their advocacy, so as to create an atmosphere of general befuddlement for their readers. Is the act under review primed for a near-term breakout, or is he merely a momentary fascination, sparked by a mischievous Twitter feed? More often than not, the second impression proves correct, and the blog roll is revealed to make much adieu about nothing. I dont begrudge this arrangement. Most blog reading is rushed and distracted, so it takes a hoary level of repetition for a name or meme to sink in. Pitchfork and its ilk are not entirely beholden to the 24-hour news cycle, but they do need to generate a copious amount of new material, Monday through Friday, January through December. This pressure for content encourages a little idle speculation. And there, I think, is where the flash mob comes in. Editors at the leading sites hold regular conference calls, deciding which acts and trends to publicize when theres a lull in attention-grabbing headlines. Consider it less a lazy conspiracy than good business sense: More features means more page visits. More free downloads means happier readers. And, who knows, maybe a low-risk, cursory gesture to a parochial artist will pay down-the-road dividends. The lad or lass in the flickering spotlight might become the next Bon Iver, Sleigh Bells, or Lana Del Rey. Its good for your blog to have gotten in at ground level. I imagine I speak of conspiracy and complicity merely to add a touch of intrigue to the music that these not-so-sinister forces are championing. The cluster of interest surrounding an act is often more compelling than the wares which the act is promoting. Case in point is Dive, a Brooklyn band that, last week, was shoved under my nose with
78

alarming frequency. The buzz attributed to the act was adequate for me to download their going single, How Long Have You Known? This barrel of bluster, however, did not come equipped with blinders. And my untrammeled vision (which is by no means impervious to mirage, rosy tints, or sepia tones) permits me to call this track as I see it. Frankly, How Long Have You Known? is an inconsequential song, notable neither for its virtues nor its vices. To me, it sounds like a B-side from the Daydream Nation sessions something that Sonic Youth might have cut to loosen their limbs before transitioning to meatier fare. Of course, Sonic Youth are no longer quite so radiant and sprightly as their name would imply. Daydream Nation is approaching the quarter-century mark, and independent music (not to mention Thurston Moore and Kim Gordons marriage) has moved on. How Long Have You Known? accounts for these turns of calendar by cycling in the more contemporary chimes of New York bands like the Strokes and Vampire Weekend, but, ultimately, any pretensions toward pace are squashed with an iron hand. This is a slow, lumbering number, awash in interiors. Were taken inside the mind of the songwriter, Zachary Cole Smith, who was previously in the touring lineup of the band Beach Fossils. This name seems about right: Theres the calm, wave-lapping implication of Beach and the sedentary, preserved-in-amber quality of Fossils. Atmosphere is evoked, not action. So it is with Dive. The group is soaked in reverb but bereft of verbs. Their music has a chill, shimmering insistence, but its light on genuine happenings. A petty reagent who encountered How Long? in his court might shout, My kingdom for a guitar break! (Or a thundering drum! Or an impassioned vocal!) The song is lovely, lithe, perhaps even evanescent. In the end, however, it has only one gear, and a stubborn loyalty to the pleasures of cruise control. Yes, this is the stuff of dream pop, and one is wasting his breath when he calls for more riffage or cowbell. But Dive are frustrating precisely because they adhere to the concision of a conventional rock and roll band. How Long? is not long by shoegaze standards, clocking in at just over three and a half minutes. It bounces and sways for its duration, meandering in the bedroom like a listless teenager, hell bent on remaining under the covers until the grown-up world intercedes. Thankfully for Dive, the grown-up world has interceded, in the form of bylines and hotlinks. Last week they were feted with a thousand grand balls, and were thus rendered the Cinderellas of the indie circuit. Pitchfork started the fire on April 5, posting an album announcement, a single review, and a Rising feature in rapid succession. The other alternative sites, having received the requisite Bat Signal, fanned the flames with a pyromaniacal intensity. Within 24 hours, a marginal ensemble became an abovethe-fold concern. This is what the flash mob mentality has wrought: a tacit, concerted decision to promote entities of timely novelty but little long-term value. Dive are a perfectly adequate band, airy but not hopelessly adrift, lagging but not limp. And How Long? is a perfectly decent tune, drowsy but not yet a casualty of the REM cycle. Neither item, however, deserved the blogospheres viral inflection. If the band breaks out, Id like to think that it was on their own terms. At the moment, though, their raised profile appears to be the consequence of a slow news day. Increasingly, this is how a young act gets traction on the indie circuit: A thrice-broadcast press release
79

finally sticks or an old favor is called in, just as the presses are cooling from a lack of updates on Justin Vernons intrafamilial game of Jenga. Timing isnt everything, but it is formative. Then the burden, fairly or unfairly, falls on the band. Dive now have to demonstrate that theyre worth the hype. And they have to do it before their trending chatter fades to the margins. Godspeed, boys. Just remember to feed the beast regularly and with great relish. The cartels of opinion like nothing more than to prove themselves right. (April 13, 2012) Best Coast, The Only Place Based on their cover art, song titles, and personality profiles, Best Coast would appear to be in the employ of the California Bureau of Tourism. One neednt hire a private detective to determine that Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno harbor major hard-ons for the Golden State, or that these phallic notes poke through the sleeves of their records. Our Deal, Boyfriend, and Each and Every Day were quintessential California singles: lazy but harmonic, blunted but smirking, extreme in neither tone nor temperature. If anything, Best Coasts latest selection only ups the ante on the West Coast conceit. The Only Place is a two-and-a-half-minute advertisement for California dreaming, supporting the ever-popular argument that the west is indeed the best, both in climate and coast. Youll get no rebuttal from me. California has long been conscripted as my land of milk and honey. This is a rather rich designation, as anything west of Paterson is a bit exotic for a Jersey Boy of my breeding. Still, a young man needs fodder for fantasy. And in the absence of wealth or sexual satisfaction, imaginary westward adventures fill an essential void. Ive dreamed of relocating to California for the better part of 10 years. Unfortunately, there was always an unforeseen roadblock or handcuff: a sick relative, a stubborn debt, a steady paycheck, an inner cowardice. For me, California seems to work better as a chimera than a legitimate destination. Its my version of Willy Lomans Alaska the frontier where the American Dream is found, a place of magic and lore rather than sum and substance. If I were to pack my bags for, say, San Diego, and arrive to discover a vacuous wasteland of taco stands and reality TV stars, my passion for living would be sapped like syrup from a maple tree. I have absolutely no desire to be clued in to the world of facts. Ill choose my illusion, thank you very much. Its far more comforting. Thankfully, Best Coast feed my fantasies like a top-tier caterer. The Only Place hits all the reliable sweet spots, employing language that should set every cabin-fevered East Coaster into flutters of SoCal frenzy. By my count, the word fun is used five times, sun four times, and ocean three times. (Beach and waves also figure prominently.) The buzzkillers among us might be inclined to call this paint-by-number songwriting, but I think Cosentino deserves credit for sticking with her primary colors. Her mastery of demotic subjects boyfriends/girlfriends, leisure/lament, drugs/alcohol allows her to get a little experimental with her textures. The Only Place isnt a John Cage composition, but it does lower the lush factor on Best Coasts
80

customary register of sound. Gone are the electric echoes and hazy harmonies, the drone and the reverb. This is a more stripped-down, straightforward approach, perhaps brokered by producer Jon Brion, who is revered in indie quarters for his work with Fiona Apple. Lyrics aside, Cosentino is a worthy heiress to the Apple treatment; she has two things that most indie frontwomen lack: a voice and songs. That might sound flippant or bitchy, but I mean it wholeheartedly. Too many hipster musicians are getting by on a numinous aesthetic, which they spread over synths and strings until the sonic charisma is so thin that it instills fits of jealousy in Tory Spelling. Bethany has a gorgeous, room-filling contralto. She appears to have a bit of musical theater training, as her enunciation and projection are flawless. On The Only Place, listen to her squeeze every last microsyllable out of the word ocean. Youd think she was singing an advertising jingle, in which every lyric were client-approved gospel. Of course, as proposed earlier, Cosentino is singing an advertising jingle. Shes inviting us to come to California, for the fun, the sun, the ocean, and the Kardashians. Though The Only Place is conspicuously less atmospheric than Best Coasts previous work, its far from a radical departure. Where the mood was once shaded by the studio effects, its now tinted by Cosentinos voice. Brion dials down a few peripheral knobs but turns up the resolution on the vocal mic. What we get is a grounded California reverie, tugged by a subtle undercurrent of sadness. This melodic melancholy is nothing new for California pop, as Surfer Girl, Island in the Sun, and much of Best Coasts debut album will attest. One could argue that discontent is the ingredient that pushes a West Coast band from achievement to opus, citing Pet Sounds and Pinkerton as examples. I wouldnt place Bethany and Bobb in such exalted company just yet, but I will admit that, with The Only Place, Cosentinos sales pitch has me loosening the contents of my billfold. After listing a short ledger of her states assets again, sun, fun, babes, waves she repeats an enchanting question: Why would you live anywhere else? Youre free to formulate your own answers. Mine is, Im not sure. And I intend to spend the next few months investigating whether this uncertainty is a strong enough force to merit a move. Book me a meeting with U-Haul. Im fixin to blow this popsicle stand. The California Sound, and the sounds of California, are just too alluring. (April 4, 2012) Beach Boys, From There to Back Again My favorite Beach Boys song is probably You Still Believe In Me, the second track off of 1966s Pet Sounds. I say probably because, with any band of even meager import, the notion of a favorite song is kind of silly. The Beach Boys discography is a proverbial embarrassment of riches; by my count, they have more than 50 songs that can properly be described as hits. Were not talking should have/could have been hits these songs actually charted, and have subsequently had their names chiseled into rock and rolls most sacred monuments. Titles like Surfin U.S.A., Surfer Girl, and Little Deuce Coupe may not carry quite the same weight as specimens on the order of Good Vibrations, Wouldnt It Be Nice, and God Only Knows, but each song imparts a certain gravity, claiming a healthy patch of physical or emotional territory. The fun, fun, fun of the former tracks is counterbalanced by the fears and insecurities of their latter
81

brethren. This jolly melancholy is what makes the Beach Boys the greatest vocal group of the 20th Century. Theres an odd harmony in the contrast, just as there was a rough synergy in the bands static-ridden lineup. While Mike Love was all swagger and suntan, Brian Wilson reminded his listeners that the sun also sets. You Still Believe In Me is remarkable for its soaring laments and guileless confessions. Any song that begins with the line I know perfectly well Im not where I should be probably shouldnt end on a high note. Again, though, the Beach Boys make a mockery of probably. Wilson crafts the single as both an apology and an explanation, coloring each syllable with gratitude and awe. He seems to be saying, Thanks for putting up with me. Its love and mercy from a man who struggled to get a hold of either condition. You Still Believe In Me is somber until it becomes glorious, sad until it becomes ecstatic. Whats most attractive about it is its uncertainty. The song goes silent at two distinct points, each time resurrecting with religious fervor. Wilsons elongated I want to cry is a chorus unto itself; Id argue that the four-word passage (along with its train of group vocals) is as close to Handel as American pop has gotten. The harmonies that the line sets in motion are among the most beautiful in all of recorded music, no hyperbole intended. Most critics will claim that God Only Knows takes this aesthetic to a loftier plane, but I prefer to leave God out of the debate. An artist neednt invoke a Higher Being to scale a spiritual Everest. But when this Higher Being is tapped, either by prayer or happy accident, the resulting state of beauty shouldnt be confused with the state of Being High. Brother Brians music, like much of the Sixties hit parade, was drugfueled; it wasnt, however, a pysch-rock rendezvous with trance or torpor. His achievement was to write pop songs about the here and now that somehow sounded otherworldly. At their best, the Beach Boys were a choir of heady sensualists; the questions they posed were intellectual but immediate. To me, their catalog asks not only Do you want to dance?, but also Is nothing secular? These queries arent irreconcilable. Both poke and prod at sins of the flesh, just from opposite sides of the spectrum one with abandon, the other with longing. Love wanted fast cars and faster women. Wilson wanted to take things nice and slow, hoping to stumble upon revelations as thunderous as the Be My Baby drum break. Despite his romantic disposition, Brian lent his loyalties to this side of paradise, even when his world came to resemble a living hell. He knew, tragically, that there was no escape from the coils of mortality. He became a recluse by default rather than design. This is perhaps too earnest a prelude for a rushed analysis of the new, coolly anticipated Beach Boys reunion record. Fifty years removed from the bands first single, the concepts of stakes and genius should probably take a back seat to the sheer unlikelihood that Wilson or Love would ever bury his hatchet in any place other than his antagonists back. Theres comedy to be mined from this hermit/peacock dichotomy: Wilson is shy to the point of being anti-social; Love is egotistic to the point of being intolerable. Look at the acceptance speech each man delivered upon being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1988. Wilson is gracious, trembly, and innocent, almost childlike; Love makes harmony the theme of his oration, then calls Mick Jagger chicken shit. What an asshole! But, also, what a ballsy performer! Love had the nerve that failed Wilson at the height of his talents. The Beach Boys broke up because Wilson broke down, largely due to Loves constant badgering. To broker detente between the bands two animating
82

agents is to score a grand diplomatic coup. The only problem is that this detente needed to come in 1968, not 2012. While Wilsons legacy has thrived in recent decades, the active Beach Boys brand has lost most of its luster. Simply put, a band forfeits its claim to greatness once it takes on John Stamos as an honorary member. Moreover, a muchhyped Grammy night reunion is drained of its intrigue when the spotlit legends are made to share the stage with Foster the People and Maroon 5. That pained collaboration reminded me of the time Paul McCartney donned gay white apparel to croon a Linkin Parkbacked version of Yesterday. In each case, the balance of talent tipped squarely in the elders direction, and this rendered the resulting weigh-in absurd. Also absurd is the title of the Beach Boys new LP, Thats Why God Made the Radio. If God were responsible for the frequencies of pap and schlock that currently occupy our airwaves, Hed have to resign any lingering pretense toward infallibility. Wilson probably doesnt realize this, as he thinks radio is still playing Phil Spectors pocket symphonies. His title track betrays this blissful ignorance, flexing outdated acoustics that sully the boys otherwise solid (if unspectacular) harmonies. Its therefore a surprise that the reunion albums second single, From There to Back Again, rekindles some of the charm of the bands glory days. The track is AM Gold of the 24-carat variety, its lovely cadences washed in and out by a cascade of cherubic voices. I hate to admit it, but Love is the grand dame of this particular ball. His voice is spry and sprightly, still possessed of its strong pitch and nasal flair. With the recent death of Dick Clark, Love just might have assumed the mantle of Worlds Oldest Teenager. At 71, his motifs remain curiously similar to those he pushed at 23: Were still on the beach, or at least on the highway which sits astride the sand. Love might as well give tide and water temperature readings; hes not abandoning the lifeguard stand. That said, Wilson will not be easily dislodged from his status as King of the Beach. If From There to Back Again has that quintessential Beach Boys sound and, to be clear, it does its because Brian is tinkling the ivories and overseeing the orchestration. The song is reflective, deliberate EZ Listening, and I dont wield that label pejoratively. Wilson and Love are warm and wistful, triggering an exercise in nostalgia that doesnt completely scuttle reality. Loves verse makes no apologies for pointing his woodies mirror on rearview. The couplet Thinking about some things we used to do/Thinking about when life was still in front of you sets the tone for the entire track. The Beach Boys arent kidding themselves theyre old, and ones age isnt a number that runs in reverse. They see little harm, however, in recapturing the magic of old harmonies. Wilson owns the trademark on vocal Viagra, and here he doles out his pills with a generous hand. Brian is not the high-pitched sparrow of yesteryear, keen to hit the choir books most vertiginous notes. Age and isolation have left their mark on his voice, which is now more mumbly than crystalline and more avuncular than brotherly. This places fun in the sun narratives out of his domain, which would be disconcerting if he hadnt already renounced such themes some four and a half decades ago. Wilson is most at home in despond. He was pained by memory at 25; that, I feel, is a condition of artistic genius to yearn for the simplicity and good will of a childhood youve only recently left behind. You cant get from there to back again in real life, so you use your music as a mechanism of mood and meditation. Your brow, however, is forbidden from showing its
83

furrows. In pop music, you have to pretend that everything is fine and dandy. Theres nothing more pathetic than a genuinely, perpetually, inconsolably sad teenager, especially if this teenager is pushing 70. We can be thankful that Brian and the boys no longer have to live up to an image thats not of their own devising. If I had to hear a bunch of septuagenarians sing about being true to their school, Id probably laugh or lose my lunch. Im pleased that From There to Back Again pushes a grown-up, lived-in California Sound. It allows the Wilson-Love Overdrive to meet on the flipside of middle age, with lower testosterone levels and fewer things to prove. Mike can continue to peacock, but hes obliged to do it from a less malicious perspective. And Brian can add a touch of gray to his cloistered Mozart persona, parlaying his sand-in-the-studio neuroses into a Most Interesting Man in the World award tour. Wilson says, Stay sunny, my friends, with a preference for sunset over sunrise. Thats called aging gracefully. Then again, maybe Wilsons greatest achievement is to make the setting sun echo with the chimes of dawn. Though a man of a thousand frowns, hes given the world untold millions of smiley smiles. The California Sound, obviously more a marketing ploy than a single, signature ethic, was really the product of harmony amid discord: cultural optimism sprinkled over personal despair. This mix of superficiality and seriousness, of low and high art, made the Beach Boys the most distinctly American pop act of the rock and roll era. Wilsons tone couldnt have come from Liverpool, New York, or New Orleans. He had the blues, but they derived from the Pacific Ocean rather than the Mississippi Delta. Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones couldnt imitate the Beach Boys intrafamilial L.A. harmonies. (The Who tried, bravely but in vain.) Wilson trailblazed his own private sphere, then sent for his brothers and cousins to actuate the music he heard in his head. From There to Back Again resides in a familiar sonic territory, meaning that its closer to Pet Sounds than Kokomo. Love accepts the logic of Wilsons ballad, and John Stamos keeps his distance. This isnt a late-period masterpiece, but the nostalgia trip it commissions neither skimps on sentiment nor drowns in bathos. The song reminds us that we can still believe in the Beach Boys. Theyve outlasted their animosities, and now they want a victory lap. I wish them godspeed and good vibrations, from here to there and all the places in between. (June 5, 2012) Redd Kross, Stay Away From Downtown Id be lying to you if I claimed that this is the first review of Redd Kross Stay Away From Downtown that Ive written this week. On Monday morning, fresh from a weekend of considerable frustration, both with work and with family, I fired up a tract that was only peripherally about the song it purported to study. Its real subjects were Boomer entitlement, the ills of heavy drink, and the need to understand and reinforce the distinction between right and wrong. I fully intended to publish the piece, perhaps with a quick disclaimer on literary license. But, after rereading the nine-page, 5,600word opus, Ive decided that discretion is the better part of valor. You didnt ask for, nor do you need, my grand theories on generational conflict and civic disintegration. This is
84

a music blog, not an undergraduate thesis, a therapy session, or an epic poem gone rogue. And while Im certainly not immune to twisting off topic, I find that its healthy to keep my leashes shorter than my ambitions. Otherwise, God only knows what sort of nonsense will trickle out into this text field. Now that Ive congratulated myself for withholding a document you likely had no real interest in perusing, let me state a rather inconvenient truth: Stay Away From Downtown feels done to me. Dont get me wrong: The song is well worth a few minutes of your time. In fact, if I were you, Id probably set aside a good quarter of an hour, simply to account for replays. Downtown is, in my opinion, the best power pop single of 2012, a title that loses no shine even as I admit to the relative lack of competition. I endorse it with as much conviction as I can muster on a humid August morning. The problem is that the song engendered so much boldfaced copy during Review 1.0 that Im hard pressed to take a virgin look at its charms. Knowing the sort of slander it was party to just 48 hours ago, how can I begin again? The answer to that question, I guess, is to start in a different spot. Rather than ascribe historical importance to the strain of rock and roll that Downtown exhibits, Ill train my light on the tunes creators. Redd Kross are an oddity, to say the least. Brothers Jeff and Steve McDonald formed the outfit in the late 1970s, when the boys were 16 and 12, respectively. (Technically, they formed early iterations of the band, first the Tourists, then Red Cross; the point to take away is that this was brat punk performed by actual brats.) Redd Kross first official show was as an opening act for Black Flag. This was mighty auspicious company for a group of suburban SoCal teenagers, but their early records, which Ive heard only in fits and samples, stood in smiling complement to the going hardcore scene. It could be said that they trafficked in a form of joke rock, loosing songs with such titles as White Trash, St. Lita Ford Blues, and Notes and Chords Mean Nothing to Me. But this was in keeping with a hallowed punk premise (see Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue), and Redd Kross did California proud by adding a whiplash component to the sunny, sophomoric pop that another Hawthorne band, the Beach Boys, had popularized. The Brothers Wilson would, of course, move on to meatier fare, as Pet Sounds and Smile can attest. A similar (but perhaps not altogether comparable) progression can be seen in the Brothers McDonald. Their rough edges soon smoothed over, and their hardcore loyalties were eventually transferred to a shinier, happier alternative idiom. Im inclined to call this power pop, in which riffs and vocals cohere in three-minute nuggets of melodic gold. Downtown is a great summation of Baby Boomer rock music; though certain avenues are skirted entirely (prog, psych, confessional singersongwriting), the poles of the charting, guitar-based discography are linked together convincingly. Here, Redd Kross depict the 63 Beatles meeting New Wave, with moptops and suits segueing to vertical hairstyles and skinny ties. All in all, it sounds a bit like the Raspberries. Or Cheap Trick. Or the Undertones. Or Weezer. If you like the short, poppy songs that Rivers Cuomo cooked up for the Green Album, Downtown should be right up your alley. That said, I wouldnt label the song nerdy or geeky. Like Weezers Dont Let Go and Photograph, Downtown has an oblong forward momentum. Its crunchy and
85

fuzzy, but still sparkly and sweet. Theres a Sunset Strip quality to the opening guitar lick, which lands somewhere between a beer commercial and the hot-rod circuit. Its not cock rock so much as cocky rock: The transition from riff to hook is ultraconfident, and, in its aggregate, the track is almost absurdly well-crafted. You can tell that these guys have been playing together for quite some time, yet the burden of legacy doesnt weigh too heavily on their shoulders. Redd Kross were never in the same league as Black Flag, the Minutemen, or any of L.A.s more conventional punk bands, like X or the Germs. Their junior status afforded them the freedom to go soft and chimey. One simply doesnt whistle along cheerfully to a Greg Ginn or Mike Watt number. Downtown, however, is infectious in the most innocent of ways. Its so plangent that the listener feels nearly buffeted by good vibes, nearly lifted by the high jinks. The songs concluding sha-la-la passage is a gratuitous scoop of ice cream plopped over the cherry that typically tops the sundae. The McDonalds have served up a winner, and Im lovin it. Lest my praise appear a bit hyperbolic, bear in mind that were currently sweating through the dog days of August, a period when few artists of merit release new material. Perhaps Downtown stands out among its colleagues because its colleagues are largely daft or misshapen. Then again, maybe late summer is the time for straightforward, visceral music. This is not the sort of stuff that indie blogs like to cover, hence the paucity of substantive posts on Pitchfork. (Hell, Pitchfork is so desperate for content that theyve asked their readers to compile a Best-of list, largely to garner fresh clicks and valuable demographic data.) Lets face it: People with money are on vacation. And people without money are on Twitter, groping for relevance in 140 characters or less. Me, Ive got a business to run, and a macroblogging ethic to uphold. Redd Kross make both tasks easier, what with their steady beat and their punk-influenced pop. Downtown proves that the clenched fist can coexist with a pair of open arms. Even as its protagonist is warned to stay away from downtown, the music in play is hopelessly inviting. The only thing thats threatened is the outbreak of a smile. Redd Kross call their new album Researching the Blues. Were I a stickler for accuracy, I might tell the boys to go back to the library, because the blues rarely flash the jaunty bounce that theyve injected into Downtown. Thankfully, I can look past a faulty title, particularly when the sonic testimony is this seductive. For the time being, consider Redd Kross a Salvation Army, here to carry us rock lovers through the end of the month. Come September, we can lend fresh ink to our fiery position papers on musics moral and cultural import. Right now, however, Im going to stream some power pop and heckle a few of my vendors. Such is the secret to summertime: Though the living may not be easy as advertised, it neednt be as hard as we tend to make it. (August 15, 2012) Leonard Cohen, Show Me the Place Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas at least within our town squares and social media platforms, where towering trees and self-satisfied shopping updates have come to dominate the landscape. These premature preparations dont bother me much; in fact, they sometimes bring a little ballast to an otherwise empty void. Heres a quick example,
86

with a touch of music to boot: Yesterday afternoon, while fiending for a robust cup of coffee, I trolled the boardwalk of Asbury Park, New Jersey, eyes up and mug out. As I walked the great expanse of wood and steel girding, I was met by a hundred-year storm. First I was soaked; then the rains subsided, and I was merely windswept. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that the coffee shop for which Id braved the elements was closed, like much of the beachfront property. Wet and ragged, I took refuge under the citys Christmas display, which is inside the stately, if waterlogged, Convention Hall. Though no one was around, music played over the PA system. It was Leonard Cohens Chelsea Hotel #2, and it was beautiful. Cohens writing is so fluid that his verses stitch together like acts from a lean, irregularly lit stage drama. Its easy to get lost in his foggy, haunting voice, which takes the fore in spite of its relative ugliness. Altogether, Leos music can offer safe harbor in a tempest, either through distraction or rapture. Cohens new single, Show Me the Place, comes from the same tradition of spell-like engagement. It starts with a few resonant piano chords, poignant plunks that suggest both Baptist gospel and Colonial-era march. The sounds are simple but affecting, replete with minor falls and major lifts but mostly major lifts. Cohen is here to enhearten rather than enchant. His voice isnt for everyone at this point, it seems to be floating somewhere between Tom Waits and Burgess Meredith but if you can stomach the rough edges, youll find that its message remains unblemished. Show Me addresses our species most inscrutable concerns, yet manages to do it scrutably. Consider this passage: Show me the place, help me roll away the stone Show me the place, I cant move this thing alone Show me the place, where the word became a man Show me the place, where the suffering began Theres a natural call and response between the first and second clauses in each line. Cohen issues a demand, then an admission of weakness or yearning, thus mixing curiosity with humility. His words could be a plea to keep the Christ in Christmas, what with the stone, the suffering, and the singular man. But, really, theyre more of a testament to the formidable power of poetics amidst the warmed-over prose of popular songwriting. Cohen strikes a note thats both downhome and heavenly, eschewing Dylans romantic swirls, Reeds back-alley jive, and Springsteens first-person immediacy. His wisdom sounds ancient and lived in perhaps older than the Christmas holiday itself. Still, it provides refuge in this season of commercial hysteria. Cohen isnt trying to sell you anything. He just wants to show you the light. (November 30, 2011) Ca$h Out, Big Booty Pop music is awash in double entendre. And its not too hard to understand why: Bigticket acts depend upon constant airplay, streaming, and tagging to keep their brands bolstered. Traditionally, the best way to enter the most vaunted realms of celebrity was by means of an unassailable talent. But, at this busy moment in the marketing of data
87

and diva, provocation goes a lot further than pitch or rhythm. Its better to flash ones underwear than a multi-octave run, better to tout ones prowess in the sack than in the studio. What results is a longing to be just-risque-enough for the mass audience. The fig leaf may get smaller and smaller with each successive year, but its still there, if only to hide the shameless artists ultimate shame. Were she still a viable entity, Janet Jackson would be free to make all the innuendo she pleases. Unfortunately, a nip-slip, nearly 10 years hence, made her an object of considerable derision. You can sing all you want about your lady lumps and this jelly, but bare the flesh that such phrases invoke, and youre a filthy tramp. A pop singer not only has to know the ledge, she has to toe it with the dexterity of a champion gymnast. Such is the fruit of economic determinism writ large: An artist isnt truly successful unless shes reached a kind of ambient-noise altitude, in which her songs are so ubiquitous that we dont even realize theyre playing. The tacit goal of every ambitious singer is international superstardom; the practical effect, however, is royalties without regard. Rihannas music is huge and lucrative in the same way that the Transformers film franchise was huge and lucrative: Its adequately pepped up to carry the banner of American pop culture, but also adequately dumbed down to satisfy a world market that doesnt speak perfect English. This is why machines and, by extension, mechanical acting (Stallone, Stratham, Butler, Diesel), fare so well at the aggregate box office. Why listen to Daniel Day-Lewis deliver an Oscar-caliber speech when you can watch the Titanic sink or the Dark Knight rise? One size fits all is the only size that matters. And its making mass culture a tireless bore. Please reserve judgment on whether this macroeconomic argument is astute or asinine. I pose it only to set the necessary pretext for our dip into double entendre. In virtually every case, an international megastar cannot release a song thats nakedly, unimpeachably sexual. She can hint at perversion or penetration, but she cannot catalog intimacys pleasures and horrors in dripping detail. The wink will have to do. And often times it does. Accordingly, we have scores of pop songs named in the manner of the following: Peacock by Katy Perry, Blow Me (One Last Kiss) by P!nk, Glad You Came by the Wanted, Hold It Against Me by Britney Spears. Softcore suggestion stands in for the hard stuff of lust, so as to ward off the NC-17 rating that would preclude a rotationready label. Now that nobody is buying albums, ultra-provocative B-sides have lost a good bit of their curb appeal. Sex still sells, but it has to be carted from the red light district to the central marketplace. Lyrics are obliged to have several meanings, so as not to offend our wholesome, God-fearing children, who regularly dress like South Asian street whores and sext with all eagerness of fettered nymphomaniacs. Gay marriage is an ostensible violation of several holy covenants, but a ministers daughter like Katy Perry can divorce an infamous rake in a flash and release a song propelled by the line I wanna see your peacock-cock-cock! The hypocrisy is just a touch too much to bear. This is why, against all odds, Ive come to respect Ca$h Outs Big Booty. For the record, its an absolutely terrible song, rapped by a Southern MC who appears to have taken one too many sips of sirrup. Still, it offers a refreshing lack of nuance, and little to nil in the way of double entendre. Straight pop songs always offer an out: Blow Me
88

slips in a parenthetical evasion, Hold It Against Me hides its phallic thrust behind a turn of phrase. Big Booty, on the other hand, comes at you like a fastball, its only curves being the natural provenance of female anatomy. The single is genuinely about big booty hoes, and makes no effort to obscure this fact. Theres no digression into pirate lore, where booty might signify something other than ass. Ca$h Out is simply drawlin and ballin, proud to honor the Dirty South tradition of mindless rhyming about girls, green, and gold. He drives his point home with all the subtlety of a jackhammer, channeling a noise thats anything but ambient. Big Booty isnt merely stupid; its learning disabled. Objective reviewers will find fault with Ca$hs short-bus logic, but those of us who are starved for witless, call-it-as-I-see-it songwriting will enjoy a hearty laugh at our dignitys expense. I could almost feel my IQ dropping as I listened to the track. Yet I couldnt turn the stream off, as the song was just too gloriously absurd. This is not to say that Ca$h has a wholesale hostility to things cerebral. He does raise a number of interesting questions, each particular to the pursuit of a fat-bottomed female. First among them is probably, What good is a big booty hoe if you dont have the bankroll to win her affections? Our MC takes the stress out of this scenario by professing his steadfast love for (and reliable possession of) big money. The song starts with the couplet, You know I love money though/And I love me a big booty hoe. These are rather bold confessions for a member of the rap game, where materialism and misogyny are normally so difficult to come by. Yes, Im being facetious, hopefully without the anticipated side order of condescension. Clearly, Ca$h Out is an idiot; but hes an idiot in the style of DJ Pauly D or The Situation: We take great pleasure in his swagger, because his swagger is so blissfully misguided. I mean, heres a major-label artist, signed by L.A. Reid to Epic Records, spending tens of thousands of dollars to tell us that he likes women with uncommonly large hindquarters. Whats more, he does it earnestly, so as to leave no doubt that his lyrics (all 10 words of them) were sublimated from his very soul. If the song werent laughable, itd almost be sad. Thankfully, we get the impression that Ca$h is giggling along with us. He has to know that his single holds no redeemable social value (nor even a meager trace of musical merit). I like big butts and I cannot lie is not a new offering to the gods of novelty pop. And Sir Mix-A-Lot, for all his evident faults, didnt rhyme over Casio-tinted beats that sound like they were pulled from Master Ps gold-plated toilet. Big Booty is really as bad as contemporary commercial music can get. And thats precisely what makes it invaluable. The song is spotted with provincial stains and scars, each of which should rightly offend the universal market that iTunes and Spotify afford. As music tilts in the direction of being made for everyone, regardless of geography or cultural imprint, it also runs the very real risk of being made for no one in particular. The preferences of the average customer set the sonic standard, and each aspirant to fame endeavors to hit these tried and true notes. Only these notes arent tried nor true. Theyre just a mathematical estimate of what the critical mass will find palatable. Occasionally, in one of the fringe genres, such as Southern rap, youll get a neon-lit misfire. Big Booty is one of them. And I say we celebrate its apple-bottomed comet tail. With all due respect to T. S. Eliot, August is the cruelest month. Its that small slice of calendar when the oh-so-busy media establishment, each baron adorned with a Boehner-deep golfers tan, goes on an interminable beach vacation. (This is perhaps a
89

peripheral gripe, but, really, nothing stinks of sanctimony quite like a lecture on hard work from a guy who spends six weeks a year on an island resort.) While the so-called job creators and decision makers are gone, the normal outlets of broadcast go slack: You get the back-up anchor, the second-tier summer movies, the dregs of the years music release schedule. Theres no way in hell that Big Booty would have gotten a firstimpression spot on the iTunes homepage in the middle of November. In early August, however, the rules of the game are temporarily suspended, and weird flowers are given the chance to bloom. Ca$h Out takes a hold of this opportunity and squanders it in semi-satiric fashion. I cannot imagine him taking more than 15 minutes or so to pen the vulgar verses that give Big Booty its jelly roll. He paints portraits of unthinkable waste (Wipe my nose with the money when I got to sneeze) and claims victories of dubious distinction (I feel like I won the Super Bowl/And I love me a big booty hoe.) Add to this shitfest a slinky Southern beat, peppered with snare drums that sound like gun shots, and youve got a single that evades serious analysis. Still, those of us who believe pop music is an avatar of our age will grope for some sort of larger meaning. Insofar as there is one, its merely the corroboration of a long-held conviction: Rap music is the least threatening of rock and roll genres. For all its murderous intent, the form is in thrall to money, power, and success, with success being measured in purely material terms. Its hypercompetitive, boldly individualistic, and strictly bottom-line oriented. The fact that the bottom line can extend from the revenue sheet to the big booty is just one of the pleasures that the idiom provides. Even as the testimony is unmistakably African American, the acquisitive mindset that directs the flow is as capitalistic as Forbes magazine. I doubt that Mitt Romney has many big booty hoes in his blind trust, but if such a commodity were an object of value to his social set, hed have to have at least three. Sure, rap has objectified women. But the me-first mentality that drives contemporary finance objectifies just about everything. Worth is ascribed from without rather than projected from within. From LIBOR to labor, capital sets the rates of return, then tells you youre not working hard enough while they yacht from Cape to Sound, their conscience as untroubled as the waters they navigate. Southern rap makes life better because it sends in the clowns. It speaks of sex, drugs, and untold riches in direct voice, with nary a blind trust or double entendre. Its practitioners dont hide their wealth or their confidence; each is plainly evident in their vanity jewelry and juvenile flow. The genre is honest to a fault. Its id, id, id a redundant trinity which eschews the sacred apology. The only thing held in check is the rappers gag reflex. Ca$h Out says, This is how I do thangs. And if you dont like it, you can kiss his ass. May that ass be fat and plentiful. Because he and his brethren have nothing else to fall back on. (August 6, 2012) Death Grips, Hustle Bones I consider myself a student of many things. Seduction, effrontery, disappointment, shame all occupy a special place in my sordid curriculum, and each has bequeathed me its fair share of credits. But the subject that sharpens my pencil with the most torque
90

and tonic is culture. This can be a rather a broad body to lay on the examination table, as culture encompasses everything from opera to empanadas. To fit such an unwieldy concept within the square of my middling monitor, I need to consent to a restricted view, and to define culture, quite peremptorily, as whats going on. This Marvin Gaye mindset is convenient but complicated. Its central problem lies in the fact that theres a lot of shit going on, at all hours, in a mind-boggling array of fields. To keep abreast of current affairs is to conscript oneself in a no-win situation, requiring constant vigilance and precious little victory. I try to salvage some shred of dignity by training my lens on matters that prick my passions, namely music, politics, and sports an entertainment trifecta if there ever was one. What Ive learned is that you can never know enough about these particular disciplines, largely because whats going on is a function of whats gone on, whats been going on, what might go on, and what will go on. Tense and term are critically important, as is the arc of history. I dont mean to assail knowledge or stifle opinion, but, really, much of the chatter in pundit circles is lent weight by credentials rather than credibility. We defer to the experts on a given subject and then weave their testimony into our own matrices of understanding. As such, a certain corps of elites sets the agenda for our cultural conversations. Though they dont always tell us what to think, they frequently tell us what to think about. These folks serve a necessary end: to curate an overstocked culture, pointing the masses toward the best song or the strongest argument. Extant inventories are so high, however, that even a relentless series of guided tours can fail to influence behavior. Ive been told, by people great and small, at volumes reserved and loud, that Mad Men is the finest show on television. I know that the programs lead character is named Don Draper, and that hes played by Jon Hamm, ever the Handsome Dan. I know that Draper works in advertising, for a shop known as Sterling Cooper. Also employed by the firm is a buxom redhead, who, though her dramatic name escapes me, is embodied by Esquire pin-up Christina Hendricks. Mad Men being set in the Sixties, Hendricks business assets dont carry quite the same weight as Hamms; the crux of the show seems to be the conflict between the privilege of the Old Boys Network and the oncoming locomotive of sexual and psychological revolution. I use the word seems because I havent watched a frame of the actual program. All my information comes second-hand, acquired by a kind of cultural osmosis. Heres the conclusion that my casual sociological studies have wrought: As a people, we live in an era of general cultural awareness but meager cultural immersion. Much of the content on our buffet line is consumed vicariously, in between stiff drinks and visits to the bathroom. We simply dont have the time to stay entirely up-to-date, be it on the presidential campaign or the indie rock bonanza. In the absence of direct experience, we depend on surrogates. This is where the pundits, editorialists, critics, and PR hands come in. Somebody has to direct us toward the zeitgeist. We can only hope that he or she is neither vicious nor deranged. My opinions on metacultural matters could fill more bandwidth than Google is willing to allot. For todays purposes, as in life in general, its useful to drill down into a given cultural subset and extract whatever minerals our hands are able to grasp. My primary leisure concern is pop music, particularly the leviathans alternative arm, which is
91

exercised by hefty downloads and ever-churning headlines. Were I to follow every lead posed by Pitchfork alone, Id have to quit my day job and inject supraphysiological doses of caffeine. New bands are legion. And new songs come so quickly that to call them a dime a dozen would be to inflate their value by an order of magnitude. To stay in the game, I have to rely on early morning updates and late night debriefings, both subject to the biases of my own eyes. Im unlikely to click on anything totally foreign to my experience; Id rather check in with the doings of an estranged friend or a buzzed-about neophyte. This all but assures that Ill be behind the curve on the latest microtrend. Luckily, tardiness of this mild character doesnt bother me much. If I miss the first boat, I can always catch the second or the third. Such is the preamble to my encounter with Death Grips. Ive known of them for quite some time probably for the better part of a year. (My retrospective calendar tends to cloud over.) I recall reading that they hailed from Sacramento, California, and that they played some rough variation of hardcore. The rest was largely white noise, until the first waves of indie commerce came crashing. Several months back, with the annual South By Southwest Festival looming, Death Grips got a good-spirited indie blog bump, each article calling out the bands general distemper and intensity. I abstained from listening to the groups first album, The Money Store, only because my attention was pulled in other directions, by other wonders. Earlier this week, I finally caught the proverbial third boat, and motored from a position of token awareness to direct experience. The track that did the trick was Hustle Bones, a bruiser of a tune that came equipped with a dark, danger-hewn video. All in all, Im happy to have made the songs acquaintance. Death Grips broker a sound that incorporates aspects of disparate scenes. Hustle Bones packs the aural violence of gangsta rap, the mechanized noise of industrial rock, and the sonic dexterity of electroclash. Stefan Burnett (aka MC Ride) rasps more than he raps, resembling Rick Ross without the Dade County cool. Hes one ferocious-looking dude, with a beard and tatts that place his visage somewhere between those of James Harden and Kimbo Slice. Unlike Ricky Rozay, Ride is no Teflon Don. His flow is stark and sticky, and lingers like a smokers cough. On Hustle Bones, the vocal gets right up in your face and refuses to retreat to its corner. It positively demands your attention, even if your mind is intent on skipping to something less abrasive. That said, Death Grips are done a disservice when theyre labeled hardcore. Theres a level of nuance here that never made its way to the slam-dancing set. MC Ride is backed by a crack production team, consisting of Zach Hill and Andy Morin. This duo fabricates instrumentals which roll nimbly alongside Ride. Hustle Bones is a wild composition, flecked with vrooms, ripples, and stylized samples. It shifts from the menacing to the slinky, turning head butts into head bobs. There seems to be a bass drop ethic at play, in which a sharp, concussive beat suddenly flips toward digital disco. Its tension and release, done artfully. Art, however, isnt always intelligible. Ill be damned if I can comprehend a single word that MC Ride is shouting, aside from a few inevitable fucks and a refrain reading hustle bones comin out my mouth. I dont know what a hustle bone is, so Ill make a safe assumption, and propose that its some kind of marijuana stick. This is the sole safe assumption that the song allows, as the rest of its message is bludgeoned to a point of indecipherability. Im perfectly OK with this. Much of my youth was spent misquoting
92

rap lyrics, and its a custom that remains close to my heart. MC Ride and co. deserve credit for keeping the ventricles primed and the blood pumping. Whether this blood is coursing toward my brain or my fists is a matter of mood. Hustle Bones is a great song to work out to; surprisingly, its also a song through which one can work out his idle theories on pop culture. A pillar of my music criticism is the feeling that too much of contemporary indie aspires to the condition of wallpaper or furniture to act as an instrument of decor rather than a rocker of the room. Hustle Bones is demonstrably hostile to this sensibility. It takes Chillwave outside and pummels the petty genre into submission, all without repudiating the precepts of art rock. It poses that punk and prog can come together in a glorious noise, and wins the argument by technical knockout. Still, for me, Death Grips are not a drop everything band. Time and task being the currencies that they are, I try to keep music in its place: as a worthy catalyst to movement or thought, not as the be-all, end-all of the human experiment. Day to day, I assemble an informal roster of acts whove impressed me with their work but need to show me a little more before they become a first boat concern. This condition of awareness yearns to graduate into full-on immersion, but, more often than not, my initial enthusiasm is tempered by a misguided single or a distracting headline. Culture is too titanic and mobile a beast to grant a moments pause. We cannot catch up; we can only turn our ears to the wind and hope the notes we hear are sweet. Or violent. Or true. Death Grips have made my roster of bands to watch. If the hits keep on coming, so will the superlatives. But if their sound becomes too repetitive or predictable, Ill simply invest their non-matured shares in another artist, athlete, or activity. In fact, should music cease to ennoble my spirit, I can turn to one of the many cultural phenomena of which Ive been made aware but have not truly embraced. (Don Draper, here I come!) Perhaps this is a horn of plenty; perhaps its a poverty of abundance. I lack the deepdiving data not to mention the heart to choose between the two. Thankfully, this decision can be delayed until all the returns are in. And these returns, ample as the air we breathe and the issues we fight about, show no signs of stunting their deluge. I look forward to navigating these waters, even if immersion is a luxury few of us can afford. (May 18, 2012) Sleigh Bells, Comeback Kid Dont call it a comeback. Its been here for years. Two and a half years to be precise, as the it in question Sleigh Bells cochlea-crushing sound first dented the indie communitys consciousness in September of 2009, when Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss started to catch fire on the blog circuit. The Bells were the rare band that left an immediate mark, on your hearing if not your worldview. Miller amped his early mixes to such soaring levels of volume that your virgin encounter with his noise pop project probably erred on the side of noise, to the detriment of the underlying pop. I can remember stumbling upon the 2HELLWU EP in late 2009, innocent as an altar boy. I cued up Crown On the Ground at a middling volume register, intending to let it play
93

on my headphones as I set about maintaining my mornings agenda. The opening guitar riff rolled in like a shock wave, at once droning and deafening. Then came the drums, percussive blasts that I may someday cite as a prime instigator of my chronic tinnitus. Crown was huge, rude, and utterly unlike the indie fascination of its moment, Chillwave. At the time, I recall thinking that a new brand of punk was sprouting in Brooklyn, and that Id be eager to watch its branches bloom. Several years later, its clear that I had an inadequate understanding of punk. Sleigh Bells were, and are, a pop vehicle more than anything else, as borne out on the recent cuts from their soon to be released sophomore album, Reign of Terror. Born to Lose was a tart but tasty palate cleanser, exposing 2011s most celebrated vibe Bon Ivers slow, soft-rock slouch for what it was: dull and diluted. Comeback Kid is, if anything, even more engaged and upright. To return to an earlier theme, its not a comeback, but a bold step forward. Miller has dialed down both his fuzz and his fury, thus adding an air of aural coherence to his groups songs. Instead of blowing speakers, Sleigh Bells are now free to blow minds, with rhythm and melody as opposed to sheer volume. The winner in this transaction is Krauss, who gives Comeback Kid a killer vocal, at once ferocious and focused, headlong and halting. Here, Sleigh Bells have achieved a near-perfect pairing of beauty and the beast. Concussive music is rarely this melodic; and melodic music is rarely this concussive. Such an admixture can conjure some odd descriptions. Is it Nine Inch Nails with a manicure or Katy Perry in a demolition yard? Is it a hardcore statement or a softcore tease? I, for one, hear an industrial bubblegum, a finely honed black cheer, as if the anarchyemblemed pep squad from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video had decided to form a rock band. Im sure there are precedents for this sort of sonic texture, but I cant cite an obvious pool of influencers. As for a carbon copy, one simply cannot be found. Reign of Terror, as if in deference to the Jacobins, sounds like nothing so much as a proclamation of Year Zero. Miller wipes the board with a magnetic eraser, reimagining the guitar as a guillotine or predator drone. His plugged-in panache serves to disinter the brittle bones of electric rock and roll, to prove that the six string isnt an instrument to be mocked or memorialized. His tones come through loud and clear, with clarity being the point of differentiation. Sleigh Bells no longer give us a headache. Now, we can hear Krauss vibrant vocals. Now, the percussion can pop in patterns rather than merely detonate. On Born to Lose and Comeback Kid, the drums dont just beat, they throw combinations. And the songs they animate are absolute knockouts. Youve probably noticed that the currency of this post is unalloyed praise. As I see it, Im not here to review a single, but to applaud an aesthetic. Though I enjoy a healthy expanse of new releases, few young bands have the raw power to set my ears reeling. This, I think, is a condition of our culture, which is postmodern to a fault. Every new sound seems to be a commentary on an older, cooler sound, designed to make the crate diggers among us feel clever for getting the reference. Its useful to look beyond music to get at the essence of the problem. In last weeks New Yorker, art critic Peter Schjeldahl reviewed a multi-site exhibition of spot paintings by Damien Hirst. He wrote, [Hirsts] work comprehends all manner of things about previous art except, crucially, why it was created. I feel the same way about much of todays mp3 bounty, from Top 40 to Pitchforks compendium of Best New Music. Theyre all spot paintings: comments on
94

earlier shapes and figures. Whether that figure is Madonna (as in pop) or David Bowie (as in indie) is immaterial. Derivativeness is still the rule, and the art in play amounts to little more than marginalia. Thats one of the reasons why Ive taken a shine to Sleigh Bells: Theyre not so easy to place or drown out. More importantly, they pick up their weapons with intent to kill, and know just where to train the sight gauge. Where todays music tends to hit you in the hips or the head, Sleigh Bells makes you feel it in the pants. Their sound is rock and roll in perhaps its last iteration Mad Max at CBGBs, forcing Debbie Harry to sing in a space-metal band. The guitar is destructive and the singer is seductive, a combo that, to me, represents a hybrid of hope. I want the electric guitar to hold primacy for as long as it can, for the club kids to have to pull it from my cold, dead hands. Derek Miller is a guitar hero for the digital age, technologically astute but also aware of pre-Pro Tools timbres. His ax is fully loaded, and itll continue to fire shots until the stock of bullets runs dry. Lets pray that the ammunition holds up. Id like this reign of terror to last longer than a single news cycle, body count be damned. (January 23, 2012) The Raveonettes, Too Close to Heartbreak In a moment of weakness, levity, or outright desperation amid the trials of my adult life, Ive been prone to each I named the Raveonettes Bang! my favorite pop song of 2009. This dubious anointing was a function of one of those year-end lists that most of us in the habit of music writing feel compelled to compile. At the time, I was moonlighting as a media baron, having launched a Princeton, New Jerseybased periodical that covered matters cultural and comedic. Not holding much in the way of staff or standards, I decided to make myself lead critic of both music and cinema. I was in no way qualified to assume either position, but I muddled through a good 18 months worth of reviews and essays, often resorting to the voice of an omniscient narrator when my own was drawing nothing but blanks or sighs. Choosing Bang! as my year-end #1 was probably an instance of the narrator gone rogue, of a scribe submitting that he was impervious to consensus critical opinion, which was then heaping superlatives upon Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors. It was also a bit of a reactionary gesture one man standing athwart history, as well as the clear dictates of common sense. By 2009, the electric guitar had already become something of a vestige. And power duos, insofar as they still flashed any clout, were largely leaning electronic or skirting an indie rock/modern pop border, in the manner of the as-yet-unsung Sleigh Bells. The Raveonettes, who took a Jesus & Mary Chain aesthetic that of static folded over Spectoresque melodies and added sharper riffs, tauter drums, and a female voice, were wholly peripheral to the years musical conversations. Yet I placed them front and center, in part because I enjoyed their contrasts of classic and current, but mostly because I didnt know what the hell I was talking about. I noted that the single bang[ed] like a screen door in a gale storm and bop[ped] with all the blitzkrieg of the advancing Germany army. Then I advised listeners to turn it up to 11 and watch the Maginot Line fall to pieces.
95

This wasnt substantive music writing; it was cheeky ad writing, pocked with a dash or two of postgraduate humor. (Cut me some slack. I had just taken a history final.) Bang! was no more an emblem of its age than any other retro-happy artifact. The album it supported, In and Out of Control, went nowhere fast except for the bargain bin. The Raveonettes, ever-ready to embrace their fading fortunes, would essentially announce their own obsolescence on their next LP, Raven In the Grave. Look at that title: It does everything but hammer the final nail into the coffin. Its therefore a matter of great personal pride that the Raveonettes have proved too sincere to die. Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo genuinely believe in their antiproprietary style. They summon the spirits of Spector and My Bloody Valentine, of the Brothers Reid and Everly, without the slightest bit of irony or hipster preening. Sune and Sharin cast their lilting harmonies into an electrical storm of toil and trouble, crafting a sound that can be described as Beauty and the Beast. With this appellation, I dont mean to imply that Foo is beautiful and Wagner is bestial though I imagine an argument can be made to that effect. What I mean to propose is that, on the preponderance of the Raveonettes tracks, the vocals are sweet and the music is sinister. Feedback darkens the bands signature hue, rolling vernal quivers toward an autumnal fog. The listener alternately gazes at the sky and his shoes, as pregnant possibilities swiftly give way to claustrophobia. The walls conspire to close in around us. Then they come tumbling down. Too Close to Heartbreak runs the same circuit that Wagner and Foo have been travelling for years, but it does so expertly. The fuzz arrives with the first notes, bearing the shimmer that adorns virtually all of the Raveonettes pop-leaning efforts. (See That Great Love Sound, Love In a Trash Can, and You Want the Candy.) Also present and accounted for are the inscrutably grim lyrics that Wagner frequently tucks into his songs, like posies tossed to the wind. The chorus begins with a question which one must assume is posed rhetorically: Do you care if I die? These words are repeated, by my count, seven times so I imagine the fate of the protagonist is the substance of the single, which wouldnt be out of character for the form or its fashioner. Rock and roll has a way of turning affairs of the heart into matters of life and death. On this metric, Wagner never disappoints. A working subtitle for his discography would be an inversion of the old Spector trope: He kissed me and it felt like a hit. This hit comes in two forms, as Ill explain shortly. First, some context: The Raveonettes barreled onto the American pop scene during the height of the garage revival, purporting to traffic in whiplash rock and roll. Their lash could be cool or concussive, but it was always well choreographed, hinting at leather jackets, muscle cars, hair grease, and the threat of battery. The bands initial hit was thus a punch to the face, either to settle a score or to inflame the already incorrigible passions of youth. The second hit was the one that never quite manifested: The Top 40 anthem, blasted from Anaheim to Massapequa. To my recollection, the Raveonettes were never a charting band. Though Wagner wrote mildly commercial tunes, his wares were largely embraced by kids who were slowly rediscovering the earlier tranches of the rock canon. It was pop music, all right but it was pop music for a previous decade.

96

Too Close to Heartbreak seems a worthy summation of the Raveonettes approach to songwriting. Guitars are tuned somewhere between surf and punk, rockabilly and shoegaze. The singing is harmonic and contained, never proffering much in the way of melisma or scale jumps. Wagner and Foo celebrate a Fifties sensibility through the lens of post-punk tonal innovations. I issue no complaints or disqualifiers when I point out that the Raveonettes patented none of these innovations; the band was, and is, a beneficiary of previously negotiated models. But if Sune and Sharin wear the anxiety of influence, it certainly doesnt weigh them down. Theyre a wonderfully prolific band, several rotations ahead of the two- to three-year album cycles observed by most indie outfits. At this stage in the game, I think Sune and Sharin can move beyond their ocean of influences into the more shallow pool of musicians whom theyve influenced. The Raveonettes were instrumental in brokering the blissed-out buzzsaw scene, a label coined by the Dum Dum Girls but also applicable, in senses obvious and obscure, to bands such as Crocodiles, Best Coast, and Chromatics, whose recent album, Kill for Love, has a title and a texture that would fit snugly in the Wagner archives. Some of these groups probably encountered Whip It On or Pretty In Black before matriculating to Psychocandy. Dont underestimate the power of a gateway drug. Only with the streaming of the Raveonettes latest EP, Into the Night, did I realize that the group prepped me for another slightly violent, vaguely cartoonish boy-girl duo: Sleigh Bells. Its less the sound than the genotype that remains the same. Like Wagner and Foo, Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss make pop-inflected rock which juxtaposes a pretty voice with ugly testimony. Both the Raveonettes and Sleigh Bells sing about suicide, murder, disease, betrayal, obsession themes that give their work an ominous edge, even as the vocals land in mellifluous spheres. Again, its the balance of beauty and the beast, calibrated by sonic masterminds, that supplies each band with its brand. In my opinion, Too Close to Heartbreak represents a victory for the beautiful over the bestial, though animal forces certainly remain in play. The singing is delivered with a double scoop of schoolgirl innocence, indicating that the affair under review is merely a trifle of the heart. Then, in the refrain, we up the ante, introducing questions of mortality (the aforementioned Do you care if I die?) and morality. Foo and Wagner sing Take me, make me, break me, each instruction sounding like a dare rather than a command. This quick, simple passage, featuring three nondescript phrases over pert strings, is perhaps my favorite excerpt from this years pop music. Its got everything I need: emotion and electricity, ring and reverb, harmony and melody, the twin smells of sex and surrender. As an added bonus, the whole shebang is accomplished in monosyllables, rock and rolls preferred oral currency. I wasnt expecting a new Raveonettes release, but Im quite glad that Sune and Sharin are once again cashing in their chips. Their rewards will be found in blogs like these, and perhaps in the more receptive media of their native Denmark, where the band is rightfully well regarded. I trust that such outlets will channel enough buzz to sustain the group and its core cadre of fans. Granted, this space gets less traffic than Mitt Romneys car elevator, but the few who stumble across its opinions might be inspired to give Into the Night a spin. I advise you to start your listening session with Too Close to Heartbreak. It bangs like a screen door in a gale storm and bops with all the blitzkrieg of the advancing German army. Forget
97

the Maginot Line. Or any other line that I might be trying to feed you. This is elemental rock and roll, played with pride and passion. Drop your defenses and regard the blue type as a hyperlink to bliss. The grin may be momentary, but, while it lasts, itll stretch from ear to ear. Feels like a hit to me. (April 20, 2012) Ryan Adams, Lucky Now Ryan Adams is at his best when hes completely in earnest. Trouble is, earnestness has been difficult to come by in his recent discography, which careens from lukewarm country pop to cold-turkey death metal. His artistic trajectory resembles a commitment to substances: first, internal and creative; then, controlled and destructive. Among vaguely popular rock musicians, only Rivers Cuomo has a comparatively reticent gag reflex. Adams new record, Ashes & Fire, represents a step toward solid ground. Its songs spring from Ryans wheelhouse: personal singer-songwriting, in which boys and girls in the contemporary American south are given the anti-pastoral treatment. Lucky Now, the albums lead single, plays like a memoir, albeit one that features more question marks than exclamation points. Adams paints himself as a casual penitent, recalling his younger, wilder days, only to ask, Am I really who I was? Out of context, the query sounds narcissistic. Hearing it sung, however, the listener is chastened by Adams country croon, which sits low and heavy, just above a plaintive acoustic strum. Were somewhere between the wounded vulnerability of Two and the shameless confessions of Come Pick Me Up. Ryan is now a wizened elder, and he uses Lucky Now as a vessel of counsel and longing. He realizes that hell doesnt hold a fiery enough sphere to punish the ironic Country/Western singer, so he simply gives it to us straight, his wanderlust no longer quite so lusty or wandering. At long last, Adams has rediscovered the importance of being earnest. For this, we should consider ourselves lucky, at least until a more odious iteration of the artist takes root. (October 12, 2011) The Smashing Pumpkins, Quasar Last week was a week without music. Blessed with the kind of quasi-miraculous quiet that visits my office with the frequency of, say, a solar equinox, I put a gag order on my iTunes account and set about conquering the business at hand: finding a better job. Despite the stagnant economy, opportunities for growth and gratification are out there, provided you take todays Internet-mediated Help Wanted signs seriously. Im a fairly cynical bastard, largely convinced that the fix is in, that employers post jobs as a CYA measure, to give the illusion of an open market before awarding the most vaunted positions to the Regional Vice Presidents nephew and the CFOs stepson. Still, Ill be damned if I let my skepticism beget ennui or indolence. When I come across a job that
98

aligns with my skill set, I pounce like a pride of panthers, flashing rsum and cover letter as if they were the crown jewels. A practical translation of this metaphor-laden ethic is as follows: Last week, I squeezed out more self-congratulatory essays than any mortal man ought to claim as his privilege. Several of my cover letters rivaled the King James Bible in length and presumed importance, their testaments speaking primarily to indulgence (on my part) and patience (on the part of the hirer). I doubt that a legitimate seed will sprout from my efforts, but Im pleased to have made an initial push toward more gainful employment. My only regret pertains to pop music that is, my abandonment of a beat that Ive been following carefully for quite some time. If a game-changing mp3 was dropped in the vicinity of the July 4th holiday, I wouldnt have heard it, as I was too busy telling Google that I could single-handedly revamp their absurdly profitable advertising platform. Thankfully, the jobapalooza sputtered to a close last night, and the attendant download embargo was lifted. I finally picked up a track Id been casing for the better part of a month, the Smashing Pumpkins Quasar. In the pristine light of morning, I can say that Im awfully pleased to have consummated this attraction. Because, to my ear, Quasar is the best song the Pumpkins have released since 1995s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. (Which, incidentally, is a terrible name for an album, but a great description of the emotions that buffet the contemporary job seeker after a spell in the applications pool.) Good taste dictates that the talk of jobs should end here. Let us move, then, to a similarly solipsistic thread: my personal history with the Smashing Pumpkins. Simply put, they were among the first rock and roll bands to leave a mark on my record collection. Memory is capricious, but if its pillars hold true, Siamese Dream comprised my virgin encounter with quote-unquote alternative music. I believe I bought the album, on cassette tape, in 1994, as a bulwark against the more aggressive strains of rap that had traditionally occupied my headphones. I listened to the LP religiously, but with an unorthodox sense of order; as teenagers are prone to do, I fast-forwarded to the hits, notably Today, Disarm, and Cherub Rock. The intervening songs were treated as filler, even though theres not a runt in the litter. Only earlier this year did I come to appreciate just how good Siamese Dream is in its totality. In January, I caught a touch of pneumonia and, having no reliable relief pitcher at work (sorry for the reversion to job speak), was obliged to carve out my lunch hour for bed rest. As it happened, Siamese Dream is almost exactly an hour long, and more or less the perfect soundtrack to opiated half-attention. Id hit the pillow to the fuzzy strains of Cherub, drift westward with the quiet-loud racket of Hummer and Rocket, and eventually succumb to shuteye with Soma, which uses Close your eyes and sleep as something of a refrain. The final third of Silverfuck would rouse me from my slumber, and Id be all but shovel-ready when the record played its final note. I followed this routine every day for close to two weeks. And I never grew tired of the album. My time with Quasar has been comparatively brief, but it seems to have found the same sweet spot on my personal playlist. I can listen to the single on repeat without getting angsty or bored. I imagine this is a function of Billy Corgans inimitable sonic architecture: He stacks blocks of sound on top of each other, deftly adding a bass quiver or drum pattern to the original foundation. Then, apropos of nothing but his artistic
99

sensibility, he ushers in the demolition crew, and demands that the walls come tumbling down. Quasar employs just such a compositional strategy, matriculating from the angular build of Cherub Rock to the rat-a-tat inflections of, say, Rage Against the Machines Guerrilla Radio or Audioslaves Cochise. Once the song starts to pulse in earnest, the dominant theme begins to emerge. This is the battle of contrasts that Corgan first brokered during the Clinton administration: Rush vs. Motorhead, a championship bout which can be divided into such worthy undercards as brains vs. brawn, ego vs. id, sci-fi vs. realism, rocket ship vs. steamroller, and grand opus vs. cheap thrill. The Pumpkins are a great band because they hazard a hefty wager on the golden glove in each corner yet are beholden to neither fighter. Ultimately, Corgan is a genre unto himself indierock emblem, alt-pop icon, sensitive singer-songwriter, ardent metalhead, embracer of electronic forms, no-nonsense wrestling fan, unapologetic asshole. He doesnt settle for a single sound or a consistent roster of musicians. In fact, on this second metric, Billy has been more kin than kind, replacing band members as a caffeine aficionado might replace Keurig cartridges. As time has passed, Corgans ensemble has come to resemble his songs its a carefully constructed team, but the momentum it gathers is truncated by the whims of its leader. Maybe thats the Siamese Dream: to have it both ways. With the Pumpkins, the connection between prog and punk is at once adamantine and casual. Billy will never pick a side or stay loyal to a stricture not of his own devising. Think of the way he sings Disarm first mellifluous, then grating; first defeated, then defiant. This treatment can be regarded as a microcosm of the mans musical mindset, blessed and cursed at once, as Muzzle memorably put it. In recent years, Corgan and his magical mystery band have trended toward the dark side; their records were big on premeditation but slight on pertinence and impact. Quasar is significant for reversing this trajectory. Its the lead track on the Pumpkins good-to-great new album, Oceania, and its awash in the characteristics that drew many of us to Billys genius in the first place. This is not merely a question of build, where notes bond and break until the band corrals its instruments. Quasar features sustained measures of sound, wherein guitar figures are offered room to stretch their legs and strut their stuff. Corgan employs artful shifts of tempo, always calculated but never sudden or disconcerting. Sizzling solos fade into calm valleys of tone and drone, only to emerge anew on the flip side, per Corgans cue. In some ways, his new single is several song suites housed within a generous, interlocking framework. Im inclined to compare it to one of Green Days rock-operatic overtures, but that would be inaccurate. Quasar is shorter and more idiosyncratic, packing a signature rumble that never truly breaks from the central melodic line. Theres an equator here, one which normalizes all advances and retreats. Corgan is neither topical nor adrift; for now, hes limiting the histrionics to his off-stage interviews. This gives his music a discipline it hasnt had since the Pumpkins peak of popularity. Quasar balances mechanical intensity with natural finesse. Its fire and flutter in fuse a bullet with butterfly wings. In its more insistent places, Quasar rocks as hard as anything in contemporary indie, from Baroness to Japandroids. The double-layered riffs flex their muscles, then peel back with expert style and timing. Such is Corgans stock in trade: the interplay of
100

tension and release. Sure, this is a common pop trope, but the Pumpkins are better at it than any band in recent memory, largely because the transition never feels contrived. Let me cite some examples, just to show that my claim is found in evidence: Listen to the I wanted more line in Today; the Do you? break in Rocket; the Believe! gear shift in Tonight, Tonight, or even that songs glorious denouement. (Though it seems inconceivable now, major sports franchises used to play the final minute of Tonight, Tonight during anxious fourth-quarter moments, as a font of inspiration. It wasnt uncommon for Well crucify the insincere! to come blasting out of the Brendan Byrne Arenas speakers as the New Jersey Nets blew a late lead to the Seattle Supersonics. Unfortunately, Pontius Pilate proved incapable of getting his mitts around Gary Payton. The Nets were always the forsaken, never the resurrected.) Quasar doesnt redirect with quite the same torque as the Pumpkins glory-days material, nor does it bite from start to finish like Zero. Instead of pulling a 180-degree turn, the song decides to zig-zag along the peripheries of alternative culture, like Cherub Rock for a less invested audience. Corgan has meandered from demand (Tell me all of your secrets!) to supply (in essence, Ill tell you all of my secrets.). The knowledge he shares is Yod He Vau He, four syllables that link together to form one sacred word, the name of the God of Israel, usually known as Yahweh. This deity is summoned with alarming frequency on Quasar; read the lyric sheet too closely and youll think youve stumbled upon a Kabala lecture. This is the only area where the song disappoints. Im neither an atheist nor an anti-theist, but I think much New Age spirituality, however ancient in its postures, is about as deep as a bird bath. People opt for alternative religions when they dont have the discipline or the inclination to stick with the faith they were born into. Sometimes this search is healthy; usually, however, its moral desperation dressed up in the rags of free thought. As James Joyce writes in Ulysses, What kind of liberation would that be to forsake an absurdity which is logical and coherent [Catholicism] and to embrace one which is illogical and incoherent [Protestantism]? I wont answer that question here. Ill merely posit that Billy should shelve his Scripture and focus on the sacred texts of rock and roll. Ultimately, Quasar works because its music prevents its words from sounding too ponderous. The Pumpkins have a built-in rectifier; two, actually their modern, chilly guitar sound and Corgans growling, slightly adenoidal vocals. This allows the frontman to sing the blues while he and his bandmates reimagine pop music as a form thats utterly detached from the Mississippi Delta. This is odd for a group that coalesced in Chicago, home of Chess Records and the commercial blues apparatus. But Billy is less interested in conscious exclusion than ambitious collage. His songs are not possessed of one speed or color. He traffics in different shades, some tones set in relief, others in exhaustion, and more still in ecstasy. This is a both/and arrangement rather than an either/or. Today, the design sphere pledges an undue fealty to the simple, to black text on white space. This nice and clean approach may show well at the Apple Store, but, when expanded from commerce to the arts, it tends to paper over the complexity of daily life. In the real world, not everything is geometric or self-contained. As such, I think we need to reserve a place for the tastefully baroque. This is not an endorsement of prog rock and its bearded pretensions; its merely a muddled defense of plurality, artistic license, and the First Amendment. Its also a defense of the Smashing Pumpkins, a band
101

thats keen to pursue its leaders vision even at the peril of its own popularity. Some twenty years back, Corgan sang, Ask yourself a question/Anyone but me/Are you free? At the time, virtually every rock songwriter of note, from Kurt Cobain to Eddie Vedder to James Hetfield, probably would have responded in the negative. Billy excluded himself from the inquisition (see the Anyone but me clause), but, a generation removed from the original query, he can finally answer with a nod of affirmation. The Pumpkins are nobodys buzz band anymore. This gives them the liberty to cut loose. For a man of my age and predilections, Quasar fills a vacancy thats been left unattended for more than a decade and a half. Before rock radio turned ineffably sour, it could boast of some genuine movers and shakers, folks who lived in solitude but dreamed in Siamese. This was not a nihilistic cohort. Where the Sex Pistols sang No future for you!, bands like the Pumpkins seemed contemptuous only of the unexamined present. Corgan imagined too many futures, captured in too many songs. His creative excess got the better of him for a good decade or so. Oceania offers hints that the tide has turned. Lets hope that the inspiration stays anchored at the shore line, and that Corgan stays on the job long enough to greet the next series of waves. Today may not be the greatest day hes ever known, but its greater than most. For Pumpkins fans, both lapsed and steadfast, this is cause enough for celebration. (July 10, 2012) Baroness, March to the Sea Apparently, Baroness were once a heavy metal band. This is a point of some contention, on more fronts than you may care to imagine. First, we have those who never grouped the ensembles work into head-banging circles, citing orthodox rules and subcultural strictures. Next, we have those who once warmed to the touch of Baroness hard rock, believing them metal enough to earn honorary horns, but now regard the band as traitors in sound, what with their evolution toward decipherable vocals and doctored guitars. Finally, you have folks like me, whod never heard of Baroness until this spring, when tracks from their forthcoming Yellow & Green album began to debut on Pitchfork. Each party, alas, has its own attitudes and agendas, and Im in no position to crown one faction as right or wrong. The only gang I can speak for is the last, the holy innocents, who follow metal with much the same enthusiasm as the Kardashian girls follow the New York Review of Books. So let it be written before we get into the substance of my analysis: I have no dog in this fight; in fact, I regard dog fighting as cruel and atavistic. Im not interested in whether something is truly metal or not; I just want to know if its good. In this regard, Baroness March to the Sea is an unmitigated triumph. It rumbles less like an invading army advancing toward the ocean than a tidal wave rolling toward the shore. The song has body and buoyancy, keeping afloat even as its more aggro tendencies leaden the proceedings. From my position, I hear Glenn Danzig sitting in with the Strokes, croon factor at middle range. Baroness balance the demon growl of metal vocals with the angularity of indie rock. The chugging chords that adorn the verse are redolent of What Ever Happened?, from the Strokes Room on Fire. But where
102

Julian Casablancas seems the singer of last resort, offering testimony only under threat of subpoena, Baroness John Baizley steps to the mic with purpose. Hes not angry or aggrieved by the reigning metal standard, which usually sets blood acurdle and nostrils aflare. This is a form thats long held ire as a sacrament, each scream a spiritual force packing much the same elemental filigree as fire, wind, or lightning. Baizley refuses to surrender his method to the idioms madness. Still, he lets it be known that hes highly disappointed. His most intelligible lyric is probably You really let us down. In this march, someone had blunderd, and theres going to be hell to pay. Of course, hell hath no fury like a metal fan scorned. Theres a proud lack of nuance in black-clad spheres: Youre either with them or against them, and there can be no middle ground. By moving in the direction of mainstream rock, Baroness have come to resemble apostates. This is perhaps a noise best left unexamined, as quarrel can drown out worthy musicianship. Then again, I can empathize, however weakly, with the metalheads. March to the Sea is shot through with segments that could curl the goatees of the Four Horsemen. Listen to the chorus, which not only features deft, double-tracked vocals, but also lends quarter to some Lindsey Buckinghamstyle finger picking. No, this isnt Tango in the Night. Nor are Baroness flashing acoustic guitars. But the integration of such ripples, which purr rather than shred, can be read as a means of alienation. Empirical evidence suggests that the hardest of rockers are hostile to change. (Theyre still flashing big hair and stonewashed jeans, for Petes sake!) So this subtle, sophisticated Mac attack is tantamount to an act of betrayal. Where the hordes wanted fresh menace, the band offered fresh anchorage, and the port of call proved too exotic for a plurality of the sailors. Baroness change of direction, however, can also be regarded as an act of faith. Its a push for tight songwriting amid the loose waters of epic rock and roll, a hope for high land where the valley is as low as the attendant moral bearing. Guitar and percussion coalesce from a murmur to a thunderstorm, the heavens draining their distemper in one fell swoop. When the rain comes, its heavy, but not heavy metal. March to the Sea reminds me of late-90s rock radio, which sequenced tracks from the Deftones and Rob Zombie alongside tracks from Metallica and Fear Factory. There was a lugheaded obstinacy to these playlists, in which tone and texture varied little to nil; still, the affected sheets of metal soddered together reasonably well. As noted above, Ive never been a genuine devotee of hard rock (the Misfits being the notable exception). When a young man discovers the darker strains of pop music, he often encounters a fork in the road: in one direction goes Black Sabbath and its train of hellions; in the other direction goes the Stooges and its retinue of punks. I chose Iggy, and that has made all the difference. Punks are prone to see metal as silly and escapist bile-fueled bombast for the Dungeons and Dragons set. This is a closeminded approach, but it helps keep the occult at bay, in favor of more concise and topical fare. Yes, my reasoning is a blatantly oversimplified. But it informs my own particular march to the sea. I was keen to look past Baroness records entirely, believing indie metal to fall outside my erogenous zones. What I found provocative about Yellow & Green was its sea maiden cover art and the intra-scene shindy that greeted its arrival. I wanted to hear what all the fuss was about. In clicking Play, I expected to cue a catalogue of horrors, perhaps charred to a crisp, certainly bearing the burn of malicious intent. Instead, I got
103

a tempestuous but melodic hard rock single. As noted, I heard elements of Danzig, the Strokes, and Lindsey Buckingham. But the most surprising, heretofore hidden author was, oddly, Virgina Woolf. Nearly a century back, she wrote a classic Modernist novel called To the Lighthouse, a declaration of destination that sits nicely beside March to the Sea. In that book, the central patriarch, Mr. Ramsay, father of eight children and leader of the titular expedition, is described as a man of doubt, sorrow, and fleeting confidence. In his wife, the ill-fated Mrs. Ramsay, he finds his barrenness made fertile. Here we have nobility (barrenness = baroness) and fecundity (eight goddamned children), the great and the good doing their share to keep civilization on the up and up. The novel is a timepiece, straddling the periods before and after the First World War. As it progresses, Mrs. Ramsay and several of her children die prematurely and unexpectedly. Still, Mr. Ramsay presses on, and eventually sails his youngest offspring to the lighthouse that taunts the narrative. Its an act of faith, made manifest by a spirit that wouldnt countenance the mortification of giving in to outright despair. To me, Baroness tread a similar line. They will not surrender to the limiting customs of heavy metal merely to maintain an inflexible core audience. Theyll stretch the borders a bit, and settle in a territory a bit closer to the coast. This seems the right tact for a contemporary rock band. Like I said, Ive never been a horn flasher or a thrash enthusiast, so it could be that my opinion is entirely irrelevant. Id be remiss, however, if I didnt salute Baroness turn toward mainstream appeals. Though Im not a religious man, I quite like faith, provided its not marbled with heaping chunks of certainty. (Because then its not faith, but a sure thing.) In the metal milieu, a pivot toward pop is more dangerous than a hardening of the hammer. You risk losing whatever youve earned, both in terms of audience and credibility. But you also gain perspective. Think of Mr. Ramsay at his most vulnerable, alone on the perimeter of his property, daring to stand on his little ledge facing the dark of human ignorance, how we know nothing and the sea eats away the ground we stand on. No, this is not the most encouraging thought, but it does render narrow sightlines absurd. In marching to the sea, Mr. Ramsay throws out rules and ego, and lets his uncorsetted impulses reign. With their latest single, Baroness do the same. And theyre a better band for it. (June 25, 2012) Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti, Only In My Dreams Were I to have encountered Ariel Pink on the street two years ago, I might have ambled up to his person and punched him dead in the face. To me, he was the avatar of all that was wrong with indie music. Narcotic composition, synthetic atmosphere, double-coats of affectation and irony covering a base that could barely support its body weight these were the characteristics of Pinks idiosyncratic approach to songwriting. In their aggregate, they amounted to a mellow malignancy. Heres this peckerwood, a preening product of Beverly Hills High, coldly sneering at you, over an arrangement that one wouldnt wish upon a Bulgarian lounge singer. Bob Dylan earned the right to sneer, as did John Lennon and Joe Strummer. Ariel was not of their ilk, yet he claimed their entitlements. In my quarters, his nebulous, slightly warmed-over tunes were catalysts only to head-shaking and garment-rending. Why, dear Lord, was this nonentity so
104

respected by the indie establishment? And when would his conceit collapse like a house of cards? I still have no answer to the first question. As to the second, Im now inclined to reply with a slightly more nuanced and generous attitude. Pink hasnt disappeared in the past two years, but his immediate influence has waned, and this has made him an order of magnitude more tolerable. Bear in mind that Pitchfork named Round and Round the best song of 2010, over significant work from LCD Soundsystem, Kanye West, Arcade Fire, Robyn, the National, and several other artists who neednt be mentioned (for the sake of my rising anger!). Suffice to say that I challenge the substance of this selection, particularly now that Chillwave is cresting at a lower ebb. To me, Round and Round sounds like doped-out karaoke sung by a vocalist whod either had one too many or three too few. If it hadnt been so conspicuously laurelled, I probably would have regarded it as a prank, and put it out of mind. That said, I cannot label Ariel a complete upstart. His latest single, Only In My Dreams (performed with his Haunted Graffiti syndicate), is a suitably coherent piece of music. Round conjured a dreamscape, but lacked the spine to supply it with a protagonist. (I imagine that was the point: Round and Round = No Direction Home. No future, no past, just a carousel of whimsical feelings and fleeting images.) Dreams has a more solid and conventional framework. Chorus follows verse and verse chorus. It flexes the psychedelic jingle-jangle of the Summer of Love, seeming to aspire to a position on a 1967 Best of list. The song is evocative and reasonably poignant; it resembles a hybrid of Cat Stevens Here Comes My Baby and Loves Forever Changes, using its shifts between major and minor keys as a barometer of mood. (Ariels tune wouldve fit nicely on the Rushmore soundtrack, had it been a going item in 1998.) This is dream pop, but not the sort that manifests during the height of ones REM cycle. The instrumental is as alive and awake as a Pink composition is capable of sounding. No, this isnt unalloyed praise, but its praise nonetheless. To be clear, I still dont much care for Ariel Pink. Round still strikes me as an exercise in technique, and Dreams is still too drunk on retro spirits to genuinely excite me. Yet, in this bevy of stills, I admit a grudging admiration. To stress technique is to have some grounding in pop forms, and to harken back is to have at least a basic sense of history. James Joyce tugged on technique and memory to produce Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. Of course, this tenuous analogy is based on a false equivalancy: one man made legitimate innovations and operated at a level that looked down upon genius; the other is merely noodling with his Casio, intent on triggering a decent groove. Where the artists connect is in the notion of dreams. Pink is among our times foremost purveyors of dream pop, and Joyce wrote Finnegans Wake as a night novel, composed in the language of dreams. The Queens English was such that it didnt have the words to accommodate Joyces vision, so he created his own lexicon, one that to this day cannot be found within any reputable dictionary. He had exhausted the possibilities of his native tongue. The way forward was the way of the exile, occupying a territory apart, not subject to the strictures of the extant world. In the end, Joyce proved the going wisdom wrong: The sun did set on the British Empire. The whole of Finnegans Wake is a fever dream, and it goes on for all eternity. The concept of round and round was never applied so ambitiously.
105

Im not arguing that Pink has taken his cues from Joyce. But I am arguing that wed be lucky if he had. At the moment, our avant-garde artists are anything but. They look back rather than forward, retreat to false utopias rather than advance to dangerous fronts. As such, much of contemporary pop is cover music twice removed: The songs arent necessarily the same, but the vibe is founded upon earlier forms, which are then grinded through the gears of modern technology. The resulting sausage has a new flavor but adheres to an old recipe. The ingredients are borrowed, as is the applause. Both mass and micro markets love this sort of thing, as our species is largely in thrall to the familiar. Critics are also partial to tracks which reference the bounties of yore. Such music offers them the opportunity to display their learnedness, to draw connections between the modern and the seminal, however overlooked or obscure. Im not immune to this bug: In less than three paragraphs, Ive linked Ariel Pink to Cat Stevens, Love, Wes Anderson, and James Joyce, not to mention a muddled galaxy of niche genres. In going analytical, I neglected to point out the most diverting facet of Only In My Dreams a backing vocal that sounds like it came from Stephin Merritt. The quick hit of basso profundo hints at an inside joke within the inside joke that is Pinks discography. But why play small ball when the field is temptingly unfenced? Why settle for the tree when you can have the whole forest? These queries are of a kind with the motivation that led me to review Only In My Dreams. Simply put, Ive heard better songs in the past week or so, but I cant conceive of a deeper or more topical narrative than the one that Pink provides. To unspool the thread, well have to leave James Joyce to the angels and Stephin Merritt to his lyric pad. The real agent of intrigue is the fellow who initially made me aware of Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti, some two years back. He said that Id like the band, as they traded in dreamy pop textures, like Fleetwood Mac. (At the time, I was extolling the virtues of Second Hand News.) As it happens, the Mac are back in the headlines in a big way, what with Bob Welchs death, the rumours of a new record/tour, and the impending release of an indie rock tribute album, Just Tell Me That You Want Me. Recent events inspired Amrit Singh of Stereogum to write, While its always sort of Fleetwood Mac appreciation week in the indie sphere, this has been a particularly robust one. I agree with the second part of his sentence but not the first. Back in the Nineties, when indie was a major-label phenomenon scowling under the appellation of alternative, Fleetwood Mac were among the most maligned bands in the rock firmament. Their name was synonymous with loose morals and easy listening, a duad that added up to selling out. I can recall Stevie Nicks giving an interview to VH1 in which she thanked Billy Corgan for covering Landslide, because it helped validate the Macs worth at a time when its shares were trading on the cheap. A reigning sound requires enemies as well as friends, and Fleetwood were positioned as the archetype of what had led pop music astray (L.A. hair bands notwithstanding). Again, it boiled down to mellow atmospheres, lazy moods, and acquiescence to synths cardinal crimes in, say, 1993, and a ledger of counts so resonant that I was able to invoke them a generation later, if only to take the wind out of Ariel Pinks sails. I stand before you today to admit that I may have been slightly histrionic in my dismissal of Mr. Pink. For that, I apologize. But where this post will not compromise is in the purported link between Ariel and Fleetwood Mac; or, for that matter, between
106

Chillwave and Fleetwood Mac. I concede that the dreamy aesthetic brokered by Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks might have contributed a couple strands of DNA to bedroom pops genome. The influence, however, was not formative, except perhaps in the case of a band of like Beach House, who occasionally manage to balance Nicks vocal timbres with McVies neat sense of structure. Of course, three important Mac personae are missing in this equation: the titular rhythm section, composed of a world-class bassist, John McVie, and a staggeringly versatile drummer, Mick Fleetwood; and, last but not least, the groups one true genius, Lindsey Buckingham. Yes, I just called Lindsey Buckingham a genius. Now lets detail the work that corroborates this claim. We find it not on the Macs most popular LP, Rumours, but on their so-called failure of a follow-up, Tusk. Its here that Buckingham distinguishes himself from his bandmates: Where Christine McVie penned several relaxed, proper, and English-accented piano ballads (see Over and Over, Honey Hi) and Stevie Nicks sprayed her own brand of bewitched and haunted graffiti about the studio (see Sara, Storms), Buckingham was conceiving songs that both anticipated and reacted to the changing face of popular music. Between Rumours and Tusk, punk broke, as did the first tremors of New Wave. Lindsey clearly had these new idioms in mind as he set about creating his own compositions. Despite its length (19 tracks, 75 minutes), Tusk is a samurai album, disciplined and clean shaven, like another landmark release from the late-Seventies, Bruce Springsteens Darkness On the Edge of Town. When a student of Sixties pop is forced to do battle with the sounds of the Seventies underground, he can either charge headlong into the fray or ignore the rockets red glare, and pretend that the world is not changing. Buckingham didnt duck from the responsibilities of his office. Rumours had sold untold millions of copies (the current count stands at around 40), as it was remarkably tuneful, and made loving fun. It was the rare record that could have it both ways: You can go your own way even as the chain keeps us together. In fact, you can sleep with the drummer while I cavort with the piano player this is the new, swinging reality. But it was also the reality that punk was rising against. Buckingham heard its call to arms, and responded with short, tight songs that sounded like they were recorded in his basement. It takes colossal balls or an Everest pile of blow to succeed the most popular album of the Seventies with tracks like Ledge and Not That Funny. These numbers were stripped-down, frenetic, and bouncy where previous Mac efforts were tempered by full-band ballast. Lindseys Thats Enough for Me runs a cool 1:51, playing like a solo record and a mission statement: Enough with this prima donna horseshit; its time to rechannel the atomic power that made rock and roll so fun and dangerous in the first place. I wont label Tusk the Never Mind the Bollocks of the Laurel Canyon set, as this would be daft and misleading. The Sex Pistols were glorious amateurs; the Mac consummate professionals (and, boy, did they do their fair share of consummating). Still, its genuinely jarring to hear Tusks track-to-track transitions. The McVie and Nicks numbers create a pillowy canvas, all soft rock and romantic longing. Then Buckingham blusters in with raw guitar noise and no-muss choruses. Sure, he offers a couple of tunes that might fit the dream-pop milieu, notably Thats All for Everyone and Walk a Thin Line. But listen to the craft on these records; its hook compounded by hook until the notes assemble into a full tackle box of charms. This is the opposite of Chillwave, where a texture manifests and is subsequently massaged until every knot is rendered tender.
107

Ariel Pink, toro y moi, Washed Out these acts have sounds; Lindsey Buckingham had songs. There may be some overlap between the various authors, but true comparison is insulting to both the Mac and their followers. Buckingham had a first-generation spirit; todays glo-fiers are merely reporting second-hand news. What I mean to imply is that an artist is not beholden to those whom he influences. Holding Fleetwood Mac accountable for Chillwave would be like holding Hegel accountable for Hitler you can do it (in fact, you can make a career out of such false and lazy comparisons), but it would be ruinously inappropriate. No band has been more bands than Fleetwood Mac. Youve got your Peter Green era, your Bob Welch interlude, your classic lineup, your synth and skinny tie experiment, your Nineties interregnum, and your millennial reunion roster, to name just a few of the groups protean forms. Ultimately, the story of the band turns on the mid-Seventies annexation of Buckingham Nicks. Lindsey and Stevie brought beautiful harmonies to the Mac, the product of a chemistry and coherence that predated their turn in the ensemble. Nicks voice is imbued with a natural mysticism, deriving from a spot between commune and coven, hippie and harpy. Buckingham corralled this wild spirit, and folded it into his concise arrangements. As it happened, Stevie and Lindseys voices were more faithful to each other than their bodies were. By Tusk, each had intimate knowledge of the packing up and shacking up that had indelibly colored Rumours. At that point, the rumors were no longer rumors but confirmed fact: Mac was a hot mess, composed of friends and lovers (also, ex-friends and ex-lovers). Theyd earned the right to sneer, but, on record, they typically chose not to. Regardless of what happened off-stage, when the needle hit the vinyl, Buckingham and Nicks melded like two frames clasped in a hug. They werent being ironic or hip; they were simply being good. On Tusk, Buckingham works to redefine good. He flashes an imagination and an ingenuity thats utterly foreign to the indie rock contingent thats said to have inherited his flame. And what has he gotten for it? If I mention the name Lindsey Buckingham to my sister (a woman under 30), I get a confused look. If I mention it to my parents crew (folks aged 60 and over), I get a glimmer of recognition followed by several clichd statements about the Beatles or Smokey Robinson. Buckingham just doesnt get his due. To the young, hes the guy who sang Holiday Road in that Chevy Chase movie. To the old, hes the guy who played with the girl who sang Rhiannon. As huge as the Mac were, their only #1 song was Dreams, a Nicks tune that serves as a fine precursor to the very Chillwave/dream pop histories that I hope to amend. Lindsey deserves credit for not settling for this sound. When mist and languor made him rich, he could have toned down his guitar and gone yacht rock. Instead, he kept his ear to the ground, followed his instincts, and wrote songs like I Know Im Not Wrong, which fuse the serrated attitudes of punk with the mellifluous melodies of classic rock. The title is a good defense of his evolving musical standards. And the track itself is a keeper. You can hear Holiday Road on the horizon; here, however, Buckingham is earning his nationally lampooned vacation. The lampoon is likely to go on. In recent years, Buckinghams most high-profile media appearance has been as a recurring Bill Hader character on a Jeopardy-themed Saturday Night Live skit. He never gets to say anything; he just stands there in his leather jacket, being mocked by his fellow contestants and the faux Alex Trebec who
108

hosts the proceedings. Id like to get it on record that this treatment is almost as unfair as any purported link between Fleetwood Mac and Ariel Pink. The Mac and its kinky haired genius contain multitudes. Pink and his cohorts merely pull needles from this hefty inventory, then get lost in their own vanities. This is their right as musicians. But Im not obliged to approve of it. An ethic that starts as sincere loses something as its continually reheated in the microwave. From dish to subsequent dish, we smell the bland aroma of diminishing returns. And when dinner is finally served, the gourmand can determine who deserves a Michelin star and who should have his kitchen shuttered. Where, then, can Ariel Pink compare to Lindsey Buckingham? The sole answer I can conjure is: Only in his dreams. May he find refuge in this sweet escape, and leave popular songwriting to the professionals. There are reasons why people hate hipsters; the Before Today album is one of them, and a fairly good one at that. Indie needs fewer stunts and poses, more put up or shut up. The Haunted Graffiti crew ignore the writing on the wall at their own peril. For the sake of the bands continuity, I hope that their forthcoming LP is a Tusk rather than a bore. Needless to say, I wont be holding my breath. But I will hold their leader accountable if they fail. (July 23, 2012) Kelly Clarkson, Stronger (What Doesnt Kill You) If I were to posit that the #1 song in America is a reasonable bellwether of our nations psyche, I would be, in a word, wrong. Taste in music has become so demassified that the Billboard charts are essentially useless as instruments of anthropology. They tell us whos managed to grab a hold of the cultural megaphone for a given lunar cycle, not who rightly deserves its amplification or who urgently demands our attention. In other words, the pop charts merely tell us whos speaking, fully aware that the keynoters in question do not necessarily speak to us. This sobering trend highlights the markets growing sense of disconnect. Pop has always been a game of demographics, but, in our enlightened millennium, the referees have finally realized that theres only one cohort that matters: teenage girls. This realization explains, in a single, oversimplified rush, the feasibility of such artists as Katy Perry, Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, and Jessie J as well as the whole of the American Idol franchise. (Throw in the mothers of these teenage girls and weve got Adele covered; throw in gay men, and Lady Gagas secret recipe is secret no more.) I raise this point only as a way of introducing the current #1 song in America, Kelly Clarksons Stronger (What Doesnt Kill You). (Her parentheses, not mine.) Clarkson has been a breakaway talent since she won the premiere season of Idol, in the Year of Our Lord 2002. During the intervening decade, shes never drifted far from the popular consciousness. Her contribution to the mainstream is subtle but important: Kelly offers middle-of-the-road, hi-NRG pop thats spiced with the flavors of more marginal idioms. She was probably foremost among the young female vocalists who brought an angular rock sound back to Billboard. (See 2004s Since U Been Gone.) In the reigning milieu, however, shes become something of a one-note artist: Kelly Clarkson is...the aggrieved woman!!!...who refuses to be undone by the meddling
109

male!!! All her songs start in an earnest voice, as if she were set to train alongside Rocky Balboa for a bout against Clubber Lang. This tone is meant to suggest determination, a strength that defies the odds. Clarkson is, for all intents and purposes, the music worlds equivalent of Jennifer Aniston: the utterly reliably superstar whos always beset by some minor malady, typically in matters of the heart. (For a more thorough explanation, youd have to call Brad Pitt or John Mayer.) Stronger could be the theme song for pops most recent epoch, in which the single female singer ascends the throne and bludgeons all challengers. Unfortunately, itd be a theme thats hard to differentiate from its counterparts, both within the Billboard compendium and within the Clarkson discography. Stronger isnt demonstrably different in vibe or articulation from Mr. Know It All, Because of You, Behind These Hazel Eyes, My Life Would Suck Without You, or I Do Not Hook Up. Each single is predicated on a four-part build: begin slowly, but induce a slight rumble more or less immediately; in the second stanza, add some girth to the vocals and some volume to the animating chords; in the chorus, bring all the pyrotechnics that expensive Swedish production can afford; finally, repeat or shuffle each element as necessary. Im inclined to criticize Ms. Clarkson for settling for an immobile sound. But, really, is it so great a sin to have all of ones songs sound the same? One of my favorite bands, the indomitable Ramones, made that their central conceit. And it was almost indisputably a powerful agent in their success. There is, however, a huge distinction between a punk band, swaggering athrust an entirely new idiom, and an American Idol, forever squaring her selections with Fox and Clear Channel. For the first, heedless repetition is a rallying cry; for the second, its a failure of imagination. In this regard, pop has let us down. To return to the quarrel of my opening statement, our #1 songs no longer tell us anything about our nation. (Nor, for that matter, do #s 2 50.) In listening to Stronger, I didnt benefit from the delayed-release enthusiasm thats encoded in its genome; I merely confirmed a thrice-suspected theorem: that popular music is strikingly out of step with the times. The pop of yesteryear wasnt nearly as glorious or unassailable as our parents have told us. But, at the very least, Baby Boomer musicians didnt duck from the politics of their day. The classic rock lyric sheet is a many-splendored thing. Its contents could be mistaken for headlines (Four dead in Ohio, Next stop is Vietnam); editorials (The time is right for fighting in the streets, If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you aint gonna make it with anyone, anyhow); or mini-biographies (Had a brother at Khe Sahn, fighting off the Viet Cong/Theyre still there, hes all gone). Bear in mind that Im not citing under-theradar releases here; these were radio-friendly unit shifters, from some of the most popular musicians of the Boomer period. Unfortunately, in the past 30 years the protest song has become fodder for parody rather than airplay. (Freedom rock, man!) Todays controversial artists, from Kanye to Gaga, prefer to make the controversy about themselves; as such, they render public debate a matter of personal preference, each protester commenting individually rather than marching in physical unison. The political hasnt just become personal; its become parochial, and, thus, selfcontained. The language is loud and accusatory, but it emanates from a megaphone turned inward, not a Marshall stack turned outward.
110

Insofar as this essay has a point and is not, as it were, a Monday-morning meditation on the ills of corporately mediated culture its that pop is adrift. So, too, are its listeners. I beg to differ with Ms. Clarkson (and, I guess, Mr. Nietzsche): What doesnt kill us doesnt necessarily make us stronger. Sometimes it simply distracts us, or bores us to tears. Stronger is a prime example of disposable pop. Prick it and no blood will flow. The track will simply saunter over to the recycling bin, stage a dramatic collapse, and be replaced by a similar sound. The pop machine is so spectacularly fluent because its parts are interchangeable: three-minute pieces of bubblegum, sung in an affable female voice, are at an historic surplus. Theres no risk in this arrangement, but also no reward. And there, perhaps, is where the cultural lesson is found. A hostility to innovation, masquerading in the finery of business as usual, sacrifices a future of achievement for a present of abundance. As Lampedusa put it, If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change. Accordingly, we dont need Born This Way or 21, we need Sgt. Peppers or London Calling. Growth, be it cultural, economic, or personal, is a matter of breaching new frontiers. At the moment, were blissfully aspin in the same fruited plains, where the soil is fertile but yields an exhausted crop. Beware the limits of monoculture. When the jig is up, theres nowhere to hide. And that, for sure, is not a position of strength. (January 30, 2012) Tanlines, All of Me My virgin encounter with Tanlines cannot be described in anything other than unflattering terms. I saw the electro-bronzed duo open for Julian Casablancas in late 2009, a time when my inner demons were doing battle with the inevitable rise of mechanized dance pop. In this context, Tanlines, with their boards and decks, their ascendant computer and impertinent guitar, werent merely performing a short supporting set; they were writing something of a musical epitaph. The feeling engendered was one of post-rock, wherein conventional instruments were used to impart texture and the true agent of animation was a force detected but unseen. Id like to think that my hostility to the sound in play was tempered by an underlying aesthetic curiosity. In truth, however, I was a bit too eager to hear the nights headliner, and was unashamed to shout this philistinic opinion in rather loud voice. I can recall turning to my concert companion, a fellow who was similarly Casablancas-besotted, and saying, Wow, this show would be a whole lot better if these guys werent on stage. With two years of additional listening experience under my belt, I can now regard my misbehavior as an instance of youthful indiscretion, if not outright juvenile folly. In 2009, Tanlines were genuinely green around the edges, having virtually no discography and little to nil showmanship. Thankfully, this is no longer the case. The bands new single, All of Me, is easily the best pulse-pop song of 2012. It conflates the reigning trends of indie mathematical builds, liberal-arts pedigree with the perennial trope of Billboard sheer, uncritical infectiousness. What this signifies is that
111

All of Me is both intellectual and instinctual, well thought out but not overly examined. I prefer to focus on the second, emotional component, because the track connected with me viscerally before it clicked mentally. I freely admit to being blindsided. My history with the band didnt augur a pleasant reaction to their new material. Yet, for whatever reason, All of Me struck just the right chords to elicit a semi-spectacular, gut-level response. It landed on a personally sanctioned sweet spot, sitting somewhere between Julian Casablancas 11th Dimension and New Orders Age of Consent. There are better reference points, Im sure. I just havent heard them, given my antipathy to the alternative dance canon. Within this cloud of ignorance, I can precipitate a staunchly rockist perspective: All of Me is exceptional because it repeats a simple, ultra-catchy riff to a point of warm stupefaction. It induces a kind of hipster hypnosis without being too cool for school, in the manner of Grimes or her chill, electro-haunt brethren. Tanlines assail rock without forsaking the genres penchant for blunt majesty and memorable phrasing. If you were to rip the appropriate 45-second segment from the All of Me single (specifically, the segment comprising :30 through 1:15) and set it against footage of young people dancing, youd have a near-perfect iPod commercial. Of course, the problem with this particular strain of commercial appeal is that the iPod is more or less an obsolete device, pushed aside by countervailing technologies which often bear the same corporate logo. Music moves faster than it did two or three years ago, when the last of our parents generation were finally getting hip to the notion of digital music libraries. Im not mocking the laggards; truth be told, Im closer in spirit to them than to the generation immediately below mine, who seem to take and share photos of any personal milestone holding greater significance than, say, a bowel movement. Mine is not the place to criticize, or even analyze, this ethic. I mention it only to frame All of Me in proper cultural context. To me, the song works because it folds into the din of modern life, beeping like a smartphone on one of its dumbed-down missions. The objective in this case is to show us a good time nothing more, nothing less. Id argue that this is a worthy pursuit, but not one which is charged with the ambition thats necessary for pop musics noblest aim: the affirmation of youth, preferably in three offensively loud chords. I succumb to no stutter when I reveal that I lack both the smarts and the rhetorical gravitas to extemporize such a numinous argument. The purpose of pop music is a subject fit for multi-volume books or free-verse poetry, not a from-the-hip blog post. Still, Id posit that contemporary pops tendency to blend in with background noise speaks to a certain artistic surrender. This is a victory of Feng Shui over Tutti Frutti, and a pernicious one at that. So long as I live, I wont retreat from the precept that rock and roll should cut through the clamor of civilian life and demand your attention. Its very job is to be uncivilized; that is, to rebut the testimony of the ostensive adults, who Ive learned, now that Im one of them, havent the slightest clue as to what theyre talking about. Daily life in the modern world is essentially a battle of poses, some more serious than others. Id like my pose to be one of defiance. Which, for todays purposes, is to say that I wont go along with the compartmentalization of music into yet another affectation of lifestyle. I see pop getting more and more type and bandwidth but less and less space and mindshare. This, I think, is wrong, and its foulness gets at the central
112

aesthetic question of our time; i.e., How much value are we willing to ascribe to art? Is it simply a palliative, potion, or intoxicant, to be swallowed like a pill off patent? Or is it the face of God on earth, produced by His highest creation? Yes, Ill allow that there might be room enough in lifes rich pageant to accommodate a position sitting somewhere between these poles. Art cant be a matter of life and death for all persons ambling about our hallowed sphere; some of us have shit to do. Then again, many of us can handle our essential tasks and still set aside a few minutes a day to address more elevated and eternal concerns. This is not some insipid suburban affectation, vouchsafed by a dubious course of academic study. I grew up in a onebedroom Jersey City apartment that housed six people and stood astride a die factory that smelled like chemical oblivion. And I can state without reservation that pop music saved my life many times over. While others were wildin in the streets or engaging in similarly wasteful, distracted behaviors; I think some people call it fun I was doing my homework and my housework, then spinning whichever vinyl records I could pull from the public library. Certain songs Marvin Gayes Inner City Blues, David Bowies Rebel Rebel, Bruce Springsteens Incident on 57th Street, to name a few had a profound effect on my teenage psyche. They momentarily eclipsed the uproars of the apartment and the noise of the neighborhood, enabling something that resembled a zen state not necessarily a cognitive calm, but an intense internal focus. For a few minutes, the music commanded all of me. A SWAT team could have burst through our front door and I wouldnt have noticed. Nude women could have paraded along my meager tranch of carpet and I wouldnt have batted an eyelash. Thats the power of art. (And, maybe, a sign of Aspergers.) If this essay despairs, its because Im not sure that contemporary music or, perhaps, the contemporary listener harbors a similar potential for all-in commitment. As I noted earlier, even the best of tracks tends to fade into the tenor of the times rather than render the outside world meaningless. All of Me is a solid tune with a well-brokered beat. Today, it rings loud and clear. In a week, however, Ill forget its entire melody, and search for kilocalories in another musical dispatch from the oceanic depths of the Internet. These factors of access and turnover highlight the nature of my quandary: With todays technologies, I can share my all-time favorite and/or formative tracks through the magic of hyperlink. But I cant share the experiences or epiphanies they inspired: those times when the musical gods granted a moment of clarity, and a measure of conviction, to a preternaturally timid and confused young man. This is a failure not just of language but of attention span. A pop music post exceeding 200 words, adorned with neither a video nor an mp3 stream, is a rarity worthy of a freak show. Maybe thats progress. Or maybe its what happens when the efficiencies of the market subsume freedom of choice. Im sorry, but Im too old, too skeptical, and too demanding to invest all of me in a sleek but interchangeable piece of pulse-pop. As good as Tanlines have become, theyll only get part of my attention, part of the time. And though I regret articulating my condescending, prematurely dismissive statement two years back, I have to stand behind the substance of my first take: Generally speaking, our concert would be a whole lot better if guys like these would get off the stage. If music was restored to the status of passion, vocation, and livelihood, for artist and fan alike, I think we could move beyond
113

the M.B.A. mindset that equates art with content. Folks like Sam Cooke and Bob Dylan, MC5 and Public Enemy, Bruce Springsteen and Radiohead, dont trade in content. They practice a form of metaphysics, offering ethers sweet and stark, so as to color and scent the canvas of human potential. What you hear is just the prelude to what you sense and feel. These artists provide total-body experiences, so seismic in their impact that they cant be ignored for the low purposes of a phone call, a text, or a tablet pinch. Id like a return to this alternate universe, where the aesthete doesnt escape so much as re-prioritize. Its amazing what sorts of indignity the human animal can endure when his soundtrack is energized and affirmative. A good playlist says, Dig deep, then rise above. I dont hear this message all too often anymore, and I hope thats simply because the messengers are no longer speaking to me, given my age and my professional preoccupations. Because if the call to duty has really been muted, and the evangelical aspect of pop has truly been defrocked, then youth at large has been done a grievous disservice. I couldnt have grown up, properly or otherwise, without a steady diet of pop music. And Ill be damned if the resource is watered down as I advance from age to age. I dont want tanlines; I want a radial burn, blistering out from here to eternity. After several years of careful listening, Im now convinced that contemporary indie cannot start such a fire, as its devoid of the necessary Promethean spirit. Still, I refuse to relinquish my headphones until the final flames are smothered. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, Im all in. I wont ask you to join me. Ill simply request that you reserve judgment until the music stops. It shouldnt be long now. So, by all means, get your verdicts ready and your gavels drawn. Ill accept whatever sentence you impose, without fear or hesitation. My motives in playing the martyr may appear dubious, but I assure you that my conscience is clean. In the end, it comes down to dues paid and rewards received. Ive suffered for my art. Now its your turn. (March 6, 2012) Pussy Riot, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out In the marketplace of contemporary pop music, souls sell with greater frequency than that latest device from Apples sordid line of iProds. Each charting artist is both a brand and a billboard, alternately purporting to stand for something unique and eager to reproject the messages of his advocates. (If youre not prone to seizure, take a look at Justin Biebers Twitter feed; its essentially a Chinese fire drill of savvy swag and awshucks gratitude.) Even the supposed avatars of alternative Pitchfork refreshed by Vitamin Water!; Stereogum styld.by Gap! are corporate and corporatist, as beholden to their sponsors as Exxon is to its shareholders. I dont mean to imply that ad buys engender a cooling effect on these blogs; in fact, the implication, if there is one, is just the opposite: Pitchfork and Stereogum grant Vitamin Water and Gap a certain currency of cool, weaving them into the hipster tapestry of the happening. This finely knit coverall was once overtly hostile to Big Business. Now it is a big business. Perhaps this is OK; perhaps its harmful. Whats significant is that its here to stay.

114

Here refers to America, the U.K., and all points where Western values hold sway. Of late, Ive been continually flummoxed by our news medias tendency to repackage revolution as consumption, as if freedom were just another word for a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Even the music press no, especially the music press likes to use its rebels as a means of moving paper or tallying page clicks. Check out last weeks edition of NME, which featured a cover story on the late Joe Strummer, central firebrand for the Clash. Joe was given a prominent position on the magazines various fronts, from print to web to mobile. His black and white photo stood facing the reader, adorned by the quotation, Dont write slogans. Write the truth. Inspiring stuff. So inspiring, as it were, that NME saw fit to reaffirm the ad campaign that CBS Records launched for the Clash some 30 years back, in particular the line, The Only Band That Matters. What was it that Joe had just said about writing slogans? And why were his words so conveniently forgotten by means of a single click or several turns-of-page? Far be it from me to take a holier than thou attitude. I must confess to being an ad writer by trade, my daily purpose consumed with the arts of subtle influence. I write many a slogan, with little knowledge (or interest, really) as to whether each constitutes the truth. My field is beverage marketing. I have faith that the wines and spirits which I promote are of above-average quality and value; in all candor, however, I dont know how to go about setting a normative standard of quality or value. I just try to bequeath to each bottle an attractive package and a pithy pick-up line. This, hopefully, will keep my lights on while I endeavor to do something more socially meaningful. Call this ethic what you will. Equivocation seems to suit it just fine; punk, on the other hand, does not. And this, alas, is a source of considerable shame. Years ago, I left a well-paying job in pharmaceuticals without much regard for the consequences. There were issues of principle and honor at play: Three of the products Id helped market were unceremoniously recalled, their side effects having been found to include death as well dry mouth. I wasnt comfortable being party to such misadventures, however far removed from the laboratory or the prescription pad I might have been. Besotted by the thin air of the moral high ground, I set out to make a good and honest living, and promptly fell flat on my face. If I knew then what I know now i.e., how litigation-prone the modern investor is, how difficult it is to collect receivables, how deferential small LLCs must be to major conglomerates I would have held onto my purple pills with all the grip of a fanatic. Without friends in high places, or a boatload of cash to fall back on, professional conscience can prove a mighty risky commodity. In America, disruptive ethical action can cost you your career. In Russia, though, it can cost you your freedom. This brings us to the ladies of the hour, Pussy Riot, a Russian punk collective whove exhibited an anarcho-progressive courage that U.S. bands simply cannot match, owing to factors of context. American artists such as Ted Nugent and Dave Mustaine can, respectively, call President Obama a piece of shit and claim that he orchestrated the shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and Oak Creek, Wisconsin, merely to set the preconditions for a gun ban. For their efforts, they might receive a few harsh words from the liberal media or an exploratory visit from the FBI, the latter framed by Fox News as an incursion into civil liberties. Suffice to say that, as regards the severity of such encroachments, Vladimir Putin might beg to differ with Roger Ailes. In his neo-imperial
115

Russia, oppositional journalists turn up dead with alarming regularity, and protests of the Tea Party tenor are virtually nonexistent, perhaps because theyd provoke truncheons and tear gas rather than Dont Tread on Me flags. Outside the West, Dont Tread on Me isnt a protest lodged by citizens; its a command issued by the sitting government. Break it and you just might get hurt. Or, if you happen to be Pussy Riot, you just might be detained on dubious charges for six months, then sentenced to two years in prison, with the whole world watching and the Kremlin not really giving a fuck. I dont write for Foreign Affairs or The Economist; so, please, dont view this piece as a primary source, designed to dole out astute lessons on geopolitics. Pussy Riot interest me because theyre prisoners of conscience, but they fascinate me because theyre punks. Ive long felt that the two conditions should be one and the same: to be punk should be to stand for something, even if that for is, due to extant circumstances, tempered into an against. The snot-nosed pop-punk played by the likes of Blink-182 and the Offspring has its place, but the real punks are those who set a moral example, like Fugazi, Minor Threat, and the bands that followed Ian MacKayes banner into the straightedge scene. Hardcore is often cited, retrospectively, as a moral bulwark against the rising tides of Reaganism, an ideology that served to whitewash much of the 1980s. But, really, what do we know about oppression in this country? Unless you land on some God-forsaken list, be it germane to COINTELPRO or the more onerous sections of the Patriot Act, you neednt worry about the Feds showing up at your door with loaded automatic weaponry and a pair of handcuffs. Thousands of U.S. citizens actively and publicly challenged Ronald Reagan during his presidency, with the list of accusers including everyone from Mario Cuomo to Jello Biafra. The first man got to deliver an epic speech at the Democratic National Convention, and comfortably retained his New York governorship; the second was permitted to run for the mayoralty of San Francisco, and was never constrained from continuing his gonzo antics as frontman of the Dead Kennedys, a band name that should rankle the cankles of Democrats and Republicans alike. My essential point is as follows: Despite our countrys myriad flaws disparity of wealth, hording of opportunity, proclivity to war, predilection towards frivolity we, as ordinary citizens, have it pretty good in the civil liberties department. (To be clear, this is an historical and strictly relativist observation, not a statement of smug satisfaction with the status quo.) My more immediate point is, well, more immediate: Just a few hours ago, three members of Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison. Outrage in the social media is robust and heartening, but perhaps less robust and heartening than the enthusiasm that sat attendant to Invisible Childrens Kony 2012 video. That video was released in March, the same month in which Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich were arrested for public hooliganism. Now nobody is talking about Kony. And six months from today, I fear that very few people will be talking about Pussy Riot. Accordingly, its important that we use the fierce urgency of the moment to give these girls their due, both musically and socially. Simply put, Pussy Riot is a punk rock double-whammy: an affront to both Church and State which holds neither entity as sacrosanct. The bands rebel yell is typically executed in three chords and less than two minutes, sacrificing length and complexity for sheer impact. The group are what the Sex Pistols pretended to be, and what Bikini Kill aspired
116

to be: Theyre a loose gang of caustic youths fighting to change the world precisely where it needs changing. And theyre being punished for it, harshly. The trial, to me, seems a classic case of activism vs. revanchism, with both actor and reactor being indispensable. Pussy Riot have delivered a strong and abrasive reformist message thats the action, which they can control. What they couldnt control and what, indeed, has made them a trending topic is the reaction; that is, the incommensurate response of the authorities. Behavior which is chided or mocked in the West is demonized in Russia with prosecutorial disdain. Needless to say, the prosecution is often a little spotty. Lets take a look at the tale of the tape. The song that sparked the current affair is called Our Lady, Chase Putin Out (a title which, I imagine, is a rough translation from the Russian, as Ive seen alternate titles, including the wonderful Virgin Mary, Put Putin Out). It was performed as a punk prayer at Moscows Christ the Savior Cathedral on February 21, to protest the Orthodox Churchs fawning support for Putin, who can be said to traffic in behaviors that are decidedly unchurchly. The song accuses Russian Patriarch Kiril I of putting his belief in the Russian President above his faith in God. Politics aside, one wonders if the ladies arent mistaking belief for fear; all too often, church leaders are more concerned with issues of institutional perpetuation than matters of true conscience. Better to save thousands of souls tomorrow than three today so goes the argument, at least. Regardless of the given read, the story didnt proceed particularly well for Pussy Riot. Shortly after their punk prayer, Putin was re-elected President of Russia, taking over for Dmitry Medvedev, the small, none-too-charismatic man whod held the presidency while Vladimir played Prime Minister. On March 3, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were arrested for their unsightly, but not technically illegal, performance at Christ the Savior. On March 16, Yekaterina Samutsevich was detained as well. They were kept behind bars at length, subject to trumped-up charges of public endangerment and religious insensitivity. When the trial finally came, in July, it was mostly for show an intrepid piece of political theater to match the drama staged by Pussy Riot in February. The defendants were kept in stylized cages, as if they were circus animals in repose or wayward Mongols in capture. (See Kathleen Hannas aptly titled blog post, Seriously, They Are In a Fucking Cage.) And while such degrading images served to spark international interest in the Pussy Riot saga, they engendered precious little support in Mother Russia herself. A majority of the state didnt regard the lady punks as political prisoners; the reigning sentiment appeared to be more along the lines of, These girls have done something silly, and they should pay for it. As it happens, the three defendants are now officially convicts, slated to pay for their ostensible crimes with the aforementioned prison stint. Im no student of the Russian judicial system, but Id wager that Putin let it be known that an acquittal simply wouldnt do. He now holds Pussy Riot as an ace in the hole; if, in six months or so, the domestic reform movement should question his heavy-handed rule, Comrade Vladimir can release the ladies on a whim, thus showing the world his kind, merciful heart. The man is a remarkable manipulator of power, not to mention a master of the martial arts. Whether or not hes a tyrant is, unfortunately, a question that dare not be answered by the going pantheon of world leaders. The West likes to point and pivot, but, ultimately, Russia isnt beholden to the civil liberty supplications of the United States or
117

Amnesty International. Show Putin a candle of solidarity and hell quickly snuff its flames. This is a man concerned with minerals and resources, not hearts and minds. If youll forgive my Romantic oversimplification my very own pointing and pivoting toward a convenient topic this is exactly why punk rock remains vital. Music that aims to change the world doesnt sound like Bon Iver; it sounds like Our Lady, Chase Putin Out. Its vain, vulgar, and violent, as all meaningful iconoclasm should be. Bear in mind, of course, that here Im describing the music, not the musicians. Pussy Riot maintain their moral authority by being executrices of heady but peaceful disruption. Their weapons of choice are neon tights, garish dresses, startling balaclavas, and lowrent YouTube videos. They are, in a sense, cartoon crusaders a comic-book crew kneedeep in the real stuff of heroism. In the States, we have a collective thats similarly painted and arrayed. Theyre called the Juggalos, and they largely pass their time in Faygo-fueled frenzy, showing that freedom means nothing if it cant be wasted in hedonic juvenilia. What Pussy Riot have in mind is an order of magnitude more admirable: meaningful reform catalyzed by seemingly nonsensical action. Not everyone in Russia (or America, for that matter) will understand or support what these girls are up to. But thats what makes their stance so brave: the foreknowledge that crime will beget punishment, just as Dostoevsky prescribed. From the perspective of a music critic, Im bound to hear Our Lady, Chase Putin Out as an instance of the East outclashing the Clash. Remember that NME cover story on Joe Strummer? Well, here we see its seeds in full flower. Pussy Riot have written the truth, not a slogan. Theyve created revolution rock that stands a chance of triggering an actual revolution. Punk doesnt need a plurality to leave its thumbprint on the annals of social history; it simply needs a resolute message, voiced by a messenger that will not bend or break. Pussy Riot have shown that theyre up to the task, that theyre not screwing around. Earlier today, after the galloping troika was found guilty of hooliganism driven by religious hatred, the unchained members of Pussy Riot released a new single, called Putin Lights Up the Fires, via U.K. newspaper the Guardian. The collective clearly isnt going anywhere. The question is whether our attention span is too short to accommodate their long-haul appeals. Again, it wasnt too long ago that the media and its observers were clamoring for the seizure of Joseph Kony. Prior to this rare interest in Africa, progressive circles were agog in the Occupy Wall Street protests, just as their conservative counterparts were loud in the movements denunciation. Today, I can walk through Zuccotti Park without seeing a single remnant of the Occupiers or their cause. Time tends to make minions of us all. Should the attention devoted to Pussy Riot fade with the summer season, lets not forget what the incident at Christ the Savior Cathedral, and its subsequent legal drama, have signified: 35 years on, weve finally gotten our white riot. This was a clash between entrenched power and ascendant power, and the rioters are considerably worse for the wear, as I presume they expected they would be. You dont challenge Putin flippantly; hes crushed formidable rivals before, with nary a concern for First World opinion. Pussy Riot never stood a reasonable chance outside of our cheery imaginations, where bravery is a civic virtue, to be rewarded with honor. In the real world, men and women alike are cowards, prone to encircle whats theirs and keep several arms distance from anything that might connote trouble. This, I think, is why the Pussy Riot controversy
118

will grow substantially less riotous as the calendar flips forward. Obama will eke out a slim electoral victory, or Romney will color certain swing states red, and march to Washington in his sacred underwear. Either way, the media will be transfixed by the transformative power of the American ballot, and then the fiscal cliff on the years horizon. Our Lady had better chase Putin out, because we sure as hell arent going to do it. So, to quote a phrase used to describe the Rolling Stones during one of their sundry drug trials, are Pussy Riot anything more than butterflies being broken on a wheel? Yes, they are. But, in the days to come, theyll likely remain agents provocateurs, whom Paul McCartney can Tweet about and whose cause Madonna can champion via body art. In the West, were good at showing support, not in demonstrating steadfast conviction. This is not a damning criticism. By and large, were aware of our limitations, aware that Pussy Riot is ultimately Russias problem, and one that will be dealt with internally. But where the West is good, particularly at this shining moment of social networking, is in getting the so-called problem on record. Before something can be changed, it has to be acknowledged. And, as of press time, untold millions are aware of Pussy Riots plight. Thats probably cold comfort for Misses Alyokhina, Tolokonnikova, and Samutsevich, but I think that gestures of worldwide solidarity impart some heat as well as light. Just to know, however temporarily, that were in this together is an exhilarating thought. I dont have any friends or associates in Russia, but Im acquainted, quite closely in some cases, with Soviet emigrants. Most are from the Ukraine, and speak only haltingly about their relationship with the realities of the Perestroika-period USSR. Where I engage them is in the discussion of pop music, perhaps Americas most cherished cultural export during the heights of the Cold War. While living on the flip side of the Iron Curtain (and, lets be clear, the Curtain had rusted a bit by the time my Ukrainian friends came of age), American culture was tacitly treated as a corrupting and thus forbidden commodity. Still, little echoes of America would slip through, frequently in the form of a pirated cassette tape of a pirated cassette tape of a pirated cassette tape. What the songs lacked in sound quality they more than made up for in incitement to animation. For certain Soviets, listening to music wasnt a mere diversion; it was a quasi-religious event. Recently, I had the good fortune to attend a Bon Jovi concert with a couple of Ukrainian expatriates. Under normal circumstances, you wouldnt catch me within a country mile of such a show, but an extra ticket was available and a request for a warm body was put forth. As the lights went down, I offered some feigned enthusiasm and tepid applause; the Ukrainians, on the other hand, went absolutely apeshit. They sang along to virtually every song, often with faulty lyrics, but never with false regard. Midway through the show, one of the girls asked, desperately, When are they going to play Johnny used to work on the dogs? I said, You mean, Living On a Prayer, not having the heart to correct dogs with docks. She replied that, in the Ukraine, American rock songs were named by their first line, since the pirated cassette tapes bore no titles or liner notes. I later learned that the children of a given village would regularly gather around a communal boom box to listen to the latest musical arrival en masse. This, to me, is more punk than any political single dropped by Green Day or Rage Against the Machine. And I like Green Day and Rage Against the Machine! Its just that in different spheres,
119

there are different stakes. And a piece of music will inevitably mean more to those who are proscribed from playing it. Pussy Riot have learned this lesson the hard way. Their antics may be considered juvenile, but their agonies will not be shouted in vain. I cant see the big picture, and I dont know whether the rights Pussy Riot have petitioned for will be granted them in a years time or only after the motions of a generation. First, people have got to hear the pirated cassette tape. Then theyll find their own meanings and weave their own narratives. Maybe this ends well, with the rioters released and the Russian judicial system inheriting some of the compassion that generally comes with liberalization. But even if it ends poorly, with women imprisoned at length and forgotten in short order, Our Lady, Chase Putin Out has done a noble deed. On the scale of worthy protests, it probably sits somewhere between Kanye Wests George Bush doesnt care about black people and Sophie Scholls nonviolent opposition to the Third Reich. Yes, Im being a touch facetious. But heres something to take in earnest: At just the right moment, Pussy Riot have reminded us that punk is innately political; and I, by virtue of the dictates of American individualism, am conditioned to take the political as personal. What results is a something of tautology: Im a little ashamed that no American punk band has levied a protest quite as ballsy as Pussy Riots. But Im also kind of proud that no American punk band has had to. In the end, there are democracies and there are democracies, justice and justice, punk and punk. Its a privilege to be able to tell the difference between the two, and a joy to be able to write freely about the resonance of the distinction. The fact that the civilized world protects this privilege as a right is a cause for celebration. So, too, is Pussy Riots courage in the face of adversity. Considering the many legal and penal dramas that are yet to unfold, I use todays dateline only to offer my unqualified support for the prisoners of conscience. As time marches forward, Ill keep my ear to the ground, hoping for glad tidings and perhaps a suspended sentence. May Misses Alyokhina, Tolokonnikova, and Samutsevich emerge from this saga with their souls intact. I see no need to question their motives; as for their orthodoxy, as far as I can tell, its above reproach. Pussy Riot have written the truth. Now its our duty to read it, and to read it well. No slogans are necessary, just patience and conviction. Should either of these virtues run dry, well have proven ourselves unworthy of the cause we purport to champion. Regrettably, it wouldnt be the first time. (August 18, 2012)

120