Pitchfork's Summer Album Release Schedule

A Brief Testimonial for Inception

Inception was a fantastic movie.  After finishing it I realized why Christopher Nolan doesn't want to do a third Batman installment.  He knows his ability and I honestly would rather see another movie similar to Inception than the final chapter to the Batman series.

Sparks of brilliance like Momento have been seen, as well as some slight laterals (The Prestige was a successful miss.  Now I finally get where he was trying to get at.

Without giving away too much of the movie (there's sooooo much to give away), Leonardo DiCaprio plays  Dom Cobb, a sort of subconscious spy.  He basically takes people's secrets by playing inside their dreams.  

When I saw it I recognized it as, essentially, the most intellectually stimulating action/adventure blockbuster I've ever seen.  

It was fantastic in the context of cinematography: it utilized that bold, dark environment (on a global basis) that made him interesting in the first two Batman movies.  Very gothic, but so fucking sharp it made the entire story more understandable.  Highly polished chaos.  Without the use of amazing environments, the story of the subconscious would make the dreams seem less like dreams and more like sad imaginations.

It was fantastic in the context of soundtrack: Hans Zimmer made a fantastic accompaniment with just the right use of brash blockbuster-type epic instrumentals.

It was fantastic in the context of acting: Christopher Nolan put together a cast that I wish was utilized more often in Hollywood (negating DiCaprio, he's in everything good already).  Ellen Page might have been the weakest link, but not by much.  She really did her best to keep pace with the vets, and more surprisingly was Joseph Gordon-Levitt breakout.   Going straight from 500 Days of Summer to Inception was jarring because I don't think anyone really realized his ability as Cobb's business partner Arthur.  He blew it away, and at the same time played a dapper badass.  Nolan took a cast of "oh I remember them from"'s and made them independently hold a pillar of the movie up.  Even the secondary cast members (Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger) were fantastic!

It was fantastic in the context of STORY: Now without the other stylistic abilities of this movie, it would be a lackluster attempt at movie.  But because everything excelled, so did the entire plot.  It's tough to really divulge, so I will be as subtle as possible.  Watching this movie, it started off kind of slow.  The initial action sequence was mild, but impacting.  As it built up again, it took time, but the time eventually (weaving occasional action and subplots) led to the third act, which was, probably one of the best third acts I've seen in years.  It was like biting into a cake that you realized was made from chocolate and thinking "oh awesome! Chocolate cake sounds great." and then suddenly realizing mid bite that between the chocolate is a layer of raspberry filling, which triggers the thought "oh fuck yes, I was not anticipating the delicious raspberry filling, this is perfect cake".  It did that, but very frequently, and the layers were numerous.  The layers cohesively led to the finale.

I think the most fantastic thing about Nolan's style and story writing is he makes it for the theater.  He understands that large scale mentality that goes along with being excited for a movie when you actually go to the movies to watch something.  Few movies put that into it like he does, and that explains why he spends so much money to make his movie good.  James Cameron could spend a billion dollars to make something intense, but with a lot of sacrifices made for believability.  Nolan refines everything, which would explain why it took him this long to make anything since The Dark Knight.  His action sequences don't rely on the acrobatics more than the actual style.  Most fight scenes are over very briefly and then transitions back to something else (or at times encompassing two or more fight scenes, which was the status quo in this movie) without missing a beat or putting too much emphasis on either.  In fact, they would just layer the story development into something extraordinary.

Fantastic, fantastic piece of work.

4th of July

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Twenty-Hour-Work-Weeks and Gin Next To The Oscillating Fan: These Are The Summer Albums of 2010

Before I begin this year's edition of the Summer Albums, I suppose it's necessary to explain how I decide to pick these albums:

-The way each of these albums are picked are based solely on how well they fluctuate within the constructs of the summertime mentality, by which I mean "which are most appropriate for being cathartic and sweaty".   It's clearly a biased charade (as most of my lists are) of what makes me smile on the busride to work or while my friends and I are shit-housed at 5:00 pm.  We openly acknowledge that these are specific one-time opportunities, and bless the fact that we have the soundtrack to supplement it.

These are the Summer Albums of 2010:

Avi Buffalo Avi Buffalo 

This album takes something very innocent and makes it incredibly mature.  Clearly the dying breath the influence of bands like West Indian Girl and The Autumn Leaf, Avi Buffalo (whom, it should be mentioned, is lead by a kid younger than myself) uses a very well orchestrated arrangement of surfy guitars and high fading vocals to come out with more than a few consistent singles.

Frank Sinatra Watertown

When one could consider the possibilities of a concept album, few think Frank Sinatra, and fewer think of Frank Sinatra and divorce.  Frank Sinatra (quick review: Frank Sinatra is both from New York City, and... well, Frank Sinatra) composes 11 tracks only parelleling Carole King's Tapestry in lyrical content. Taking place in the fictional small town of "Watertown", Sinatra progresses through each song discussing how he, being a fictional blue-collar small town father, is left by his wife and the toil he struggles with keeping his shit together while trying to raise his kids.  All is done in the old standards style of his greater hits while being accompanied by occasional spliced-in audio.

Drive By Truckers The Big To-Do

Many have agreed that The Hold Steady really disappointed a lot of people with their album Heaven is Whenever, but where I like to differ in thought is I believe that Drive By Truckers picked up where they dropped the alt-country ball.  Much MUCH grittier than most stuff The Hold Steady does, and not to mention that Drive By Truckers have been doing this blue-collar type of shit longer.  DBT use a lot of heavy fuzzy guitar and really really heavy lyrics (among other topics: a young man getting his first lapdance, alcoholism, and paternal neglect), but at the same time they manage to manipulate the songs to come off more innocent and carefree, which I suppose what makes them so good to begin with.

Ike & Tina Turner Workin' Together

The first time I ever EVER heard their cover of "Proud Mary" was both:

A. Mind blowing

B. Less than three weeks ago

It sometimes feels like Tina might have been overlooked as the best (THE BEST) soul singer of the 60s and 70s.  People tend to focus on Ike's (may he burn in hell) brutality towards his wife during this time, but if you are able to neglect this time you'll notice almost flawless arrangements that were so carefully put together by Ike.  His clear need to control his environment is taken out on both Tina and their musical arrangements.  All the while Tina dances and sings as if to say "Fuck you, Ike.  Fuck you so hard."

Tame Impala Innerspeaker

When I first read about this album, I thought they were suppose to be something closer to Wolfmother (apparently, you don't have to sound like AC/DC if your band is from Australia... weird).  Neo-psychedilia can actually sound good sometimes, and this is that proof.  It's just enough to take you on a trip and not sound as shoddy as most of Mars Volta's discography.  It could be January, and this album is so well layered and not-stoner-sounding to put you in the right frame of mind to enjoy the sun.  I really look forward to camping to this album.  Perhaps the most mature album of 2010.

Miles Davis 'Round About Midnight

Miles Davis is great.  Negating Bitches Brew almost everything he touches turns to gold. However nothing sounds exactly alike of his.  'Round About Midnight is the obvious "late night" album.  I struggled at first to define a specific jazz album for this summer, but after a little thought this was the hands-down winner.  I've spent several nights sweating tirelessly in the evenings and this is the only thing that really accompanies my lukewarm beer this nicely.  

Earl Greyhound Suspicious Package

This is the... I guess one could say... Epic Summer Album.  Earl Greyhound has been discussed quite extensively on this blog, but I suppose what was negated was the subtle flow of each track.  Most songs individually play as legitimate singles, but collectively they bring together such an epic use of thundering drums, cascading vocals, and progressively intensifying guitar, with little to no filler.

The Rolling Stones Exile On Mainstreet

This is not a coincidence.  My listening to this album has everything to do with its recent reissuing.  I listen to a lot of nerdy podcasts who talk about music, and they all seem to love this.  I personally hate The Rolling Stones, but even in their pretentious nature, this really is one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard.  I have a strange spite against British blues revival, but my being able to relate to their debaucherous ways and imagining them sweating these tracks out in a basement in Paris make me content for a time.  "Sweet Virginia" is too good to pass up, as it seems to encapsulate both where Bruce Springsteen was getting all his gusto from (seriously was not expecting the flagrant use of the Sax) and what they fuss was all about.  People should spend less time summarizing the existence of the Stones, and instead break it off into two parts.  This later half of the good years is why.

The Black Keys Brothers

I don't what The Black Keys did, but they got their mojo back.  I now work at a radio station and each time I hear someone play a track from this album, it is immediately followed by the person playing the track saying "this album is so fucking good".  This is not like their old stuff.  People expecting a carbon copy of Thickfreakness or Rubber Factory will not be so much disappointed as thrown off.  This is clearly the work of a progression in sound, but it doesn't come off loose or shoddy.  This might be the tightest collection of work they have put out, but this only comes from really trying to broaden their horizons.

Guided By Voices Bee Thousand

I hate the 90s.  Music from this time was shoddy and falsely accused of being inspiring and interesting in technique.  This is has been my mentality for a long time.  I like my music tight and articulate and well put-together.  This is that first crack into finally "getting it".  This may have to do with the chaotic nature that turns a lack of composure into something that feels put together without having any choice.  If you stuggle to find meaning in life when things make no sense at all, I suppose this is that catalyst.  It's very 90s, they use the word "rape" at strange points, and they sound like they wear a lot of flannel, but for some reason, I just "get it".

The Pack A.D. We Will Computers

I hate to pigeonhole this band, but they really do sound like an all female version of The White Stripes.  They tend to border closer to the contemporary, but if its the closest I get to a "guilty pleasure", I'm okay with that.  Very eloquent in their brevity, The Pack A.D. are two women from Vancouver, B.C. (that makes them two of my most hated things; Canadians and a band that is often compared to The White Stripes), they really are quite fantastic. Their a little simple and there's certainly room for improvement.  But they nail something together I can't quite put my finger on, it certainly is sophmoric, but somehow they make it work.

"I'll play it and tell you what it is later."

Recently I've dived into a very large collection of jazz between the 1950s and 1960s.  It's amazing to think that some of the most square sounding music could have such a chalky history of drug abuse.  For example, I would have never guessed that this guy had such an intense herion addiction:




I think part of the allure of this music (and I go from everywhere, Mingus, Coltrane, Getz, Davis, Monk, anybody) during this time, you start to figure out more what the music is about. I mean that in two ways:

- The first is the idea that any great jazz composer couldn't be able to demonstrate their ability to create in any other way.  Hearing how singers sing and then how jazz artists actually speak (honestly, Miles Davis' voice sounds worse than Tom Waits'), it makes you realize that this is their medium.  While people focus so much on how one sings and how the arrangement needs vocals, the fact that its stripped away is so refined.

-  The second is the story behind the music.  Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker all had serious drug addictions.  In fact, a lot of them didn't live very long.  Listening to Bill Evans without knowing how much the man struggled makes the music feel empty and listless, but understanding it puts so much raw emotion into a keyboard.  Miles Davis was an incredibly angry man and knowing that makes you realize how aggressive and intense his message is.

Few other times (since the 1940s) have really been able to convey that intensity.  That's why I would rather listen to Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack he wrote for the film A Charlie Brown Christmas in July than have to tolerate the choppy compositions that are ham-fisted together.  Contemporary jazz is so shameful because the art isn't really appreciated.  The tempo is dropped and mood was lightened in the last three decades.

After meeting a former jazz musician and having him tell me personal stories about famous musicians during the time I really got where the vanguard was coming from.  It makes people you had no idea existed become fascinating because of their music.  You go back and you imagine Charles Mingus being so large and violent like he was thought to be, and you hear Mingus Ah Um and you really understand where his chaotic sound and bass come from, having instruments abruptly chime in and out.

People easily remember a band because of a familiar voice, but I think it's just as easy to do the same with solid jazz sound.  They all sound distinct as a cohesive body AND with the associated instrument of the composer.

I guess my point to this is that I feel people too easily shun some of the most intense music one could listen to.  Many people have been moved by lyrical songs (i.e. when I drove for the first time at 16 by myself listening Jimi Hendrix's track "Are You Experienced?")  but it's just as easily capable listening to "Waltz for Debby" or "Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul".   Jazz is better at intensifying and soothing the psyche than any other genre.

Part I: A Response To Something I Wrote A Long Time Ago or "Country Music: The Sequel"

The aesthetics of the city, even after residing here for the better part of three years, is still jarring to me.  We didn't have homeless people occupying vacant space, we had cattle.  It's still difficult identifying myself here as I wasn't raised like this.  I grew up with a "Dukes of Hazzard" mentality, and perhaps it's considered an outdated outlook on friendship.

I grew up with a brotherly camaraderie.  Four specific friends that were of the "thick and thin" disposition.  With this time my peak were two specific summers; June-September 2007 and June-August 2008.  During which time I came to a point with why I'm rambling right now: Country Music.

I should preface that I began scribbling this at a diner knowing I promised myself to get the juices flowing. I am now drinking probably the biggest fucking iced tea I think I've ever been served:

The man next to me is discussing some sort of drug rehabilitation and divulging insane stories to the woman he's eating dinner with, and for some reason I keep hearing the sound of duct tape being pulled off of the roll.

...so naturally my mind escapes to the idea and history of country music.

Now I preface this story like that because my "modern" experience with country music came out of those two summers.  Before that I kind of resented it.  Mostly because after the 90s it became more beach/hypermasculine.  Now while it's debatable that this genre has ALWAYS been hypermasculine, it lost whatever subtlety it had intact.

I grew up in rural Washington (and it was RURAL in 1993).  My family moved there in 1993 after being born in Bakersfield, California.  Let me explain to you something about Bakersfield.  In the 1930s during the heart of the Dust Bowl's destruction of mid-western farmland, Bakersfield became a final destination for much of the migrant population looking for anything that was better off.  In this time Bakersfield began to develop its own music scene based on a, I guess one could say, "unrefined" version of country .  Let me put it to you this way: in the early part of last decade when garage-rock took over with a dirtier rhythm influence, this was country's version of that.  Bakersfield/Merle Haggard were The White Stripes of Nashville Country.

Now I was BORN there.  It gathered my attention so much so that I'd later come to realize 21 years later that in my Junior year of college, I'd write a qualitative analysis of "Okie from Muskogee" because of that.

So there's that subtle influence... but this is deeper.  My mother loved Reba Mcentire and early Shania Twain.  My father was somewhat partial to Clint Black.  At the age of 6 my two favorite songs of all time were Brooks and Dunn's "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee".  I heard every popular country single between 1994 and 1998 without missing beat.  Now at this time it seemed really good.  It had this duality in both a neo-traditionalism  (Randy Travis "King of the Road") and sheer enormous popularity (Garth Brooks' entire career).  It had a fucking pulse.  Lyrics were somewhat structured and evocative.  I realize it now that starting my life hearing that was a great introduction.  Believe it or not Shania Twain at the early point of her career (before she crossed over) was almost par.

...so let's skip ahead using major stepping stones in my influences: Disco, Frank Sinatra, Chumbuwumba, Boyz II Men, pop radio, Green Day, The White Stripes, most of the 2000s, now.  Now in that second to last step I lost my roots.  After Johnny Cash passed away in 2003, I grew to love him slowly, but as far as much else, I thought it was useless and hated the music.  I think it was a combination of me being out of the game for ten years and experiencing the shit-show that was the country music scene at this time.  The emergence of Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Trace Atkins, and the devolution of Toby Keith all caused the downfall.  By the time Taylor Swift showed up it was all over anyways.  The early mark of it was started with the beach orientation... and then Jimmy Buffet showed up.



TO BE CONTINUED

Part II;  further examination into the duality of hypermasculinity and the beach, extreme patriotism, and the triumph of brotherhood and nostalgia.

This year just ceases to amaze me.

The Black Keys have finally hit their stride again. This time with more subtlety. In fact, upon further review, there's a lot of things out there that are really rocking some shit.

This year so far appears to be very much a mix between mediocre debuts and solid returns from a whole slue of the vanguard... and by vanguard I mean people who have come out with more than just a single good album.

It's late. I should get some sleep.

Mid Quarter Review transcends into something else.

Part of my reemergence into life has consisted of several things:

-Quitting smoking (FINALLY)

-Continuous running

-Having the next six months completely mapped out

-Getting the job I've always wanted

But one in particular is something I never thought I'd have to do, and that was to immerse myself once again into modern music.

I spent a lot of time this quarter going back to what I've loved for a long time.

But something got a hold of me that was slightly geriatric, a distaste for the modern scene.

I put a lot of money into a very well polished record collection, and at the same time woed about the lack of taste in what I saw in music in the year 2009.

It's now that sad (?) point in my life where I now realize that music simply does not cater to how I see fit. This is ironic because music has almost never done that* and yet I seem to be fixed on this idea.

Part of this might also be due to the fact that I began listening to beat and rhythm in an advanced, sort of fetishistic way at about the same time that a great turnover in music was beginning.

Garage rock was finally being articulated upon. Influences from soft rock were being polished to something better. It was as if the Quentin Tarantinos and the Jason Reitmans and the P.T. Andersons of the music world were finally being influenced and elaborating on what they love.

And the best thing about it was there was this popularized statement about it. Nitsuh Abebe wrote a great essay** about how indie is no longer a movement but a franchise. To me this was my moment to cherish. I remember after my family had moved into our new house and I started watching music oriented television they would have whole shows dedicated to the Phantom Planets and The Caesars type bands of the world. A show specifically was called "Next Big Thing". I didn't realize then, but it had appeared that the market had become self aware because the whole show was dedicated to nobodies that you were to call in and vote for***. They all sounded like The Kaiser Cheifs but to me this was that unintentional development of my full understanding. They tried to sell more shit to me, but I in return got angry at Metallica and apprehended The Secret Machines albums.

...and so you cut to 2010. People are already starting to "define" the decade's moves and shakes (whereas it was will be two more decades before we can actually get our meathooks around it). I look at the vast number of albums I own now and grow weary when I hear the last shreds of indie from emerging bands and the final wheezes of the once great giants (I think it's safe to say that I was disappointed by nearly every band I love these last two days).

This is because I am now an old man in such a rapid moving society. In 2006 when The Strokes released their last album SPIN did a cover story on them and the author had written about how had The Strokes released their first album in the early 1970s they would have made three Is This It's, two Room on Fire's, and one First Impression of Earth. Some of you may not understand that reference, but what it's saying is there was this availability to relax and move around in your space with music before the demand of instantaneous everything in our society. After broadcasting today on the radio and thumbing through hundreds of albums of bands I love and stumbling upon a resurrection of one in particular (I'll explain later) that I didn't know existed, I finally understood this. I honestly believe that, through a transactional analogy, if Led Zeppelin released their first album today, they would have stopped at Led Zeppelin. It's the reason nobody remembers hardly anything from the 90s unless they've reinvented themselves (be it intentional or not).

This tradeoff comes with the availability of all of this music literally minutes away.

...and so I sit here in truly the most jarring paradox. Would I have been able to experience this revelation without the use of the thing that destroyed how music grows?

People older than myself enjoy the art of bitching to me about music's lack of development, and I couldn't agree more. Unless technology is dismantled and society becomes both simultaneously healthy and patient once again, we will never have such a fluid ability to articulate our joys.

This is why Danger Mouse and James Mercer are now collaborating like retirees. This why James Murphy is fading and dressing like fucking Bryan Ferry. These people would have become legends in a much larger way then they are now.

As Wayne Coyne's hair grows progressively grayer, so does everything I love. It's a tough day to swallow when the new bands I enjoy look my age.

But with this comes a last hurrah. For you see this whole thought into 2001-2007 is simply what recalls when I listen to a particular album.

Earl Greyhound's Suspicious Package

Everything just stated comes to mind hearing an album like this.

What you probably don't know is that Earl Greyhound was one of those next big things that existed during that self aware heyday. In 2006 they released Soft Targets which was simultaneously hugely buzzed and terribly overlooked. In my desert island, that might be one of the top three. It was so organic, and yet so respecting of its influences that it came off as blooming and insatiable.

In four years they have not released a single LP (or EP for that matter) until this week (the album you see above), and it is beautiful. I mostly assumed that they were split and done. Instead, they did disappear but only to work on their craft and become more serious than all the other reemergence. It is not a Roky Erickson or a late-years Johnny Cash, because they never were well known. They are the same, without the label of once-was. It's as if they fell asleep for four years and awoke last week without the fucked out feeling the rest of us feel in our early adulthood, and yet I realize that they were there for all of it.

I feel the tree in this album is very symbolic of what has changed in merely four years. The tree is now is fruiting electronic bands like no other while we sit and relish in what once was.

My only hope is that they one day, everything will become as genuine as this band.

*negating 2003-2004

** This was from a Pitchfork article. I'm never that scholastic.

***Even more ironically, it was sponsored by Tower Records

The Most Polarizing Issue Ever.

Ok I've been put in a situation where everyone seems to be polarized.

This is the red state/blue state argument of hip music: Is MGMT's Congratulations good?

Kind of. I've heard both sides of the argument, and this is the argument:

I'll be generalizing both sides as "good" (as in "I thought it was good") and "bad" (as in "I thought it was bad")

ahem:

Good: MGMT's new album is good.

Bad: No it's not.

Good: (sounding wavy in tone) Yes it is.

Bad: No it isn't. Popularity and record sales have infected their sound and now it's bad.

Good: No. It's a concept album. They're trying to experiment a new sound.*

Bad: Wait, wait. Pet Sounds was a concept album. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a concept album. Congratulations is NOT a concept album.

Good: Okay you can't compare everything to the Beatles and then say it sucks. That has to be a fallacy.

Bad: Okay, fine. How is Congratulations a concept album?

Good: It holds a theme of dealing with fame and fortune and experiencing it as a new reality, they would say another dimension.

Bad: Poor songsmithing doesn't mean you can get away was a loose thematic approach to being loaded.

Good: Fuck you.

Bad: Fuck you, too.

(Good and Bad do it while accidentally leaving MGMT's Congratulations on the iPod dock.)

*end scene*

It's difficult to come back after a very decent (some would say great, but I wouldn't) freshman album (ask Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, The Darkness, Coldplay, and most bands who first hit it big between 2000-2009*), and MGMT is no exception.

While I do enjoy the intricacies, you cannot not give the people what they are not expecting, but in that same vane can't rehash the old shit (or else feel the wrath of critical bloggers**). What I'm saying here is MGMT is fucked. They flew to high and are now orbiting accidentally around the planet until they burn up into the earths atmosphere.

But I enjoyed it, I'll just never remember it when I write my decade list in 2020.

*Despite Spoon still clamping on for dear life

**Self-awareness