Otra Cosa

Otra Cosa
(2010)
Julieta Venegas

I figured out recently why it is I enjoy Julieta Venegas' current set of records so much. She makes willing pop music, with a bit of a wistful air. I'd compare it to Ingrid Michaelson, if I liked any of her records. I'd compare it to Sarah Bareilles, again, if I liked her record. You remember her. She's the one who's not going to write you a love song cos you need it, etc. To be fair, I do like that song. But the rest of the album, much like everything Michaelson has done, is too empty. If there were a strong breeze, these albums would be blown away.

And that's just fine. A lot of people like that. And I'm sure more than a few people would chastise me for saying their songs are without heft. The appeal of Ingrid Michaelson seems to be that her words are "confessional," which has lately seemed to be code for "tactless." I like "Love Song" because Bareilles wrote it to her record company when they asked her to write a hit single for the album. So she gave them a single, a big one, telling them to fuck off. Which is a nice way to go about it, really. Usually, these women, and 99% of men are guilty of it as well, forget to have a sense of humour.

The point of this is that Venegas is a Spanish version of these young ladies. She's a bit older than either of them, but she's in that same vein, of crafting pop music for the masses. I should find her ingratiating, shallow, witless, and impossible. Fortunately for both Venegas and myself, she doesn't sing in English, so, unless I pay attention, I barely know what she's saying, and we both like it that way. So there you have it. I am capable of just enjoying a nice tune, despite what most of my friends will tell you.

The trick, as it turns out, is to make it so I can't understand a word you're saying.

Anatomy of a Song: Fool's Day

Yesterday, Blur released "Fool's Day," the first song they've recorded as a four-piece since 2003's "Battery in Your Leg." I was, of course, excited. Regrettably, the song was released as a Record Store Day single in the UK only, and it was limited to 1,000 copies. This is to say, it's already selling on e-bay for $230. No worries, I'm not considering it.

Let me explain why.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I've managed to listen to the song. They're even giving it away through their website, albeit as a shortened mp3 edit of the physical single. And in many ways, I wish I hadn't. The romance of not knowing what Blur's last song sounds like, the idea of always having that window open, is a powerful thing, and it would have kept me from feeling how I feel now. "Fool's Day" has usurped "Battery In Your Leg"'s position as the final song of the Blur catalogue (not counting b-sides).

Here's the thing; "Battery In Your Leg" was the last song on Think Tank, Blur's last album. It was also the last song they recorded as a group. The rest of the album didn't feature Graham Coxon anywhere. "Battery in Your Leg" has a strange melancholy to it, one that would become a bit of a hallmark for Albarn's later work, but which was new at the time. The lyrics speak in abstractions, but they allude to loss, and moving on, and the end of something important. There was, is, and will be no song better-suited to be Blur's epitaph than "Battery In Your Leg." It is one of their masterpieces.

"Fool's Day" is not a bad song. I cannot tell you "Fool's Day" is bad. But it's not good, either. It is admirable in that it manages to include some aspect of every phase Blur have gone through. That notion does leave me drooling at the possibilities of what Think Tank would have sounded like with Coxon around, but I wouldn't change anything. So few bands manage to go out on top form, and Blur certainly managed to do just that. I wasn't aware of them when they did so. But now I'm around to watch them fuck it up.

'Hallelujah'

The best things in life, no matter what, are the little moments. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, Marquez makes reference to one of a pair of twins taking a sip of lemonade, and the other then commenting that it needs more sugar. The amount of energy in the chorus of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," despite such a simple melody. That great moment in Tokyo Story when the son, arriving after his ill mother has died, immediately kneels beside her and simply asks her to forgive his lateness. These are all things that overwhelm me, and they are all simple. What I have just listed are three of the reasons I think life is worth living, really. And they are the things that I aspire to in my own personal work.

There is a remarkable performance by k.d. Lang of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on Youtube. I beg you to watch the whole thing. 4.44 in, there is one of those moments that makes life just exquisite.

Newsom at the Vic

On Saturday night, I saw Joanna Newsom perform the final date of her recent tour at the Vic Theatre. I've always admired her music more than I've enjoyed it, but the ticket was free, and I couldn't say no. I was curious to see how she would sound live, and, well, a show's a show. So why not.

She sounded superb. The whole band, throughout the show, displayed the kind of virtuosic musicianship which makes individuals like myself feel violently ill. For one, Newsom really is a superb harpist, and watching her fingers move along the strings was mesmerizing. I can't imagine playing such an instrument with that amount of skill. It's overwhelming.

I was caught off guard with how personable the whole band were. Newsom herself proved witty and genuinely funny; I found myself bored during the songs, waiting for the bits in between. There were many, many laughs to be had with the on-stage banter, all of it spinning out of the actions of the audience. That is to say, I wasn't listening to a script, and their joy in playing was infections.

One point I'd like to suggest; on her next tour, Newsom should look at playing proper theatres, with seats. The majority of the audience was facing the stage and standing stone still. Throughout the show, mind you. Do to the social moors of pressure, I too spent the concert standing stone still, mostly out of fear for upsetting whatever balance was being striven for. I found it disconcerting, and exhausting. My legs were tired beyond all reckoning, despite the manageable length of the concert. And just a few days prior, I'd seen Spoon perform a two-hour concert, during which I was standing, but at least I was moving to the groove. Standing in one spot like that proved to be wearing. Plus, the audience was silent, which feels weird in a venue without seats. In a theatre, I'd presume silence to be the order of the day.

It's Hard to Say Goodbye

It has to happen, in the name of taste and in the name of time. Every few months, I have to clean out the review pile, and decide that I won't be writing reviews for certain things. I do, however, like to make note of them, as they are often fairly good. I do this also with albums that are outside my intellectual purview. I cannot appreciate them, and so I will not issue a verdict.

One Life Stand
Hot Chip
I just don't have a taste for these guys. In the five albums they've released, I've never gotten into them. I even listened to "Ready for the Floor," their Big Hit. They just don't hit the spot. One Life Stand proves no exception.

Soldier of Love
Sade
"Diamond Life" is nice. So is "By Your Side." Most of her recorded output is at the level of solid, and it all sells very, very well. But it usually doesn't do it for me either. There is a theme here.

Looking Back

I love a record that holds up. Most of them don't. The brief fit of adoration I felt for Vampire Weekend's Contra, for example, has rapidly dwindled away into repeated frustrations at trying to replicate the initial experience. There is no heart, and so it is difficult to visit it again.

I'm listening to Lily Allen's excellent It's Not Me, It's You, from last year. Some of you may remember, the album came out of nowhere to be one of my favourites. I'd been a big fan of Alright, Still, Allen's 2006 debut, when it came out, but it deteriorated, and I can't get through an individual track to this day. So I'm thrilled to report that Allen's latest, which I've not listened to in months, is still a great, great accomplishment. The lyrics are smart and clever, the latter ever-present to fill in for when the former is in shorter supply, and the music is simply perfection. There are layers to the sound here which still reveal themselves, even now. And this is a record I know backwards and forwards, so that's quite a feat.

There isn't a point to this entry, really. I'm fascinated by the seemingly arbitrary differences that make one work thrilling upon launch, only to have it sink into the sea, and another become a lifetime's obsession. If I could figure out the points between the two, let me tell you...

For We Are Living In a Digital World...

Plastic Beach
(2010)
Gorillaz

There are many things to expect from a Gorillaz album. I think, with two prior full-lengths and a pair of B-Side collections, Damon Albarn has established a decent set of parameters. This is a quietly experimental band, of course, but their sound is fairly well established. You know when you're listening to Gorillaz.

For example, we know to expect a fusion of hip-hop and pop. Plastic Beach delivers there with the superb "Superfast Jellyfish," featuring Demon Days highlights De La Soul. You'll remember them from "Feel Good, Inc." What we don't expect is an album lacking a "Feel Good, Inc." That is to say, Plastic Beach doesn't come ready made with a massive single. It has some great songs, many in fact, but it doesn't come with a song destined for the Top 40. This may not be a bad thing.

We've come to expect unusual collaborations. Bobby Womack, unheard from for the last twenty years, makes two rip-roaring appearances, on first single "Stylo" and on near closer "Cloud of Unknowing." What we don't expect is that Damon Albarn has given the vast majority of the spotlight here to those collaborators. He is heard on every track, at one point or another, but you don't get the feeling that this is his album, and some friends are stopping by. It feels like Gorillaz have finally become what I believe Albarn meant them to be all along; a consortium, the King Crimson of pop. (To quote Fripp, "King Crimson is not a band, it is a way of doing things.")

We can expect airtight compositions. It's a Damon Albarn project, and this is a foregone conclusion. If Blur's final offering, Think Tank, suffered one ailment, it was that the songs were hermetically sealed. There was no oxygen anywhere. This has been an ongoing issue for Albarn. In Blur, Coxon gave ragged, soulful life to the songs which Albarn so brilliantly constructed. There has never been any Coxon on Gorillaz albums (pause for *sigh*). Demon Days, for all its daring, suffers the same problems as Think Tank. Aesthetically speaking, Plastic Beach has the least organic sound of anything Albarn has released. It is an album delivered from the middle of the 1980s, with synthesizers everywhere.

But here's the most unexpected thing: This is, without a doubt, Albarn's most feeling album in over ten years. I'm extensively (re; obsessively) familiar with his entire, remarkable discography, and nothing comes close to feeling like Plastic Beach, save 13, my favourite Blur album. And then he had Coxon. The highlights on this album are numerous, but none hit me so hard as "On Melancholy Hill," where, according to Damon, "you can't get what you want, but you can get me." He's only made me cry once before, back in 2003, with "Battery in Your Leg," the final track on Blur's final record. Here, Albarn taps into that vein of melancholy and sweetness which seems to belong to him alone.

The album opens as one would want a Gorillaz album to; there is pop mixed in with hip-hop and world music. But then it does a few things differently. For the most part, the hip-hop disappears. The album builds to a powerful, remarkable set of six songs that constitute the body, from "Stylo" to "On Melancholy Hill." Both the previous Gorillaz albums,irrefutably excellent in their own right, were spotty. Here, there is only one mis-step, "Broken," the removal of which would make this, dare I say it, a perfectly sequenced album. And on the way, we get insight into the remarkable talents of Damon Albarn, which continue to flower in directions nobody could have ever possibly expected.