Sunday, July 27, 2003
(5:28 AM) | Anonymous:
I didn't want to bother with Amazon.com, so I'll do it here
I have recently realized that I had the audacity to go off on the entire music business in my last post without ever actually daring to open myself up to the same harsh criticism by telling you, the reader, just what I consider "good", or "the form of the good." I think the quickest way to do this would be to tell you just who I think, in order, are my top 10 favorite bands in the recent past (I leave that disclaimer to prevent my list from being cluttered with the typical "classics" like, The Beatles, Nirvana, Velvet Underground,Wang Chung and Dokken.)
So, without mincing any more words, let me give it to you straight, and talk about it when it's done and we can just roll over and relax:
- Pavement/Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks Okay, I hated Slanted & Enchanted the first 200 listens, officially making me a poser fan, but on 201, somehow the puzzle was complete and the brilliance of Terror Twilight, Brighten The Corners and Wowee Zowee was made manifest only through the different, yet similar brilliance of the earlier lo-fi stuff. It was an epiphany to say the least, one to ensure their already usually occupied spot of best band ever, in my mind.
- Cake A lot of people hate the Cake, and would give them no spot on this list..but it's the most entertaining music around.
- Weezer The old stand-bys who change styles within a certain set "style" at least as much as DC Talk. The difference is Weezer doesn't suck. And doesn't have trouble with spelling words out in their song titles.
- Elliot Smith/Heatmeiser When I am depressed, nothing soothingly hands me the bullet to load in my revolver like Elliot Smith.
- Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five/Fear Of Pop Smart enough to know the piano-bass-drums shtick couldn't last forever, stupid enough to realize it was too dang good to leave behind altogether.
- Radiohead Every album launches a thousand "WTF?!?!?!?!" 's across the sea, before answering that very question with a resounding "Indeed".
- The Eels Sure, they lease their musical "house" from Beck, but I bet he'd make one heck of a landlord, and they always pay the rent on time.
- Guster Call it cheesy "artsy folk-rock" if you will, I shall call it the best music for the car, ever.
- Built To Spill I hesitated to include them as it makes me look "nu-trendy", as dropping the name seems to be the remedy for credibility-lacking posers like myself to gain some ground, but screw you all, I like them. A lot. We'll probably even get married.
- The Dandy Warhols Okay, in this case, it's just one album, namely "13 Tales From Urban Bohemia." I can give or take "Dandies Rule, OK?" and "Dandy Warhols Come Down", but that 1 album is the best album I've ever heard, besides like, The White Album..and it is powerful enough to bring the rest along with it.
Many, many bands deserve honorable mention here, the likes of Spoon, Modest Mouse, Pedro The Lion, Death Cab For Cutie, Beck and the Christian favorites Switchfoot and Jars of Clay..but if I really begin listing artists, it'll just break down into a massively long list of 'bands I like', so we're gonna leave it at these ten.
So, one must ask oneself, what is the common thread? What is the tie that binds these ten artists together, for all eternity? What is it about said artists that mekes me feel especially evil if I burn, rather than buy, their new cd, and thus sends me rushing to the local Music Warehouse on release day?
I think at least 3 things run rather clearly throughout:
- The Music - Every single one of these artist, through whatever the style they use, has the same sort of "I'm totally cool and happy about being morbidly depressed" tone. I don't know what it is, but something about someone expressing their near-tears state to an infectious down beat really "gets me going."
In addition, for probably 86% of the cumulative song productions of these 10 bands, no instrument is left with a boring part. I enjoy that. Rarely is anyone just playing simple chord progressions, rarely is the vocal just singing the bass line. Everyone has their own distinct melody which is radically independent and still entirely conducive to the whole. The vocals aren't just "adding words on top of the song", but actually use the voice as an instrument within the arrangement. The ability to pick out a certain part and listen and hear a totally different song is a greatly added benefit.
- The Lyrics - Not a single band on this list uses the old standbys. Some songs rhyme, some don't, and no one feels any need to be consistent. One line might rhyme with the next, or may even use that clever style where the first of 4 lines rhymes with the last, and the middle to rhyme, but then the next paragraph may not be anything near a rhyme. More importantly, simple standards such as rhyming "love" with "Above" and "Me" with "free" or "You" with "Jew" are seldom used, and if they are, are used in a satirical way. It's refreshing to hear people actually saying something different than what everyone who's written a song has said before, even if what they say is utter nonsense.
- The Consistency - 90% of those bands have released strong album after strong album. They aren't consistently better, because the debuts from each band are as good as their latest album, but each one builds on the last, to the point where listening to Weezer's Green Album without first hearing Pinkerton or later hearing Maladroit seems almost like just reading "The Two Towers", and never picking up the other two sections.
The Dandy Warhols are the obvious (to me) exception to this case, as their first stuff was decent, not great, and the clips of their new stuff I've heard was disappointing. But come on..I'm serious, no album is as consistently amazing no matter time, place, location or mood as 13 Tales. That's all.
That's all for today, I'll probably talk more on this topic later, but being as it's 5:30 and I just woke up about 10 minutes ago, I'm going to go back to bed now.
Thanks,
-Robb
