Back to this, with part 3.
11. Okkervil River
I guess liking this band would make me kind of a hipster-type (although I assume you kind of guessed that about me already. Maybe it was offset by all the ska), but fuck, I don't even care. As a lot of critics have already made abundantly clear, 2005's Black Sheep Boy was a masterpiece level achievement, a semi-cohesive concept album bolstered by what were very possibly the best lyrics of the last couple years and instrumentation that sounded something like a more inventive Wilco covering Neutral Milk Hotel. This all was carried even further by Will Sheff's voice, which could sound even a bit grating, but any of that was made up for by the tremendous sincerity apparent in it. "For Real" was a frightening, claustrophobic, depressing look into the slightly deranged mind of the titular character, and "So Come Back, I Am Waiting" contained a peak worthy of Springsteen. Their 2007 album The Stage Names is almost as impressive an effort, with the second great indie rock song about he death of John Berryman, as well as a bunch of other sincere, sometimes depressing, almost always hopeful neo-folk tunes.
12. Old 97's
This is one of two bands (the other being the Drive By Truckers) that typified all that was dirty and right about the alt-country scene. Always a bit more romantic in their depravity than The Truckers, a little more refined. This is likely because their frontman, Rhett Miller, is one of the few musicians that fits the term "ladykiller." Don't assume that the two bands are all that similar, really. They both have lots of songs about drinking and one night stands, about lonely travel and lonelier love, but The Old 97's care much less about the mythology behind the music they make, focusing instead on the more immediate implications. Their earliest incarnation was in a more cow-punk style sound, but as they progressed, they grew closer to being a somewhat more straightforward country-rock band, although the punk element never truly left the music. Capable of putting on some of the most wild, whiskey-fueled rave-ups in music today, they can also exhibit a softer side, writing some of the better ballads that make their way around these days. Plus, as most of these bands do, they put on an explosive live show.
13. The Avett Brothers
Well, I figure I already put one punk-influenced Americana act up here, I might as well go with another. The Avett Brothers are, as the name implies, a pair of brothers who play guitar and banjo, backed up by a third member on bass. They don't really effectively occupy any single musical idiom. Too fast, loud, and aggressive to really be bluegrass, too acoustic and traditionally-influenced to be punk, plus they have a dozen or so more unusual musical tendencies. In this case though, it all comes together to make for a band heavy on good lyrics, great ballads, and plenty of howled punkgrass joints. Plus, they recorded a song called "Pretty Girl From Chile" that goes from pretty standardd Avett's punkgrass to a very Spanish/South American influenced segments, all coming to an end with crashing Crazy Horse-esque guitar squalls. If that doesn't set a band apart from most others, I don't know what does.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
40 Best American Bands, Part Two
6. Tom Waits
The man released a three-disc b-sides and rarities collection, and it managed to be one of the best albums of 2006. Not only that, another such collection of equal magnitude seems like it would be totally appropriate. Few performers are as chameleonic as Tom Waits, and none who are are as consistently good. He went from piano-balladeer to a marimba-happy Kurt Weill on acid to a purveyor hyper-eclectic pseudo industrial, and hasn't remained entrenched in any of those identities (or any of a good dozen more) for more than a few fleeting songs. He's naturally had some missteps, but that's par for the course for anyone as prolific and longlasting as him. Anyone who can write a song like "Downtown Train" that remains enjoyable even after hearing Rod Stewart butcher the living hell out of it belongs on this list.
7. Prince
Why? 'Cause he's fucking Prince, that's why.
8.Drive-By Truckers
These guys went from being one of the better, rougher, drunker bands of the early nineties alt-country to now maintaining a status as one of the better, rougher, drunker rock and roll bands of the 2000's. They serve as, well, replacements for The Replacements, except a bit more southern, although just as fucked up. The group just went on an all-acoustic tour after the departure of the talented songwriter Jason Isbell. There's been some outcry now that the band's most widely exalted songwriter has gone, but now the weight of all the songwriting falls back on the shoulders of original members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. This does not bother me one bit. Cooley is one of the best straight rock and roll songwriters in the game, and Hood's no slouch himself. Isbell's contributions to is first album with the group, Decoration Day were decent, but far overshadowed by Cooley, brilliant on The Dirty South, where he contributed three of the band's best songs to date, and entirely overproduced and ill-fitting on their most recent A Blessing and A Curse. Hopefully their next album sees a return to their dark renderings of southern gothic songwriting while retaining some of the hard-rockin kick of Blessing.
9. The National
I'm predicting right now that this band will become pretty huge in certain circles by the time they release their next album. Their last two have been spellbinding, particularly 2007's Boxer, and their sound is not unlike that of Leonard Cohen, if Leonard Cohen could sing. There are hints of country, piano balladry, and late night rock and roll. Theirs is a morose blend, but with a certain touch of suicidal romanticism that leaves even the most hardened cynics at least a bit affected. Their obtuse lyrics results in them sometimes coming off as a bit pretentious, and it's not helped by the fact that it takes a few listens for their songs to truly make sense and become as effective as they need to be, but trust me when I say that The National are the real deal.
10. Wu-Tang Clan
I was tempted to put a Prince-esque entry here, but I figure one cop-out, true as it may be, was the maximum allowable per segment of this list. So I'll explain, at least a little bit. Wu-Tang revolutionized New York hip-hop, taking the lyrical advances of such master MC's as Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, and KRS-One, and spiking them with kung-fu movie aggression and the initially minimalist, vicious production of RZA. But it's more than just the full group releases that make them great. The amount of solo work that falls under the Wu-Tang banner is staggering, especially when they're blessed with having such a strong MC as Ghostface Killah making his bid for lyrical supremacy, creating not one but two very strong releases in a single year. The rest of the group are powerful in their own right, and the general public will see how they've coped with the loss of founding member ODB on the upcoming 8 Diagrams. Until then, they remain an almost untouchable self-contained hip-hop empire.
The man released a three-disc b-sides and rarities collection, and it managed to be one of the best albums of 2006. Not only that, another such collection of equal magnitude seems like it would be totally appropriate. Few performers are as chameleonic as Tom Waits, and none who are are as consistently good. He went from piano-balladeer to a marimba-happy Kurt Weill on acid to a purveyor hyper-eclectic pseudo industrial, and hasn't remained entrenched in any of those identities (or any of a good dozen more) for more than a few fleeting songs. He's naturally had some missteps, but that's par for the course for anyone as prolific and longlasting as him. Anyone who can write a song like "Downtown Train" that remains enjoyable even after hearing Rod Stewart butcher the living hell out of it belongs on this list.
7. Prince
Why? 'Cause he's fucking Prince, that's why.
8.Drive-By Truckers
These guys went from being one of the better, rougher, drunker bands of the early nineties alt-country to now maintaining a status as one of the better, rougher, drunker rock and roll bands of the 2000's. They serve as, well, replacements for The Replacements, except a bit more southern, although just as fucked up. The group just went on an all-acoustic tour after the departure of the talented songwriter Jason Isbell. There's been some outcry now that the band's most widely exalted songwriter has gone, but now the weight of all the songwriting falls back on the shoulders of original members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. This does not bother me one bit. Cooley is one of the best straight rock and roll songwriters in the game, and Hood's no slouch himself. Isbell's contributions to is first album with the group, Decoration Day were decent, but far overshadowed by Cooley, brilliant on The Dirty South, where he contributed three of the band's best songs to date, and entirely overproduced and ill-fitting on their most recent A Blessing and A Curse. Hopefully their next album sees a return to their dark renderings of southern gothic songwriting while retaining some of the hard-rockin kick of Blessing.
9. The National
I'm predicting right now that this band will become pretty huge in certain circles by the time they release their next album. Their last two have been spellbinding, particularly 2007's Boxer, and their sound is not unlike that of Leonard Cohen, if Leonard Cohen could sing. There are hints of country, piano balladry, and late night rock and roll. Theirs is a morose blend, but with a certain touch of suicidal romanticism that leaves even the most hardened cynics at least a bit affected. Their obtuse lyrics results in them sometimes coming off as a bit pretentious, and it's not helped by the fact that it takes a few listens for their songs to truly make sense and become as effective as they need to be, but trust me when I say that The National are the real deal.
10. Wu-Tang Clan
I was tempted to put a Prince-esque entry here, but I figure one cop-out, true as it may be, was the maximum allowable per segment of this list. So I'll explain, at least a little bit. Wu-Tang revolutionized New York hip-hop, taking the lyrical advances of such master MC's as Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, and KRS-One, and spiking them with kung-fu movie aggression and the initially minimalist, vicious production of RZA. But it's more than just the full group releases that make them great. The amount of solo work that falls under the Wu-Tang banner is staggering, especially when they're blessed with having such a strong MC as Ghostface Killah making his bid for lyrical supremacy, creating not one but two very strong releases in a single year. The rest of the group are powerful in their own right, and the general public will see how they've coped with the loss of founding member ODB on the upcoming 8 Diagrams. Until then, they remain an almost untouchable self-contained hip-hop empire.
Friday, August 24, 2007
40 Best American Bands, Part One
This post is the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts detailing artists that, in my humble opinion, constitute the forty best bands in America. This list is inspired by similar ones on The Aquarium Drunkard and Information Leafblower blogs, so, without further ado, here goes.
Okay, that was kind of a lie. One last thing. This is in no particular order.
1. Wilco
There's not really any way to deny this band's rightful presence on the list, so I'm just going to put them right out there. Why are they on the list? Well, you know...they're Wilco. They've got a frontman who is probably the best songwriter since Bob Dylan, and deserves a place in the upper echelons of the craft. Plus, they manage to integrate alt-country with an obsession with experimentation, an obsession that has brought a couple of brilliant avant-garde musicians, drummer Glenn Kotche and guitarist Nils Lofgren. It's a damn good combination, that's paid off in some spectacular music.
2. Big D and Kid's Table
Bet y'all motherfuckers didn't see that one coming. Yeah, that's right, I'm putting a latecomer third wave ska band on the list. Why? Because they're good enough. The last two albums produced by the group, Strictly Rude and How It Goes have been knockouts, monumental efforts bolstered by one of modern ska's strongest horn sections and Dave McWane's lust-for-life songwriting. Strictly Rude was the more polished of the two, and demonstrated a refined approach to the slightly more traditional ska aspects of the band's sound, from the rave-up of "Noise Complaint" to the sunny, bouncy "Shining On" to the trad-ska examination of a bad-idea relationship of "The One," all capped off by a long dub excursion in "She Knows Her Way." How It Goes was a more disjointed effort, an everything and the kitchen sink style flawed ska opus. There are plenty of missteps, but for every one of those, there's a tremendous success, in everything from the supercharged anthem of bitterness of "New Nail Bed" to a paean to living the good life in "If We Want To." They've even got an ode to ultimate frisbee ("175") and horn-driven reggae instrumental (the title track). Big D's been evolving at a constant rate, and their next album, especially if it's the oft-discussed but heretofore unrealized Strictly Dub, could bring the ska world to its knees. Not bad for a crew of drunken, hedonistic Boston miscreants.
3. The Hold Steady
These guys keep Big D from being named the best party band in the country (it's a damn close race). I'm not going to discuss The Hold Steady at length, because I did that plenty in my last post. All I'm going to say is that they're a bunch of funny lookin' dudes making the music they want to make and enjoying the hell out of it, and that's a beautiful thing. Long live The Hold Steady.
4. The Flaming Lips
So their last album wasn't the greatest thing ever. It was far from the worst, and even probably ranked among the top fifty of the year. The Lips set a standard for themselves with Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin that they weren't quite able to live up to. However, the band takes their songs to an entirely different place live, and their live show is what got them a place on this list. They throw down on a level rarely touched. Wayne Coyne just gets it, it being that innumerable number of things that define a great rock band. It is not just getting what goes into making a live show something incredible, something life-changing, something downright religious. No, Wayne Coyne certainly gets that, but, from everything he says, he seems to get what life should be about, in the most ideal of worlds. He's ddevoted himself to making some beauty in a world that, not to play into every cliche ever written, is too often filled with ugliness. Going to see The Flaming Lips is escaping from that ugliness for a couple of hours, embracing life and everything in it. He might not be the best singer, but hey, the message is more important than the voice.
5. Clutch
Clutch are the only real funk-metal band that has ever existed. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but, hate to tell you, you're wrong. Well, okay, there's maybe one exception, but that's 1970's Funkadelic. Red Hot Chili Peppers have never been funk metal. They've been funk, and, very occasionally, they've been metal, but never the two at once. Primus has never been funk metal. I guess maybe Faith No More has been, but they've been pretty much every genre andd every combination thereof for a brief period. But Clutch beats them all. Even on their most crushingly heavy songs, there's a palpable groove, a bit of bounce, a bit of snap. Plus, how many metal bands can write concept albums around the concept of embracing pacifism and sound totally fucking badass while doing it. I couldn't see any other band pulling it off with as much success as Clutch on the monumental Blast Tyrant. Not only that, they manage to pull off southern metal quite well, especially on their last three LP's, and especially on "Cypress Grove," a demented, heavy, twangy tale of murderous gangs of backwoods women. Not many bands can straight up rock as hard as Clutch. Millions of gearheards can't be wrong.
That concludes part one. The rest of the list will be forthcoming.
Okay, that was kind of a lie. One last thing. This is in no particular order.
1. Wilco
There's not really any way to deny this band's rightful presence on the list, so I'm just going to put them right out there. Why are they on the list? Well, you know...they're Wilco. They've got a frontman who is probably the best songwriter since Bob Dylan, and deserves a place in the upper echelons of the craft. Plus, they manage to integrate alt-country with an obsession with experimentation, an obsession that has brought a couple of brilliant avant-garde musicians, drummer Glenn Kotche and guitarist Nils Lofgren. It's a damn good combination, that's paid off in some spectacular music.
2. Big D and Kid's Table
Bet y'all motherfuckers didn't see that one coming. Yeah, that's right, I'm putting a latecomer third wave ska band on the list. Why? Because they're good enough. The last two albums produced by the group, Strictly Rude and How It Goes have been knockouts, monumental efforts bolstered by one of modern ska's strongest horn sections and Dave McWane's lust-for-life songwriting. Strictly Rude was the more polished of the two, and demonstrated a refined approach to the slightly more traditional ska aspects of the band's sound, from the rave-up of "Noise Complaint" to the sunny, bouncy "Shining On" to the trad-ska examination of a bad-idea relationship of "The One," all capped off by a long dub excursion in "She Knows Her Way." How It Goes was a more disjointed effort, an everything and the kitchen sink style flawed ska opus. There are plenty of missteps, but for every one of those, there's a tremendous success, in everything from the supercharged anthem of bitterness of "New Nail Bed" to a paean to living the good life in "If We Want To." They've even got an ode to ultimate frisbee ("175") and horn-driven reggae instrumental (the title track). Big D's been evolving at a constant rate, and their next album, especially if it's the oft-discussed but heretofore unrealized Strictly Dub, could bring the ska world to its knees. Not bad for a crew of drunken, hedonistic Boston miscreants.
3. The Hold Steady
These guys keep Big D from being named the best party band in the country (it's a damn close race). I'm not going to discuss The Hold Steady at length, because I did that plenty in my last post. All I'm going to say is that they're a bunch of funny lookin' dudes making the music they want to make and enjoying the hell out of it, and that's a beautiful thing. Long live The Hold Steady.
4. The Flaming Lips
So their last album wasn't the greatest thing ever. It was far from the worst, and even probably ranked among the top fifty of the year. The Lips set a standard for themselves with Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin that they weren't quite able to live up to. However, the band takes their songs to an entirely different place live, and their live show is what got them a place on this list. They throw down on a level rarely touched. Wayne Coyne just gets it, it being that innumerable number of things that define a great rock band. It is not just getting what goes into making a live show something incredible, something life-changing, something downright religious. No, Wayne Coyne certainly gets that, but, from everything he says, he seems to get what life should be about, in the most ideal of worlds. He's ddevoted himself to making some beauty in a world that, not to play into every cliche ever written, is too often filled with ugliness. Going to see The Flaming Lips is escaping from that ugliness for a couple of hours, embracing life and everything in it. He might not be the best singer, but hey, the message is more important than the voice.
5. Clutch
Clutch are the only real funk-metal band that has ever existed. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but, hate to tell you, you're wrong. Well, okay, there's maybe one exception, but that's 1970's Funkadelic. Red Hot Chili Peppers have never been funk metal. They've been funk, and, very occasionally, they've been metal, but never the two at once. Primus has never been funk metal. I guess maybe Faith No More has been, but they've been pretty much every genre andd every combination thereof for a brief period. But Clutch beats them all. Even on their most crushingly heavy songs, there's a palpable groove, a bit of bounce, a bit of snap. Plus, how many metal bands can write concept albums around the concept of embracing pacifism and sound totally fucking badass while doing it. I couldn't see any other band pulling it off with as much success as Clutch on the monumental Blast Tyrant. Not only that, they manage to pull off southern metal quite well, especially on their last three LP's, and especially on "Cypress Grove," a demented, heavy, twangy tale of murderous gangs of backwoods women. Not many bands can straight up rock as hard as Clutch. Millions of gearheards can't be wrong.
That concludes part one. The rest of the list will be forthcoming.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Boys and Girls In America
As much as people may bemoan the loss of creative integrity in music these days, we live in privileged times. Rarely before now has there been an era where so many brilliant arists roamed the country. It's a lofty group really, with members like Wilco, Sufjan Stevens, Ryan Adams, My Morning Jacket, Okkervil River, TV On the Radio, Ghostface Killah, The Decemberists, Cat Power, The National, and dozens more. But the band among these that seems most destined for transcendence, for a legacy, aside from maybe Wilco, is The Hold Steady. They're only three albums old, but each album has further defined their sound, and each one is better than the last, that last album being the astonishingly brilliant Boys and Girls in America. It's been reviewed numerous times, and, while this one is a tad late, it's far from extraneous. Not enough can be said about how perfect this album is.
Album Review: Boys and Girls in America
The Hold Steady have done it. They've written the perfect rock and roll album. They flirte with perfection on their last two, the very bar-rockin' Almost Killed Me and the dense, conceptual work Separation Sunday. While each of these albums is a work in their own right, they can't compete with Boys and Girls in America. Taking it's name from a passage in On the Road, the album is a meditation on youth, drugs, music, and inspiration. While Boys and Girls may not contain The Hold Steady's single best moment (that honor goes to "Killer Parties," from Almost Killed Me), it holds great moments, and a lot of them.
The album opens with "Stuck Between Stations," which contains the eponymous Kerouac quotation and tells the story of Minneapolis poet John Berryman's suicide. The song is at once bombastic and lonely, hyper-literate and visceral. It strikes to the very core, perfectly simulates the feeling of walking alone through a big city, drunk and ragged. Lead singer Craig Finn's wordplay is nothing short of phenomenal, and his voice fits exactly with the loud, just straight up rockin' music behind it. Upon first hearing this song, one worries that they placed their best track too early in the album.
WRONG, motherfucker! It's followed with what could well be the greatest pop-rock song of this decade, "Chips Ahoy," the story of a prescient girl who uses her gift to win at the track. It's catchy as all hell, and almost too perfect to be put into words. Every little touch in this song is just plain right, from the organ fills to the "woah-oh-oh's" behind the telling chorus of "How am I supposed to know if you're high if you won't let me touch you." This song is a microcosm of everything The Hold Steady aspires to be, examining love, drugs, and sounding beautiful and knowing all at once.
"Chips Ahoy" is followed by "Hot Soft Light," a song about, as Craig Finn has put it, getting busted. Tad Kublers muscular guitar riff propels the song as Craig Finn's protestations grow more desperate and indignant, while keyboardist Franz Nicolay (who, coincidentally, may be the coolest person ever) pounds away.
Up next is one of the albums two missteps, "Same Kooks." To put it bluntly, I don't like this song much. It seems to take the "Hot Soft Light" formula and attempts to speed it up by about three times. It would be a decent song for most other bands, but on an album this great, it stands out as being exceptionally weak.
However, any doubt cast on the album by "Same Kooks" is immediately dispelled by the next song, "First Night." Fuckin' A, they knocked this one out of the park. For one, it's placement is pretty much perfect. After four solid rock songs, a ballad seems right at home. But this is no simple ballad. This piano driven work revisits Holly, Charlemagne, and Gideon, characters from the previous album, Separation Sunday. It's a beautiful song, rivaling even "Thunder Road" as a rock ballad. The climax takes it far and away from all other songs in its vein. The electric guitar coming in, the violin, the piano, Craig Finn's voice...it's beyond words.
"Party Pit" is up next, and, well, it's not as good as the track preceding it. However, I'm not sure any song on this album could measure up. There's less to say about "Party Pit" than a lot of the other songs on the album. It's the kind of song The Hold Steady excell at, and perfected on Separation Sunday, a hooky rock song with a great chorus about living in Minneapolis. It's solid, and fun to listen to, but not transcendent.
The next song, "You Can Make Him Like You" follows in the same vein, although te subject seems slightly more intriguing, about girls who define their very existences by their boyfriends. It's yet another strong song, hyper-catchy and suited to being played as loud as the speakers'll go.
"Massive Nights" is next, and could almost function as a sequel to "Chips Ahoy," with it's awesome chorus and the "woah-oh-oh" chanting behind it. It's The Hold Steady's prom song, the type that would be in a high-school movie. Too bad no high-school movie is good or self-aware enough to have this song. Someday, hopefully. Hell, a whole movie could be based around the prospect of having The Hold Steady provide the soundtrack. "Massive Nights" is perhaps their quintessential summer song, suited perfectly for slightly drunk, slightly stoned, and exceedingly happy.
The album takes a considerably more sober turn with Citrus, a song based almost entirely on the acoustic guitar and accordion. It's an ode to alcohol and awkward young love viewed through jaded eyes. It's poignant, sad, insightful, a tiny bit dark, and mostly hopeful. It's not about the destructive power of drink. Quite the opposite in fact. It expounds the power of booze to bring people together in a sad, harsh world.
However, the album does have one more misstep in it, the second to last song, "Chillout Tent." It's a narrative about a boy and a girl meeting after ODing at a music festival, hooking up, and never seeing again. Sounds kind of promising, but it comes off as banal and uninteresting, damaged further by the guest vocalists. The Hold Steady doesn't work without Craig Finn's rough voice in front of it. There are some good lines to be found, lines like "They started kissing when the nurses took off their IV's, it was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy," but, of course, these redeeming lines are all spoken by Finn. It's not quite a throwaway, but it lacks the spark that runs through the album.
Everything comes to a close with "Southtown Girls," an paean to settling for less. It begins with the whole band singing the chorus a capella, followed, after a pregnant pause, by an organ-kissed blast of electric guitar, closed with a Springsteen-esque harmonica solo from Nicolay. It's exactly the song needed to close the album. The Hold Steady specializes in excellent closers, with "Killer Parties" on Almost Killed Me, and "How a Resurrection Really Feels" on Separation Sunday. "Southtown Girls" continues the pattern in grand, tired, cathartic closing tracks, and finishes the album in grand fashion.
The Hold Steady are what rock and roll is supposed to be about, five guys who look like high-school teachers having what is very obviously the time of their life doing this. There's no pretension in their music, no backstories to be aware of. It's music for everyone, from nineteen year old hipsters to dockworkers. The Hold Steady understands that music is supposed to be something fun, and that's a fucking beautiful thing.
Album Review: Boys and Girls in America
The Hold Steady have done it. They've written the perfect rock and roll album. They flirte with perfection on their last two, the very bar-rockin' Almost Killed Me and the dense, conceptual work Separation Sunday. While each of these albums is a work in their own right, they can't compete with Boys and Girls in America. Taking it's name from a passage in On the Road, the album is a meditation on youth, drugs, music, and inspiration. While Boys and Girls may not contain The Hold Steady's single best moment (that honor goes to "Killer Parties," from Almost Killed Me), it holds great moments, and a lot of them.
The album opens with "Stuck Between Stations," which contains the eponymous Kerouac quotation and tells the story of Minneapolis poet John Berryman's suicide. The song is at once bombastic and lonely, hyper-literate and visceral. It strikes to the very core, perfectly simulates the feeling of walking alone through a big city, drunk and ragged. Lead singer Craig Finn's wordplay is nothing short of phenomenal, and his voice fits exactly with the loud, just straight up rockin' music behind it. Upon first hearing this song, one worries that they placed their best track too early in the album.
WRONG, motherfucker! It's followed with what could well be the greatest pop-rock song of this decade, "Chips Ahoy," the story of a prescient girl who uses her gift to win at the track. It's catchy as all hell, and almost too perfect to be put into words. Every little touch in this song is just plain right, from the organ fills to the "woah-oh-oh's" behind the telling chorus of "How am I supposed to know if you're high if you won't let me touch you." This song is a microcosm of everything The Hold Steady aspires to be, examining love, drugs, and sounding beautiful and knowing all at once.
"Chips Ahoy" is followed by "Hot Soft Light," a song about, as Craig Finn has put it, getting busted. Tad Kublers muscular guitar riff propels the song as Craig Finn's protestations grow more desperate and indignant, while keyboardist Franz Nicolay (who, coincidentally, may be the coolest person ever) pounds away.
Up next is one of the albums two missteps, "Same Kooks." To put it bluntly, I don't like this song much. It seems to take the "Hot Soft Light" formula and attempts to speed it up by about three times. It would be a decent song for most other bands, but on an album this great, it stands out as being exceptionally weak.
However, any doubt cast on the album by "Same Kooks" is immediately dispelled by the next song, "First Night." Fuckin' A, they knocked this one out of the park. For one, it's placement is pretty much perfect. After four solid rock songs, a ballad seems right at home. But this is no simple ballad. This piano driven work revisits Holly, Charlemagne, and Gideon, characters from the previous album, Separation Sunday. It's a beautiful song, rivaling even "Thunder Road" as a rock ballad. The climax takes it far and away from all other songs in its vein. The electric guitar coming in, the violin, the piano, Craig Finn's voice...it's beyond words.
"Party Pit" is up next, and, well, it's not as good as the track preceding it. However, I'm not sure any song on this album could measure up. There's less to say about "Party Pit" than a lot of the other songs on the album. It's the kind of song The Hold Steady excell at, and perfected on Separation Sunday, a hooky rock song with a great chorus about living in Minneapolis. It's solid, and fun to listen to, but not transcendent.
The next song, "You Can Make Him Like You" follows in the same vein, although te subject seems slightly more intriguing, about girls who define their very existences by their boyfriends. It's yet another strong song, hyper-catchy and suited to being played as loud as the speakers'll go.
"Massive Nights" is next, and could almost function as a sequel to "Chips Ahoy," with it's awesome chorus and the "woah-oh-oh" chanting behind it. It's The Hold Steady's prom song, the type that would be in a high-school movie. Too bad no high-school movie is good or self-aware enough to have this song. Someday, hopefully. Hell, a whole movie could be based around the prospect of having The Hold Steady provide the soundtrack. "Massive Nights" is perhaps their quintessential summer song, suited perfectly for slightly drunk, slightly stoned, and exceedingly happy.
The album takes a considerably more sober turn with Citrus, a song based almost entirely on the acoustic guitar and accordion. It's an ode to alcohol and awkward young love viewed through jaded eyes. It's poignant, sad, insightful, a tiny bit dark, and mostly hopeful. It's not about the destructive power of drink. Quite the opposite in fact. It expounds the power of booze to bring people together in a sad, harsh world.
However, the album does have one more misstep in it, the second to last song, "Chillout Tent." It's a narrative about a boy and a girl meeting after ODing at a music festival, hooking up, and never seeing again. Sounds kind of promising, but it comes off as banal and uninteresting, damaged further by the guest vocalists. The Hold Steady doesn't work without Craig Finn's rough voice in front of it. There are some good lines to be found, lines like "They started kissing when the nurses took off their IV's, it was kinda sexy, but it was kinda creepy," but, of course, these redeeming lines are all spoken by Finn. It's not quite a throwaway, but it lacks the spark that runs through the album.
Everything comes to a close with "Southtown Girls," an paean to settling for less. It begins with the whole band singing the chorus a capella, followed, after a pregnant pause, by an organ-kissed blast of electric guitar, closed with a Springsteen-esque harmonica solo from Nicolay. It's exactly the song needed to close the album. The Hold Steady specializes in excellent closers, with "Killer Parties" on Almost Killed Me, and "How a Resurrection Really Feels" on Separation Sunday. "Southtown Girls" continues the pattern in grand, tired, cathartic closing tracks, and finishes the album in grand fashion.
The Hold Steady are what rock and roll is supposed to be about, five guys who look like high-school teachers having what is very obviously the time of their life doing this. There's no pretension in their music, no backstories to be aware of. It's music for everyone, from nineteen year old hipsters to dockworkers. The Hold Steady understands that music is supposed to be something fun, and that's a fucking beautiful thing.
Monday, August 13, 2007
First Post
I'm Ben, and what you're reading is my blog, Messiah Ward. The intention of said blog's creation is so I can have a place to post my opinions about music and culture in general, but could rapidly devolve into senseless ramblings. We'll see, I guess.
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