The State Of The Pretzel Logic: January

Pretzel Logic has now been online for one month! Hooray! I’m incredibly happy with the way the blog is evolving, although there are a few things I’m trying to change (namely, the disturbing lack of coverage for hip-hop, metal and other genres). I’m also introducing a certain schedule that I’m going to do my damndest to follow:

-the third of every month will be a Who’s Simon Defending Now? article. Yup, Tuesday, there’ll be another one.
-every month will feature a week-long feature, similar to the Australian Music week I just finished. These will cover a variety of topics that I feel like writing about that month.
-the last day of every month will feature a general roundup, similar to what I’m doing now.

One thing I want to do with these roundups is some retroactive grading of albums. My opinions of albums change over time and I want my blog to reflect that. On the last day of every month, I’ll update any reviews I think need improving and then justify those changes in my roundup. Here are January’s edits:

-Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion now has 5 pretzels.
-Antony & The Johnson’s The Crying Light now has 4.5 pretzels.

Both of these were changed to help establish my pretzel grading system. I don’t want a 5 pretzel review to be some mythic thing, virtually unattainable by any record. By giving Animal Collective’s album 5 pretzels, I’m not saying that it’s the best record ever made or perfect or any nonsense like that. It’s just a reflection of how much I enjoy the record.

As always, if you’ve got any comments, suggestions, please comment or email me. I want to thank everyone who’s been reading this blog!

Australian Music, Pt. 5: A Devil Waiting Outside Your Door

Artist: Dirty Three

Album: Horse Stories

Year: 1996

Instrumental rock can be a bit of a tough sell. Rare is the band than can make instrumental songs that don’t sound like they’re just waiting for a vocalist to come along and sing over them. Rock music has always been defined by a sense of “something to say” and to take the words away seems contrary to the whole idea at times. Melbourne’s Dirty Three, however, have managed to make a career out of just that for the past fifteen years. The band is a sleek, efficient trio, featuring Mick Turner on electric guitar, Jim White on drums and the magical Warren Ellis on violin. Although no single instrument feels more “important” than any other, Ellis’s violin is by far the most prominent. He eschews the usual stately beauty associated with violins, instead creating a scratchy, occasionally violent sound that immediately grabs you attention. Ellis attaches guitar pickups to his violins, creating a sort of ad-hoc electric violin, while still retaining a lot of the traditional sounds of acoustic violins. 1996’s Horse Stories is possibly their strongest album, as it catches the band in the middle of a crossroads. Their work previous to this was very energetic and aggressive, while the albums that came after would be considerably calmer (although no less beautiful or engaging). Horse Stories strikes the perfect balance between the two. Songs like the waltzing “I Remember A Time When Once You Used To Love Me” and particularly the sawing, stomping “Red” fill the need for driving energy. At the same time, the weeping violin on “Warren’s Lament” or the breathless sighs on “Hope” contribute to some of the most beautiful dirges on record. Opening track “1000 Miles” sits happily in the middle of these two extremes, as a midtempo introduction to everything that comes after it. The Dirty Three really do make the impossible possible with their unique brand of instrumental rock and Horse Stories is a fine example.

Artist: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Album: Let Love In

Year: 1994

The Bad Seeds, in my mind, are the culmination of Australian rock music. Like an Australian rock All-Star team, the Bad Seeds are made up of many musicians who played on the records I discussed this week: Nick Cave and (until this month) Mick Harvey from the Birthday Party, Martyn P. Casey from the Triffids and Warren Ellis from the Dirty Three are all constant members. Mr. Foetus himself, J. G. Thirlwell, was involved in their earliest albums. Fellow Aussies Hugo Race and Conway Savage have contributed through the years. All these influences and ideas are boiled down to create the Bad Seeds, a band simply unlike any other. I could talk at length about any of their fourteen albums, but I’ve picked 1994’s Let Love In because I find it’s the easiest to enjoy and most representative of the band as a whole. Cave’s love of drama and big, expressive gestures has evolved from his days in the Birthday Party, veering away from shattered aggression towards a more mature, but still raucous sound. Over the 80s, he established himself as a sort of punk Leonard Cohen, writing troubled, lyrical ballads that sound as dark as humanly possible. With all this, however, came a nasty drug habit and a variety of broken personal relationships. Let Love In is the first Bad Seeds record where Cave sounds completely free from all that baggage. A song like “Loverman” would have wallowed on previous records; here, it explodes. The smoky “Red Right Hand” makes quoting John Milton’s Paradise Lost sound completely natural for a rock band. Cave’s a well-read guy and he hides a lot of literature and Biblical references in his songs. Coupled with a band behind him capable of raining fire and brimstone down on an audience, Cave and his Bad Seeds are truly a force to be reckoned with.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little sojourn through Australian music. This is a subject I care deeply about and not only because I’ve got heritage there. Australia is, in historical terms, an extremely young country, since it only became independent from Britain in 1901. The country hasn’t had much time to develop a uniquely Australian culture and it wasn’t until the 1970s that distinctly Australian bands started appearing. They say something remarkable about the importance of location to music. No American or English band could confront the political issues of Midnight Oil. There’s a huge difference between music written on the beaches of California and the beaches of Perth or Brisbane. Nick Cave wouldn’t be able to write his spiky, dusty music if he hadn’t grown up in a country that matched. Australia permeates all this music I’ve talked about. G’day, mate.

Australian Music, Pt. 4: Something Shimmering And White

Artist: The Church

Album: Starfish

Year: 1988

While the Birthday Party and Foetus were aggressive and volatile, there were just as many Australian bands interested in playing quieter, more subdued music. Chief among these was Canberra’s the Church. Guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Wilson-Piper played intricate, intertwining lines, snaking around each other dynamically. This shimmering sound functioned as the bedrock for singer/bassist Steve Kilbey’s dense, enigmatic words (“Draconian winter unforetold, one solar day suddenly you’re old” is a typical example). The Church spent most of the 80s genre-hopping between R.E.M.-ish college rock jangle and darker, more goth-inflected material. 1988’s Starfish, however, was their breakthrough, with the majestic “Under The Milky Way” making serious inroads on the American pop charts. Like many great records, Starfish succeeded because it was where all the band’s constituent parts were forged together into something remarkable. Gentle without being boring, sad without being morbid or maudlin, the songs on Starfish evoke mystery more than anything else. The skipping-stone riff of “Reptile” is instantly memorable, especially when coupled with Kilbey’s lyrics, which use the metaphor of the serpent in the Garden of Eden to describe a partner (probably). The jangly waltz “Antenna” is equally captivating, while the closing track “Hotel Womb” could very well be about cannibalism (“the cactus sure tastes strangely sweet”). The Church would never record an album this good again, although several of their 90s records (particularly 1992’s Priest = Aura) would come close to recapturing their 80s glory. They are considered somewhat of a one-hit wonder here in America, since they never managed to come close to the success of “Under The Milky Way”. However, a quick look through their catalogue reveals the truth: the Church were (and still are) a fascinating enigma of Australian music.

Artist: The Go-Betweens
Album: Before Hollywood

Year: 1983

Originally from the breezy coasts of Brisbane, the Go-Betweens quickly found a home on Scotland’s Postcard record label, home to important early 80s Scot-rock bands like Aztec Camera and Josef K. Although their stay was short, the hyper-caffinated vibe of the Postcard bands was all over Before Hollywood, their 1983 sophomore effort. However, instead of giving themselves over completely to the nervy rock around them, songwriting team Grant McLennan and Robert Forster managed to incorporate a laid-back feel into the equation, reminiscent of the sea breezes they knew back in Brisbane. (Bonus Question: first person to figure out why the word “reminiscent” is a pun in the context of Australian music gets a cookie.) The two split the singing duties right down the middle, McLennan’s voice being more suitable to the calmer songs and Foster’s yelp working wonders on the more desperate songs (just listen to the nervous freak-out of “By Chance”: ”my head fits, in my hands, I roll it around, nothing comes out”). The shining jewel of the record was “Cattle And Cane”, a beautiful, rolling song sung by McLennan about his younger days in Australia, growing up in “a house of tin and timber” and watching trains going by. After Hollywood, the Go-Betweens would expand, adding a full-time bassist and violinist Amanda Brown, who would become a love interest for McLennan. Their eventual breakup brought the world 1988’s 16 Lovers Lane, the finest breakup album of the 80s (and a stark contrast to Fleetwood Mac’s coked-out Rumors a decade earlier). McLennan’s death in 2006 ultimately would mean the end of the band, but their music, particularly “Cattle And Cane”, is still considered some of the finest Australian songwriting ever.

Australian Music, Pt. 3: Junkyards, Infernos And A Big Jesus Trash Can

Artist: The Birthday Party

Album: Junkyard

Year: 1982

In stark contrast to Midnight Oil and the Triffids, the Birthday Party weren’t interested in arena-ready guitars and songs about the glorious openness of Australia. Instead, they chose a path defined by the most brutal guitar squall you’ve ever heard and lyrics about Hamlet driving Cadillacs. Apparently, down south in Melbourne, things get a bit wonky. Formed in the mid-70s by a group of grammar school boys led by singer Nick Cave, the onset of punk served as a catalyst, motivating them to start a band and play this awesome youthful music they were hearing. Starting as the Boys Next Door, they trafficked in a sort of overly dramatic New Wave pop before guitarist Rowland S. Howard showed up and showed them a whole new way to do things. Howard’s style was a unique, violent flurry of shearing noise and notes, which resonated with Cave particularly, appealing to his more avant-guard artistic sensibilities. By 1980, they had changed their name to the Birthday Party and were making some of the most unchained, crazy music around. Junkyard, their second and final album, perfectly showcases the aggressive lurching and slobbering the band became famous for. Cave’s lyrics match the violent music, full of swinging hatchets, car smashes, “crusty cutlasses” and so on. The title track is particularly primal, driven by a solid baseline from cowboy/bassist Tracy Pew, allowing Howard to throw out metallic shards of noise while Cave howled and growled over it all. The Birthday Party wouldn’t make it past 1983, but their music was immediately embraced by the growing post-punk community, eventually becoming one of the major pillars of the goth-rock canon.

Artist: Foetus

Album: Nail

Year: 1985

There’s no good way to pin down the music of J. G. Thirlwell, another troubled Melbourne lad, who records, tastefully, under a variety of names, all including the word “foetus”. Foetus Under Glass, Foetus Over Frisco, Foetus All-Nude Revue, Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel…and my personal favorite, You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath. Clearly not one to avoid controversy, Thirlwell was quickly accepted by the experimental No Wave music scene in New York. He released a serious of albums throughout the mid-80s, culminating in 1985’s Nail, under the Scraping Foetus moniker. Loosely connected with the emerging industrial music scene, Nail’s songs defy just about any logic you try to apply to them. “The Throne Of Agony” starts as a chunk of ironic gothic nonsense (“a roll of the dice; the woim toins”…? Huh?) before everything starts breaking down. Chunks of the Mission Impossible theme zoom every which way, Thirlwell starts paraphrasing Shakespeare (“alas, poor Yorick…I knew me well”) and rhymes “agony” with “tracheotomy”. Two tracks, “Theme From Pigdom Come” and “Overture From Pigdom Come”, are full-on, symphonic compositions, recorded entirely on synthesizers. “Enter The Exterminator” is interrupted halfway through with two bars of Grieg’s “In The Hall Of The Mountain King”. Does any of this make sense to you? The insanity hits the highest of high notes on the appropriately named “Descent Into The Inferno”, a runaway train of a track that evolves from gravel-voiced ballad into a hyperactive industrial shitstorm, with do-wop choruses flying by as the tempo keeps getting faster and faster, in some wonderful/terrifying world where “halleluiah” rhymes with “stomach tumor”. As his name suggests, Foetus’s music isn’t for the faint of heart or mind. However, whether you like his music or not, Thirlwell has proven to be one of the most original and, oddly, hilarious musicians around.

Australian Music, Pt. 2: Power And Passion

Artist: Midnight Oil

Album: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Year: 1982

Imagine the aggressive politics of Rage Against The Machine. Then weld them onto the radio-ready rock of early U2. And then, just for kicks, have a screaming, bald giant of a man front this hypothetical band. This is Midnight Oil. Dedicated to their concept of music-as-political-activism, Midnight Oil spent three decades rockin’ in the name of environmentalism, anti-nuclear proliferation and indigenous rights for Australian Aboriginals. However, their message fell on mostly deaf ears until 1982, when the awkwardly named 10, 9, 8… (many prefer 10 To 1 as an abbreviated title) blasted to #3 on the charts, thanks mostly to “Power And The Passion”. The song was a unique distillation of a very Australian outlook on the global issues of the 1980s, making Midnight Oil one of the first bands to deal with uniquely Australian issues instead of rehashing American and British themes. The album also featured screeds aimed at American foreign policy (“US Forces”) and the testing of nuclear warheads on Australian soil (“Maralinga”), shoving strongly political and controversial subjects to the top of the pop charts. 10 To 1 was only the beginning for Midnight Oil, as they would continue to push their issues, scoring big in the US in 1987 with “Beds Are Burning”. Finally, in 2002, frontman Peter Garrett decided to put his money where his mouth was: he ran and was elected to the Australian House of Representatives.

Artist: The Triffids
Album: Born Sandy Devotional

Year: 1986

If Midnight Oil represented the political in Australian 80s rock, the Triffids represented the personal. Taking their name from a sci-fi novel about plants that eat people, the Triffids started out as a sort of Australian answer to Echo & The Bunnymen (as if such a thing was necessary). However, on 1986’s Born Sandy Devotional, frontman/songwriter David McComb brought ten incredible songs to the table, conjuring up both a general atmosphere of lonely romance and images of growing up on the beaches of Perth. “Estuary Bed”, with lyrics about “children walking back from the beach, sun on the sidewalk burning their feet”, resonated with the Australian way of life. Then again, Born Sandy was also surprisingly dark, featuring not just one, but two songs about suicides: the eerie “Tarrilup Bridge” and the hands-down gorgeous “The Seabirds”, in which we learn about a figure so tragic, not even the seagulls would touch his body laying on the beach. However, the song that gets the most attention is “Wide Open Road”, a gloriously epic (if slightly dated) anthem to Australia and heartbreak, showcasing the Triffids’ unique use of pedal-steel guitar. The story of the Triffids would ultimately be a tragic one, as McComb died in 1999 from complications surrounding a heart transplant. However, Born Sandy Devotional was the album that assured the Triffids would always have a place in Australian music history.

Australian Music, Pt. 1: Stranded On My Own

January 26th is Australia Day, commemorating the first colonization of Australia by the British in 1788. Since I’m half Australian, I felt this would be as good a time as any to write a bit about Australian music, which gets very little American press about beyond AC/DC, INXS and Kylie Minogue. Everyday this week, I’ll be updating the blog with two albums that I feel say something interesting about Australian music history. Enjoy reading!

Artist: Radio Birdman
Album: Radios Appear

Year: 1977

When you start this album, the primal, paint-peeling cover of the Stooges’ “TV Eye” that punches you right in the gut should give you a clue as to what kind of music you’ll be listening to for the next 36 minutes. Managing to somehow one-up the original in terms of sheer lunatic abandon, “TV Eye” also shows just who Radio Birdman’s musical heroes were: the skuzzy, high-energy Detroit rock of the Stooges and the MC5. Released in 1977, the same year the U.K. realized that the Sex Pistols were trying to tear music apart from the inside, Radios Appear is Ground Zero for Australian punk. Skipping the Ramones altogether, Radio Birdman looked back further to the music of Detroit-born guitarist Deniz Tek. Singer Rob Younger doesn’t try any nasal Johnny Rotten sneering, instead aiming straight between Iggy’s howling lunacy and the sort of military bark that would eventually be perfected by Henry Rollins in Black Flag. Add all these various pieces together and…somehow the songs are catchy? What? Crazy as it may seem, songs like “Anglo Girl Desire” and “Do The Pop” bounce right along, like the nastiest pop songs ever. And if that doesn’t work for you, there’s always “Descent Into The Maelstrom”, a song that’s one part Stooges, two parts surf guitar and fifteen parts awesome.

Artist: The Saints

Album: (I'm) Stranded

Year: 1977

Depending on your opinion, the Saints sound like either an unusually positive and life-affirming version of the Stooges or a Rolling Stones cover band playing really-really-fast. Hailing from Brisbane, (I’m) Stranded captured the life, times and frustrations of living in the Australian suburbs. The legendary title track particularly evoked the teen angst of feeling trapped in a dull, residential suburb when all you wanted to do was rock & roll in the city. In this, the Saints are most like the Ramones, a sort of positive, teen-drama filled punk band, far removed from the class politics and iconoclasm of the Sex Pistols. However, instead of the bubblegum-as-rock of the Ramones, guitarist Ed Kuepper buries the Saints’ songs in a wall of sludge guitar and Keith Richard’s riffs, played at lightning speed. Chris Bailey’s vocals are just sarcastic enough to sell the (teen) drama, particularly on “Kissin’ Cousins”, two minutes of pure snark (as in, “she’s a distant cousin, but she ain’t too distant for me”). Then the whole thing ends with the destructive “Night In Venice”, probably the only punk song in the entire class of 1977 that exceeds five minutes without becoming insufferably boring. The Saints, along with Radio Birdman, proved that Australian teenagers were just as angry as their American and English counterparts, but had a distinct and unique way of expressing it.

Tea And Oranges, All The Way From China

I hope everyone’s enjoying a very nice weekend. To help you in that matter, here’s an amazing song I can’t stop listening to lately. Nothing like a little Sunday mornin’ Leonard Cohen, I say. Enjoy “Suzanne”.

Also, tune in tomorrow for the first part of my week long feature on Australian music, in honor of Australia Day!

Goin' Solo

Artist: A.C. Newman

Album: Get Guilty

Year: 2009

Grade: 4 pretzels

The New Pornographers have always been an unusual supergroup (they are Canadians, after all). Instead of being driven by the artists’ individual fame, all of the band’s members became much more prominent after the New Pornos started recording albums. Sure, Neko Case is a significant star on her own; Dan Bejar has a handful of devoted fans with his primary band, Destroyer. But both of them definitely saw their fanbases expand after working in the New Pornos. However, the driving force, the head pornographer if you will, is Allan Carl Newman, someone virtually nobody had heard of before the New Pornos broke into the public consciousness. Newman writes nearly 90% of the band’s tunes and sings most of them too. He’s the undisputed frontman. It’s about time we learned who exactly Mr. Newman was outside of the New Pornographers.

Get Guilty isn’t actually Newman’s first solo album, as it follows 2004’s The Slow Wonder. However, coming on the tails of 2007’s disappointing New Pornos album, Challengers, it represents a huge chance for Newman to establish himself as a solo artist in his own right. It helps that almost everything here is better than anything on Challengers. Instead of the usual power-pop drop kick the New Pornos are famous for, Newman aims for a slightly more subdued (but no less driving) sound. Many of the songs sound wistful and nostalgic, particularly the standout “Thunderbolts”, which features low-end piano chords and even a little flute riff. The more upbeat songs, particularly “Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer”, sound like songs that could of (and perhaps should have) made a New Porno album. It’s interesting that Newman sat on some of these strong tracks for his own album, instead of handing them over to his more famous band.

For fans of the New Pornographers, Get Guilty should sound familiar. It doesn’t represent some huge shift in Newman’s songwriting or sound. Instead, it shows just how tightly Newman seems to be holding the reins in the New Pornos. Take him away from the band and he sounds essentially the same. Take Case or Bejar away from the band and they do all kinds of weird and different things. It’s impossible to know if this very strong solo effort from Newman is a sign of disagreements or ill-feelings in the New Pornos camp. Nonetheless, it’s a very good album that should finally win some recognition for Newman, a supremely capable songwriter who more than deserves the praise.

1977-2006: The Playlist

Book: The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide To The Greatest Songs From Punk To Present

Author: many, edited by Scott Plagenhoef and Ryan Schreiber
Year: 2008

There are several reasons I should hate this book. Foremost among them is that this book is only about songs. I’m a diehard album-format loyalist, trying to swim against the tide in an increasingly iPod/mixtape-centric world. The idea of trying to boil down my favorite era of music (1977-present) into 500 songs, as opposed to 500 albums, is contrary to everything I believe about music.

However, music history doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with me on this matter. As the book’s preface points out, there are many excellent and influential songs that never graced an official studio album (The Specials “Ghost Town” is an obvious example). This is the case with many older songs, from the days where singles could actually be a unique thing instead of album tracks dressed up for radio airplay. Because of this, I found myself tremendously enjoying this book. There are very few books on music out there that cover single songs as opposed to albums and I think the diversity is necessary to understanding music history as a whole.

Then there’s the issue of being published by Pitchfork, probably the most beloved and hated music website around. I know a lot of people who bash Pitchfork, because the website doesn’t cover their beloved “underground post-spazzcore folk-metal” scene or some such bullshit. I don’t buy this at all. Personally, I’m a big defender of Pitchfork, mostly because there is no other place online to get quality, up-to-date music news. As for their reviews, just like with anything else, they must be taken with a grain of salt, but they’re excellent at starting discussions about any particular album. Besides, I find that my personal musical tastes dovetail with theirs more often than not. Forgive me for liking a site I agree with.

The Pitchfork 500 definitely veers strongly into the “alternative” chunk of music, something they readily admit. However deserving you think they might be, you’re not going to find big singles by Britney Spears or the Spice Girls or anything in that vein here. But, within the boundaries they draw for themselves, the Pitchfork writers have captured a colossal range of music. Punk and traditional alt-rock are represented in spades, as is hip-hop, electronic music, avant-guard and any combinations thereof. This book is an excellent primer on the huge mess of music that usually goes unheralded for a variety of reasons. Overall, The Pitchfork 500 is a very quality read and reference source.

And Then There Was One...

In an unfortunate piece of news, Mick Harvey, multi-instrumentalist, producer and all around awesome musician for Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds is leaving the band, citing a variety of personal and artistic reasons. Harvey was the only remaining original member of the Bad Seeds besides Cave himself. He was also a member of Cave’s first two bands, the Birthday Party and the Boys Next Door. I’m very sad that a mainstay in one of my most beloved bands is leaving.

Harvey filled many rolls for the Bad Seeds, initially being drafted in as a drummer before switching to guitar. In his honor, here's a clip of one of my favorite Bad Seeds song, "Tupelo". Harvey is playing drums.

Keep on rockin’, Mick.

Effigies, Privateers And The Musicians Who Name Songs After Them

Artist: Andrew Bird

Album: Noble Beast

Year: 2009

Grade: 2.5 pretzels

Andrew Bird’s has a unique take on this indie rock thing all the kids are talking about these days. Classically trained on the violin and apparently able to master any other stringed instrument under the sun, he creates accomplished, well-crafted little tunes. Drawing on a suitably scattershot group of influences, ranging from good-ol’-timey folk to jazz and blues and even the occasional bit of rock, he has an easily identifiable sound, full of hushed violin plucks and his warm, slightly warbling voice. He’s one of those virtuoso musicians, who have this clear vision for the music and can accomplish it easily with their tremendous musical talent. He also has a tendency to drive me up the fucking wall.

Bird’s music tends to draw me into some weird debate over how important instrumental talent is in music. He’s clearly very good at playing a wide range of instruments. This is beyond debate. However, I also find his music astonishingly boring. Bird’s classical training shows right through his music, with a capital “C”. His songs are like beautiful chiseled stone statues: extremely well-crafted, but rigid, unmoving and lacking in dynamic. As a listener, I get the sense that Bird is an impossibly calm and controlled man, methodically adding piece after piece to his songs. There never appear to be unrestrained moments, where Bird goes nuts on his violin or lets loose with some moment of primal abandon. He’s the exact opposite of my favorite rock violinist, Warren Ellis of the Dirty Three and the Bad Seeds.

Noble Beast doesn’t really do anything to change my conflicted mind about Andrew Bird. This is mostly because it sounds just like every other record he’s made. Bird sounds like he’s found his little musical niche and is perfectly content to exist fully within in, without nudging at the boundaries of anything else. This isn’t to say that Noble Beast is a bad record, but it sounds like a record that existing fans will like without winning over many new ones. Bird’s cautious restraint again dominates every song, along with his extraordinary ability to work multi-syllabic or unexpected words into his music (I challenge you to find an album with this many uses of the word “macramé”). Too many songs on this record end up overstaying their welcome, with four exceeding five minutes and only one of them (the brilliantly fuzzy, percussion-led “Not A Robot, But A Ghost”) actually earning those extra minutes.

Andrew Bird is an acquired taste. I know many people who really like his style, with his mix of formal training and folksy inclination. Like I said, he’s certainly a unique artist. However, I still can’t really accept him as my cup of tea. Perhaps I like visceral music too much. Perhaps I’m just too in love with electric guitars. But Andrew Bird’s music still sounds stiff and over-thought to me. The man sounds as calm as Switzerland. One of these days, he has to finally snap.

80,000 Metallica Fans Can't Be Wrong...?

There are few things more terrifying than almost a hundred Metallica fans in a Boston subway.

On my way back to my dorm last night, carrying three suitcases following over twelve hours of snow-delayed travel, Boston’s own Green Line was engulfed with fans leaving Metallica’s show at the TD Banknorth Garden. Trust me, asking them to yes-please-kindly-move-aside-so-I-can-move-all-my-shit-into-the-subway-before-the-doors-behead-me…it wasn’t pretty. Highlights included: 1) A scraggly guy trying to chase after a blonde chick in a cut-off Metallica shirt, claiming she was “his dream girl”, 2) multiple drunken renditions of “The Unforgiven” and, of course, 3) hundreds of people screaming “METALLICA!!!” every time the doors opened, at whomever happened to be innocently waiting for the train at 12:10 AM.

And I thank god every day that I knew the lyrics to “Enter Sandman”…

Just In Time For The Super Bowl...

Artist: Bruce Springsteen

Album: Working On A Dream

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

How can we judge albums by artists this far past their sell date? There comes a time when even the best musicians stop releasing records that reverberate throughout the world. A specific album could be individually excellent, but the artist producing it has lost the ability to make the entire world sit up and discuss their music. There are a few exceptions (Dylan/Tom Waits/Brian Eno for example) who’ve still maintained a level of relevance through the years. Bruce Springsteen, however, the Boss behind many classic records of the 70s and 80s…well, he’s not one of them.

Working In A Dream is definitely not a bad record. There are some lovely songs here, particularly the short, country-ish “Tomorrow Never Knows”, all banjo and pedal steel and fiddle. The eight-minute-long opener, “Outlaw Pete”, is another clear standout. Springsteen is still an incredibly accomplished and capable musician. He’s just lost the spark of relevance, some sense of “contemporary-ness” that makes records transcend merely being good.

The record does hit a few speed bumps along the way. Springsteen records tend to be haunted by a pretty clear formula: He sings! He rocks! He scores! However, too much reliance on the Jersey blue-collar flag-waving can be a bad thing. My favorite Springsteen record is the skeletal, unsettling Nebraska from 1982, mostly because it breaks from the Springsteen traditions that can weigh down good songs. Working On A Dream isn’t as lucky. “My Lucky Day” is very big, very loud, very epic…and very boring (ironic title, no?). And while there’s nothing as irritatingly repetitive as “Radio Nowhere” from 2007’s Magic, you certainly won’t forget any of the song titles, since Bruce repeats them eighty-million times (give or take) in each chorus. The sharp, barbed songwriting from Born To Run has definitely started to fade, oh, thirty-five years later! The Boss’s age is showing a bit.

We clearly can’t blame Bruce for this, but, as I mentioned in my Franz Ferdinand review, artists will always be measured by their best previous work. Here’s the truth: this album is not another Born To Run. It’s not another Born In The U.S.A.. It doesn’t even have “born” in its title. So…what do we do with it?

H.O.F. Blues

Let’s pretend, for a minute, that the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame matters. It doesn’t, but just humor me here. Let’s say it was actually an organization of music aficionados looking to celebrate the legacies of the most influential, important and meaningful artists in the long, colorful history of rock music. Let’s say that, in recent years, they’d even started opening up the HOF to other, equally pioneering artists outside of the traditional boundaries of rock music (Madonna, Grandmaster Flash). How then could they completely ignore this man?

The Stooges getting snubbed again for the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame is so laughably ridiculous, I can’t even find a suitable metaphor. This has been quite the week for Halls Of Fame (congrats on baseball’s Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice getting into Cooperstown!) but, somehow, the Stooges are yet again arbitrarily ignored. I mean…The Stooges! Here’s a list of bands already in the HOF that couldn’t have existed without Iggy and his Ann Arbor delinquents:

Ramones
Talking Heads
AC/DC
The Clash
Elvis Costello
The Police
The Pretenders
Patti Smith
Metallica

And most obviously…the motherfucking Sex Pistols! Do people not understand the direct lineage linking the Stooges and everything even tangentially related to punk rock? I’ll spell this out for you: Punk. Would. Not. Have. Happened. Without. Iggy. At least the Sex Pistols had the integrity to refuse their HOF induction awards and fanfare, proving that there may still be a spark of anarchic humanity left in John Lydon’s soul after multiple for-the-cash reunion tours. Maybe…

I remember when the Stooges played Bumbershoot in Seattle in 2005. I had to actively try to coerce people into seeing this mythic band live. This is wrong. A chance to see the Stooges is a privilege. Nothing anyone says will ever change my mind on this matter. So there! Especially in the wake of Ron Asheton's tragic death earlier this month, this Hall Of Fame snubbing simply will not fly.

On the other hand…congratulations to Metallica, Run-DMC, Bobby Womack, Jeff Beck and the other Rock & Roll HOF inductees. I expect you all to play Stooges covers at the ceremony.

No. Just...No...

Artist: Late Of The Pier

Album: Fantasy Black Channel

Year: 2008

Grade: 1.5 pretzels

Big and attention-grabbing, but completely devoid of life, Late Of The Pier combine the worst elements of Gary Numan, Brian Eno and other electronic pioneers. There are lots of “weird noises!” and “futuristic effects!” but very little “good music!” It would take some great tunes to overcome the awe-inspiring terribleness of Late Of The Pier’s name and album cover but, instead, the music doesn’t even come halfway. Late Of The Pier are simply the latest log thrown on the fires of hatred burning in my heart against the current wave of British indie (“brindie”?) bands.

The music is a total mess. The guitar, which the band clearly wants to be loud and visceral, instead sounds positively afraid to show its face, lest the synths dance and stomp upon this threat to their iron-fisted stranglehold over the music. When the guitar does get its big moment in the spotlight, it sounds tentative and cautious, always looking over its shoulder to make sure the synths aren’t about to stab it in the back. Which, of course, they do. The songs are cluttered and overly fussed-over. Too many ideas, in far too little time. “The Bears Are Coming” is so scattered and schizophrenic, it forces you to pause and figure out just what the fuck is happening. “Why?” I kept asking myself as I listened to it. “Why is any of this here? Why this squiggle? Why that beep? Sweet jesus why?!”

Singer Samuel Eastgate adds his name to the long list of unmemorable, yelpy English rock vocalists that have emerged in the past few years. It’s not that he’s a particularly bad singer, in traditional or non-traditional ways, but there’s simply nothing unique or interesting about him. He yelps some, he sings some, he screams some, but in the end, he adds a sum total of nothing to the music. His voice just gets lost in the squelches that dominate everything else. Not good.

The ever-restrained English music press (snark…) loved this record, further ensuring the NME’s eventual destruction at my hands. We live in an age where dance-whatever crossovers have become the big thing, but Late Of The Pier represent one of the hideous misfires that accompany any emerging genre. The band is clearly aiming for an infectious dance-rock sound. My only hope is that Late Of The Pier find themselves the only ones dancing at the party they’re trying to start.

Tangled Up In Folk

Book: Positively 4th Street

Author: David Hajdu

Year: 2001

Tackling the lives of four iconic figures of the 1960s in a single book seems insane and more than a little impossible. Nonetheless, in this monstrous, four-headed biography, David Hajdu manages to create an incredibly compelling and well-researched document of the lives of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Mimi & Richard Fariña. The personalities and quirks of these four characters jump right off the pages, especially Dylan’s mind-numbing strangeness. You definitely get a sense of just what a weird guy he is and you wonder how anyone ever allowed him near a recording studio in the first place.

The book also functions as an excellent primer on the early folk scene (something I knew virtually nothing about before reading this book). Hajdu traces the music’s evolution from traditional ballads into protest music and finally into the folk-rock of the Fariñas and Dylan circa Bringing It All Back Home and beyond. Accomplishing so much in a single book is really quite incredible. Positively 4th Street is one of the best music biographies I’ve read and I strongly recommend it.

The Curse Of Ferdinand

Artist: Franz Ferdinand

Album: Tonight: Franz Ferdinand

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

Franz Ferdinand are essentially cursed by their 2004 debut album. Of course, it’s not their fault that they started their career with the finest pop-rock album of the decade. But now, five years down the line, it hangs like a horrifying, guitar-hook-filled shadow over everything they’ve done since. Every album they make will be compared to their debut and only absolute pop perfection will look good in comparison. It’s all kinds of unfair, but that’s the way it is. Sorry guys.

They clearly know all of this on Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, which is a stone-cold “transitional record” if I ever heard one. The band flails in different directions, trying to find some way out of the labyrinth they’ve created for themselves with their debut. Clearly inspired by some dance music and taking a cue from “Outsiders”, the brilliant track which ended 2005’s You Could Have It So Much Better, keyboards are slathered over all the tracks on Tonight. Some songs benefit immensely from the electronics; “Twilight Omens” is a wonderful, deranged raver with some hilarious lyrics (“I typed your number into my calculator/will it spell a dirty word when I turn it upside down?” is a particularly good zinger). However, others, “Live Alone” especially, end up sinking back into the old keyboard standby: the “beeps and shit” school of music. Too often the songs just end up sounding like “Franz Ferdinand…oh, yeah, with some keyboards on the side,” rather than really incorporating and using the new shiny electronics.

At the same time, a few tracks look back and try to emulate the debut album's charms. Again, this creates some hits and misses. “Turn It On” is a sleek, sexy little song, with a memorable, snaky guitar riff to guide it along. Balancing things out, we have the very next track, “No You Girls”, a routine, Ferdinand-by-numbers tune. “Katherine Kiss Me”, the lovely acoustic ballad that ends the album, tries and mostly succeeds to recapture the magic of 2005’s “Eleanor Put Your Boots Back On”, but the other ballad, “Dream Again”, sounds somewhat lost and half-baked. Of course, singer Alex Kapranos does a valiant effort trying to save each and every song with his incredible charisma, which, as with most Franz songs, translates right through the record and into your ears. Franz Ferdinand are truly a blessed band with a frontman like Kapranos at the helm. If only they could find a way to get that blessing to cancel out the debut-album-curse…

The band’s attempts at breaking out of their previous sound are admirable. The best way to avoid comparison with previous work is to do something totally different. Unfortunately, the record is torn in ten different directions, as the band try to split the difference between their traditional sound and their experimental instincts. The album’s centerpiece, “Lucid Dreams”, showcases this wonderfully. It starts out sounding like a traditional, if slightly boring Franz song and ends (eight minutes later!) with a collection of sounds I never thought I’d hear on a Franz record: squelchy electronic bass, a synth riff Justice would kill for and a clattering rhythm section that sounds like it’s on loan from Einsturzende Neubauten. It’s the perfect microcosm for the album as a whole: a conflicted stab at reinvention being taken in too many directions at once.

Lights And Music (But No Lyrics)

Artist: Cut Copy

Album: In Ghost Colours

Year: 2008

Grade: 3.5 pretzels

My first experience with Cut Copy was at a Franz Ferdinand concert about four years ago. They were the first opener and, to be gentle, they sucked viciously. They subjected the poor audience to twenty-five minutes of derivative synth-pop bullshit and nonsense. No one in the band ever seemed to be playing any instruments. Instead, backing tracks were abused, making the whole show into nothing more than a glorified DJ set. I left that night feeling sure that Cut Copy would never, ever achieve any level of success.

Well, long story short, I was completely wrong. Last March, In Ghost Colours went to #1 on the charts in Cut Copy’s homeland, Australia. Music critics were in rapture over the album. It even appeared in the very extreme reaches of the Billboard Charts, peaking at #167, which may not sound like much, but is a monumental achievement for an Australian synth-pop throwback band. I spent all of 2008 in denial that a horrible opening band I saw four years ago could actually, honestly be good. But I’ve finally started to overcome my irrational hatred for Cut Copy and I can admit that this record is pretty damn good.

I have literally no critiques about the music. No matter what your opinions on 80s synth-pop are, Cut Copy have nailed the sound of the best synth-poppers perfectly, particularly New Order. In fact, the sonic debt Cut Copy owes the Manchester boys is staggering. Every element that made New Order’s music great is here and accounted for on In Ghost Colours: shimmering synth washes, dark pop hooks and propulsive, liquid basslines. Yet, somehow, In Ghost Colours never sounds like a purely derivative cash-in of another band’s sound. The music here succeeds in an “imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery” kind of way.

However, there’s one huge difference between Cut Copy and New Order. New Order’s Bernard Sumner was an innovative and surreal lyricist, dealing in themes of power, control, helplessness and other fun psycho-sexual drama. Cut Copy’s Dan Whitford, however, has peppered his gorgeous songs with some of the most contrived romance clichés this side of a seventh-grade girl’s notebook. It’s an album full of “hearts on fire” and “hands brushing” and so on. “Lights and music…are on my mind…,” Whitford says on the single “Lights & Music”; “Bully for you,” I say.

There’s an easy argument about how lyrics shouldn’t matter in music that’s made for dancing. If it gets your ass shaking, who cares what they’re singing about? My response to this argument is twofold. First, I care. So ha! But second, when a band like New Order have already done the kind of music Cut Copy are trying to make, but done it with great, insightful lyrics attached, they’ve set the bar high. They set a standard for great music in that vein. To my complete amazement, Cut Copy have reached that bar musically. The lyrics, however…they’ve got some catching up to do.

Crying For Daylight

Artist: Antony And The Johnsons

Album: The Crying Light

Year: 2009

Grade: 5 pretzels

Antony Hegarty has a voice that begs for elaborate, imaginative metaphors. “His voice is the purest sunshine, piercing the grey clouds that surround him,” blah blah blah. So, instead of falling all over myself trying to adequately describe his absolutely unique style, I will show you, with a gorgeous video.

“The Voice” is obviously the most attention-grabbing element of Antony And The Johnsons. Vibrato-heavy and positively bursting with sadness, longing and vulnerability, Antony’s voice alone would be worth praise. However, the greatest, subtlest strength of his records lies in the musicians Antony has chosen to back him. Nowhere is this more evident than on The Crying Light, an absolutely astonishing follow-up to 2005’s Mercury Prize-winning I Am A Bird Now. It amazes me that 2009 has started off with two masterful records (this and Animal Collective) that are essentially polar opposites. As opposed to Animal Collective’s dense, colorful and life-affirming soundscapes, the songs on The Crying Light are as fragile as crystal and incredibly intimate.

The album’s MVP is Maxim Moston’s aching violin, which takes on a much larger role than on previous Antony releases, although I cannot understand why it took Antony this long to incorporate the violin this much. The violin is clearly the saddest of all instruments and the sound matches his voice perfectly, showcased on the last minute of “Her Eyes Are Underneath The Ground”. Standout track “Daylight And The Sun” is also driven by the violin and cello, ominously introducing the song with a dark, sawing melody before Antony’s voice arrives and does the rest.

As for the lyrics, Antony’s continues the gender-role confusion seen on I Am A Bird Now. He always paints himself as the passive party, asking someone else to do something, or hoping something will happen. It flies in the face of more traditional, proactive masculine songwriting, but, y’know, Antony ain’t exactly the most masculine guy around. Being gender-specific doesn’t seem to matter in his music or his life; he’s simply Antony, no more, no less.

A few songs seem to focus specifically on the future. “Another World” particularly seems worried about what lies ahead, declaring “I need another world, this one’s nearly gone.” It’s tempting to read a strong political message into much of what Antony says here, but the song works just as well as a personal goodbye, even as a quasi-suicide note (“I’m gonna miss you all”). There’s an undeniable darkness creeping throughout these songs, a note of fear (being played on the violin, if notes of fear can be played) that pervades even the most positive songs here. But, at the end of the day, it’s Antony’s magical voice that cuts through the darkness, shining hopefully into tomorrow.

Raw Power: R.I.P. Ron Asheton

This morning, Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton, my favorite guitarist in the history of rock music, was found dead in his Michigan home. The presumed cause of death was a heart attack. He was 60 years old.

To say Ron’s playing was influential would be a ludicrous understatement. Obviously, with the Stooges, he has helped spawn hundreds upon hundreds of bands, including the entirety of punk rock. But, in purely guitar-playing terms, Ron's fingerprints are still found all over music. His colossal, meaty guitar riffs were immediately memorable and packed an incredibly powerful punch. Never a pretty guitar-player, or even a particularly precise one, his style was pure, barely controlled chaos. The riffs to songs like “I Wanna Be Your Dog” or “1970” are absolutely immortal. They require you to pay some fucking attention to this song, right fucking now! Which is exactly what the Stooges were all about. Iggy would howl and scream and take his pants off, but Ron would be the one peeling the skin off your bones with his hacksaw guitar.

Ron and his brother Scott (the Stooges’ drummer) were seen as the fundamental influences in changing young Jim Osterberg Jr. into the dynamo of rock insanity that is Iggy Pop. A couple of wrong-side-of-the-tracks Michigan kids, the Ashetons, particularly the older Ron, were what made the Stooges happen. Without them, Jim Osterberg would have probably become a lawyer or something. I thank god every day that didn’t happen.

In his later years, Ron became a somewhat dysfunctional guy, living with his mom and collecting Nazi memorabilia. His relationship with the Stooges fell apart when Iggy replaced him with James Williamson for 1973’s Raw Power album, leaving Ron to play bass. However, it seemed the rift was being healed when the original Stooges (minus deceased bassist Dave Alexander) reunited for a tour and an album. And it’s this image that I will forever remember. I saw Ron Asheton on September 5, 2005, at Bumbershoot here in Seattle. Rockin’ away.

My condolences to Ron’s family, friends and fans. He will be missed.

Taking Tiger Mountain By Literature

Book: Brian Eno:His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound

Author: Eric Tamm

Year: 1989 (Revised Edition: 1995)

Somehow, in my busy, busy life, I manage to find time to read a terrifying number of books. And while I’m certain I’d be a terrible literary critic, I do want to use Pretzel Logic to share my thoughts about music-related books I come across. I won’t be grading them, just offering a few words and recommendations.

I just finished Brian Eno: His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound. I was very excited when I bought it, since Eno is one of my favorite musicians and probably the musician I most closely relate to (at least from what I’ve read). Eric Tamm’s book gives a very thorough overview of Eno’s career, broken down into his rock albums, his ambient albums and finally his various collaborations with other artists over the years. A great deal of time is spent analyzing Eno’s masterpiece, Another Green World (1975), with each track being broken down in impressive detail. The book also goes into the specifics of Eno’s various music-making methods, ranging from his fondness for musical experimentation to his Oblique Strategies cards.

The book's only real shortcoming is Tamm’s music Ph.D. background. He has a tendency to drag the writing a bit too far into the “we’re gonna talk about tonic-dominant relationships now” style. I feel there’s a certain level of irony in applying this style of musical analysis to a musician like Eno, who, by his own admission, can barely play a chord on anything and should really be described as a “non-musician.” That said, I encourage anyone interested in one of the most creative, unique and original musicians of the past forty years to pick up this book.

A Word About Pretzels

Many people have responded to my blog with questions about the pretzel themes and pretzel grading system. Hopefully, I’ll be able to answer some of those questions right now.

I’ve been amazed by the debate over the metaphorical value of pretzels. Some people think it should be a ten-pretzel system, since ten pretzels is basically the best thing any single human being could have. Questions have been raised about half-pretzels and whether they’re actually valuable. Some have even suggested that fewer pretzels should mean something is good, since a single good pretzel should leave you satisfied. I don’t necessarily have answers to these questions. If someone wants to write a full analysis of pretzel theory, I’d love to read it.

However, I can say this: the pretzel-grading system is staying. If you need a reason, look at the title of the blog. See how it all fits together? Incredible, right?

I’m mostly just bored with the “five-star” systems, or Pitchfork’s Richter-scale-like scores. “Pretzel” is a fun word and gets my overall point across. As for half-pretzels, I justify that by saying that, sometimes, whole pretzels aren’t exactly the right amount. You’re still hungry after three pretzels, but a fourth is too much. So you eat half and save the rest for you next album review. Or something.

Have I made you hungry yet?

A 20-Year-Old's Defense Of Steely Dan

I want to take some time to explain why Pretzel Logic is the title of my blog. In order to do this, I’m introducing what I hope will become a recurring column here, a little something I call…

Who’s Simon Defending Now?

Hooray. Who’s Simon Defending Now? will be where I wax poetic about artists, particularly older ones, who I feel don’t get enough credit from people my age. Since music history is essentially my great passion in life, I think older artists and their legacies are fascinating. Besides, this gives Pretzel Logic something else to do besides yammer and drool about the latest underground phenom bands (something I’ve seen a few other blogs do far too much). Steely Dan are an obvious choice for my first Defending piece, since A) I love them, B) few people I know under the age of 40 agree with me and C) my blog is named after one of their albums. However, before I begin, I encourage everyone to read this: http://www.theonion.com/content/news/donald_fagen_defends_steely_dan_to

That Onion piece is the perfect example of a conversation I’ve had with dozens of people. Defending Steely Dan to “the young folks” means you’re always starting at a disadvantage. I mean, this is “parent music”, right? Not to mention there’s that dread word, “jazz rock,” hanging over everything. And just like Donald Fagen says in the Onion article, at first, I thought the Dan was pretty unbearable. But oh how things have changed.

First, some misconceptions about the Dan:

A) Steely Dan is one guy.
By now, most people know this is bullshit, but I still run into people who think this every once and a while. Steely Dan is essentially two people, vocalist/keyboardist Donald Fagan and bassist/guitarist Walter Becker. Their early albums had a more-or-less steady band to back them up, but as the 70s went on, they chose to surround themselves with as many mind-blowing studio musicians as they could.

B) If it’s two guys, why did they name themselves Steely Dan?
Being snarky students at Bard College, they got the name Steely Dan from William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. It’s the name of a futuristic dildo. C’mon, you’ve got to admit that’s kind of awesome. Think about all the happy, yuppie couples who danced to music in the 70s named after dildos.

C) Steely Dan is boring.
This brings me to my main point. The biggest obstacle to true Dan appreciation is getting past the surface of the songs. It’s true, to a casual listener, Dan songs sound unbearably smooth and slick, with no edge to them at all. As the Onion pointed out, Fagen and Becker slaved to get their records to sound that way. But I’m not going to talk about the production values, as incredible as they are. Instead, I want to talk about lyrics.

I’m paraphrasing Chuck Klosterman when I say that Steely Dan’s lyrics were more subversive than anything any of the punk bands were saying in the late 70s. Case in point: the song “Everyone’s Gone To The Movies”, from the Dan’s 1975 album Katy Lied, featuring “Mr. LaPage”, who shows kids “movies” in his den. Let’s look at these lyrics:

Soon you will be eighteen
I think you know what I mean
Don’t tell your mama or daddy or mama
They’ll never know where you been

So yeah…not exactly innocent, is it? But the genius of the song is that it sounds absolutely ridiculous! It’s got a sort of Caribbean feel to it, with some steel drums, bongos and a hilarious saxophone riff weaving around. You can totally dance to this song, especially if you’re a middle-aged white person. Except, you’d be dancing to song that’s almost about statutory rape. And how would you feel about that?

The Dan has dozens of songs like this, where they hide wry, sarcastic commentary beneath a polished veneer of jazz-rock. “Deacon Blues” is about a kid who falls too far into the jazz myth, drinking “Scotch whiskey all night long” and dying “behind the wheel”. “King Of The World” could be a scene from I Am Legend, in which our heroic narrator is the last person alive on Earth following a nuclear disaster, broadcasting hopelessly on his “old HAM radio.” Finally, my blog’s namesake song, “Pretzel Logic”, could be about literally anything, with references to “minstrel shows” and “Napoleon.” My favorite theory says it’s about time travel.

I’m not saying I think everyone should force themselves to become Dan fans. All I want is for people to acknowledge the depth behind their music. So many of my friends dismiss the Dan’s music right off the bat, assuming it’s MOR 70s jazz-rock indulgence. And while that’s not exactly completely false, that’s only the surface layer. Fagen and Becker are two dudes who are far too smart and they hide a shitload of sarcasm and bitterness in their lyrics. You just have to dig a bit to find it all. My suggestion is to get a hold of the Dan’s 1973 album, Countdown To Ecstasy, by far their most rocking album, and give the songs a good listen. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

What A Way To Start 2009...

Artist: Animal Collective
Album: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Year: 2009
Grade: 5 pretzels

Let me get this out of the way: I've never liked Animal Collective. While I realize this is the most obvious example of where my views and the “indie rock canon” (if, heaven forbid, there is such a thing) haven’t lined up, none of their albums have ever won me over, no matter how much praise the bloggers of the world throw at them. I’ve never heard the life-changing musical odyssey I’m told is lurking beneath the surface of their songs. Instead, I hear something that makes me cringe: whimsy. At the risk of sounding completely ridiculous, whimsical music is my antithesis. I’m a self-proclaimed moody young man, with musical tastes to match. Animal Collective’s unabashed joy and bliss fly in the face of all that. Plus, any band that indulges in seven-minute psychedelic jams is automatically on my shitlist.

Something has changed, however. Because, goddamn it, I love this fucking album.

It doesn’t even sound that different from their previous albums. Rumbling electronics? Check. Fake handclaps? Check and check. Absolutely bizarre gurgly noises? Holy shit yes. But, whereas Animal Collective’s previous albums were always bogged down with insufferable jams and technicolor noodling, Merriweather Post Pavilion is a sleek, coherent artistic statement. None of the songs even break six minutes! *gasp!* It seems all the band needed to win me over was a touch of accessibility. “Summertime Clothes” and “Bluish” flirt with pop song structures, with crazy, new-fangled things like choruses and verses.

And everything fits together so nicely! For the first time, I’ve felt like Animal Collective have released an album where all the songs are cut from the same cloth, instead of some schizophrenic hodgepodge of rampant creativity. The songs have range, from the explosion that engulfs “In The Flowers” to the softer, meditative “No More Runnin’”, but everything is clearly connected to the other songs. All in all, I find that I can’t simply listen to this album; I can only sit back and immerse myself in it. The rhythms are so fluid and the harmonies are so rich that experiencing the album feels like submerging your head in a vast ocean full of color and life.

And then there’s “My Girls”. It seems hypocritical to wax poetic about the wonderful cohesiveness of the album, only to turn around and single one song out, but it’s a clear highlight that can’t be ignored. Singer Noah Lennox has crafted such a wonderful piece about domestic life that I find myself singing its mantra-like chorus throughout the day (“I don’t need to seem like I care about material things, like social stats/I just want four walls and adobe slats for my girls”). It’s, by far, the best thing the band has ever recorded and marks the first time I felt I could consider myself an Animal Collective fan.

Critics more inclined towards hyperbole are gonna throw the book of “classic album comparisons” at Merriweather Post Pavilion. My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless should probably be a common one. The most ambitious critics might even mention, dare I say it, Pet Sounds. The amazing part is that, after repeated listening, I can’t help but feel these comparisons aren’t too far off base. Merriweather Post Pavilion has that magical combination of songcraft, consistency and undeniably awesomeness that “classic” albums are supposed to have. It took years, but Animal Collective have finally recorded an album I love.

Welcome!

"Yes, I'm dying to be a star and make them laugh!"
-"Pretzel Logic", Steely Dan

Welcome to Pretzel Logic!

My name is Simon and I care far too much about music. This is a blog where I will post:

-album reviews (graded on a scale of 0-5 pretzels)
-concert reviews
-music-related book reviews
-random musical thoughts
-essays, when I feel compelled to write them
-anything else music related

Pretzel Logic is very much a public blog and I want to encourage people to participate in it. If you disagree with something I’ve said, tell me. If you think I’m right on the money, tell me. If you just want to tell me how awesome I am, that’s ok too. Above all, I just hope that people will read what I have to say.

My first album review will be following shortly!

Enjoy!