A New Era Of Autobahn

Artist: Beak>

Album: Beak>

Year: 2009

Grade: 4 pretzels

Beak> is a strange and intriguing sideproject by Geoff Barrow, one of the founding members of Portishead and their master of all things beat and rhythm related. Rarely do you hear about drummers/percussionists releasing sideprojects or solo albums, but Barrow isn’t exactly your average, snare-smashing drummer and Beak> is a lot more than just a few stray ideas that weren’t fit for the next Portishead album. Despite Barrow’s well-documented love of hip-hop, Beak> looks towards a whole different musical genre for inspiration: krautrock.

In the early 70s, Germany had a particularly antsy and artsy generation on its hands and many of these youngsters decided to form bands. However, rather than gravitating towards the druggy excess of Westernized rock, these college-educated kids formed bands like Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, creating hypermodern music that tore huge holes through established musical conventions. Perhaps one of the most striking innovations that came out of the scene (eventually dubbed “krautrock”) was the motorik beat, a relentless, repetitive rhythm that evoked the hypnotizing ups and downs of driving on the autobahn.

In Beak>, Barrow utterly and completely embraces the motorik concept. The majority of these songs chug insistently forward, never really becoming up-tempo but always retaining a sense of momentum. The thudding bass and crisp drumming of “Pill” is a prime example. “I Know” speeds things up somewhat, but still has that robotic sameness to its rhythm that becomes oddly compelling over the course of an entire song. Disembodied voices float over the top, drowned in a fog of distortion and voice-altering effects. It’s a stark, cold and ultimately very dislocating experience.

I can’t help but feel that Beak> will end of up being one of the more ignored album releases of the year. Sideprojects don’t usually get much press, especially ones that owe huge debts to arty German music from almost forty years ago. However, I think this album deserves much more praise and a higher profile. It’s one of the most enjoyably strange albums I’ve heard all year and proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. Despite Barrow’s presence bringing it attention, Beak> is an entirely different creature from Portishead and should be treated as a completely separate entity.

Handicappin' The Grammys

Ahhh, my favorite time of the year: Grammy season. When all of America comes together to celebrate crushing banality and mediocrity in our popular music. When industry experts cast their votes for the very best music has to offer, which is a complete conflict of interest since they want their own CDs to sell. When we get an answer to that age old question: “Dear god, this is the music Americans want?!”

Ok, that’s a bit harsh, but c’mon. The Grammys suck and there’s no way around that. This is the institution that decided that the best album of 1977, a year of complete musical upheaval and pioneering all over the world, was Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. There’s also that whole Jethro-Tull-beating-Metallica debacle, but enough’s been said about that. The nominations for the next wave of glorious music industry irrelevance were announced yesterday and I want to go through the major awards and handicap the races a bit. In a month or so, we’ll find out whether I was even in the ballpark or not.

Album Of The Year
-I Am…Sasha Fierce, Beyonce
-The E.N.D., The Black Eyed Peas
-The Fame, Lady Gaga
-Big Whiskey And The Groogrux King, Dave Matthews Band
-Fearless, Taylor Swift

T-Swift and Beyonce have to be the favorites here. Fearless has already run rampant through the smaller award shows, but Beyonce is simply Beyonce. She’s the kind of iconic-but-not-cutting-edge singer the Grammys love. Of course, DMB is the most inexplicable nominee here, so they’ll probably win.

Song Of The Year
-“Poker Face”, Lady Gaga
-“Pretty Wings”, Maxwell
-“Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”, Beyonce
-“Use Somebody”, Kings Of Leon
-“You Belong To Me”, Taylor Swift

“Single Ladies” should take this without a contest, but watch out for dark horse “Use Somebody”, which is going to absolutely steamroll through the rock awards. Again, Swift is riding a wave of awards right now, so she’s definitely a contender.

Record Of The Year
-“Halo”, Beyonce
-“I Gotta Feeling”, The Black Eyed Peas
-“Use Somebody”, Kings Of Leon
-“Poker Face”, Lady Gaga
-“You Belong To Me”, Taylor Swift

Without the overwhelmingly awesome “Single Ladies” casting its ominous shadow over everything else, “Use Somebody” and “You Belong To Me” lead the pack for Best Record. This could also be where they throw a bone to Lady Gaga, who was denied Best New Artist status by a month or so.

Best New Artist
-Zac Brown Band
-Keri Hilson
-MGMT
-Silversun Pickups
-The Ting Tings

Dear jesus god, what a horrible field. MGMT, Pickups and the Ting Tings all don’t have a chance, since they fall into that “edgy music” category. Keri Hilson didn’t make big enough waves this year to really have a chance either, so it will probably fall to Zac Brown Band, who we’ll probably never hear from again. That’s how these things tend to work.

Finally, just because it’s the token category aimed at hipsters like myself…

Best Alternative Album
-Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, Brian Eno/David Byrne
-The Open Door, Death Cab For Cutie
-Sounds Of The Universe, Depeche Mode
-Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix
-It’s Blitz!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Grammy voters have two choices here: A) the “old choice”, giving the award to Eno and Byrne because, hey, they’re kind of important, right? or, B) the “young choice”, It’s Blitz!, because Yeah Yeah Yeahs have finally sanded away all those dangerous sharp edges and have become something truly boring enough for the Grammys to love.

Not that I’m bitter or anything…

Who's Simon Defending Now?: Kanye West

Alright, alright, Imma let you finish…but I have one of the best Who’s Simon Defending Now? pieces of all time. OF ALL TIME!

Oh Kanye. How you make life difficult for us all. It’s been a rough year for Mr. West, as he has continued to fend off the ever rabid media while managing to repeatedly embarrass himself with moronic comments. He cemented his legacy as a world-class nutcase by interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the VMAs in order to promote Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” video instead. Kanye’s sense of shame is apparently a myth. He’s rapidly becoming more famous for his oddball personality and public relations snafus than what he actually does for a living: making music. This is why for my final Who’s Simon Defending Now? piece of the year, I’m defending, against all odds, Kanye West.

Despite the fact that he burst onto the scene only six years ago, with 2004’s The College Dropout, Kanye has arguably been one of the five most defining musicians of this entire decade. He’s managed to win over not only pop fans (who, as we hipsters know, will accept anything the radio plays, right?) but also music critics. He’s one of the few mainstream rappers who’s seen as “acceptable” for uber-trendy college students to listen to. He’s collaborated with an all-star cast of musicians in the past ten years and his fingerprints are all over a sizeable chunk of this decade’s chart-topping music. Whatever you personally feel about Kanye, you’ve got to admit that the man has been very successful in a very short period of time.

Then there’s the music itself. While Kanye is far from being a particularly blessed lyricist, he compensates by being one of the more inventive and risk-taking producers working today. From the hyperspeed “chipmunk” soul voices on The College Dropout to the skronking horns liberally spread throughout Late Registration (2005). He can also stumble upon lyrical snippets that exist in a wonderful grey area between absurd and awesome, such as the mind-boggling “I’m like the fly Malcolm X/buy any jeans necessary” line from Graduation’s “Good Morning” (2007). I wholeheartedly believe that Kanye is a genius, but he’s a unique and absurdly idiosyncratic one.

Then there’s 808s And Heartbreak. His fourth album, which was suddenly dropped upon the world just over twelve months ago, remains one of the most misunderstood and underappreciated albums of the entire decade. Lost in all the whining and moaning about Auto-Tune is the fact that 808s is a startlingly personal and risky gesture for a mainstream rapper. He really, truly took rap somewhere that no one else was going with the genre and, personally, I think he knocked the whole thing out of the park. After releasing three albums of increasing braggadocio and ego-stroking, he delivered a masterpiece of frozen electronics and heart-on-sleeve emotions.

As with many pop stars (Michael Jackson, for example), it can become hard to separate their music from their public persona and the attending flock of gossip-hounds, bloodthirsty photographers and sensationalist entertainment reporters. However, it’s important to remember that the art and the artist are, in fact, completely different things. When you hold 808s in your hand, you aren’t holding a piece of Kanye himself. You’re holding a disc of music and you can choose to listen to it in whatever context you want. Just always remember that the music itself is a separate entity and you can enjoy it without condoning the behavior of the artist creating it. Kanye’s ego continues to lose him more and more fans, virtually by the hour, but I urge people to remember his music. He’ll never be a perfect person. But his quirks, inane ramblings and self-mythologizing have allowed him to create some great, landmark songs and albums. He deserves a place alongside Eminem and Jay-Z as rappers who have dictated what hip-hop (and pop music in general) has sounded like this decade and will probably sound like for years to come.

Our Powers Combined...

Artist: Them Crooked Vultures

Album: Them Crooked Vultures

Year: 2009

Grade: 3.5 pretzels

On paper, Them Crooked Vultures seems like a band that can do no wrong. Let’s just look at the math here:

Josh Homme (of Queens Of The Stone Age) on guitar
+
Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters/Nirvana fame) on drums, his rightful place in the world
+
John Paul Jones (of this obscure little band called Led Zeppelin) on bass

That’s it. A classic power trio, built around three key players of three different decades of music. This isn’t just a supergroup of classic rockers joining hands for some money-cultivating nostalgia trip. Them Crooked Vultures features two members who are on the cutting edge of modern rock and one insanely famous bassist. In the abstract, Them Crooked Vultures seem unstoppable.

Which is why their self-titled album is a bit of a disappointment. No band call live up to the hype these three men can conjure up just by putting their names in the same sentence. I’m sure no one was expecting some kind of glorious QOTSA/Zep/Nirvana hybrid band, but people are allowed to dream a little bit, aren’t they? I won’t lie: when I heard about Them Crooked Vultures, I got very, very excited. It’s been a long time since commercial hard rock has anything going for it and TCV seemed to have more potential than the Dead Weather or any of the other high-profile bands running around lately. Basically, my hopes were a bit high.

The weirdest thing about Them Crooked Vultures is how much it sounds like a QOTSA album. Homme’s voice and guitar playing absolutely dominate all thirteen songs, overshadowing his historic rhythm section. Grohl also happens to be a QOTSA alum, so we’re already accustomed to his pummeling style fitting in behind Homme’s warped guitar licks and clear voice. Meanwhile, John Paul Jones does little to really distinguish his bass playing. It’s impressive enough that a sixty-three-year-old man can rock this hard, but his basslines mostly just reinforce Homme’s guitar…not unlike what you’d hear in QOTSA. Them Crooked Vultures could easily pass for either a Queens album or a volume of Homme’s Desert Sessions series if no one pointed out who exactly he’s playing with.

While none of the songs are bad, there’s a dangerous monotony to the album. All the songs share a heavy, mid-tempo vibe, featuring densely layered guitars and a fairly strong rhythm. On early songs, like “Mind Eraser, No Chaser”, that style is thrilling. However, over the course of fifty minutes, things began to blur together. It isn’t until the relentlessly groovy “Gunman” that the band really throws the listeners a changeup…and that’s the second to last song.

Them Crooked Vultures ends up sounding less like a jaw-dropping collaboration and more of a testament to Homme’s ability to impose his musical will on every other musician he plays with. TCV play with what an established Homme sound and there’s very little in the way of other voices creeping into the picture. The names are going to bring this band a lot of attention, but they can’t really hide the fact that Homme is totally and completely in charge. He also hasn’t offered up (or allowed) a lot of musical range on this album and the whole project has ended up suffering as a result.

Growing Pains

Artist: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Album: Higher Than The Stars EP

Year: 2009

Grade: 3 pretzels

Animal Collective aren’t the only band topping off a very successful year with an EP full of new material. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart were arguable the strongest “rookie band” this year and are already appearing on critics’ end-of-the-year lists. Their self-titled debut was a remarkably upbeat and enjoyable album, reminding cynical listeners (such as, say, myself) that blissful, youthful and joyous music can still be pretty damn awesome.

The sad part about the Higher Than The Stars EP is that it doesn’t maintain the sunny, rolling momentum of the debut album. The opening title track sounds like a slightly stale reimagining of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979”, with its dreamy keyboards and wistful melody. The fuzz-soaked guitar roar is sadly absent, rendering the song somewhat toothless and dull. It’s certainly quite pretty, but it doesn’t stick in your mind once it’s over.

The EP’s best songs are tracks two and three, “103” and “Falling Over”. The former finally brings the guitars back, with chords crashing all around and Kip Berman vocals picking up some nice power and confidence. “Falling Over” recalls the Scottish Postcard Records sound, from its Orange-Juice-baiting title on down. The guitars jangle and Berman sings a suitably fey chorus of “don’t you, don’t you touch me, just be cool.” “Falling Over” is particularly encouraging, since there’s nothing like it on the Pains’ debut. My persistent fears that this band would turn out to be a one-trick pony may have been unfounded…

Ah, but then “Twins” shows up and the Pains go back to sounding unmemorable. The chorus’ sentiment of “everything good is gone” is sadly way too close to what I, as the listener, was thinking. Despite having all the expect elements of a good Pains song in place, the end result just sounds hastily thrown together and half-hearted. Higher Than The Stars also ends on a very odd note, with a radical remix of the title track, subtitled the “Saint Etienne Visits Lord Spank Mix”. Upending the band’s usual exuberant guitars and propulsive energy, this mix stretches the song out to almost seven minutes and builds around a hypnotic set of keyboard lines and a club-ready dance beat. The end result it something that really accentuates the ground’s boy/girl harmonies and wistful yearnings. It’s an unusual, unrepresentative, but not unenjoyable end to an EP that repeatedly has the listener wondering just where this band can and will go next.