It’s true, after all — Thee Michelle Gun Elephant really does suck.
At least compared to Sweden’s the Hives.
Both bands serve up rehashed garage rock of the MC5-Stooges ilk. Although endlessly compared to current critics darlings the Strokes, the Hives actually sound closer to TMGE in spirit.
Two things, however, trump the Swedes’ musical cousins in Nippon — a powerful vocalist and actual songs.
Let’s not mince words here. Chiba Yusuke gets high marks where passion and effort is concerned but low scores when it comes to timbral appeal. Howlin’ Pelle’s off-key scream has enough grit to fit his bandmates’ volume-knobs-to-11 sound without turning into grating presence.
Originally released two years ago, Veni Vidi Vicious is a compact collection of two-minute, hard rocking ditties.
Most of the album traffics in double-time, whiplash-inducing rawk ‘n’ roll — “Outsmarted”, “The Hives Introduce the Metric System in Time”, “Statecontrol”, “Knock Knock”.
At times, the quintet eases up just a bit to make some single-worthy moments. “Hate to Say I Told You So” is, of course, the most obvious choice for MTV airplay. It’s also the longest song on the album, clocking in at an epic 3’21”.
“Main Offender” contains a fist-pumping, sing-along chorus, while “Supply and Demand” sports some nice interplay between Pelle and guitarists Nicholaus Arson and Vigilante.
And just to give listeners a bit of a reprieve, the Hives indulge its inner lounge lizard with the very exotic “Find Another Girl”. Another point in Pelle’s favor — Chiba probably couldn’t sound like a crooner if Frank Sinatra possessed him.
For the most part, the Hives pretty much have a single modus operandi — loud, loud, loud.
At worst, Veni Vidi Vicious is homogenic, one dumb rock song after another, but that homogeny works in the band’s favor.
Deep down, the album is a convergence of tunesmithing, balls and adrenaline. It’s the kind of rock album that doesn’t require much more explication than grunting, “Huh … cool.”
Lisa Go calls her music “quiet rock”. If that’s her idea of “quiet”, her notion of “loud” must be pretty ear-splitting.
Go’s 2000 debut album, Moonbeams, is the second Meg Lee Chin album we’re still waiting for. A mix of buzzing guitars, synthetic drums, electronic effects and Go’s singular wail, Moonbeams creates a wonderful sonic landscape.
In “Waiting Room”, a heavy-handed, growling introduction makes way for a quiet verse. “Kara Kara” seethes with a minimal intensity, untill it bursts into an almost industrial chorus.
Go is a master at texture. There’s not a track on the album that doesn’t make use of a full range of dynamics.
“Ice Candy”, for instance, starts off with an Indian-influenced sample, but not until half-way through the six-minute song does the full band come crashing in.
“Fade Away” starts off with an ominous thump of a reverb-drenched kick drum, then gives away to an oddly lilting rhythm as awkward as it is foreboding.
While Go, a third generation Chinese-Japanese, has written an album of very dramatic, tuenful pieces, only one significant thing interferes with the album’s execution — her English diction.
All the songs on Moonbeams are sung in English, and although Go’s nasal voice is intriguing, her heavy Japanese accent garbles what could have been a brilliant performance.
It takes a few listens to get through Go’s diction and to appreciate the painstakingly crafted music she’s produced.
Once that happens, it’s easy to pick personal favorites.
“Chinese-Made Machine Gun” dives head-long into a Garbage vibe, complete with catchy chorus. “Bed” makes for a terrific conclusion to the album, winding down Go’s frantic music.
Go has since released a number of singles and a second album, Utaime, since recording Moonbeams. Utaime includes songs sung in Japanese.
Moonbeams is definitely a promising start. Looking forward to more of Go’s work will be a treat.
The only thing wrong with Nina Hynes’ 1999 debut EP Creation was its length — six songs.
Hynes’ music mixes trip-hop and alternative rock, while her voice calls to mind Björk and Harriett Wheeler of the Sundays. Creation was such a strong album, it left listeners starving for more.
Fans, unfortunately, would have to wait 2 1/2 years before Hynes released her first full-length album, Staros.
Although the basic foundation of Hynes’ sound is in tact — haunting rock embellished with electronic effects — the sound on Staros sounds drier, even spare. By comparrison, Creation soaked in reverb, giving the music an almost liquid feel.
Fans of that more liquid sound may find it hard to warm up to Staros’ more earthen qualities. It shouldn’t stop them from enjoying Hynes’ songwriting.
In the nearly three years since Creation’s release, Hynes has embraced a broader sense of style. “The Other Side of Now” and “Last Song of the 20th Century” traffic in the same kind of folk-electronica combo Shea Seger explored on 2001’s The May Street Project.
“Mono Prix” is Hynes’ first stab at a fast-paced, straight-forward rocker. A vaguely Latin beat underscores the slow horns of “Tenderness”.
Other tracks sport a pared-down version of Hynes’ intial alterna-rock-trip-hop. “Universal” sputters along on a slowed-down drum ‘n’ bass beat, while “Dive” indulges in the same kind of atmospherics that made Björk’s Homogenic a fascinating listen.
“Shine” and “Swallow”, in the meantime, feature the kind of off-kilter melodies that gave Creation some interesting hues.
Hynes’ vocal performance does seem a bit more fragile here, and at times, she sounds almost indescript. There’s almost a sense she could have belted “Mono Prix” and “Shine” with the same kind of aplomb she attacked “This Magic Stuff”.
Those faults aside, Staros is worth the effort to like. Hynes is an incredible performer and writer, not as eccentric as Björk but every bit as engaging.
Not only must musicians respect the spirit of a song’s original performance, they also have to inject something of their own muse into it.
Good cover albums (Bill Frisell, Have a Little Faith) strike the right balance, while bad ones (Duran Duran, Thank You) end up smearing the reputation of both tributor and tributee.
Nearly a year after giving birth to her son, Shiina Ringo eases her way back into the hyper-productive Japanese music scene with her own cover album, Utaite Myoori. (Or, “Singer’s luck”.)
Shiina has cultivated a reputation for being an in-your-face rocker. She doesn’t fear banging tone clusters on an introspective piano ballad (“Tokiga Boosoosuru”) any more than wailing over a heavy metal guitar riff (“Identity”).
So it’s both surprising and typical for Shiina’s cover album to cut a wide swath of musical styles: Edith Piaf, Andy Williams, the Beatles, Franz Schubert.
Just how well does can one singer interpret Marilyn Monroe and a Japanese lullaby? Pretty well, as it turns out.
Although Utaite Myoori clocks in at 67 minutes, Shiina saw fit to split the album into two discs, one helmed by a different producer and performed by a distinct band.
Each disc is named after the person who arranged it — the “Mori-pact disc” by Mori Toshiyuki, the “Kame-pact disc” by Kameda Seiji.
Shiina was wise to keep the work of these two arrangers separate — like the album covers, they’re as different as night and day.
Fans will probably warm up to the “Kame-pact disc” more easily. Kameda worked with Shiina on her previous albums, and the performances he brings out of the band fits well with what’s gone before.
Compared to the “Mori-pact disc”, however, Kameda and Gyakutai Glycogen (the house band for that disc) deliver the most fiery performances.
Shiina sounds like blues mama on “Shiroi Kohato”, while the guitar work on the Beatles’ “Yer Blues” could be charitably described as wondefully chaotic.
Andy Williams’ “More” transforms into a space-age cabaret song, borrowing a few arrangement tricks from Shiina’s own “Yokoshitsu”. Even the unlikely cover of Monroe’s “I Wanna Be Loved By You” feels organic.
The most relevatory performance is Shiina’s duet with SPITZ’s Kusano Masamune. Kusano, who’s wonderful voice is often backed by jangly guitars, sounds at home in front of Kameda’s screaming axeslingers.
Although the “Mori-pact” disc isn’t bad per se, it doesn’t seem to possess the kind of passion of the “Kame-pact” disc.
Shiina’s duet with Utada Hikaru on “I Won’t Last a Day Without You” feels labored. The cold electronic arrangement of “Jazz a Go Go” seems a bit too stiff for the song’s need to swing.
Shiina does tackle “Kareha” (a.k.a. “Autumn Leaves”) with a very tangible sensuality, and her performance of “Komoriuta” is beautifully sparse.
Taken as a whole, Utaite Myoori is pretty impressive. Shiina navigates multiple languages, styles and idioms with forcefullness and ease. She has no qualms about shaping other people’s music into her own, and she makes it work well.
There seems to be only two possible reactions to Weezer: rabid fandom or ambivalence.
The folks who get it, get it, and everyone else is left to shrug and say, “Meh.”
A friend of mine took me to a Weezer concert in hopes of converting me, and it didn’t really work. Mostly, it was the asshole frat boy who made me spill my beer on myself, then proceeded to tell me to watch it.
But I can’t say that cover of the Pixies’ “I Bleed” was all that convincing either. Why is it called “The Sweater Song” anyway?
Given those lack of Weezer fan creds, why a review of Maladroit?
Lionize someone like Rivers Cuomo long enough and curiosity eventually takes hold.
Plus, he reminds me of two guys I have crushes on.
If memory serves me correctly, Weezer’s two self-titled albums have often been cited as the template for the band’s basic aesthetic — a double-wide guitar sound backing Phil Spector-ish melodies.
At its core, Maladroit sticks with the program. Cuomo still delivers those sing-song melodies, and the guitars are every bit as crunchy as everyone says.
But compared to 2001’s “Green Album” — some of which I sampled through file sharing, thanks for asking — Maladroit is crunchier. There’s something a lot more forward with the way Cuomo and fellow guitarist Brian Bell hammer on their riffs.
When the pair attacks the choruses of “Fall Together”, “Slave” and “American Gigolo”, the songs transform from pop ditties to Big Rawk Moments. This is the stuff air guitars were made for.
Maladroit also sounds a lot rougher. Cuomo could almost give Number Girl’s Mukai Shutoku a run for his money the way he spits out the excoriating lyrics of “Slob”. “Take Control” feels like it could have been an early 90s anthem finessed at the sound board by Butch Vig. (Work with me here — I’m trying not to evoke the name Cobain.)
Even a slow song like “Death and Destruction” sports some picking reminiscent of those guitar god albums from the late 80s.
Put together, all these elements make a convincing case Weezer deserves some of the accolades they’ve so far garnered.
I’d almost go so far to say Maladroit is the Weezer album for people who don’t really think anything of Weezer. Not only do you get the band’s trademark pop-punk sound, it comes with some nice, heavy axework.
P.S. Don’t tell me to check out “the Blue Album”. I got sick of hearing all the radio hits, and I still think that Pixies cover sucks.
Believe the critics when they name-drop Dave Matthews and David Gray when writing up John Mayer.
Mayer’s lightweight, adult-contemporary pop is definitely geared for the girlfriends-of-frat-boys sect. (Check out the lip-syncing, college-age women in the video for “No Such Thing”. Biff and Betsy, all the way, man.)
To his credit, Mayer does dash off some decent tunes, particularly “Why Georgia” and “Neon”.
There’s just one problem — his lyrics.
That falsetto bit in the chorus of “No Such Thing” is an all-right embellish, but damn is it painful to hear Mayer proclaim he’d like to “run through the halls of [his] high school” and “scream at the top of [his] lungs”.
All right — let’s cut Mayer some slack for being all of 23 years of age. In another seven years, that lyric will look mighty absurd.
The atrocities don’t stop there.
“One mile to every inch of your skin like porcelain/One pair of candy lips and your bubblegum tongue,” Mayer sings on “Your Body is a Wonderland”. Amazing to think he can get through that line with a straight face.
As for “83”, well — all the power to him. It’s great he’d love to be six again, but my Japanese teacher has him beat. She’d rather be two years old — that’s a time in a person’s life when nothing registered.
Musically, Mayer has an expert handle on writing the conventional pop song. He can nail a hook well enough to get the most closeted karaoke singing along.
But the only thing more excruciating than listening to Mayer prattle on about going back to high school is finding yourself mimicing those same lines.
Mayer’s so-called “quarter-life crisis” hasn’t provided enough material for him to spin very engaging tales around his melodies. As a result, his already lightweight pop comes across even blander than it ought to.
Maybe by the time Mayer sees 30 coming around the corner, the School of Hard Knocks might have shown him a thing or two.
Before the release of Un día normal, Juanes told Billboard magazine his outlook on life is a lot more positive.
“What I live, I give back in the songs,” he told the magazine. “And my vision of life has changed. And life is beautiful, and one must take advantage of it.”
It certainly shows.
Un día normal, the follow-up to the Colombian artist’s Grammy-awarding debut Fijate bien, sounds much sunnier.
Juanes still combines Carribean and Latin American rhythms with his straight-forward rock ‘n’ roll songwriting, but the dark edge that subtly underscored much of the singer’s debut has definitely been scaled back.
Sure, Juanes makes room for some haunting tunes, such as the string-laced “Dia Lejano” or the introspective “La Historia de Juan”, a song reportedly about a homeless child.
(Disclosure: I don’t speak Spanish, so don’t look for any lyrical explication here.)
But much of Un día normal is bright, even joyous. If nothing else, it’s a lot more radio-friendly.
The pounding rhythm of the album’s opener, “A Dios le Pido”, drives the song as much as the Carribean-influenced guitar work. “Luna” positively shines with its brilliant intro and bouncy reggae-rhythm.
“Es Por Ti” is definitely a bittersweet, uptempo ballad, but it’s not as dark as “Nada” from Fijate bien.
Newcomers may latch onto the wonderfully performed duet between Juanes and Nelly Furtado on “Fotografia”, but it’s the following track, “Desde Que Despierto”, which really steals the show.
A no-nonsense rocker, “Desde Que Despierto” contains Juanes’ most infectous chorus on the album.
Juanes’ happier outlook on life may jar listeners who appreciate the righteous angst that imbued his previous album. But ultimately, Juanes’ knack for writing a hook, and his seamless combination of rock ‘n’ roll and Latin rhythms, wins in the end.
Un día normal avoids the sophomore slump. Not bad for a guy who won three Grammys with his debut.
There was always some doubt that John Zorn’s Naked City couldn’t have possibly navigated those quick cuts in the music without some studio trickery.
Listen closely to Naked City’s self-titled debut on Nonesuch from 1990, and it’s hard to tell whether some tracks were spliced.
More than a decade later, Zorn puts those doubts to rest by releasing Naked City Live Volume 1. Recorded in 1989 at the Knitting Factory in New York City, the album demonstrates the tightness of Zorn’s “super group” was no fluke.
“New York Flattop Box” is evidence enough. The 43-second track is pretty much a country tune disrupted by the group’s approximation of radio static. When Zorn interrupts Frisell’s twangy country playing with his screaming saxophone, it’s exact and precise. There’s no way any of it could have been manipulated.
That’s not to say some overdubs weren’t used in the studio. On recording, the chaotic intro of “Shot in the Dark” is a lot thicker than the performance captured on this album.
Still, it’s nice to hear different interpretations of some familiar music. Zorn has always been something of a hook-writer, and it was hard to remember Naked City was a jazz group, not a rock band.
Naked City Live Volume 1 reminds fans the group consisted of some of the best improvisers playing in New York’s Lower East Side. “Inside Straight”, a 5-minute piece that concluded the studio album, gets an extra three minutes of improvisation live. “The Way I Feel,” a track never included on a Naked City studio album, is 10 minutes of great swing.
The rest of the album pretty much sports tracks from what would eventually become Naked City’s first album. “Skate Key” wouldn’t show up till the band’s final album, Radio, but the band’s covers of movie themes — “Chinatown”, “A Shot in the Dark”, “I Want to Live” — have a big presence.
There’s even an interpretation of Ennio Morricone’s “Erotico”, another unreleased treasure which never found its way to a Naked City studio album.
Perhaps the most intriguing idea behind Naked City Live Volume 1 is the title — will there be more to come from Zorn and his Tzadik Archival Series? If so, it’ll be an interesting to see whether Naked City’s other albums were ever performed live.
A bit of history — although the band existed for only four years, Zorn managed to record five incredibly divergent albums with the group.
Grand Guignol featured arrangements of 20th Century classical music, while Absinthe was a haunting, ambient work as disturbing as it was fascinating to hear. Only Radio contained much of the same kind of stage-friendly music as Naked City.
It would be fascinating to hear Naked City’s interpretation of Claude Debussy’s The Sunken Cathedral performed in front of an audience.
We’ll all find out if a second volume follows the first into stores.
Number Girl may have recorded some incredible albums, but the band cuts its teeth in live shows.
Jump on a file sharing network, and more than likely, fans will be trading audience recordings of Number Girl concerts.
Back in 2001, Number Girl tied fans over between albums by releasing two live products — a DVD titled Sawayakaneso and a cassette tape titled Kiroku Series.
Kiroku Series is only available at the band’s gigs, which is a shame — the performances captured here practically blow the quartet’s 1999 live album, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, out of the water.
Number Girl is nothing if not precise. Ahito Inazawa is perhaps the best drummer to come around since Smashing Pumpkins’ Jimmy Chamberlain graced a kit. He and bassist Nakao Kentaro 27-sai are locked in tight over the twin-guitar attack of Tabuchi Hisako and vocalist/songwriter Mukai Shutoku.
When all four of them tear into the opening of “Omoide in My Head” or hammer away at the pounding rhythm of “Drunk Afternoon”, it’s revelatory.
Those comparrisons to Gang of Four aren’t all far off.
When Number Girl released Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, it had only two albums of material to draw from. Essentially, it was School Girl Distortional Addict live.
Kiroku Series still limits itself to the band’s major label work, but the set list feels more diverse.
That’s because there’s more to draw from, such as single-only songs “Drunk Afternoon”, “Haikara Gurui” and “Destruction Baby”, a metal song turned Police-like dub for this recording.
But the real treat is the band’s 10-minute rendition of “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle”, a song Number Girl contributed to a movie soundtrack.
The original song had a quirky rhythm and seemed to meander a bit. Performed live, “Zazenbeats Kemonostyle” transforms into a hulking wall of sound, with Mukai screaming himself hoarse. It’s an impassioned reading, one so riveting, 10 minutes seems too short.
The existence of that track alone makes the tape’s limited availability almost criminal. However much it’s uncool to advocate file sharing, this performance justifies the effort to find the entire album online.
Maybe one day Kiroku Series will be released on a wider scale. Let’s hope Number Girl doesn’t top itself with an ever better live recording.
Follow up one of the most successful solo debuts with a live recording? Taped by MTV? With nothing but a guitar as accompaniment?
But half way through her MTV Unplugged performance, Lauryn Hill even acknowledges to her audience that she was duped into thinking she needed a “20-piece backing band”. She didn’t, as evidenced on the two-disc recording of that broadcast.
The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Hill’s 1998 watershed album, was such a lush recording, it whetted the appetite for more of the same. When news spread that MTV Unplugged 2.0 would be that album’s follow-up, it was hard not to feel a twinge of disappointment.
Would a literally unplugged Lauryn Hill really live up to her own previous, award-winning work? She does. Quite marvelously, too.
Hill recognizes her talent is in lyrics. She’s not a melodicist aiming to nail the perfect hook.
In fact, Hill’s guitar playing on the album is quite minimal — four chords are about as far as she goes.
Rather, Hill’s concern is with telling a story, painting a setting and letting her first-person characters reveal the inner-workings of their minds.
On “Adam Lives in Theory”, Hill casts Adam and Eve in an urban tale of parental responsibility. “Mr. Intentional” addresses a sweet-talking devil-figure who’s good intentions lead to bad results.
Even without Hill’s between-song explanations, many of these new songs have some pretty apparent autobiographical sources.
Hill slings a lot of legal language typical for a Law and Order episode on “Mystery of Iniquity”. The singer was embroiled in a highly-publicized lawsuit with a producer who wanted songwriting credits for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
“I Got to Find Piece of Mind” speaks to an unnamed love in Hill’s life who has such a profound affect on her, she breaks into tears at the end of the song. It’s clearly the crux of the album.
Hill’s stage banter is almost as illuminating as her songs. She bends over backward to convince her audience her fears aren’t any more significant or special than theirs. Hill might seem to protest a bit too much, but there’s a conviction in her voice that’s enough to show a listener she’s not faking it.
The longest track on the album is a 12-minute interlude.
In a way, Hill shares with Sinéad O’Connor a frank candor and deep sense of spirituality that comes across well in music. Hill probably won’t be joining any dissident priesthoods anytime soon, but she can make even the most recovered Catholic empathize with her rants against “the Enemy”.
Perhaps MTV Unplugged 2.0 works best because it’s a modest album with huge ambitions. The average length of these songs is 8 minutes.
Hill’s stripped-down performance may not be the sequel to Miseducation fans would love to hear, and that’s a good thing.
By asserting such a bold creative move, Hill underscores the basic theme of this latest batch of songs — she won’t back down from her vision despite what anyone expects from her.