It’s a familiar formula — soulful diva with guy rapper backed by a DJ. C&C Music Factory used it. The Fugees used it. Heck — even the Sugarcubes was an alternative rock version of the same set-up. (Sort of.)
So too do m-flo.
On its cosmically-themed debut album, Planet Shining, m-flo takes a number of influences from seemingly disparate sources to create a form of R&B and hip-hop at once familiar and new.
Make no mistake — this album is R&B through and through, but at the same time, there’s a sensibility to m-flo’s music that goes beyond deep soul.
On “Ten Below Blazing,” a drum ‘n’ bass beat drives singer Lisa’s multi-layered chorus. “Come Back to Me” includes a space age arpeggio more akin to Deee-Lite than to Lauryn Hill. And “Hands” contains a piano hook that could have been lifted from a Steve Reich composition.
And while all these little sonic flourishes add up to an impressive overall sound, Planet Shining still relies on great hooks to anchor the group’s music.
“Come Back to Me” is without a doubt the most infectous ballad to grace a pair of stereo speakers. “L.O.T. [Love or Truth]” has a chorus that makes you wish you could speak Japanese.
The only moment where Planet Shining falls flat is on “Interlude Three.” Until then, the aircraft-themed interludes were mostly non-obtrusive, if not midly entertaining. But here, three rappers attempt to create an in-house radio show — for four minutes.
If you’re not listening too closely, “Interlude Three” can be quite annoying, although there are moments when the Ebonics-inflected Japanese banter is quite amusing.
In all, Planet Shining is an impressive debut from a group with a very keen sense of itself.
There was something charming about the booming, lo-fi production of Number Girl’s earlier albums, but on its latest album, Sappukei, the Japanese punk quartet teams up with the Flaming Lips’ producer David Fridmann.
Fridmann has boosted the group’s rhythm section, cleaned up the guitar effects and flitered Mukai Shutoku’s banshee vocals through a number of effects processors.
At first, it’s hard to listen to Number Girl with such a polished sound. It almost goes against the total visceral experience of School Girl Distortional Addict or even Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, the band’s live album.
At the same time, it’s great to hear a Number Girl album blaring out of a stereo the way it ought to.
But enough of all this audiophile stuff — is the album any good?
Mukai’s songwriting has becomed a bit more sophisticated. Either that, Fridmann’s effects have given Mukai’s songs a different shade of loud. The hooks of such songs as “Sasu-You” or “Tattoo Ari” aren’t as immediate as, say, “Iggy Pop Fan Club” or “Young Girl Seventeen Sexually Knowing.”
On “Urban Guitar Sayonara,” Fridmann’s more orchestral touches — as evidenced on the Lips’ The Soft Bulletin — get in the way. The piano hook and a timpani roll are nice, but that atonal sax has to go.
After a week of listening to Sappukei, many of its song start seeping into the subconscious, and an album that gave the first impression of losing something vital to Number Girl’s essence in fact turns out to be a clarified version of the same.
Sure, the guitars don’t whack a listener in the ears like on the old albums, but your blood will pump no less when guitarists Mukai and Tabuchi Hisako tear through riffs on “Abstract Truth,” “Brutal Man,” “Brutal Number Girl” or “U-Rei.”
Number Girl is still one of the hardest rocking bands on the planet, and on Sappukei, it’s still all there.
As a songwriter, Stephin Merritt is impressive if not totally convincing. Just because he had enough gumption to write 69 Love Songs doesn’t sell a person on the notion of owning every single Magnetic Fields album on the planet. (At least it didn’t for me.)
As a lyricist, Merritt is a master, as the title track to the Future Bible Heroes I’m Lonely (And I Love It) aptly demonstrates.
A series of contradictory sentiments, “I’m Lonely (And I Love It)” revels in clever cognitive dissonance. “It’s the strangest thing, I’m sad and I don’t care/And I’m dancing on air.”
Out of Merritt’s four simultaneous projects, Future Bible Heroes is an evenly split collaboration. Merritt contributes only lyrics; the task of songwriting falls to Christopher Ewen.
Ewen is blissfully — maybe even blessfully — trapped in a time warp. The EP starts off with the sort of fast-paced arpeggio Tears For Fears used on “Change,” and from there, it’s all analog MIDI — the glorious sound of early-80s New Wave.
No one has written this kind of music since 1981, and it’s refreshing to hear it done in 2000.
Think of a sunnier Kraftwerk or Depeche Mode on Prozac on such tracks as “My Blue Hawaii” or “Good Thing I Don’t Have Any Feelings.”
Call it bias on my part, but my favorite moments on 69 Love Songs were the times Merritt went the New Wave route on his clunky Kurzweil K-2000. I’m Lonely (and I Love It) delivers a full EP of those moments.
Hence, it’s an instant keeper for anyone raised during Ronald Reagan’s first term as president.
Clocking in at 35 minutes, Number Girl’s second album, School Girl Distortional Addict, left listeners craving for more of the Japanese quartet’s wall of noise.
Clocking in at a few seconds more than hour, the group’s live album, Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai, leaves listeners unable to digest any more Number Girl afterward.
Number Girl’s ear-crushing sound is so intense, more than an hour of listening gets quite exhausting. The band pummels its audiences with one barrage of distortional hooks after another. Mukai Shutoku’s throat-damaging scream is the most musical wail to come across a pair of stereo speakers since Kurt Cobain.
Distortional Addict, which was recorded and produced by Mukai, is something of a high quality, lo-fi production. Mukai managed to capture the chest-pounding power of the group’s sound without sacrificing any of its rough edges.
Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai adds the missing element in that recording — audience feedback. Number Girl is a band best experienced live (with a pair of really good earplugs, no less), and Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai allows listeners outside of Japan a chance to live that experience.
A good number of the album’s tracks features songs from Distortional Addict, but a few gems from the band’s indie days are included. “Iggy Pop Fan Club” sounds like an appropriate song for its namesake. “Samurai,” one of the group’s most performed songs, finally gets recorded. And “Super Young” closes out the disc with a hypnotic, minimalistic hook.
Shibuya Rocktransformed Jootai is the album Number Girl was destined to make, by virtue of the fact they’re one of the best live acts in music today.
In hip-hop, the words pretty much are the music. So what happens when a language barrier interferes with the words?
For a band like Dragon Ash, it doesn’t really matter. The Japanese quartet’s sampling talents and writing chops makes its third album, Viva La Revolution, a riveting listening experience — even for folks who despise hip-hop.
If anything, the words are pretty negligible. Furuya Kenji could be rapping in Mandarin Chinese, and it wouldn’t take away from the big beats, the jump-cut arrangements, the clever sampling or anything else. It could even go so far as the make converts out of hip-hop detractors.
But from track eight (“Drugs Can’t Kill Teens”) to track 12 (“Nouvelle Vague #2”), Dragon Ash take a detour into pop-punk, ska and jock rock, attempting to capitalize on the whole rap-metal thing.
It’s a serious misstep that disrupts the momentum of an otherwise promising and brilliant work.
Dragon Ash comes to its senses on the last three songs of the album, closing it with the big hit single “Grateful Days.” Unfortunately, the detour lasts so long that listeners converted by the hip-hop tracks will lose patient with the rap-metal tracks.
Still, more than half of the album is pretty enjoyable, if not downright cool. Dragon Ash’s wild popularity in its home nation is quite justified, and Viva La Revolution demonstrates why.
Judging by the singles she released in the two years since recording her second album, it was easy to assume Cocco was mellowing out.
Not. Likely.
In context of the rest of Rapunzel, the Japanese singer’s third album, these singles serve as means to anchor the disc’s wilder moments — of which there are plenty.
The album’s opener, “Kemono Michi” (“Animal Trail”), establishes the grunge-y threshold over which subsequent tracks eventually surpass. By the conclusion of the feedback-overloaded “Kagari Bi” (“A Watch Fire”), listeners will welcome the mellow reprieve of “Polomerria.”
Cocco’s more rocking moments tend to suffer for a single-note syndrome, and a few of the melodies on Rapunzel resemble other Cocco songs a bit too closely. But what she lacks in verse writing, Cocco more than makes up for in creating a totally visceral listening experience.
Cocco also indulges her sweeter side, strategically placing lighter but no less compelling tracks as “Shiroi Kyouki” (“White Madness”) and “Jukai No Ito” (“Thread in the Deep Forest”) between the louder moments on the album.
Even the requisite “fun” track, “Unabara no Ningyo” (“Mermaid in the Ocean Field”) doesn’t seem out of place. (On previous albums, Cocco included self-written children’s songs that stuck out like sore thumbs against the rest of her emotional work.)
Cocco’s voice has gotten dramatically stronger. “Shiroi Kyouki” sports some high notes that gives Mariah Carrey a run for her money. “Kemono Michi” includes both Cocco’s blood-curdling scream and some musical wails.
Although not as hook-filled as her 1997 debut bougainvillia, Rapunzel is still a forceful opus. Cocco has greatly expanded the emotional breadth of her music to astonishing results.
If Sinéad O’Connor had a big budget to produce her earliest work, it might have sounded like faith and courage.
Or maybe not.
Musically, O’Connor’s self-production usually tended to be Spartan — an acoustic guitar, a microphone and that voice. This time around, she turns herself into the alternative pop version of an R&B diva, enlisting the help of a myriad of producers to craft her vision.
And the results bring out a kind of musical depth that O’Connor’s music always had but was never fully tapped.
“No Man’s Woman” comes across as the anthem it is. “Daddy I’m Fine” brings back the raging scream first unleashed on The Lion and the Cobra, only accomapnied by a tidal wave of guitars. Even the introspective numbers, such as “Jealous” and “Hold Back the Night,” don’t lose their focus.
At the same time, faith and courage could have only been written after six years away from O’Connor’s turbulent early 1990s career.
The unabashed emotional soul-bearing that put O’Connor on the map 10 years ago is no less powerful than it was, and O’Connor holds nothing back when addressing her audience, whoever they may be.
“You said I treated you so badly/I can’t be forgiven/You know I would have done anything/To make it through with you,” she sings on “Jealous.” It sounds more like an open letter instead.
“I know that I have done things/To give you reason not to listen to me/Especially as I have been so angry,” she confesses on “The Lamb’s Book of Life.” “But if you knew me maybe you would understand me/Words can’t express how sorry I am/If I ever cause pain to anybody.”
faith and courage is not only a return to form for O’Connor, but a full creative realiziation of her muse.
Every music journalist on the face of the planet is singing high hosannas for Sleater-Kinney (except maybe the Austin American-Statesman’s Michael Corcoran).
Well, add this site to that chorus.
A lot has been written about the greatness of Carrie Browstein’s voice, or the rawness of the trio’s performances, or the craftiness of the group’s songs.
What it all amounts to is something primal — Sleater-Kinney produce the kind of rock music that taps into an emotional intangibility. But the group also writes some great tunes.
It’s hard not to sing along with the chorus of the title track to All Hands on the Band One. Or the first lines of “You’re No Rock N’ Roll Fun.”
It’s also hard not to pump your arms to such burners as “Youth Decay” or “The Professional.”
Not very many rock bands can channel its raw energy into crafted music. Oh hell, very many rock bands fail to do so. Sleater-Kinney is not one of them.
Listening to Sleater-Kinney is sort of like listening to Igor Stravinsky’s Le Scare du Printemps for the umpteenth time — it’s savagery to your ears that rarely gets tired.
John Taylor can’t sing. That was clearly evident on 1986’s “I Do What I Do,” a slinky, sexy number that relied more on backing vocalist Tessa Niles to relay its message.
But when Taylor released his loud, rocking solo debut, Feelings Are Good and Other Lies, he actually sounded pretty good.
Since leaving Duran Duran in 1997, Taylor has released a number of recordings — Feelings Are Good, two EPs and a pair of outtake discs.
Now Taylor returns with a second solo album, and this time, he returns to crafted pop music, leaving behind his dabbling into punk rock.
With a wall of guitars behind him, Taylor’s off-kilter warble found a home. But with drum machines and synthesizer effects as a backdrop, that voice takes some getting used to.
If anything, it interferes with his songwriting. It’s difficult to pick out the hooks in a song if they’re not delivered well. And there are a lot of pretty good songs on Taylor’s eponymous second album — if you take the time to listen closely.
Taylor made a bold move by emancipating himself from Duran Duran, and by no means should he ever get Simon Le Bon to do his vocal duties for him.
But that doesn’t make Taylor the most ideal candidate for his own songs, much in the same way composers aren’t the best interpreters for their music.
I really didn’t want to write a first-person perspective review, but oh, well — I’m a Duranie, and a review of a new Duran Duran album is an Important Event, please note the caps.
Quick verdict: Pop Trash is a lot better than the songs previewed in last year’s tour let on.
On stage, tracks such as “Lava Lamp” and “Hallucinating Elvis” came across not as kitschy, keepable trash, but as silly, disposable refuge.
Even the poignant “Someone Else Not Me” — which replicates the first two chords of “Ordinary World” and includes a quote of the descending guitar riff from “Come Undone” — seems less crass upon repeated listenings. (Although that line about the flower needing a bee is perpetually cringe-worthy.)
There are even moments of inspired complexity. “Starting to Remember” sports some really odd time signatures, and “Last Day on Earth” is the hardest rocker the band has produced since “Hold Back the Rain.”
I was really expecting to hate this album, but I don’t. It’s yet another well-crafted, solid collection of songs written by some seasoned industry veterans. Duran Duran on a bad day is still better than, say, Dynamite Hack on its least generic day.
At the same time, I can’t recommend Pop Trash to listeners searching for “The Wedding Album, Part Two.” Pop Trash does not engage in the kind of emotional depth forged by “The Wedding Album,” or even Medazzaland
“Pop Trash Movie,” with its sweeping, psychedlic strings, certainly comes close, but such moments are scarce on the album.
Duranies will like this album, maybe even love it. The rest of the public can and probably will pass on it and not miss much more than some tasty but unremarkable confections.