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.
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.
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.
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.
Ever since Bang on a Can became a major label endeavor, the adverturousness of the informal music festival’s recordings take on the appearance of losing its initial pioneering spirit.
Critics of Bang on the Can said the primarily downtown New York affair lost its edge about seven years ago when it moved out of the Kitchen and into Lincoln Center.
On the contrary, Bang on a Can has tapped into the slowly built proverbial bridges between popular culture and high art.
Two years ago, Bang on a Can arranged Brian Eno’s Music for Airports for live instruments. In short, it reverse engineered the components of Eno’s seminal recorded opus and toured the piece in a number of international air terminals.
For a follow-up, members of the festival’s house band, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, have done something pretty obvious — they recorded three works by Steve Reich.
Compared to the names of composers championed by Bang on a Can, Reich is about as classically mainstream as, say, Bob Dylan. Not everyone may like his work, but most people can appreciate Reich’s influence.
Reich, however, is one of the few figures in (so-called) art music recognizable in pop circles — well, at least in the underground. Last year, Nonesuch, who also released BOAC’s collection of Reich’s work, rounded up a bunch of DJs to remix Reich’s work.
Bang on a Can present more straight-forward interpretations of Reich’s work, but it’s still easy to understand the composer’s appeal to the electronic music frontier.
Reich’s music sounds synthetic on the surface, but as it unfolds — as it does in the kinetic Eight Lines — a broader sense of beauty emerges. Bang on a Can infuses this seemingly cold music with a real human warmth, and the results are satisfyingly amazing.
P.S. I always thought of myself more of a Phillip Glass fan than a Steve Reich fan, but after listening to Different Trains with more mature ears — and now the pieces on this latest collection — I’d say the scales are definitely shifting.
A funny thing happened when I listened to Audra McDonald’s How Glory Goes — I felt the urge to get Dawn Upshaw’s Broadway-themed album, I Wish It So.
A funnier thing happened after I listened to the two discs consecutively — they’re almost the same album.
Like Upshaw, McDonald is the kind of performer who can make a believer out of any skeptic. Whereas Upshaw is the opera singer for people who hate opera, McDonald is the Broadway musical actress for people who don’t like Broadway musicals.
And like Upshaw’s I Wish It So, How Glory Goes is programmed with mostly non-show stoppers, save for a requisite standard. In McDonald’s case, it’s “Somewhere” from West Side Story. (Upshaw, not surprisingly, had chosen “I Feel Pretty” from the same show.)
Broadway music is most powerful within the confines of its story. An overwrought tune such as “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” takes on new meaning when the song’s signature character reveals her true nature. McDonald, however, manages to avoid both forced sentimentality and out-of-context confusion by choosing material that ably displays her thespian abilities.
Who knows what’s the story behind “I Wouldn’t Mind” from The Other Franklin? It’s still a heart-wrenching tune regardless, and one where McDonald makes a convert out of doubters.
But for all of McDonald’s wise choices in making this album, it’s her sweet, powerful voice that matters most of all. McDonald could be singing a shopping list, and it would sound divine.
Oh, and the funniest thing about the whole McDonald-Upshaw parallels — both albums were released by Nonesuch. Upshaw’s in 1994. McDonald’s in 2000.
eX-Girl albums tend more to be great souvenirs after concerts than actual recordings to enjoy.
On the Japanese trio’s messy — literally and figuratively — debut Heppoku Pou, it was hard to distinguish improvisatory genius from amateur noise-making.
When Chihiro, Kirilo and Fuzuki started incorprating tunes into their music — as they did on their second album, Kero! Kero! Kero! — an uneasy marriage of musical deftness and novice bravado formed.
eX-Girl’s “a capella” album — somehow implying it’s not a real third album — proves without a doubt that the band knows a thing or two about music.
Once again working with producer/co-writer Hoppy Kamiyama, eX-Girl has produced an amazing work of vocal prowess. Sort of.
Each of the Girl’s sopranos won’t give Jesse Normyn or Kathleen Battle any sleepless nights, but it might give Enya, Värttinä, Les Mystere de Voix Bulgares and the Geinoh Yamashirogumi nightmares.
A hint of eX-Girl’s a capella muscle was flexed on Kero! Kero! Kero! in the form of “Tofu No Uta (Tofu Song)”, a seemingly complex, contrapuntal work that somehow managed to include the phrases “So what?” and “Shut your mouth!”
eX-Girl has taken the simplicity of this jumping point and multiplied it dozens-fold. With the magic of multitrack recording, they’ve gone beyond not worrying and being happy.
Along the way, they make a few nods to some apparent international influences. “Souvlaki” and a re-working of the group’s, ahem, single, “Disco 3000,” borrow liberally from Bulgarian women choir arrangements. “Zozoi” might have been written by either Meredith Monk or Pauline Oliveras. And “Jet Mogura” includes an almost kecak-like chant that fires off a number of cartoon heros, include Pikachu of Pokémon.
Big When Far, Small When Close is one giant step toward realizing eX-Girl’s full musical potential. It’s a real album this time — something you can enjoy listening to while the trio books its next set of American dates (supposedly in October!)
The problem with the term “rock en Español” is its ambiguity.
Spanish-language rock music takes on so many guises that it’s best described by what it’s not — specifically, a “Latin Explosion.” The grand anthems of Maná are as much rock en Español as Café Tacuba’s art rock or Molotov’s blistering metal-rap. But they’re definitely not Ricky or Enrique.
There seems to be a slight movement, however, to pigeonhole rock en Español as a primarily rap-driven genre. (A number of bands on last year’s Watcha Tour were rap groups.) The soundtrack to the film Price of Glory neatly maps the different directions the hybrid music can take.
“Keep It Simple,” a track by rap-rockers Puya, establishes the path the entire soundtrack will eventually follow, but the disc does attempt to give a broad survey of rock en Español in its first few songs.
Aterciopelados present the almost Dead Can Dance-ish “Lado Oscuro.” Pastilla goes for the big, punk-pop riffs on “Be a Star,” while Ozomtali and Los Lobos make a case for the Español part of rock en Español.
After that, Price of Glory alternates between a series of slightly different sounding rap groups. King Chango and El Gran Silencio — both contributing two tracks to the album — lean toward more Latin-influenced music, while Control Machete and Cypress Hill represent the straight-forward hip-hop contingent.
And just to throw an additional monkey wrench into the whole equation, the soundtrack concludes with the Texas Tornadoes sounding absolutely Louisianan. As a result, the soundtrack blurs into an indistinguishable sameness.
Right now, the diversity of rock en Español groups makes the music such an exciting listening experience, but if marketing forces intervene and gentrify the, ahem, “genre,” it creates products as seemingly generic as Price of Glory.
While the soundtrack makes for a good Spanish rock sample, it also serves a warning for the future of the music.
(Ed. note: The text for the reviews of Wayne Horvitz’s Upper Egypt and American Bandstand have been paired.)
After fronting such sonically riveting ensembles as the President, Pigpen and 4+1 Ensemble, Wayne Horvitz seems to have made a decidedly unadventurous move with Zony Mash.
I mean, c’mon — it’s a jam band! That’s what Medeski, Martin and Wood are for.
Recording studios can only capture so much of a live performance, and as such, listeners can’t escape the feeling that a group like Zony Mash and music from the band’s latest disc Upper Egypt would be best experienced in a concert hall or club.
But under Horvitz’s leadership, even something as straight-forward as Zony Mash has its moments of strange beauty. Horvitz is a master of hooks, and in between extended moments of virtuosity, that talent always comes back to grab hold.
“Forever” centers around a quiet but busy melody that’s just plain beautiful. “End of Time” sprinkles in a dischordant harmony here and there for an unsettling effect.
On faster tracks such as “Spice Rack” and “FYI,” seemingly convoluted melodies give way to memorable gestures — a big major chord here or a simple response to a complicated call.
As always, Horvitz is a skilled improviser, making the most random solos sound completely like fate — just as any great jazz musician can do. With rhythm section Andy Roth (drums) and Keith Lowe (bass) grounding Horvitz and guitarist Timothy Young, the composite result is a lot more than the surface initially reveals.
In attempting to form a band to record a “piano album,” Horvitz made the discovery that the fire-brand chemistry of Zony Mash works in an intimate setting as well.
Unlike rock bands who make a big deal out of recording two albums at one time, Horvitz’s multiple releases in a single year is par for the proverbial course. So too with American Bandstand, a Zony Mash album that isn’t Zony Mash.
Horvitz’s piano playing strips away any timbral cloudiness he usually introduces into his music, and without them, he sounds almost traditional in the way his melodies twist and turn.
On some level, the music becomes a bit less interesting, but at the same, time, it forces listeners to recognize the human elements inherent in Horvitz’s work.
The opening strains of the group’s debut album, Break of Dawn, hint that this Japanese trio plays jazz-pop. Then the chrous hits, and they become a loud, alternative rock band.
Skip to the next track (“Standing on the Hill”), and they sound like a version of Every Little Thing without synthesizers.
Skip to the next track (“Oasis”), and they’re back to being loud rockers again.
Skip to the next track (“Another”), and they’re back to playing jazz-pop, this time with strings, hip-hop beats and DJ scratches.
It’s this kind of eclectism that makes J-popTheGenre an interesting offshoot of exported American rock music. In attempting to emulate what’s going on an ocean away, bands such as Do As Infinity end up creating altogether new brews.
One thing is for certain — a sound so unique as Do As Infinity’s would leave U.S. audiences puzzled.
As such, Break of Dawn requires at least two listens — the first one to understand what’s going on musically; the second to really enjoy the hooks offered by the band’s songwriters.
If you didn’t think hip-hop beats could anchor alternative rock music influenced by jazz, it’s time to shift your paradigm.