"They'll all laugh at you."

I'm writing this while watching "The Exorcist" alone in my basement, with all the lights on. I have to do this because honestly, I'm just too scared to give my full attention to the movie. Here's the thing: I love horror films. Apparently. Who knew? Until recently, I'd always thought I hated them. But really, I've just always been bad at them. I get way too scared way too easily. I can't sleep, sometimes for days; my neck gets tired of whipping around to look behind me every five minutes; I can't look in a mirror without my heart racing. It's just never been worth it. But now, suddenly, I've decided that it is.

A month ago I watched "Silence of the Lambs", and that was the movie that started all this. All my anxieties and overwhelming fears were still there - I still was scared to turn the lights off afterward, and I still checked to make sure all the windows were locked before I went to bed - but I realized for the first time

Okay, wait, sorry, I have to interrupt myself for a minute. I stopped in the middle of that sentence when I realized that I really wasn't paying any attention at all to the movie and I probably should. So I just shut my computer and watched for a while. And now, twenty minutes later, I'm back up in my room, shaking. I just looked and saw that the lights in the room next to where I was sitting were flickering a little bit. I completely freaked out, shut off the TV, grabbed my knitting and laptop and ran upstairs to my room. This was just a perfect example of how I cannot handle scary movies in the very least. Seriously, I couldn't even finish the fucking movie, and now I'm convinced Reagan is hiding under my bed with Mischa Barton or something. My heart is still racing. But -

but I realized for the first time that I love that feeling of my heart racing. I really do. I don't know why, obviously it just means that I'm terrified out of my mind, but there is also that tinge of exhilaration that comes along with it. And what I'm discovering right now is that sometimes, that tinge alone is worth it. Sometimes that's what you need to get out of your safe zone. Sometimes it's good to pause every time you hear a random creak in your house; it's good that your heart starts thumping harder when the wind blows a door open. Sometimes it's good to run into the bathroom and brush your teeth as quickly as you can without ever looking into the mirror before sprinting back to your room and leaping into bed so you don't come within a foot of what could be underneath.
Not that I'm speaking from experience or anything.

Of course, there are different kinds of horror movies. Bloody ones, zombie ones, mindfuck ones, etc etc. The big thing here is suspense vs. surprise. There's that whole Hitchcock bomb-under-a-dinner-table thing that I can't seem to find the exact quotation of online, but I'm pretty sure my film professor didn't make it up - surprise is when you see two people talking at a dinner table and all of a sudden it explodes; suspense is when you first see someone put a bomb under the table, and then you have to watch the (unknowing) people talking while you wait for it to explode. Or something like that. Both of these elements are necessary for a successful horror film. Surprise and suspense have to work with each other and complement each other to make sure that the viewer is alternating between sitting on the edge of their seat and jumping out of it. We have to have that feeling of anticipation while we're waiting, knowing that something is going to happen...and we still have to not be ready when it does.
Admittedly mainly for the purposes of putting off sleep for a while longer, I'm going to use three examples to demonstrate the different ideas/effects of suspense vs. surprise.

1. SURPRISE

"Carrie"
Holy shit. I just saw this for the first time two nights ago. "Carrie" isn't very suspenseful at all, really - you know something bad is happening pretty much constantly throughout the movie. The bucket of blood is obviously a prop designed to further suspense, since we know about it while Carrie doesn't, but unfortunately the aging of this film has in a way ruined that. The story is a big enough part of pop culture that everyone knows what will happen with the bucket of blood, and we know that Carrie's going to freak out about it. What we don't know is exactly when it's going to happen and exactly what she's going to do about it and jesus christ she's telekinetic, how are you supposed to predict what she'll do? And the mirror and the knives and the hand and oh god oh god oh god the hand. Talk about surprise. That's certainly a way to end a movie.

2. SUSPENSE

"Rosemary's Baby"
To be honest, I haven't seen this one as recently as I've seen the others. But from what I remember, this film exemplifies "suspense" for me. The music, and the colors, and the tension...I spend the entire film gnawing on my nails and jiggling my feet, preemptively grabbing the cushions because I'm sure that SOMETHING is going to happen. But it never does, at least not until the very end. As a whole, the movie is exceptionally uneventful. But in the best way possible. As boring as it maybe should be, the imagined suspense keeps me waiting and engaged and pretty fucking scared for no real reason at all. I convince myself that something's going to happen, and I spend the entire movie waiting for it.

3. BOTH

"The Exorcist"
Okay, so, like I said, I haven't exactly finished this one yet. It's paused downstairs in my DVD player in the room next to the room with the flickering lights. So, granted, this is only from what I've seen of the movie - but to be fair, I made it through most of it. Anyway, "The Exorcist" uses both suspense and surprise together to make sure that you are as terrified as you can possibly be. We are easily lulled into the illusion that we know what's coming. Since Reagan is confined to her room for the entirety of the movie, we know that the scary parts can really only happen there, with her - so we are able to be on our guard when we enter the bedroom, and relax when we leave the house. But the film still manages to throw enough surprises at us. The nature of Reagan's demon is that we never know what's coming, and each violent act is more horrifying and shocking than the last, continually surprising us even though we've been waiting for something to happen.

Dudes, I took a sleeping pill before I started writing this because I knew I'd have trouble getting to bed tonight (yes, I AM that pathetic), and I feel it starting to kick in. Things are starting to get blurry, and that means it's time to stop blogging for the night. Oh. Hm. I just now realized that spending the hour before I go to sleep writing about really scary stuff might not have been the best use of my time...

xoxo,
ttttttues

INDIE ROCK BANDS AND THEIR FOOD ANALOGS

This morning I woke up from a dream in which bands not only produced music, but also food, and you had to consume that food while listening to the music. In my dream I was listening/eating to Why? (oysters) and Deerhunter (steak), but here are some more...

INDIE ROCK BANDS AND THEIR FOOD ANALOGS

1) Yo La Tengo = Mac and Cheese

It's all about comfort (HELLO "Little Eyes"!), and also that I have always thought of Ira Kaplan's guitar distortion as the creamy, cheesy sauce all over the wholesome rawk of YLT.

2) the Magnetic Fields = Bagel with Lox











As far as I know, Stephin Merritt isn't any kind of Jew, but again, distortion = some kind of creamy cheese, and I think everything bagels are the equivalent to the infinite depths of Merritt's voice, while the nice lox topping is sort of like Claudia Gonson's airy soprano.



3) Built to Spill = Hot Dogs on the grill








The delicious all-American fave, but there's just that unalienable predictability about them.



4) the Mountain Goats = Granola with Yogurt










The crunchy guitars, the hard to swallow lyrics, all coated in that sweet, protein-rich 'gurt that makes it go down so nice. Also, hippies love 'em.



5) the Fiery Furnaces = Green Tea ice cream











At first you don't know what the fuck is going on, but after a couple refreshing swallows, you sort of get lost in it.



6) Fleet Foxes = Blueberries











So they have lyrics about strawberries in summertime, but Fleet Foxes are really blueberries, I think because their harmonies have a skin, but are also really juicy, and I have always thought that antioxidants would sound like jangly acoustic guitars.

7) Television = Black Coffee









Not only does it wake you the fuck up, but it's pretty edgy, and I find that both Television and black coffee really impede my fine motor skills.



- a (who is posting on Tuesday instead of Monday, because on Monday she was at her grandparents condo in Florida, where apparently DIAL-UP is the only way to access the internet)

DAVE'S TOP 15

I've been approaching this post with a fair amount of trepidation. For the past month or so, the prospect of choosing the fifteen albums of the year that I liked the most seemed almost impossible. I've always been at the consuming end of this whole list-making bacchanal, and entering the fray really freaked me out.

The Music-Related Internets in December

So many questions to consider: How could I ensure I was being truly objective, and not just trying to shape a list that would make me look cool? How could I account for albums I played a lot, but don't like as much as albums I played much less? What kind of hip-hop fan was I when there were only two hip-hop albums I liked so far? How was I going to account for bands I was just getting into? These things plagued me so much that I put making the list off for weeks-until I finally just sat down, on Christmas Eve no less, and made it in about five minutes. Once I started doing it, I remembered a few things. The most important of these was that no one gives a fuck about what I think. That was pretty important to keep in mind. Also, if I'm being honest with myself, all the albums up for consideration were on my itunes, which made the whole thing possible from the comfort of my bed.

15.) Wale - The Mixtape About Nothing

Shamefully, the one hip-hop album that made the list. But in a year where I'm more dissatisfied with the genre than ever, the fact that Wale's mixtape slipped in at all is a strong assertion of its quality. A mixtape that's almost an album, The Mixtape About Nothing has my favorite new rapper taking on the issue of race with as much dillagence, intelligence, and fervor as he takes on his competition.

Wale - "The Kramer"

14.) Portishead - Third
Who the fuck saw this coming? I like Dummy as much as the next paranoiac, but damn. With some of the iciest production this side of El-P wrapping Beth Gibbons' ethereal pipes in enough wire and gauze to convince me I'm about to die, this is the record I put on when I want to be scared. Take your time with the next one dudes-we'll wait.

Portishead - "The Rip"

13.) Air France - No Way Down
This past September I drove to Ohio for my second year of college, and by the time I reached the western edge of Pennsylvania, I was having an minor panic attack. Way more scared than I had been for my first year. Frantically scrambling for something that would calm my nerves, I remembered I had just gotten an album described as "sunny" and decided that would have to do.
By the time I got to "Collapsing at your Doorstep", I was grinning from ear-to-ear, flying my hand out the window and watching the evening sun putter down over farms and strip malls. I would return to this little gem more than a few times in the following months, when I needed something to bob my head to as the days got shorter.

Air France - "Collapsing at your Doorstep"

12.) Little Joy - Little Joy
I'll be honest. It was the cover art that got me at first. When I saw the album on whatever blog I first saw it on, it would have just been one of the many I see and instantly forget, except for the exceptionally beautiful cover art, conveying perfectly the emotion the band has named itself after. The music is great too, by the way, if you like the Strokes, but are SO over 2k1. The drummer from the Strokes + Some Brazilian guy + some girl named binki= straightforward and woozily charming tunes.

Little Joy - "Brand New Start"

11.) Deerhunter - Microcastle
I have way, way too many problems with this album to properly enumerate here, but to sum up: I don't like this album as much as the amount of times I've listened to it would indicate. Every time I put it on, I found myself enjoying it, but would space out and do something else while it played in the background. I tried to find myself loving it, given all the hype it has received, and the number of times I was chastised for thinking their previous album was really boring ("C'mon dude, you just gotta get into it, man, just give it a chance."), but it never really clicked with me. Having said all that, I've probably listened to it more than half the albums on this list, and it does have a few very good songs, when they put a few guitar pedals away and bring it.

Deerhunter - "Nothing Ever Happened"

10.) Beach House - Devotion
I don't know if there's any "scene" that's going on right now that I'm less interested in than the Dan-Deacon-and-hiz-budz thing that's going on in Baltimore, and even though Beach House is only tangentially involved in that whole thing, I resisted being charmed by their sophmore disc. Eventually, I let my guard down, and this hazy dream of an album crept up into my consciousness, until I couldn't resist throwing on "Gila" or "Wedding Bell" every night for a month.

Beach House - "Gila"

9.) The Tallest Man on Earth - Shallow Grave
I spent a good portion of this year really getting into the concept of "Americana", leading me to all sorts of random corners of the musical landscape--The Anthology of American Folk Music, the music of Washington Phillips, and a true appreciation for old-school country (Ernest Tubb, Jim Reeves, Slim Whitman, Hank Williams, etc.). So it's only fitting that one of my favorite albums of the year is a Americana singer-songwriter record, featuring banjo, guitar, and some distinctively (some might say suspiciously) nasal and pleading vocals. The catch, of course, is that this dude's Swedish. First it's Volvos, now it's stunning updates of roots music, what's next, pseudo-socialist democracy? Let's do better next year, America.

The Tallest Man on Earth - "Shallow Grave"

8.) TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
The most acclaimed record of the year, hands down, Dear Science racked up Album-of-the-Years like some sort of perfect storm of critical acclaim. A paranoid, harsh record you can dance to, a funk record with a serious agenda, an art record you can actually listen to (ZING!), this album seemingly has everything. What can I even really say that hasn't been said by a million fans or detractors? One thing that I haven't heard yet is a bitter speculation that occurred to me as I was writing this blurb-- if this album is the pinnacle of their career, its all downhill from here.

TV on the Radio - "DLZ"

7.) Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair
Fuckin' DFA. Just when I think I can write you off for a while (no new LCD Soundsystem? See you next year.) you make a goddamn disco record with a vocalist I despise, and I still can't get enough of it! Seriously, if you can make me like Antony, you have magic powers. See you next year, when you sign Barbara Streisand and she makes a hardcore record. Actually, that sounds really awesome already.

Hercules and Love Affair - "Blind"

6.) Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
It's telling of my status as a total Spencer Krug fanboy that this was my biggest disappointment of the year, and it's still sitting pretty at 6th place. After delving very seriously into Sunset Rubdown and Apologies for the Queen Mary I was expecting At Mount Zoomer to be the best album of all time. Surprisingly, this was not the case, and I spent about a month listening to it in frustration. Then I took some time away to heal my wounds, bought tickets to see them live, and in the month before the show, returned to it. To my embarrasment, it was much better than I remembered, and a serious step forward for the band. In the month leading up to the show (which, by the way, was amazing), the record steadily grew in stature in my head, eventually equalling Apologies in my love for it. Still, I'll never forget that first month, when I was convinced I had made a huge mistake.

Wolf Parade - "California Dreamer"

5.) Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Yes, really.

To be honest, I really want to hate this album, but it's hard when it's so goddamn good. There are more throwaway tracks on this album than any other disc on this list, and it will probably be stale in less than six months, but Jesus Lord, when they hit it, they hit it. Nothing better to match schlepping across some frozen and barren Ohio. Does this mean I like electro now?

Crystal Castles - "Vanished"

4.) The War on Drugs - Wagonwheel Blues
Where did this even come from? I have no idea where I found this album, one day I just had it on my computer. Lucky me. In a year where I delved into Americana, this was a valuable find. A vaguely trippy road record that rips hungrily into the past thirty years of rock music, emerging dripping with bits of CCR, Dylan, and shoegaze while still a beast entirely its own. Undefinable and epic, this is the most slept-on record of the year. Of any band on this list, The War on Drugs is the one that I'm the most excited to see develop.

The War on Drugs - "Taking the Farm"

3.) Women - Women
See here for my more fleshed out thoughts on Women's extraordinary debut. All I'd really add to that is that the album has only grown in stature for me -- the more I listen to it, the more I'm convinced of it's worth. Women use distortion, drone, and effects pedals in ways that accentuate their best moments, instead of using them to hide their flaws (I see you, Vivian Girls).

Women - "Black Rice"

2.) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes/ Sun Giant EP
Oh Man. Fleet Foxes. If you're reading this, you know the deal by now: Huge harmonies, lyrics about the woods, beards. And you've probably already decided that it's actually great like everyone says or that it's all a bunch of hippies with their drugs and their hair. But on the off chance that you've never heard this album or any songs from it, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I'm more sure of you at least not hating this album than anything on this list. Never has something so aggresively accessible topped so many internet best-of's. This album/EP combo alone justifies the sense of superiority everyone I've met from Seattle has about their hometown. If you can produce music like this, shit, maybe you're right that everything is better in the Emerald City.

Fleet Foxes - "English House"
Fleet Foxes - "Blue Ridge Mountains"

1.) Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
Truly, I'll never know how this happened. How did an album so unassuming become my favorite album of the year? Is it because I'm convinced Grizzly Bear is the best band in music right now, and that their next album is going to be the greatest thing since bread? Possibly. But maybe it's the fact that no other collection of songs unfolded quite so fully, and so unendingly, as these have. With every trip through this album of lushly arranged and slightly askew pop-songs, something felt new, unopened. Whether it's the head bobbing sunshine of "No One Does It Like You", or the unpredictable and askew "Classical Records", these songs have more to them than they reveal initially, demanding and rewarding repeated listening. The simple fact is that I've listened to this album more than anything else this year, and it doesn't look like I'm going to stop anytime soon.

Department of Eagles - "No One Does It Like You"

So that's it. I'll be back next week to ramble about other things that happened this year.
--Dave

"I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel."

To me, the idea of television implies a sort of spontaneity. That probably comes from the fact that in the past two years, I've rarely watched television in any sort of regular fashion. All of the shows that I follow I watch online; I only watch TV when I have nothing else to do, and when I have nothing specific in mind. I just have to turn it on, flip through the channels, and hope for the best. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn't, but that's part of the beauty of it. All the crap on TV that I skip over just makes it that much more satisfying when I find something worthwhile. ("Worthwhile", of course, being a relative term.)

The above is probably part of the reason why I've always been so against watching movies on TV. I don't mean on a physical television screen, obviously; I mean movies aired on TV channels. A movie is something to be watched in its entirety and appreciated (or unappreciated) for it's whole. And unless you've planned ahead - which for me barely counts as watching it "on TV" because of the previously stated spontaneity hypothesis - you always start somewhere in the middle. Even if you do happen to turn on the television on the hour, the movies that are just starting are never ones you have any desire to watch, and all the interesting ones are halfway finished. I remember when I lived at home and I'd be watching something on TV and my father would come in and change the channel. He always found some random movie, and I was always so upset at him because I just don't understand how people can start movies in the middle, no matter how good it was or how many times they've seen it before.

But I've changed my mind.

I don't know when or how it happened. I don't know why. But all of a sudden, when I come home for breaks, there is nothing I look forward to more than watching bits of movies on television. Finding something I haven't seen in years, or of something that I just watched the night before. Watching the last half hour of a movie, and immediately finding the last half hour of another movie, after which I find the last half hour of a movie I saw starting when I watched that first half last hour...aren't I majoring in Cinema Studies at a prestigious liberal arts college? Shouldn't my appreciation for film be growing, rather than dwindling to the point that my favorite movie-watching experiences involve flipping between channels for hours on end? Am I sacrificing my integrity for the sole purpose of animalistic entertainment? Is that really such a problem?

I still know how to watch a movie. I haven't lost that much of my attention span yet, and I'm not too worried about that happening anytime in the near future. But I'm also teaching myself how to appreciate movies in segments. I'm learning how to appreciate it for each little thing that makes up the film, rather than simply what it conveys as a whole. And sometimes all you need are those little details, those little reminders of what's happening, what you're doing, and the fact that you really shouldn't take anything in this world too seriously.

xoxo,
t

P.S. Seriously, I have an eight page paper on Gossip Girl that's supposed to be due today and I haven't even started it. There is something wrong with me.

P.P.S. I still think this blog needs a new name. IDEAS. GO.

P.P.P.S. Five points to anyone who gets where the title's from! Hint: It was on TV Saturday night. And I watched the first forty minutes, and then the last half hour when it showed again later. It was epic.

I Hate Beatles Covers Pt. 2

So this blog totally died in the face of finals week, in which the four of us here probably wrote a composite 200 pages and then took some finals. In other words, I'm sorry for neglecting last week's post, but I had other things to write.

Two nights ago, I had a revelation. I was at my aunt's Christmas party, and my cousin, jokester that he is, decided that it would be a good idea to play Aretha Franklin's cover of "Eleanor Rigby." And then guess what. I DIDN'T HATE IT. It was hardly the same song as that second track on Revolver, but I can't actually say I liked it that much either. It's pretty obvious to me that Aretha wasn't trying to pay tribute to the Beatles in any way--she made it into an Areatha Franklin song. Which isn't to say that it's as good as "Think" or "Respect" either. It's just sort of a song that I would turn up the volume for if it come on the radio.

I'm not really sure what there is to say about that, though. That in the hands of masters, Beatles songs can just become regular songs, and not abominations? I guess it's silly to think that I'd hate Aretha Franklin's Beatles covers in the same way that I hate Fiona Apple's (I maintain, in the face of many of my close friends' fury, that Fiona Apple is pretty wack). But I also think that if Aretha can't make me like a Beatles cover, no one can.

In the past two weeks, though, I can't say I've figured anything about the whole performance thing, although I've thought about it a lot. Maybe you can.

Oh, so I guess that everyone else in the world is saying something about their Top Whatever tracks/albums of the year, so I'd just like to say that Alopecia by Why? is pretty great. I'm pissed that it didn't even make Teh 'Fork's top 50, although "Fatalist Palmistry" was their 94th pick for best song. At least it made it big on the reader's poll. Democracy Rules!

nope.

Here's what I have written for this week's post:

I'm going to talk about Blair Waldorf, and you're going to like it.

And then I stopped writing.

And now it's finals week and I have two on Thursday and, to be honest, guys, I'm kind of having a nervous breakdown over here so there's no fucking way you're getting any sort of legitimate blog post tonight. Sorry.

Stay tuned for next week, where hopefully I'll be done the 8 pg paper that I'm planning to write about Gossip Girl, and hopefully I'll just turn that shit into a post. Because Gossip Girl rules and there isn't a new episode until next year and I'm already in withdrawal.

xoxo,
t

I Hate Lil' Wayne

This is not just a space filler for an all-too-delayed post. I thought this should get it's own post because that's how strongly I feel about it. I just lied.

Big ups to Dave for stating it infinitely more eloquently than I have just done.

-Thursday

P.S. Kanye West needs to sit down and shut up. This may be a little dated, but I can't believe he compared himself to Elvis, and said that he's gunning for Beatles and Hendrix status. You're a producer, and a terrible rapper. Chase Timbaland, DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock, Dilla, and DOOM, and realize the glass ceiling you're under in hip-hop.

Some Disorganized Thoughts on Hip-Hop in 2K8

When I first started thinking about this post (a little late, sorry) I decided I was going to do a Top Ten overrated albums of the year list. It seemed like something that needed to happen when everybody is pulling out their best of the year lists, with albums I thought were mediocre to bad, but it occurs to me that there's no reason to take down albums that are probably just not for me (No Age) or have already been hated on thoroughly (Vampire Weekend, MGMT). I could reiterate how MGMT is nothing but face paint and goofy synths or how I'd rather listen to Ezra Koenig tell me the best place to buy boat shoes than his insipid lyrics about slamming a Benneton-clad hottie while listening to Peter Gabriel, but it accomplishes nothing (and is way too easy by now).

But what this train of thought led to was me thinking about hip-hop's status in 2008. My relationship to the past few years of hip-hop has been confused and hard to articulate, but what it boils down to is this: I really don't like most of it. This is much harder for me to admit than I'd like, considering the amount of time I spend reading Nah Right and downloading single after single of the supposed New Thing. But at the end of the day, the only hip-hop albums from this year that I've even liked are from Wale and Elzhi (though I anticipate the Q-Tip album joining them when I finally cop it), and I don't think either The Mixtape About Nothing or EuroPass are very good albums, they're just well executed joints by talented rappers. I didn't hear the Emc album or the Black Milk album--even Rising Down only got a few spins from me. When I think about this I cringe at myself, but it just comes down to a lack of interest after not getting excited about what I was hearing. I just couldn't muster the energy to turn off whatever else I was listening to, and slog through another mediocre mixtape in an attempt to find something I wanted to play again.

At the same time though, I've spent a lot of this year blasting through all my nineties classics while preparing for my radio show with Thursday, and I found a whole new level of love for albums like ATLiens, Liquid Swords, Internal Affairs, etc. So it's not like I lost interest in Hip-Hop as a genre, this was actually a year where I found myself loving it more than ever. But I still can't get into any of this new shit. It's just nowhere near as good. More than that though, there hasn't even been more than a few placeholder albums this year, albums that I can bring out as good examples of decent new hip-hop. Last year we had very good new albums by Jay-Z, Ghostface, Wu-Tang, El-P, Aesop Rock, and Kanye. What do have this year? What would you say fills these places in 2008? I guess Q-Tip and (maybe) GZA are fair bets, but other than that, what would usually go here have been disappointments across the board: Nas? Bun B?

Obviously, up until this point I have been omitting the biggest hip-hop album of the year, and the album that got me thinking about this whole post in the first place. So let's talk about Tha Carter III. In my opinion, this is the single most critically overrated album of the year, and possibly the past few. This is Wayne's best album, and while it certainly doesn't suck, I still get tongue-tied whenever I try to say the words "Lil' Wayne" and "good" in the same sentence. Because despite all the hype, and all the claims of Best Rapper Alive, Tha Carter III is still massively, massively flawed. Somehow critics have their mind erased every time a clever line pops up (there are a bunch), forgetting that the bulk of the album is made up of verses like this: "I told my girl when you fuck me, better fuck me good/'cause if another girl could she gon' fuck me good/No sitting at the table if bringing nothing to it/and I get straight to it like it's nothing to it." Seriously. Read that to yourself out loud and then tell me that Wayne is right when he says he belongs in the same league as Biggie.

And that's what kills me every time I bitch about Hip-Hop in 2008 and someone brings up Wayne. He's just not as good as he/Pitchfork/Spin etc. thinks he is--he's just apparently the best we can get these days as far as albums with budgets and producers with equipment (No offense to Best Kept Secret).

So that's my rant. I'm still looking forward to scouring the "top 25 hip-hop songs of 2008" lists that will surely pop up before long, and I'm sure I'll find some jams in there. I very well could be overlooking some amazing discs, and maybe I'm just too scared to commit to albums that don't have the endless acclaim that the Classics do, but I don't think so. I think that 2008 was just a drought. And that hopefully it won't last.

Proof of Hope: (There was going to be a song here, but Oh Word has pretty much got me covered here. Not saying I fuck with all of these guys, but that's mostly a taste thing-- it's all pretty solid).

I Hate Beatles Covers Pt. 1

Last week, I was blessed enough to see two of my professors debate various aspects of Joni Mitchell’s song “Blue” (off of the album of the same name, obviously) as modern poetry (or something). The talk (or “smackdown,” as it was advertised) was about Joni Mitchell for about four seconds before they started positing their own little theories about modern poetry that sort of related to the song.

Anyway, one of the professors talked about pop music as being very different form reading poetry, because the performance of the songs—that unfixed, elastic factor—is completely separate from fixed factors of lyrics and chord progressions.

One thing to know about me is that I hate Beatles covers. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows this about me. I feel a suicide bomber-esque desire to protect the world from these abominations, and I feel an anti-abortionist-style need to express my hate of Beatles covers in any context that it might be even a little bit relevant (hence this post). I hate them so much. I don’t know how else to say it.

For a while, I didn’t know exactly why I hated all Beatles covers with such ferocity (even Daniel Johnston’s minimalist versions seem to fill me with strange, twisted disgust). Over the summer, when I had ample amounts of time to think about things that don’t matter) I realized that it was because I consider everything the Beatles touched (well, not literally) sacred. I guess you’d have to understand that I grew up with actually no religion in my household. When I was six, my mother sat down on my bed and asked, “Do you want to know why you have green eyes?” and before I could reply, she quickly drew a Punnett Square on a piece of paper nearby and explained the way that her alleles combined with my father’s made my eyes green. Apparently, it’s just as likely that I could have had brown eyes. Or something. Anyway, six years later, my mother sat down on the exact same spot on my bed and, with her (brown) eyes full of tears, told me that George Harrison was dead. What I’m trying to say is, in my house, we had biology, and where that failed, we had pop music. I didn’t step into a church until I was thirteen (I think).

So maybe it wouldn’t be so surprising now that I considered the Beatles catalog one of the few pure, sacred things in the world. Those songs are the Word of God, and their covers are blasphemy. Fiona Apple doing “Across the Universe” is sort of like Fiona Apple gazing across all of creation and saying, “Well, I like this a whole lot, and I think I can do it too.”

It sucks when people try to play God, and it also sucks when people can’t let a good thing rest. I understand that by covering these songs, artists want to pay tribute to what is probably the most influential band of all time. OK. I, too, have felt the pull to get up at an open mic and perform my version of “Norwegian Wood.” Except that this is ridiculous. It’s not as if I would be exposing a significant portion of the audience to new music—the majority of people in an open mic setting will have heard, if not imbibed this song already, years ago. It’s also not as if I could do the song justice. But it’s not just me—who do you think could make “Norwegian Wood” sound better than John Lennon?

But I digress. I guess those aren’t the only reasons someone would want to cover a song, and maybe the point is that the reasons aren’t what’s wrong with Beatles covers. From this talk about “Blue,” though, I realized that it has more to do with the performance of the song than with the actual song writing. As anyone who has ever listened to the radio for more than five minutes knows, the Beatles got started covering their favorite American R&B songs. One of my favorite songs recorded ever, actually, is “You Really Got a Hold On Me” done by the Beatles (originally by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles). Smokey Robinson is obviously a baller, but for some reason, I just like the Beatles version better. Also, have you heard their version of “Please Mr. Postman” (originally by the Marvelettes)? It sounds fucking timeless. It sounds credible, and while the original version is REALLY awesome, it sounds dated, it sounds kitschy.

So why are the Beatles performances just so much better than anyone else’s could possibly be? Who fucking knows. One of the professors discussing “Blue” was talking about the way that we don’t have the vocabulary to describe exactly what a song is doing to someone’s emotions; he talked about how he felt like he wants to hold an oscilloscope up to speakers playing a song and be able to point to marks on a paper and say “Look! Look there! That’s what’s going on in this song!” I know exactly what he means. There’s nothing I can say about why the Beatles performances are the ones that are sacred, and the others are not. Maybe someday I’ll figure it out, but I sort of hope that I don’t.

Slim as hell in the mirror

Thursday's technically over, but here:

Disclaimer: I am not a nerd.

Vampires have decided to don their reflective light suits and saunter into the media limelight. This notion of a nocturnal necksucker has been prelevant and kinda scary since the Romanians and Greeks dropped mythical knowledge, and was brought unto us westerners in 1819 with John Polidori's The Vampyre. But it wasn't until 1897, when Bram Stoker decided to exaggerate the horrible Vlad the Impaler's image in Dracula, that the vampire we know today came into being. F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu brought that perception to the cinema, and Gramps Vamp planted a seed that spread its roots surreptitiously (per Buffy, who slayed mad vamps of all shapes and sizes during the years of otherwise clandestine vampire activity) and survived off pimply adolescents, introverted fanboys, and creepy basement dwellers, but has, in the past few years (and, in the world of cinema and TV, in the past few months) exploded onto the scene (it has even enticed a wizard: the late Cedric Diggory).

There tend to be obscure flavors of the week for movies (like how volcanoes became cool in 1997 with the cleverly named Volcano and Dante's Peak premiering a mere 2 months from each other. And then again when somebody said "Yo, I got it: Magicians." in 2006 with The Prestige, and The Illusionist), but this Undead phenomenon has authors and television execs alike trading Teen Wolf's basketball skill and crazy hops for pubescent sex appeal (which, in the case of the Twilight trilogy, is augmented by The Jonas Brothers Effect*) and making bank because of it.

Initially, when I first heard the plot of Twilight, I thought it pretty ludicrous that vampires were being portrayed as sexy; but after further consideration, I realized that vampires have always been pretty sadistically seductive with the neck sucking, the nightly prowls, and the china white skin. So, I guess, these different representations of Dracula today are just modern interpretations of an age old tale, but what's with their integration into society, y'all? And what's with them all having different weaknesses? I want one Dracula, and I want him the same as he was: a garlic hating, wood stake fearing, reflectionless, nocturnal creature; after that's set, you can get Barbie on his wardrobe and looks: clad him in denim and make him a sex symbol, turn him purple, make him a dwarf, make him fucking Chris Farley, but do not grant him immunity from his natural weaknesses!

Also, peep Let The Right One In. It's a Swedish vampire movie about 12 year old Oskar: a pasty, emaciated, and pathetic white blonde boy (who looks like a girl). He gets picked on by kids at school and dreams of fighting them but never can muster up the strength or courage to do so. Enter Eli: a cute girl who moves in next door to Oskar and stands on swingsets 'n shit to watch him take knives to trees. I'm not going to give it away, but, she's a vampire, and hilarity, awkwardness, and bloodshed ensue.


*My theory, Copyright pending, that publicized celibacy or the notion of being unattainable to all serves to further heighten the original desire.

Top Ten Old, But New-To-Me-In-2008, Albums

So, most of these albums are ridiculously famous. Odds are, if you're reading this, you've heard at least half of them. If you haven't, you should. They've all been analyzed to death by people more qualified than I, so I wont bother to get deep on y'all. Here goes, bros.

The Kinks - The Kink Kontroversy
Although I love Arthur and Village Green... as much as the next guy, I've never really been a massive Kinks fan. I bought this album based solely on its cover, which Sleater-Kinney blatantly ripped-off on Dig Me Out, and I've never won so hard on a snap judgment (Thanks, Carrie Brownstein!). Going from early Kinks bluesy jams ("Milk Cow Blues"), to some of Ray Davies' strongest songwriting ("When I See That Girl of Mine", "Where Have All The Good Times Gone"), this album seems to be a hidden gem in the Katalog. Pick it up.

Television - Marquee Moon

Whoa. This came out of nowhere for me. I had heard it twice before, but for whatever reason it didn't catch. I got it on a whim a few months ago, and for the first two weeks couldn't get past the first three songs. I would get to the middle of the epic title track, get scared, and return immediately to "See No Evil". Eventually I braved it, and found even more gems on the other side ("Guiding Light", "Prove It"). Apparently in intial reviews they were compared to Quicksilver Messenger Service and nicknamed "The Grateful Dead of Punk", (Don't believe me, believe Wikipedia) and though that comparison makes sense, Television has a much better handle on songcraft than either band.

Proof: "Venus"

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
There's absolutely nothing about this album I can say that isn't expressed a million times better by Lester Bangs in his famous "Desert Island Disc" essay on Van Morrison's second solo jaunt. All I'll say to add to that is that I have found no album that rewards close listening as much as this one. Seriously, if you're not going to take the time to sit down and just listen to this, you will miss most of it.

Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes
Ahhhhhh! Real Brazilians!!!

Trippy Tropicalia
Proto-everything band.
Pretty nice cape, dude.

Check it: "Panis et Circensis"

Thelonious Monk - Thelonious Alone in San Francisco
I'm a sucker for solo piano, and this album will forever serve as the jazz equivalent to the disc I have of Chopin's Nocturnes-- A spare, direct statement by an unrivaled artist of the instrument. On this album, apparently recorded live, the sounds of the crowd permeate the background--clinking glasses, bits of dialogue, and most compellingly-- someone (Monk?) tapping their foot along with the music. This was my first introduction to Monk's music, and for a while whenever I heard the fully realized versions of these songs, with all the other instruments, I got really uncomfortable, and resisted them. There was something primal and bare about these dense but addictive compositions that I could only handle in their barest form. You need this album. Trust me dudes.

Bill Evans Trio - Portrait In Jazz
A more recent addition, I picked this up from my uncle over the summer, and it served as the perfect transition from my obsession with Monk into a more full-blown Jazz fetish. Although still focused on piano, handled by Bill "Baller" Evans, he's got some serious bass and drums backing him up. A mix of standards and Evans' own compositions, this is a historic monument in jazz, one that I can't fully explain or understand, but rocks my tiny, arhythmic little world.

Mission of Burma - Signals, Calls, and Marches
The copy of this album that I have is different than the real one. I bought the Matador reissue this year after the internet flipped out about how great it was, and it's got about four extra tracks on it that do nothing but boost my love for the whole. But at the end of the day, the six tracks that were on the original are far and away the best-- take them away and this album would still be on this list, take away "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" and "Academy Fight Song" and it wouldn't have been the most addicting thing I heard this year. I will always have fond memories of mowing estate-sized lawns with this album drowning out engine noise and giving me some ill-deserved righteous anger.

Jam: "That's When I Reach For My Revolver"

The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle
Another overlooked 60's gem along with the Os Mutantes album, the Zombies third (and essentially final) disc dropped in 1968, and goes way beyond hit single "Time of the Season". It's stocked with super-orchestrated early British psych, and although it veers towards the schmaltz (update: schmaltz is actually rendered pig, chicken, or goose fat. Oh, Yiddish), the songwriting backbone is solid as a rock. Additionally, the breathy and suprisingly dextrous voice of Colin Blunstone carries you right through the weaker tracks, and explodes the strongest songs: "Care of Cell 44" (which has been covered to death) "Beechwood Park" and "I Want Her She Wants Me".

You Need These: "Care of Cell 44" --Eliot Smith Live Cover & "I Want Her She Wants Me"


John Cale - Paris 1919
I'm not going to bullshit you and tell you that I know anything about the career of John Cale, beyond his work in the Velvet Underground (Heard of 'em? Pretty f'in underground.) but his third solo album was the best choice I made on the internet this year. Flexing his Pop chops after years expanding the consciousness of critics everywhere, Cale proves he knows how well his tongue fits in his cheek and that he knows how to put a band to work (the backing band for this album mostly consists of members of goofy southern rock outfit Little Feat.)
Go For It: "Paris 1919"

Paul Simon - Paul Simon
Simon's self titled solo jaunt after his time with good ol' Art Garfunkel was released in 1972 and contains some of his finest songwriting. My relationship with Simon's stuff has always been a confusing one, I still can't decide if I acutally like Graceland, everytime I listen to it I come away with a different decision. This album on the otherhand is nothing but well constructed pop with lyrics whose delivery belies their delicacy and intelligence. This is not an album that I turn to for intellectual...anything, but one that I can throw on at anytime for a few solid chunes. Also, what a fuckin' coat.

If You Haven't Heard This Song I don't Know Who You Are!: "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"

So that's it. See you all next week, were I'll hopefully have the top 1o-15 albums of 2008.

--Dave

She's Freaky But I Like It.

On Sunday night I melted a lamp. After I panicked and immediately fled from my room, worried that the dorm fire alarm was going to go off and I would soon have a hundred people hating me, I listened to some pop music.

Which brings us to the question: In music, is personal expression really all that much more valuable than pure and simple consumerism?

Honestly, this wasn't something that had occurred to me before. But as I sat in my friend's room, simultaneously watching Britney Spears videos on YouTube and imagining the hordes of angry college students and Safety & Security officers that I was sure were roaming the campus with pitchforks and torches looking for me, we had the following discussion.
Most of the music that I, at least, listen to regularly is presumably created by the artist as a way to express him/her(/zir)self. That's why they make music - as a form of personal expression; because they feel like they have something to say, whether or not the listener agrees. Obviously they want people to listen to and enjoy their music, but they wouldn't necessarily alter their own personal sound to fit what the audience wants to hear.
But, come on, let's just say it: Pop artists, on the other hand, are pretty much just in it for the money.
Okay, maybe that's not totally fair. Granted, I don't really know what I'm talking about, as someone whose only knowledge of the music industry comes from listening to music. I'm sure that they all started out because of a love for performing or singing or...whatever. But when it comes down to it, how many popular pop artists actually write their own songs? Their personal expression is all about the brand. Yes, it's about the sound of their music - a sound that they inspire and choose, even if they don't create it - but it's also about the merchandising. It's about selling out corporate arenas around the world. It's about whether to wear hot pants or a leotard for the show that night. These artists - these songs - are constructed to sell.
This means that the people who write these songs have one task and one task only: to write the best fucking song ever. More independent artists write because it's what they feel, man, and the best way for them to express themselves is through the freedom of music. Or something. But pop songwriters just have to make a song that is better than every other song ever.
Obviously, commercial success does NOT equal quality. Obviously there are plenty of songs that are both wildly popular and absolute crap. See: Soulja Boy. But every once in a while, this intense competition within the pop music industry comes out with something so refined, so utterly advanced, so beyond just 'personal expression' and possibly even into the realm of near-genius. Because this is what they have to do. This is why the pop genre, which inarguably supplies the world with a lot of terrible music, is so worthwhile. While all those lameass singer/songwriters are warbling on about how they feel and something pretty they saw or whatever, there is a whole other world solely devoted to creating the perfect song. Perfect structure, perfect vocals, perfect instrumentation/sampling/whathaveyou, perfect production. And just so. Fucking. Good.

Seriously, I listen to all of these songs on a pretty much daily basis. You won't find me saying I have any "guilty pleasures" - I'm not ashamed in the least.

Crazy in Love - Beyonce (feat. Jay-Z)
Lovestoned/I Think She Knows - Justin Timberlake
Toxic - Britney Spears
Umbrella - Rihanna (feat. Jay-Z
Like a Prayer - Madonna
NB: Okay, so this one's a little bit different. Madonna did write it - helped a bit, at least (and to be fair, so did Beyonce and JT on their respective tracks) - and it's not nearly as commercial and consumerist as the others (especially considering the controversy surrounding the music video etc). But this is hands down what I consider to be the best pop song ever written, and is probably one of my top three favorite songs ever. There was no way I wasn't going to include it in my post on pop music.

xoxo,
tues.

You might not know about the Teenage Spaceship.

So remember those 3 papers I was writing last week? Well now I have 2 more. SO.

Teenage Spaceship is the 5th track off of Smog's excellent 7th album, Knock Knock. People say that there are better Smog albums than this one, but I don't believe them. It's not quite the lo-fi, Jandek-esque mess we saw on his super-early albums, but it's not as shiny as the new albums (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

Callahan's voice has hardly ever been more earnest here, and the melody has hardly ever been better crafted. He's doing the clunky piano trope, and the self-referencial lyrics ("I was a teenage Smog/Sewen to the sky").

But just in case you forgot how it felt to be seventeen, Smog is here to remind you. In the best way possible. Becuase no matter how much you wish you could forget about it, it's probably best if you didn't.

Teenage Spaceship--Smog