"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

Life Is Demanding Without Understanding

Oh, yes. It's time for Tuesday's Mountain Goats list. I know you've all (ha!) been anxiously awaiting this since last week, and here we go. God, this was hard. I had some pretty serious culling to do. These songs are just the ten that I couldn't even fathom taking off the list. There are so many more that should be on here for so many reasons, but these ten are the top ten Mountain Goats songs that I just haven't been able to stop listening to since I first got into the band. I go through so many specific-song phases where I just listen to one over and over, but these are the ten that stick around and I keep coming back to.

Well, okay, nine. The last one is just epic.

They're numbered in, um...what do they call it in High Fidelity? Autobiographical order, I think? Not necessarily the order in which I first got the albums or even listened to the songs, but the order in which I became completely obsessed with each particular song, one by one.

1. No Children (Tallahassee)
Okay, so maybe this is one of their more "mainstream" songs or whatever. It's the first Mountain Goats song I ever heard - on a mix CD from a friend in ninth grade - and I feel like I owe a pretty big part of my musical tastes and interests to it. The question haunts me every day: What if I had never heard the Mountain Goats? This is the perfect introductory Mountain Goats song. Crisp and clear, upbeat tempo, and cripplingly depressing lyrics. When I saw the Mountain Goats at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago a few years ago, they played this on the outdoor stage in the middle of the sweltering July afternoon. Johnny D introduced it as a sing-a-long. And somehow, at that moment, being in the midst of hundreds of people all screaming in unison, "I hope you die! I hope we all die!"* was the best feeling imaginable.
*The crowd switched up the lyrics a bit to fit the situation better.

2. Going to Georgia (Zopilote Machine)
I don't even want to say anything about this one; just go fucking listen to it. "The most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you, and you're standing in the doorway." It's being in love. That's all this song is. It's dusk, and doorways, and being in love. With a little bit of apprehension (and, okay, a gun) thrown in - but really, what's love without that?

3. Cotton (We Shall All Be Healed)
Honestly, I just think this one is pretty. The lyrics are great, obviously, but not anywhere near some of Darnielle's best; same goes for the music itself. But it's simple, and sweet, and reassuring. The guitar strums always give me a slightly gooey feeling inside.

4. Jenny (All Hail West Texas)
The thing with most Mountain Goats songs is that once you know them fairly well, they're pretty much all great to sing along with. "Goddamn, the pirate's life for me!" This song feels like fantasy to me, a dream song. The eager guitar strumming breaks through the vocals from time to time. Darnielle is excited, he's enthralled, he's engaged as he sings. He's letting himself get just a little carried away - but not too much. This, like so many other Mountain Goats songs, is all imagination.

5. Collapsing Stars (Come, Come to the Sunset Tree)
This is the version from the demos album released while tMG were touring to support The Sunset Tree, but this song was also released on the Dilaudid EP. That version is also really interesting and definitely worth listening to - it's almost orchestrated, with violins and pianos filling out the structure of the song - but the original demo hits closer to home for me. The bareness of the single guitar complements the eerie honesty of the lyrics. This album is about (along with many other things) being a teenager, and this song perfectly captures the feelings of determination and gritted teeth that I think has a lot to do with being that age, and being invincible. I almost believe him when he sings, "You can look, but you won't find another love like ours." I want this kid to win. I want it all to work out for him. But you can't help but get the feeling from this song that it just never does.

6. Orange Ball of Hate (Zopilote Machine)
All of the songs in the 'Orange Ball' series are wonderful, but this song always stands out to me. I have the same image of the doorway from "Going to Georgia" in my head, but a little later in the year, a little earlier in the day, and with a lot more smirking. This song destroys the fantasy we see in "Jenny". We learn about hopelessness in the face of love; we see everything that's wrong with him, with her, with their relationship, but all we hear is "I sure do love you". The "rocks in her head", the not wanting "to live in new england anymore", that "stupid children's song" she's singing - it's all worth it. This is what it's really about, these dumb little things, and how they're overcome by love.

7. Fault Lines (All Hail West Texas)
It's really difficult to write these little blurbs sometimes because all you really have to do it just listen to the lyrics, because that's what so many of these songs are really about. Like in "No Children", the contrast between the fairly upbeat melody and the absolute desperation contained within the lyrics is striking, and makes it just that much more profound as the song spirals downward and abruptly ends with just a simple "La la la la, hey hey!"

8. Southwood Plantation Road (Tallahassee)
I only started listening to this song a lot after the aforementioned show in Chicago, where they played this and had a dance contest to see who could pogo the longest. This song grabs you. It's trying to keep a hold on something; you can feel Darnielle's vocals trying to grasp something in the air. The instruments power forward, reaching and stretching to fill up any empty space there might be. And, of course, the first three lines of this song are some of my favorite lyrics ever. I grimace every time I hear "Our conversations are like minefields; no one's found a safe way through one yet". Everybody has someone like that. It never gets any easier.

9. Color In Your Cheeks (All Hail West Texas)
I've been sitting here thinking for a few minutes now, and I don't think I can explain why this is one of my favorite Mountain Goats songs. The lyrics are pretty, sweet, harmless, calming - but, admittedly, Darnielle's done better. The guitar is all of the above, just steadily and simply marching forward to progress the song. But something about this song just gives me a good feeling when I sing along. It gets stuck in my head, and I just smile.

10. The Sign
In case anyone ever had any doubts - John Darnielle is fucking adorable.

See you next week, fools. Love you all.

xoxo,
Tuesday
(who is pretty pissed, while we're on the subject, that there wasn't a new episode of Gossip Girl this week...)

Copyright Dorthy Grambrell 2008

Hey y'all, so I have three papers to write so I'm just going to leave you today with a Cat and Girl comic from a few weeks ago (please tell me that you read this comic. If not, GO HERE RIGHT NOW OR PERISH: www.catandgirl.com. Everybody else already did three years ago.)

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow,
--Mondae

Childhood?

There have been many questions that have proved unceasingly irksome and labyrinthine for me recently, but one has remained especially pungent in my mind: Have kids' television shows/channels (especially Nickelodeon) gotten that much worse in the past few years, or have we just gotten older? Instead of trying to argue that shows like iCarly, True Jackson, VP, and The Naked Brothers Band would not have appealed to me circa 1996 (or thereabout), I am just going to play the role of Thursday Guy the Raconteur, and remind you of what great programs were at our viewing disposal in the days of decrusted PB & Js and recess.
Now, I'm still just a pup in the grand scheme of things, and, to assure that everybody is on the same page, I'm going to chronologically name the shows that defined my childhood:

Hey Dude and I were born in the same year, 1989. Sadly, it died when I was two years old, in 1991, and, because of this, I didn't experience Hey Dude in all it's novel glory until it came back, rerun style, in the mid-nineties. The synopsis goes a little something like this:
Mr. Ernst, formerly of New York City, decides that the fast and hectic lifestyle isn't for him, and moves out to Arizona with his son, Buddy, on a whim, and founds "Bar None Dude Ranch". Buddy isn't too into arid Tucson, obviously, because he can't skateboard on the ranch. Five interns, all from completely different ethnic and socioeconomic groups (Nickelodeon was big into being as blatantly PC as possible during this time. I mean, there was a snazzy dresser from Gross Pointe, MI, and an oddball Native American both, for whatever reason, working on a newly founded ranch in AZ), come to work for the well-intentioned but pretty incompetent Mr. Ernst and teenage-geared hilarity ensues!

Rugrats. What can I say about it? Evaluating it would be like reconsidering my upbringing; cogitating why I am like I am. Originally aired in 1991, Rugrats technically ran until 2004, when they were "All Growed Up" and sucked.
I kind of wish Rugrats died out in, let's say, 1994; thereby allowing it to gain that Arrested Development or Freaks and Geeks aura and that Jimi Hendrix/Clifford Brown/Sylvia Plath "what if?" mysticism. Hendrix in that it was, by far, the best at what it did; Brown because it would have been so short lived and would have had infinite potential; Plath because even the worse episodes (some of her poetry) would still have been extolled and glorified, even if they didn't deserve the praise. I guess doing that, though, would be equivalent to my being born without my right arm or left leg: I would go through life knowing that I was missing something integral, but would compensate, atone, and adjust, and continue living incompletely.
The idea, for you ignoramuses, or Brendan Fraser bomb shelter kids, was that four friends, Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, and Phil and Lil DeVille, go adventuring, and, unbeknownst to their parents, communicate in adorable malapropisms via some sort of baby speak. Their endeavors usually take place at Tommy's house, and often are antagonized by Tommy's elder cousin Angelica, who is bilingual in English and Toddler. The beginnings always started off with ultra-extreme close-ups of some everyday object and I always tried my hardest to guess what it was before it came completely into focus. Dealing with issues like the struggles of being a lefty and pre-k crushes, Rugrats was perfect.

Doug was the Rugrats for those closing in on the double-digit age mark, and originally ran from 1991-1994. It was an eponymous masterpiece whose reputation was tarnished by the fact that it made a horrendous comeback on One Saturday Morning (and it had so much potential to evoke that aforementioned aura!) near the turn of the millennium.
Douglas Yancey Funnie: average in every way. His turtle-green v-neck sweater vest, baggy white undershirt, cargo shorts, ankle-high socks, and red and white sneakers screamed mediocrity louder than an Adelina Patti aria. He was never quite able to pull in the reins on Patty Mayonnaise (Nickelodeon and Political Correctness? Patty's dad was in a wheelchair), got picked on by Roger Klotz (man was he m-e-a-n!), had a partially anthropomorphic dog Porkchop, and had his one (allegorically Afro-American?) best friend Skeeter Valentine. It seems like a pretty typical teen movie setup, yes, but it had the animation and problem simplification to gear it toward, and make it appeal to, a prepubescent crowd. Doug could never break through the proverbial (social) glass ceiling, but we loved to see the futile attempts of his rubber hammer to do so.

All That, and I'm not talking that Amanda Bynes led shit. I'm talking about Lori Beth Denberg, Josh Server, Kel Mitchell, Danny Tamberelli, and Kenan Thompson. I'm talking about awesome preteen sketch comedy that I watched my two sisters on SNICK (which was subsequently and shittily replaced by TEENick) when my parents were out to dinner on Saturday nights. Remember Good Burger? It was made into a movie (take that, SNL). What about Dullmont Jr. High, where eccentric teaches did zany things and spoke in non sequiturs, and sometimes not in English at all (beat you to it, The Faculty). Coach Kreeton, with Kel Mitchell at his finest, acting as an elderly Phys. Ed. teacher who is always accidentally inflicting pain on himself (sorry, Seann William Scott). The Spice Boys (pf, you wish, 2Gether).
Okay, not to beat you over the head with it, but the seminal All That was, potentially, a pretty influential show.

I don't know, I could just be searching for gold in a coal mine, for meaning or coincidence in nothing, but I want to reminisce with ideas of grander implications; I want to think that the endless hours I spent sprawled across my brown leather couch were not completely spent in vain; that these shows weren't the Zoey 101s or the Drake & Joshes. I want to think that these shows mattered, that they left a footprint, that they did something.

-Thursday

Seven Songs I'm into at the Moment.

Hey guys, so I obviously fucked up yesterday, my apologies. And I wish that I could say that I'm going to have a really thought out, in depth post, but I'm really, really tired. So you're going to get a list of seven songs I'm loving a lot right now. It's a really mixed bag, not in terms of quality, but genre.

The Flatlanders -- Tonight I'm Gonna Go Downtown

Featuring Smokey from The Big Lebowski, proto-alt-country (two modifiers ftw!) group The Flatlanders had little success initially, but after all three became prominent solo musicians, interest in their original band was rekindled. For all intents and purposes, their debut album More A Legend Than a Band was released in 1991 (their real debut was released only on a small run of 8-tracks after their single was a failure), and it is pure gold. This song features a dobro solo that makes me melt, gorgeous country vocals and a singing saw that gives it an otherworldly shimmer.

Ernest Tubb -- Thanks a Lot
Youtube

More Country. You can thank my roommate for both of these. I just heard this song for the first time an hour ago, but jesus christ, it's a gem. Straight up gold from the "Texas Troubadour" this song is remarkably simple (although it features incredible pedal steel and guitar interplay by Tubb's astounding backing band), but it's one that sticks with you for quite a bit. I have to confess, though, that I'm really a sucker for this old country shit. Makes me wanna pull up stakes and wander through the American Heartland, searching for meaning, finding real americans and educating them about the importance of gender neutral pronouns and the immorality of cheese.

Lynguistics -- Cunninlynguists

When I saw Cunninlynguists a month or two ago, it was absurdly under-attended, but this song got everyone in the half full house slamming their head and trying to learn the lyrics to this jam from the southern powerhouse's debut, Will Rap For Food. Kno Flips a Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto into one of my favorite beats ever, and Deacon rip the track apart with perfectly cadenced and entertaining battle raps about their greatness. Which is really his job, I could care less about what he's actually saying when Kno is behind the boards.

Venus -- Television

Really not a ton to say about this that hasn't been said a million times by people a lot smarter than me. I just recently got into Television's debut Marquee Moon, and it's full of great tracks, this one being my current favorite. I don't know if it's the perfectly interlaced guitar work or the call and response chorus, but this song can not be beat for me right now. That's really all I got. If you haven't heard this album, cop it immediately.

Gettin' Up -- Q-Tip

A Tribe Called Quest is my favorite rap group of all time, and responsible for two albums that would fit into my top 20 any day of the week, so it's no surprise that I can't get enough of the single from Q-Tip's latest, The Renaissance. It's exactly what people should be expecting from Q-Tip at this point, a deliciously jazzy beat, deceptively complex and extremely well constructed, with Tip's patented butter voice dripping all over everything. He's the boss, and that's all there is to it.

Dinosaur on the Ark -- Esau Mwamwaya & Radioclit

This song is shamelessly and patently ridiculous. The lyrics are absurd, and the production is hyperbolic and insane. But it keeps reminding me of what Xgau said about Paul Simon's debut solo album "I've been saying nasty things about Simon since 1967, but this is the only thing to make make me positively happy in the first two weeks of February 1972". This song for me is joy incarnate, even despite it's melancholy lyrics, it's the most uplifting thing I've heard maybe all year. The project between Esau and Radioclit takes existing songs and makes them into jams for Esau to vocally shred all over, and it's called The Very Best. It's definitely worth checking out when you get some time to feel really, really good about yourself.

Van Dyke Parks -- All Golden

Van Dyke Parks is a fucking genius. Before Joanna and Ys, and before his cameo on Twin Peaks (Leo Johnson's lawyer, for those buffs out there), he was a Brian Wilson collaborator and commercially unsuccessful solo artist. Which is a shame, because his debut (incidentally one of the most expensive albums ever made), is an absolutely stunning accomplishment. Seamlessly mixing together every part of americana he can get his hands on, Parks creates a sound world of uncompromising vision. But it's still pop music, don't worry, he stuffs this album more full of hooks than I will be next weeks, when I apparently have two thanksgivings in two days (ah, the upsides of divorced parents).

Until next time, when hopefully I'll be on time.

---Dave