New Classic Examiner

My apologies for not updating this blog lately, but the journey is an unpredictable one! I've been accepted as a writer for Examiner.com and the writing for that covers much of the same territory as this blog does, albeit with greater latitude as I'm not holding myself there solely to music like I am here. I will keep both going as opportunity sees fit, but I won't be posting with the regularity I had going here for the last month.

Barenaked Ladies - All in Good Time

Taken as a double-disc release, BNL's last album Barenaked Ladies Are Me was one of the best (and most underappreciated) record of the '00s. Part of that problem was that they released the album independently and it had little-to-no mainstream impact. That shame was compounded by co-lead singer Steven Page's cocaine-related arrest and his subsequent departure from the band two years later. So now, continuing as a four-piece band without half of their traditional singing/songwriting team, BNL strikes back with All in Good Time. If this good album isn't the should-be-classic that its predecessor Are Me was, that can be chalked up to a very good band being caught in transition.

It's easy to find references to Page throughout the album, since the band addresses his departure (not so subtly) right away with the first song on the album, "You Run Away." It's a somber pop ballad that tempers its melancholic melody with some almost acrimonious lyrics in the chorus ("I'll give you something you can cry about.") The words are the story of a close friendship deteriorating, and they cast shadows across the rest of the album. So, when Robertson sings, "Can you forgive me for what I had to do? I'd use a metaphor but I'm done with you," on the hard-rocking, "I Have Learned," it's hard not to think about Page, even if the song isn't overtly about him. The little lyrical flourishes of anger and betrayal abound, but so do notes of forgiveness and acceptance. The album gets its title from an upbeat iTunes bonus song, which goes "In time the pain heals at least, all in good time." It's sung by Kevin Hearn, whose fragile voice is usually accompanied by folksier instrumentation on the songs he sings, and it goes a long way towards indicating that All in Good Time might just hold the necessary lashing out in anger that the band needed to unload hand-in-hand with the notes of reconciliation and growth they need to move forward.

The emotions of its backstory also color the album's sonic palette, which in places is more aggressive than anything this traditionally pop band have ever done. "Summertime," which follows "You Run Away," sets this tone by wrapping an otherwise charming song about surviving the winter and hoping for summer inside positively Zeppelin-esque riffs played jarringly on chunky, fuzzy guitar. More straight-forward rock can be heard in the simmering "I Have Learned" and "How Long," which builds towards a ripping guitar solo in the classic rock tradition. True, this is rock music through the BNL prism, which is admittedly brighter than just about any rock band in history, but for BNL they recall little before them except "Wind It Up" from Are Me.

Most of the album, however, is good ol' BNL pop, continuing their ongoing maturing process that's been developing over the decades. For those who only know BNL as "One Week," "Another Postcard," and "If I Had $1,000,000," the level of maturity and (yes) artistry in their back catalog may be surprising. While All in Good Time doesn't have any stone-cold classics on first listen, it is a solid entry in their discography. It's a less "fun" album, more akin to Maroon in that sense, with a few other moments worth mentioning. "Four Seconds" has to be written about. It's a concoction that sounds like Beck sampled Django Reinhardt, and then Ed Robertson throws some of his "One Week" freestyling flow over it. It's endlessly listenable, somehow. "Watching the Northern Lights" deserves praise, too. Another Kevin Hearn song, it's a ballad winsomely sung over echoing guitar that slowly morph into looping synths. It's a subtle effect that elevates a lovely tune. It's also the kind of trick BNL should be known for, instead of their unfortunate reputation as a band singing sophomoric songs about monkeys and other novelty ephemera.

BNL isn't just a band in transition within themselves; they're a band that's lost their place in the culture. Novelty humor pop has moved on to the Lonely Island and Flight of the Conchords, but that's never the genre BNL was comfortable in. Their brand of genuine alternapop is perhaps usurped by fellow Canadians, Stars (also due to release an album this year.) None of the songs on All in Good Time will likely crack the top 40 and BNL is probably too old and with too much perceived baggage to be accepted by the indie pop community. They are, however, back with major label distribution, so there is hope. If there's one thing that can be learned, it's that the Barenaked Ladies aren't going to be calling it quits. It just remains to be seen if they have any more hits in them.

Robert Downey, Jr. - The Futurist

Yes, you read correctly: the actor Robert Downey, Jr. released an album. Not a gimmicky novelty album, either. Released in 2004, Downey wrote (or co-wrote) eight of the ten songs on his debut. His covers are also very well chosen: "Your Move" (the first half of Yes' "I've Seen All Good People") features Yes singer Jon Anderson singing backup harmonies (and slipping in strains of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" as a surprising coda), while album closer "Smile" was written by Charlie Chaplin whom Downey played in his biopic. More than anything, on this set Downey proves that this album is the opposite of a typical actor-releasing-an-album gimmick. He is a talented singer/songwriter who easily carries a full album.

The first two tracks (which are sadly the only two tracks available on Lala), "Man Like Me" and "Broken," are an excellent sample of what follows. Opening with pensive yet authoritative piano, "Man Like Me" reveals a lovely melody as strings calmly appear to carry the song along. Prehaps given his filmography, you were expecting rock music? This is a piano-dominated album and one closer to Joni Mitchell than Billy Joel. Actually, given his vocal style, The Futurist most recalls Peter Gabriel's solo albums of late. With a soft, chalky voice that he doesn't push much (but doesn't break when he does), Downey comes across as comfortable not just playing piano but also singing his songs. And, as a songwriter, Downey's sense of melody isn't the only surprise; lines like, "the mirror takes a look at my face," show a deft touch at wordplay.

With "Broken," the album takes on its second sonic shade, as lightly-plucked guitar leads into a poppier-sounding track with synthesized chords and organic percussion. With its bittersweet refrain, "you fell in love with a broken heart," Downey sings the part of an open-hearted romantic who's made bad decisions but can't believe his good fortune to find the redemption of an accepting love. How autobiographical it is is besides the point; it's the best song on the album because of both its lyrics and its delicate melody. The Futurist's producer, Mark Hudson, co-wrote this song and another stand-out track, the title song, and deserves a lot of the credit for the album's success. Not only does Downey sound great but the whole album does, with a crystal-clear production giving Downey gorgeous soundscapes to sing over.

That title track, which is another poppier production but without the emotional tug of "Broken," does reveal one of the weaknesses of the album, however. The lyrics are occasionally a little obtuse. When he sings about, "our furious, curious, fantasist code" Downey falls prey to the temptation of letting clever words supplant meaning in importance. There is also little variation in tone between the songs. You can count on each song to be a mid-tempo piano-pop ballad with more than a little gravitas. There are little individualities in each song ("5:30", for example, has a jazzier undercurrent and a more active instrumental bed than most of the modest and plaintive music found elsewhere) but besides the standouts the rest do tend to fade into each other in retrospect.

Nonetheless, from the perspective of an Academy Award-nominated actor releasing an album that could be considered a vanity project, this is an exceptional release. The Futurist comfortably resists being labeled a novelty because of its plentiful strengths. Downey's songs and consistently able singing coupled with Hudson's production yield a surprisingly pleasing ten-song output. By the time Downey finishes tackling Chaplin's oft-covered, "Smile," it's actually revealing that it feels the most out-of-place song on the album. The jazz standard feels different than the rest of the album, which illuminates the impressive feat that Downey and Hudson have created an album that has a strong aesthetic feel about it against which "Smile" can seem out-of-place.

Four on the Floor is now Forecast

Housekeeping note: I've changed the "Four on the Floor" Lala widget to one of their standard "Forecast" widgets, which allows me greater variability. The "Forecast" widget will be continuously updated as I see fit, so keep an eye out down there for what's new and give 'em all a listen.

She & Him - Volume Two

She & Him are the pair of indie songsmith M. Ward and actress/singer Zooey Deschanel. Their first record, Volume One, came from out of nowhere in the spring of 2008 to sweep the indie pop landscape off its feet with bittersweet, swooning pop songs tinged with hints of country and folk balladry. Volume Two now comes around to pick up where the duo left off, and there isn't a hitch in its step.

The opening track, "Thieves," recalls Roy Orbison not just lyrically but also in the musical build to its triumphant close. As strings swirl around her, Deschanel's delicate and imperfect voice rises to the songs' climax. The Orbison comparisons are only furthered by the incidental fact that she's singing about one of the legend's favorite topics: crying. It's followed by the lead single, "In the Sun," which glides on a sturdier rock beat and winds up with Ward letting loose some of the most rapid-fire guitar She & Him have featured yet. The contemporariness of "In the Sun" is an exception to the rule, however. She & Him are excellent nostalgists and they return to the '60s sunshine pop with the next tune, appropriately titled, "Don't Look Back." (Even its title recalls the '60s, though it's not a cover of the Temptations' hit of the same name.)

They do cover a few songs on Volume Two, the first of which is a lovely reading of NRBQ's "Ridin' in My Car," which in their hands works as a sweet little duet and fits right into the She & Him aesthetic. The guitar jangle and comforting melody of the original are a perfect choice for She & Him's light, warm brand of comfort-food pop. The other cover is of Skeeter Davis' version of "Gonna Get Along Without You Now," and is equally as successful a reincarnation as its cover-song companion on the album. Where Davis' version covers the heartbreak of the lyric with a mask of nonchalance, She & Him take the opportunity to cover both of their preferred territories, melancholy and jubilance, simultaneously.

What the covers serve to illustrate is the strength of Deschanel's writing. As on Volume One, she is the songwriter of record here and the quality of her writing hasn't been as commented on as her lazy, dreamy voice. Ward certainly does yeoman's work fleshing out the arrangements, and does a great job of music anthropology not unlike T-Bone Burnett's work reconstructing the sounds of old for films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk the Line. Ward's music wouldn't be in service of anything if it weren't for Deschanel's lilting melodies that sound like they've unearthed standards all this time. Tracks like, "Home," "Lingering Still" and "Over It Over Again," break down the cynic's defenses and bask in the sunshine of a radio station endlessly playing new songs as yet unheard from the '60s and '70s. Their first album's cover was entirely apropos for, if they keep going like this, they may come to represent a star forever radiating golden rays of countrified sunshine pop.

She & Him are clearly a throwback act. Their songs ring with the joy and innocence of pop gone by and, for some, the lack of irony in their presentation makes such unfiltered doses a hard pill to swallow. Its understandable. Pop music is always evolving, and there are always nostalgia acts keeping the past alive. From the swing of Brian Setzer to the crooning of Michael Bublé, there's always a market for contemporary resurrection in music. She & Him represent an indie group making the nostalgia trip accessible for another market. As with any nostalgia group, any success they have will be considered novelty or guilty pleasure by some, but for those who do the enjoying, it's bliss.

DJ Shadow - Endtroducing.....

In the last decade, the production technique of sampling has become an artform all to itself. Sampling has its roots in hip hop as creative DJs cobbled together instrumental tracks to lay a foundation for a rapper without employing a full band behind him. The necessity bred creativity as sampling took off in the '80s and into the '90s. In the '00s, sampling itself emerged from being just a production style to being the entire basis for songs (mashups) or even full albums. The 2000 release by Australian DJ duo The Avalanches, Since I Left You, is composed purely of samples from over 3,000 sources and was widely praised for its creativity, if not its legality. Danger Mouse made a name for himself with The Grey Album, his controversial album-length mashup of The Beatles' white album with Jay-Z's Black Album. At the end of the decade Girl Talk wowed college kids across the nation with his infectious albums of mashups, scavenging hundreds of pop, rock and rap songs for samples, using between 20-40 on each "song" of his own. All of these artists used others' materials as their canvas, creating works of art without actually contributing any recording besides an ear and crafting hand.

Before any of those artists, however, there was DJ Shadow (aka Josh Davis.) Working solely with a 12-bit sampling drum machine he created Endtroducing....., his debut album. It was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "First Completely Sampled Album" and it landed on Time Magazine's All-TIME 100 best albums list in 2006. It stands as a landmark album both in terms of sampling as an art and also in hip hop, as the genre was overcome with gangsta rap in the mid-'90s and Endtroducing..... is just about as opposite to that genre as possible.

Endtroducing..... is a hip hop meditation album. The standout tracks, like "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt" and "Stem/Long Stem", are built around beautiful looping samples of piano and organ. The beats, samples of vocals and strings and other accoutrements serve to accent those loops, not unlike how classical minimalism evolves over the course of repetition. The vocal samples are typically introspective, in either calm placid tones or frantic with intellectual anguish. It's really more closely related to trip hop than hip hop in terms of genre. This isn't an album about sex and violence. It's an album about life and philosophy, which is sort of remarkable to say considering it's also an instrumental album.

There is a gravitas to Endtroducing....., and I suspect that's where its sense of import is derived from. The looping samples are almost universally melancholy in tone, although DJ Shadow usually employs either upbeat tempos on top of them or his sly sense of humor to work against that tone. ("Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96" has only one vocal sample: a cautionary voice simply stating, "It's the money..." and "Organ Donor" is, appropriately, a fascinating escalation of solo organ samples.) The sonic bed often sounds like a rainy day, combining immersive ambience with steady pulses of disconnected rhythms. Where there are breaks in the action, as in "Stem/Long Stem" when after three minutes a string sample loops up as high as it can go and cuts out into silence, they grab the listeners' attention and, like the best minimalism, can affect the listener when they are accustomed to the slow-motion development.

Endtroducing..... is viewed in its best light when it's cast against what it isn't. As hip hop, it isn't shallow or morally bankrupt much hip hop can be. As trip hop, it's more rooted in humanity and organic samples of voices and jazzier horns than the often cold and distant standard. As jazz, it's more sonically expansive and varied. As itself, however, it doesn't inspire. It's a groundbreaking album and I believe its praise is well-deserved but mainly to that end. As a listening experience, Endtroducing..... is long and usually fades into the background. It's soundtrack more than songcraft. That's not a critique, however, that indicates DJ Shadow's efforts result in failure. His mission statement is right up top, in "Building Steam" which concludes on a repeated vocal sample saying, "the music passes through me." That's exactly what happens here. The music passes through DJ Shadow and it passes through the listener. Don't come expecting party music; this album is food for thought and a soundtrack to meditation. It lets your mind wander, and if there isn't much substance within itself, at least it's an instigation to examine the substance within yourself. Therein lies its praiseworthiness.

Big Star - #1 Record

This week, Alex Chilton passed away. The lead singer of the Box Tops, in music circles Chilton was more remembered and more influential for his work leading the band Big Star. In one of those wonderful American second acts Fitzgerald said never happened, Big Star was becoming more and more recognized of late for its pioneering work in creating the power pop genre.

As the rock scene was splitting into what became "classic rock", "prog rock", "light rock" and disco, Big Star's music was a straight line from the earlier pop of the '50s and '60s. Bright chords and simple progressions played with energy and sweet harmonies on the vocals. While they never achieved great commercial success (despite the ambitious title of this, their debut album), they were consistently namechecked as a huge influence on the wave of bands to emerge as "college rock" in the early '80s like R.E.M. and The Replacements. The Replacements even named a song after Chilton, so I've known his name long before I'd actually known his music. The only song from this album that I knew coming in was "In the Street" (later covered by Cheap Trick for That '70s Show, which I hadn't known was a cover in my ignorance.) Knowing much of what came in their wake, and saddened by the sudden death of their leader, I turn the journey this weekend to Big Star's first album.

What impressed me initially is the variety. Despite knowing the trappings of the power popgenre they are said to have created, and #1 Record does kick off in that fashion with, "Feel", it moves immediately into a more understated number, "The Ballad of El Goodo." I don't suppose I was expecting a dozen songs in the same mode, but I wasn't expecting to get much variety for some reason. So I was already pleasantly surprised.

By the time #1 Record gets down to "When My Baby's Beside Me" and "My Life Is Right," I had settled into the groove of the album. When Big Star is feeling it, they're playing songs of pure joy in the everyday setting. By that I mean, these aren't symphonies of pop grandeur celebrating the ecstatic moments of life. These are songs that revel in the simplicity of a single good day. Even "Give Me Another Chance," the pre-emptive pre-break up strike, has a sweetness to it that gives one a smile (like, hopefully, the girl in question would be forced into upon hearing it.) It's a truth in writing that the specifics are universal, and when Chilton writes songs about this slice of life moments and surrounds them with just the right accompaniment from the band, his specificity evokes the universal truth. Just imagine the warmth of watching the sunrise after a long night with the one you love, and then listen to Big Star's "Watch the Sunrise." It captures that feeling, even if you don't know it from experience.

Walking away from Big Star's debut album, I have a greater respect for Chilton and Big Star's lasting impact on the genre. What they were doing isn't as fundamentally drastic as perhaps I'd expected (so much "creating a genre" praise can lead to a significant expectation.) These songs are just good. Well crafted pop is an art form, and while some of the songs didn't do much for me, I never was displeased with any of them. That's a big part of the Big Star sound, I think: pleasure. These songs will get you feeling good, even the ones that emerge from pain, because this is a band (and Chilton was a writer) that knew good times were ahead. It's a shame I only got here after his tragic death, but it's better late than never.

(Note: #1 Record was re-issued in tandem with its' follow-up Radio City, which contains the only other Big Star song I knew coming in, "September Gurls." It's in the Lala embed and be sure to check it out, as it's a sweeping power pop masterpiece.)