Oldies Night

Tonight the destruction of American Idol continues. Sanjaya Malakar, the terrible androgynous contestant that has captured America's interest is safe for yet another week. This week he sang poorly as usual, but since it was "Oldies Night" he was sporting a "retro-look." He ended up looking like an emaciated Cab Calloway.

The only remarkable aspect from this week's show was guest star Tony Bennett's befuddlement over contestant Melinda Doolittle's resemblance to Shrek.

Pitchfork Rebuttal No. 1: Jason Loewenstein's 'At Sixes and Sevens'

I can't speak for everyone at Something Vexes, but I know at least three thirds of the writers here think Pitchfork Media to be quite the overrated force in "underground" music matters. Inject me/us with sodium pentathol while on the subject and you'll hear graphic cries for its demise for advancing words like "angular," "quirky" and "meandering." It really is a pale shit of a thing.

But getting to it, here's the first in a series of Pitchfork album review rebuttals I/we plan to write. This one's for the great Jason Loewenstein, whose flawless solo album, At Sixes and Sevens (Sub Pop, 2002) was pelted with an argument of empty eggs by a member of the PM gang. Fine work guys, you wrote off the first great indie release of the 21st century. And it's one of the few.

To criminally bestow a 4.2/10 score upon it, Pitchfork writer Rob Mitchum makes his flimsy case here:

Loewenstein's problems seem to spring from a penchant for textbook hard rock and an almost astonishing lack of range, failings that are amplified by his choice to record all of At Sixes and Sevens' instrumentation himself. Track one, "Codes", is reasonable enough with its thick guitar chug, canter speed, and what might be the obligatory kiss-off lyrics, but after ten more variations on the same theme, even a brisk forty-minute album starts to drag. For a time-killer, you might internally debate which is more unremarkable: Loewenstein's double-tracked flannel shirt vocals or his close-to-uniformly forgettable melodies ("Circles" being the sole exception).

So he requires range over consistency, eh? Well, let me retrieve for you a line from his review of the Rapture's Pieces of the People We Love: "...what ultimately makes Pieces a step or three down from [earlier album] Echoes is a drop off in consistency."

I guess Mitchum is a little tizzed at the fact that Loewenstein's music is apparently more consistent than Mitchum's rationale. He shows range, though.

But to be fair, I realize that maaaaybe his range complaint has to do with lack of some sort of [obnoxious] flair, as demonstrated--if you like this sorta thing, which I don't--by the Rapture. He does accuse Loewenstein's writing of being "textbook." (Oh and just quickly, I'd like to point out the massive copout/cliche of the "textbook" citation, used by far too many music writers who embody their own accusations) But didn't Loewenstein, alongside Lou Barlow and Eric Gaffney, add important chapters to the beloved/hated "textbook" in their Sebadoh days? More credible critics the world over seem to think so. Personally, all my favorite Sebadoh cuts were authored by Loewenstein. They had more burst, more grit. Is that what Mitchum dislikes? That sort of sound? Why didn't he just say that? And just a guess: Mitchum loves acoustic music. Range.

Plus, there's plenty of range on this album. At Sixes involves several different moods and volumes, but so what if most of them are dark? That's the mood. An album needs to incorporate every mood, genre, audience, deodorant brand, sexual preference, holiday and religion to achieve its goal? What the fuck does range have to do with anything if you've presented something so obviously intent on delivering a particular sound?--Not to mention from a guy who aided in its pioneering!!

And then Mitchum goes on to subtract more points for Loewenstein's complete, impressive control over the songwriting, performance and production. Heh. That "amplifies" his supposed shortcomings? Um. Why? I dunno. Mitchum doesn't say.

Here's some more:

Sorry to say, At Sixes and Sevens shows little-to-no evolution from his makeout-session-ruining songs on [Sebadoh's] Harmacy. While the record might have had some throwback potential (seeing as Loewenstein has yet to move on from Seattle circa 1993), the contents are nowhere near quality enough to kick off that grunge revival...

Yes, it's an absolute disgrace that Loewenstein can't pull himself away from a great sound he helped to advance. May the Lord condemn anyone influenced by a particular era, especially those who were part of that era. I guess if Loewenstein had gone for something a little more "neo-baroque," or nu new-wave, or of oxidized blues, everything would be okay (wait, don't those genres stem from another time?). But I can toss that argument to the heap, because: this isn't grunge, and nothing about this album suggests any such intention.

But alright, let's get fair again and assume Mitchum may have been saying that, while other bands have moved on with new ideas, Loewenstein is just stuck in the early '90s, citing At Sixes' stylistic relation if you need to stretch it to that point for the sake of connecting it to your argument (talking to Mitchum). Well to me, that's such a good thing. What's today offering that the "critics" love so much more? The Rapture? The Shins? TV On the Radio? Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? Have you heard that lumber? Range? I don't know what it is with these bands that pop so much praise in the midst of Loewenstein's 4.2 rating, but I see it all as some of the most lifeless, hackish "indie" (whatever) music to date. Loewenstein stuck in the old days? He's so much more the wiser.

enemy rock

Sufjan Stevens is a pretentious fuck. I'm sure, if you've heard his music, you already knew that, but I'm just saying.
I've got a lot of problems with this guy, but this is my latest one.
It's an essay (not an editorial, an essay) he wrote on the website of his label, Asthmatic Kitty, which is also one of many sites on the Interdome devoted solely to fondling Stevens' folky, cute Christian balls non-stop.
In the essay, he lashes out about what he calls "friend rock," or, going to see your friend's band play. He says it's a problem, because even if your friend's band is good, you knew them outside the context of their music first, and so, somehow, that means you shouldn't be subjected to it (the music). What the fuck?
Maybe in magic hipster New York City land, going to see your friends' shows is like required. Because apparently, having to do it so much is getting in the way of Stevens "having coffee with you, or flying kites, a picnic in the park, cross-country skiing, something active, aerobic, conversational, therapeutic, enriching, interpersonal, paint-by-numbers, dodge ball, falafel sandwich, sunset, holding hands, human touch." What a fucking asshole.
Seriously, I'm going to break that entire quote out here:

Oh friends, friends-of-friends, friends-of-colleagues, friends-of-distant-relatives, upstanding, good looking, perfectly nice people with masters degrees who want so badly to be on stage: it’s not so much that we don’t like your band, or your songs, or your hairstyle, or your promos, or your one-sheet, or your website, or your flying-V guitar. It’s just that you were our friend first, and an aspiring musician second, and, honestly, in the end, we would rather be having coffee with you, or flying kites, a picnic in the park, cross-country skiing, something active, aerobic, conversational, therapeutic, enriching, interpersonal, paint-by-numbers, dodge ball, falafel sandwich, sunset, holding hands, human touch. Can we still be friends?

No, we can't still be friends. Eat your faggot sandwich alone.

I Was Provoked

I was fishing around the internets to find something to complain about (due to a fairly bland American Idol episode last night) and ended up on Blender Magazine's website. In their blog section I noticed the newest blog's title was "The Year's Most Provocative Music Video" and my interest was provoked. I rarely see music videos, for they have gone the way of the snow leopard. They are hard to find and I'm too lazy to go looking.

With the help of an embedded YouTube movie:

The snoozefest known as Dizzee Rascal: “Sirens” by Director: W.I.Z. is a British rapper's political piece against...uh...racial profiling? Here is the write-up by Blender:

In the most recent issue of Blender, there’s an excellent piece by Dorian Lynskey on the plight of "hoodies" in England. The term has come to define a spectral type of hood-wearing troublesome youth that many--including the British government--have come down upon in recent years with petty restrictions. But, while so-called hoodies have been responsible for some violence, statistics show the idea of an out-of-control teen gangs looting and stabbing their way through life has been largely manufactured by the media. London rapper Dizzee Rascal takes this controversy and spikes it with racial signifiers in his remarkably powerful video for “Sirens.” The clip has a group of pale, red-coated fox hunters (old England) chasing after a hoodie'd Dizzee (new England) as if he were just another piece of prey. Brilliantly filmed by prodigious video director W.I.Z., “Sirens” is provocative, suspenseful and, above all else, unsettling in its depiction of Britain’s current culture wars.

This video is neither "remarkable" or "powerful." This video takes a long time to make a single point which is entirely literal. White people on a fox hunt chasing a black man through the streets at night with a repetitive lethargic hip hop soundtrack. I'm not a fan of hip hop. It has its moments, but overall I dislike the fact that it is sometimes elevated so eagerly to some high level artistic plane. I just have a hard time appreciating this song and video as "provocative, suspensful, and above all else, unsettling" when the song is about a guy getting chased by "Sirens" and the video shows him being chased. Wow, thats powerful stuff.

the bordering-on nearly practically not-quite close-upon near-to

Why would I even bother to look at Spin Magazine or its associated web site? To paraphrase a fellow poster who was talking about something else, I know I'm probably not going to see anything I like there, and it'll just make me mad.
Well, I guess look at it (Spin, not the other thing) to find things to write about on this site, which I use to tear down the hard work that other people put into their creative ventures.
Like this. Which says that Utah rockers The Almost are Spin's "band of the day."
I'm not shocked by this shitty band receiving an honor like that from Spin, a magazine which basically can't stop itself from gushing praise at mediocre nu hardcore-tinged "emo" bands of The Almost's ilk.
What did get to me was what always seems to get to me when I read these blurbs - the interactive feature at the end:

Talk: Do the Almost bring the rock all the way or just partway?

Partway? I mean, what kind of question is that anyway? And "Partway?" How much is that? Let's sleuth. It must be less than all the way. Okay, that's a given. But is it halfway, or two-thirdsway? Three-fourthsway? One-fifthway?
Dicklicking Spin writers.
So I thought they asked this because the band's singer also plays drums in the absolutely atrocious Underoath, who apparently bring the rock "all the way," which I think maybe means chugga-chugging a lot and wearing a lot of makeup and croaking about Jesus. But then I finally got the pun. I think. Maybe they asked this because the band is called "The Almost." Get it? They ALMOST rock ALL THE WAY! That's so clever!
Anyway, I listened to their songs, and their rockingness is pretty rocking, if you were to measure by tempo and guitar levels and such. But their songwriting ability
is definitely partway.
On a sidenote, there sure are a lot of comparisons flying around about the ginger-headed singer of The Almost, whose name is Aaron Gillespie, and Dave Grohl. I'm not even going to address that.

Aina Mania

All of us here at Something Vexes really like the band Aina. That would be the indie/punk/whatever-rock supergroup from Barcelona, not the metal opera collective. Although they are often lumped together by sources such as allmusic.com, they really couldn't be more easily distinguishable.

Anyhoo, after I found a nifty collection of videos from a recent Aina reunion show on YouTube, I decided to take another look at their listing on allmusic. After breezing past the aforementioned 20-member metal opera collective, I found a review of our Aina's 2001 album Bipartite. A dude named Kurt Morris wrote the 3-star (out of 5) review, and he really heaped on the lukewarm praise. He basically said that the sound is too strongly rooted in Burning Airlines and Jawbox to be taken very seriously on its own. Leaving aside the fact that I probably would have rated it a solid 5 stars, this is the part that bothered me the most:

Supposedly Aina puts on a rocking good live show and that may be part of the reason for this otherwise unspectacular disc being released.

Do what now? I guess if it were a live album, this would make sense. "You know, these guys have several records out already, and they have a loyal following. And, boy, do they rock the shit live. You know what? Let's get them back in the studio. Quick."

American Idol, Gwen Stefani, et al

Why am I currently watching American Idol? Mainly because I hate George Lopez and Jim Belushi. American Idol, of course, is the obnoxious overrated large-scale karaoke contest that uses an audience of mindless drones and exuberant preteens to determine who will be famous among the group of carefully chosen amateur singers. I would be lying if I didn't say that the first few episodes of the show are always great TV, where we the audience is entertained by a gallery of carefully chosen "freaks" who show up to the auditions for whatever delusion they are currently under.

The first few episodes of American Idol are just solid television. It reminds me of the gong show. I love to see delusion slowly fade away, and one of two things occur; the person who thinks they can sing becomes violently defensive and leave the audition feeling misunderstood. The second thing that happens is the person is demoralized and they are swept out of the room like so much broken glass.

Sometimes they bring in a famous musician or songwriter to act as a gimmick to entice even more people to watch the show. Diana Ross was on the show one week and each contestant had to sing a Diana Ross song, no matter what their individual style was. Even the white dudes whom, not surprisingly, struggled. Diana Ross is kind of a specific singer, but whatever, It was really bad. The next week was themed "British Invasion Night" where the contestants sang songs from that era. In to coach the Idol hopefuls were Lulu, and living joke Peter Noone from Herman's Hermits. A band that claims to be the "original British Invasion band" with a song "I'm Into Something Good" that was a remake.

The contestants were graced this week by living joke Gwen Stefani. Gwen Stefani is defined by being hot. In fact she graced the cover of Entertainment Weekly with the headline, "Gwen's New Look." It said nothing about her new CD, but I guess some people like to listen to the audio of a hot girl rather than see the visual. Now I hate the "sellout" label. I gave that up when I left high school. It's a lazy argument attached to any band that either has matured, changed, or gone after some monetary success. No Doubt certainly worked their way up the ladder of success and never made any claims that they were some pioneering pop/ska hybrid band. Slowly, album after album they started experimenting, much in the same way Rancid started getting worse and worse.

When I look at someone in a band who branches out to do a solo project, I assume it is a decision to make music of a more personal nature. To make music you wouldn’t have the opportunity to make within the band's identity you have already established. What I don’t understand about Gwen Stefani is why she felt like she needed to make the music she is making now. I mean, besides making a lot of money. Which is fine, but that doesn't make her an artist, it makes her a whore. Like Justin Timberlake, or the whole idea of American Idol. If American Idol allowed the contestants to write their own songs or have songs written specifically for them, then it might be more interesting to judge the various styles and personalities. But the focus of the show is to mold the unsuspecting contestant into a commodity who sings for money.

So Gwen Stefani is invited to the show to critique the singing of the contestants. All of whom sing better than she does. Gwen never got by on her pipes, she got by on her looks and the catchy music that backed her up when she was in No Doubt. Her pseudo-retro warbling hasn't translated to her nonsensical Asian hip-hop music very smoothly. Not to mention she has the personality of wet cardboard. So what did the contestants sing on "Gwen Stefani Night"? Two Police songs, two Donna Summer songs, and three No Doubt songs. All of the glorified karaoke performances were bad, but the No Doubt songs were especially bad. They stood out head and shoulders from the crowd as lame, cheesy garbage. The Police and Donna Summer? Oh, they were considered influences to Gwen Stefani. Not bands like Madness or The Specials that she pretended to like when it was cool. I guess she just recently found Police" 20th Century Masters in the used bin and really dug it. So inspired by the music of the Police she wrote two albums full of vexingly shit-tacular pop music.

Next night on the "results show" on American Idol, Gwen performed with her entourage of Asian girls. Actually, it may be more proper to call them her "collection of Asian girls." Apparently this is part of her creative expression, to accessorize with humans from Asia.

Gwen sang her song (a Madonna-esque song called "The Sweet Escape") and not only was it a bad song, she sounded flat and terrible. After watching the show for a while, she seemed like an amateur. Who am I to judge who can sing and who can't? Gwen Stefani, Ashlee and Jessica Simpson, or any of the people on iTunes' Top Songs that I don’t recognize can sing their bad songs poorly all they want. It shouldn’t reach a level where the shit wins awards and is broadcast on network television. I shouldn't be exposed to it. There is no quality control in any facet of the entertainment industry. Gwen Stefani is a prime example of someone who is allowed to make jackass music and dick around onstage purely based on looks.

I look forward to special guest Jennifer Lopez who will be on the show in a week or so. Take everything I said about Gwen and multiply it by 15.