In producing their most punchy album in about, oh, 20 years, R.E.M. has also provided Exhibit A in the Loudness War.
As glad as I am the band finally kicked a decade’s worth of dreary writing — I didn’t even make it through the first two tracks of 2004’s Around the Sun — Accelerate is really, really FUCKING LOUD.
I guess someone on producer Jacknife Lee’s engineering team thought, "Oh, look, a compressor/limiter plug-in. Let’s just crank this motherfucker up to 11, shall we?" (Yes, I know that’s not how compressors work, but surely you get the reference.)
Nuance? Maybe on the softer tracks, but Accelerate is mostly devoid of any dynamic range. And it’s a welcome change, really.
If I were to apply James Ulmer’s concept of The Hot List to my music collection, NUMBER GIRL, Shiina Ringo and UA would occupy my A-list. Quruli has been hovering around the B+ list for the last two albums, while THE BACK HORN could probably be considered a C-list band.
ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION, for the most part, has been a B-list band for me.
Kita Kensuke’s voice certainly puts him the same class of singers as SPITZ’s Kusano Masamune and Remioromen’s Fujimaki Ryouta. But the band’s highly-polished post-emo music tends to blur after a while. It’s melodic as hell and very appealing in measured doses. But historically, I’ve perceived AKFG’s sound as little more than watered-down eastern youth.
I read vaguely somewhere that reaction to news of Madonna working with Pharrell Williams went along the lines of "OH NOES! MADONNA HIP-HOP ALBUMZ! DO NOT WANT!"
This from a woman who has sung Andrew Lloyd Webber, got Björk to write the title track of Bedtime Stories and jumped on an electronica bandwagon that ultimately went nowhere (Ray of Light not withstanding)? Should working with Pharrell or Timbaland or Justin Timberlake be that much of a stretch?
Honestly, I’m surprised such a collaboration hasn’t happened sooner.
More pixels and ink seem to be expended over the fact Hard Candy is the last album Madonna will record for Warner Bros., as she embarks on a new-fangled 360 deal with LiveNation. Never mind the music — this album can already be seen as a significant marker in both the career of Madonna and the history of the major label business.
It’s easy to assume both parties would feel like phoning it in since the album notes the end of a relationship. Can’t speak for the efforts of Warner Bros., but Madonna certainly didn’t slouch on this one. If anything, Hard Candy is her most listenable album since Ray of Light.
I wanted to stand by Janet Jackson during Nipplegate in 2004 — really, I did. I had intended to march down to the music shop on the day Damita Jo was released to show my support for Miss Jackson, to stand against the histronics of a conservative agenda run amok.
But I hedged my bets.
I jumped on the Evil Sharing Networks to see if I could afford to spend the cash to show such support, and after listening to the album, I couldn’t bring myself to subsidize it. In the same manner that I wouldn’t buy a Dixie Chicks album just because they pissed off some conservative blowhards, taste overrode political action.
Janet’s 2006 follow-up, 20 Y.O., garnered the same response. But the problem stems much further back — as far back as 1997 and The Velvet Rope. The production team that struck platinum with Control, Rhythm Nation 1814 and (to a lesser extent creatively) janet. started to show signs of wear. By 2001’s All for You, the well was tapped dry.
Ruts are comfortable, and for most of the new millennium, Janet has been very comfortable. After some very high-profile label changes, she finally did what she should have done a decade back — work with new people.
Terry Lewis and Jimmy Jam have done much to foster Janet as a talent in her own right, but at some point, kids need to move out of their parents’ house. Discipline is the much-delayed sound of Janet exerting independence once again.
Even though Annie Lennox is the voice behind some of the most memorable singles in pop music history, her output can be a bit spotty.
Her solo albums Medusa and Bare sometimes dragged under the weight of their aching themes, while Diva managed to garner accolades despite being stiff, cold and distant. She sounded far warmer on Eurythmics’ Savage, and that’s saying a lot.
So after a solo career spanning 15-plus years yielding only four albums, Lennox offers Songs of Mass Destruction, the most invigorating album she’s done since her days with Eurythmics.
There are two things you can count on with Leo Imai’s debut album, FIX NEON:
The prodigious use of the syllable "Oh!"
The recycling of melodic material for his choruses
You needn’t look further than two consecutive tracks toward the middle of the album, "Metro" and "Karaoke". The choruses are practically identical. As for the "Oh!", they appear most frequently between the end of a chorus and the start of a verse, but you can pretty much put them anywhere.
This … economy of musical ideas can get alternately tiring and endearing. It would be nice if he didn’t sing "Oh!" so much, but at the same time, the songs would be so empty without them.
Those are pretty much the only significant issues holding FIX NEON back from greatness. Set them aside, and the album is perhaps one of the most confoundingly appealing releases this year.
If her album releases are any indication, Utada Hikaru would make a lousy poker player. Between double-A sides and coupling tracks that turn into album tracks, she has a habit of revealing her hand before it’s ever shown.
Seven of the 13 tracks on HEART STATION were released as singles, and after the release of "Prisoner of Love" in May, she will have made 60 percent of the album available.
The Japanese music industry still adheres to a model to which the US industry is heading back — driven by singles with albums treated as after-thoughts.
This tactic is good for building hype where it’s warranted. It certainly worked (on me) for Utada’s previous album ULTRA BLUE.
Although Ben Gibbard gets a lot of attention for being the main songwriter for and distinctive voice of Death Cab for Cutie, it’s Chris Walla who mans the recording booth, crafting the moody sound for which the band is renowned.
So when news hit that Walla was recording a solo album, I was intrigued far more than if Gibbard were to record one. Walla is the wizard behind the curtain — just what would he sound like when he steps out?
One question is certainly answered on Field Manual — Gibbard isn’t losing his day job as front man anytime soon. Walla’s raspy voice is actually quite appealing and a sharp contrast from Gibbard’s pixie croon, but Gibbard’s voice has more presence.
Not surprisingly, Walla’s album sounds a lot like Death Cab, given the overlap in producers, but in terms of songwriting, Field Manual is split between fast, hard-driving rockers and slower, atmospheric numbers. On such tracks as "The Score", "Geometry & C" and "Archer v. Light", Walla is a lot more willing to rock out than Death Cab normally would.
Now that I’m working out more, I made a startling discovery about Kylie Minogue’s 2002 album, Fever — it’s really quite good.
At the very least, it’s good for a leisurely jog on the treadmill. But with my earphones (not earbuds!) on and the machine set to approximately 4 mph, it’s tough not to be seduced by the four-on-the-floor beats, the immediate hooks and Kylie ‘s nondescript come-hither voice.
Rockist though I may be 90 percent of the time, sometimes I just can’t help but be teh Gay. (Not that it’s any prerequisite to enjoy such pop perfection.)
For her follow-up Body Language, Kylie attempted to mature, releasing an album with a heavy underground dance influence and lacking anything resembling a single. When it failed to match the sales of Fever, she was written off. Then the cancer. Then the comeback.
Kylie ‘s tenth album, X (is it pronounced "ecks" or "ten"?), puts the singer back squarely in the prefab hit-making mode of Fever, teaming her up with a lot of the same songwriters from before.
In the span of six tracks, MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS manage to cover a lot of ground on their self-titled debut mini-album.
The duo has been described as "psych-rock", but that label is too limited. In fact, it’s easy to compare each track on the album to a particular band: NUMBER GIRL, mono, unkie, condor44.
It’s the NUMBER GIRL influence that seems most prevalent, especially with producer Dave Fridmann behind the board on the last two tracks ("IF A SURFER" and "Bears"). The thundering drums of SAPPUKEI kick off "IF A SURFER", while a tidal wave of distortion inundates "Bears". The second track, "Highlight", even recalls the syncopated rhythms and thick chords of NUMBER GIRL’s "I don’t know".