Archive

2.21.2009

U2 - No Line on the Horizon

U2 has once again descended from the heavens to impart new material on the masses. No Line on the Horizon is their third album of the decade and we're all wondering...will they continue creeping down the path of recycling and re-imagining Where the Streets Have No Name and Staring at the Sun? Of course, nothing new there. But what we also have (thanks to the expensive trifecta of super-producers: Eno, Lanois and Lillywhite) is a slick arrangement of their various sounds over the years (sans the electronica influences of Pop) resulting in a more texturally varied album than they've had in quite a while. It's vibrant, compact, has semi-memorable tunes and (compared to the last few efforts, at least) attempts minor risks...which is often more than you can ask from a band of their progressing years. With the exception of Get on Your Boots (which functions more as sound trying to rape your ears) the songs featured here are generic-ly radio-friendly as usual, but surprisingly more discreet (not unlike Zooropa) and most of the time succeed at toeing the line without crossing into "trying too hard" territory (like much of Pop and the often forced glory of Atomic Bomb).
Understated as the positives are, however, the bad is contrastingly obvious as we're confronted with the glaring vocal problems. Lyrically this is probably the most abysmal effort we've gotten from Bono. Some of the songs (No Line, Breathe, Stand Up) have enough musical gusto and energy that the lyrical content can be disregarded, others not so much. Like Unknown Caller whose botchy, circular (but strangely hypnotic) lyrics sound like he’s singing from the point of view of a computer that has performed an illegal operation. And Boots which is like a modern remix of Escape Club's Wild Wild West. Too often the combination of delivery and content is disjointed as if unplanned, causing some songs to drift off course. And also, it doesn't help that Bono has essentially been living in an ivory tower for decades. At least on last few records he still had a finger on the general pulse of humanity and could distract us with a strong hook. Now he's just throwing vague biblical jargon and greeting card morality into a blender and then retreating back to his hot tubs and Ferrari's.
The vocal mix on this record only adds to the frustration in that Bono seems to have been pushed (or resigned) to the sidelines, as opposed to his usual front and center-of-the-message role. Whether it be a style choice or necessity due to his age it causes the record to lose much of his charismatic persona. Where Bono usually acts as the anchor in contrast to the airy melodic songs, and the pompous rock star who powers along heavier tunes, on this he comes across more as a simple narrator, and U2 loses their pomp.

Diagnosis: although not as catchy or melodically refined it still has just enough going for it to keep within a few paces of the last two albums. My advice, they need to quit. They need to stop while fans still remember all the awesomeness they've produced over the years, because people can turn on you quickly. One more album of this will be the death toll. Get out while you can, Bono.
Or, spend some years trying to get in touch with the "average Joe". Move into some dude's two bedroom squalor, bring along your acoustic guitar and leave the sunglasses at home.
But that won't happen. So, realistically, I think it'd help if he stopped trying to be the world's moral compass and just wrote more lyrics about putting on boots and suffering from vertigo.

Bonus>
The following sample tracklist is the kind of album that U2 would have to make in order for the drooling masses to turn in revolt;
1. This Will Get Played The on the Radio Regardless
2. War is Bad
3. The Edge Plays a Riff
4. Fart Noises
5. Stop Fighting Over Religion
6. Jesus Said Some Good Stuff
7. Brian Eno Did This One
8. Vague Morality Lesson #245356457
9. The Drummer is Never Happy to Be Here
10. I'm Bono (And I'm Better Than You)
11. Song That Still Kinda Sounds Like 'Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'

Worst U2 Song Ever: Get On Your Boots
Observations: White as Snow sounds like a discarded track from Fiddler on the Roof. Bono desperately tries to be John Lennon on track 10.

6.5/10

2.17.2009

Genesis - Supper's Ready


"...If you go down to Willow Farm, to look for butterflies, flutterbyes, gutterflies
Open your eyes, it's full of surprise, everyone lies, like the fox on the rocks, and the musical box. Yes, there's Mum & Dad, and good and bad, and everyone's happy to be here.
There's Winston Churchill dressed in drag, he used to be a British flag, plastic bag, what a drag. The frog was a prince, the prince was a brick, the brick was an egg, the egg was a bird. (Fly away you sweet little thing, they're hard on your tail) Hadn't you heard? (They're going to change you into a human being!) Yahoo, we're happy as fish and gorgeous as geese, and wonderfully clean in the morning"

2.13.2009

Ongoing List of Worst Classic Rock Songs

1. Shattered/She's So Cold - Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger wrote both of these songs specifically as dance numbers for the live show. They both have the perfect non-rhythm that a man of his extreme whiteness can shuffle and wag his finger to...and look good doing it.
2. Horse with No Name - America
In their classic folk-rock tune about getting stoned and subsequently harassed by local police for trying to eat at a restaurant nude, America imparts to us their divine hippie wisdom in the form of asinine lyrics, droll melody and obnoxious catchy-ness.
3. Magnet and Steel - Walter Egan
A favorite among the roller-rink masses in the 1970's, this song doo-wops its way into the crapper with a poorly constructed metaphor slash pickup line that would not be topped until Billy Ocean's 80's hit "Get Out of My Dreams and Into My Car".
4. Rock and Roll Fantasy - Bad Company
I'll admit, I love me some Bad Company, and this song does have a pretty sweet thump and guitar lick...but I generally start tuning out once Paul Rodgers begins describing his fantasy, which basically amounts to a list of generic concert staging. Except he mentions three jesters, perhaps this was supposed to be a Medieval Times fantasy and he aborted the idea after the first verse.
5. Imaginary Lover - Atlanta Rhythm Section
That's pretty "rock n roll", dude. You know you've hit the big time and then some when real women begin to lose their appeal and only your awesome, finely permed reflection can satisfy...or whatever other sick stuff you're into. Perverts.
6. Love Hurts - Nazareth
Always fools me into thinking that it's Joe Cocker's rendition of "With a Little Help..." Nazareth trudges through this quagmire of a song with a lethargy unparalleled in the pantheons of rock history.
7. Dirty White Boy - Foreigner
Before Nickelback was stinking up airwaves with their mediocre brand of cheese-rock, Foreigner was doing it better.
8. Lords of the Ring - Styx
I think the title speaks for itself, but this song is what would have happened to Zeppelin if Robert Plant had downs syndrome.
9. I'm Just a Singer - Moody Blues
This song sounds like the chase music for every single crime drama...every single commercial jingle...and the intro music to every sportscast....from the 1970's...smashed into one mind-piercingly atrocious package. It also sounds like a drill boring down into my skull.
10. Pink Cadillac - Bruce Springsteen
I don't mean to pick on the Boss but this is one of the most banal songs ever written in the rock & roll shuffle style. It also doesn't help that the pitch and key of his voice remain the same for nearly the entire song. It's like listening to the engine of a pink Cadillac on cruise control, so he achieved that effect if that's what he was going for. And also, no rock song should ever have the word "Suburu" in it.
11. Takin' Care of Business - BTO
I can, maybe, perhaps, imagine some time in the distant past, immediately after the song was released, when it was mildly entertaining. This is one of the those songs that is catchy only for the sake of being catchy. The band was fiddling around with a riff one day and they just kept going. Bachman (or was it Turner Overdrive?) sings the title in passing, yeah! Let's try that. The spark is lit, the band loves it! They jam until the break of dawn and people for thousands of miles around show up in campers and Harleys screaming for more and more...the song hasn't stopped being played since...and the car commercial royalties keep comin' out their wazoos.
12. Rock and Roll All Nite - Kiss
I always feel like this song is one elaborate pitch for all the merchandise the band is hawking. Gene Simmons is probably the greatest salesman of all time; just get your audience to buy into an image of all night rocking and all day partying which requires that they buy an assload of useless Kiss themed products.
13. Steve Miller
I'm just adding his name here as a kind of collective wag-of-the-finger for all the crimes against decent songwriting he's committed over the years. The prime example being Take the Money and Run in which he employs the ingenious rhyming of  "Texas", "taxes" and "facts is".
14. Walk This Way - Aerosmith
This song was ok and I'm hesitant to put a song on this list because it's overplayed, but...this is different. Sweet Home Alabama, Back in Black, both have been run so far into the ground that they no longer carry any meaning and bounce off the eardrum like a mutated disease. Walk This Way, on the other hand, has reached a whole new level of irrelevance. The second that riff kicks in the brain either shuts down or goes into panic mode, filling your mind with other better songs to drown out what's currently playing.
15. Come Together - Aerosmith
The worst kind of cover; when the lead singer of a band goes out to a karaoke bar one night and decides to record his lackluster performance as to fill a vacant spot on their upcoming album.

in case you'd like to listen to any of these gems, you can use grooveshark to play any song and put them in playlists.

2.10.2009

Heroes of Child Labor: Patricius McGrover III


In this first of an ongoing historical series I will examine some of the key figures of the child labor movement in the late 19th century.
Today the spotlight is on the industrial sensation himself; Patricius McGrover III.
Patricius, born in Livershire-Hamptington, England in 1886, holds the all-time record for most consecutive shifts worked at the Lords of Looohr Textile Factory: 6,840. Which equate to roughly three years, two months and eleven days worth of non-stop work. Though
in truth a ripe 16 years of age at the time of his death, Patricius remained forever a mere lad in appearance due to stunted growth caused by malnutrition, overwork and the threat of termination if he were to ever grow past four feet in height. "Tiny people are cost efficient! Stay tiny, you limey bullocks!", the Boss would scream at the beginning of every shift.
On Christmas days, when his shift was only twenty-three hours, Patricius enjoyed thinking about work, rummaging through receptacles for half-eaten cans of white hominy, playing fetch with rats, And lashing himself to remind himself of the factory he so dearly loved.

dirty little fingers
needn't be at play
the good lord has written
how they shall spend their days

smelting.
preeming.
carding.
spinning.
spin until your filthy, undeveloped soul has found its way

suffer not the children to suckle on thy teet
nor climb to tops of countertops
with mud upon their feet

nor spare the rod
nor make no bargains
idol hands lower profit margins

"go forth and multiply"
was the creator's one request
for silk is one commodity
more sweet than baby's breast.

2.08.2009

Home by the Sea: One and Two

...

International Star Registry

It makes the perfect gift...and makes for the most perfect scam of all time.

I can imagine a few resourceful twenty-somethings sitting around a broken coffee table, passing a dutchie and tossing out ideas for their own version of the pet rock. An asinine product that will help them achieve their dream of living permanently as grad students. They brainstorm, concepts fly, some hit the wall, some hit close to the mark, some life long bonds are formed, some hearts are broken...until finally it clicks. An endless commodity of a romantic nature?
No, you pervert...it's STARS.
Of course! Stars!
As presents!
Perfect.


1. Little to no overhead cost - God provides the capital
2. You can never run out of stars - however the universe IS expanding, so product DOES expire, unfortunately.
3. People are stupid
4. People aren't going to check to make sure the patent on their star name is not repeated.
5. People love having things named after them. Especially large gaseous object trillions and trillions of light years away.

It's so simple. In the olden days two lovers would lay on the hood of a 57 Chevy and exchange meaningless gestures of affection. The boyfriend would point out a certain star and say..."see that? That's for you, sugarlips, I wonder if there are any hot alien babes as hot as you living there, oooh yeeah" and then move in for the kill.
Now, however, we're in the age of thoughtless gifts; store credit, burnt CDs, e-cards, cell phone plans, restraining orders. Women want contracts, not promises. They don't actually want the star, they want the security of knowing that you called a 1-800 number, gave your credit card information, and had an "as-of-yet-undiscovered" star in an "as-of-yet-unknown" quadrant of space assigned her name..."Stephanie"...the red dwarf. AKA Beta Centari 293847298367854305823-4958-2103492-34-0002. The registry operator mindlessly scribbles down the name on a piece of notebook paper and shuffles it into a makeshift folder comprised of a Mexican pizza container from Taco Bell, which is then slid under the couch to be later filed under "Jackasses".
What very few people know is that if you happen to have a rare or unusual name like Trig or Apple or Orangelo or God Shamgod, you have to pay extra because usually they just lump similar names together...such as Jeff and Geoff or George Bush and John McCain. In actuality Stephanie is sharing a planet with whatever other Stephanie's (and Stefani's and Stefunee etc) whos boyfriends have "purchased" them a star. Another reason to date girls with the same name, it saves money...
This also raises the question as to why there isn't the option of naming other cosmic phenomenon after loved ones. Black holes, dark matter, asteroids, nebula, alternate realities, the monolith from 2001. The hate industry is very underrated, under appreciated and untapped in many regards. They should really think about expanding their catalog.
In conclusion, I hope to God that if and when we discover an inhabitable, earthlike planet, that it's not named something stupid like Amanda.
A thousand years from now when a descendant of Will Smith remakes Independence Day I don't want him saying "Welcome to Amanda". That would suck.