Music

I haven’t been a huge fan of The Boss’ output recently, stretching back into the 90s, but “Magic” is his best effort since “Tunnel of Love.” The E Street Band is along for the ride this time, and it shows. Strong songwriting, playing and vocals push this album into the stratosphere of his best works, including “Born to Run” and “The River.”

Some highlights: “Livin’ in the Future” recalls the jazz/rock fusion of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, and “You’ll Be Comin’ Down” and “Your Own Worst Enemy” are just flat-out gorgeous.

“Magic” is definitely worth at least a listen-through if you have access to Rhapsody (Mac users, alas, do not), or the 30 second previews through iTunes.

Ayreon is less a band and more of a prog-music project—each Ayreon album is a “rock opera” composed by Dutch musician Arjen Lucassen. Lucassen then assembles a cast of top-notch singers and musicians (often recognizable faces from the prog-rock scene, but sometimes relative newcomers as well) to play all the parts in the musical drama.

The Human Equation is the latest Ayreon project, and it’s one of the most rewarding albums I’ve listened to all year. Unlike most Ayreon rock operas, which tend to involve elaborate (and somewhat cheesy) sci-fi and fantasy storylines, Equation tells a much more personal and grounded story: a man who has fallen into a coma after an accident (…but was it really an accident?) relives milestones in his life, confronts his guilt and other personal demons, and works his way to an understanding of what really happened.

The storyline is not staggeringly innovative, and is a bit difficult at times to follow, but that’s OK: it pales before the music, which positively soars. Lucassen is a prog-rock musician at heart, which means Equation has a good share of pounding guitars and space-age synthesizers, but he pulls out all the stops to make this album a diverse one. Depending on the subject matter at hand, the music ranges from heavy and serious to light and breezy; instruments ranging from violins and cellos to flutes to bassoons to a didgeridoo weave in and out of the album throughout its 100-minute playing time. The singers Lucassen cast are great: James LaBrie (of Dream Theater) has the part of the main character, Marcela Bovio plays his wife, and a slew of other vocalists show up as different voices from the main character’s past and subconscious.

All of the songs are tightly focused around the album’s concept; it’s the sort of album that really demands a full-length listen to really appreciate it, although several of the songs quite well on their own. “Day Two: Isolation” (download it from the Ayreon site) opens the album with a terrific, guitar-heavy intensity; “Day Seven: Hope” is a lighthearted, nostalgic song perfect for cranking up on a summer road trip; “Day Eleven: Love” swings majestically from dreamy vocals to hammering guitars and back; “Day Seventeen: Accident?” flirts with an ambient electronic keyboard groove. Most songs feature at least two or three different characters (male and female) singing in dialogue, which keeps the vocals varied and interesting.

If I sound like a raving fanboy, I suppose I am: I loved this album. It hits most of the spectrum of progressive rock, from crunching guitars to quiet flutes, from cookie-monster growling to ethereal female vocals. (It does ultimately lean toward the heavy side, though.) There’s a great deal of musical creativity packed into this one. I’d heartily recommend it to anybody who wants a good introduction to prog rock, or to anybody who just enjoys hearing a troupe of highly skilled musicians all doing what they do best.

At the risk of looking like a fanboi, I’m offering my thoughts on the new Radiohead album about eight hours after it dropped last night.

• This is summarily a Radiohead album. The very first track, “15 Step”, is an adept melding of Kid A fuzz and ambiance with Amnesiac timing (5/4 is my guess, 5/8 is my son’s… and on further listening, I think he might be right) with melodies reminiscent of “Talk Show Host” or “Paranoid Android”.
• Speaking of melodies, they are fabulous and, in many places, simpler than on past albums.
• I’ve never been a huge fan of Thom Yorke’s voice by itself, but this album reminds me how well it cuts through the thick, luscious layers of sound in the music.
• Of the ten songs, only one stood out to me as a particular “throwaway” (”All I Need”). On the other hand, the breadth of sound is simply astonishing. The band shows that they don’t need to rely on hyper-produced songs with 32 tracks of noise to make great music; “Faust Arp” is a beautiful track with nothing more than voice and two guitars, while “Videotape” is just Thom at a piano, playing hypnotically along with minimal, almost ambient drums.
• From time to time, I could use a break from the “singing in the middle of an empty Albert Hall” vocal effect. Also, if the dude who does the voice for Herbert ever needs a break, Thom can surely step in. (Seriously, listen to something like “Nude” and tell me he couldn’t do a great, “You like popsicles?”)
• Early favorite tracks: well, just about all of them. I immediately love “Bodysnatchers” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, but so much of the album feels fresh, yet familiar.

I got to the end of the album ready and excited to listen to it again. I didn’t skip any tracks and didn’t get anxious during any of the songs to do so. Four (preliminary) stars.

OK, so I’ve never worn mascara, dressed up like a vampire, or felt particularly rejected by mainstream society. But you must admit, the Goth scene did produce some pretty killer music. This week I stumbled upon Abney Park, a Goth/electronic/trance band that dresses up in Victorian garb and pretends to be the crew of a steampunk airship, and it turns out they rock, in a pass-me-the-absinthe sort of way. I defy you to loop “Stigmata Martyr” (even the song names are Gothier-than-thou!) for a half-hour and not be lulled into a sublimely melancholy fugue state. That’s what I’ve been doing all afternoon, at least.

They’ve got numerous tracks for free download at their website. Go forth and Goth!

Check out these three clips of bits that Philip Glass composed for Sesame Street. When I watched them yesterday, I immediately remembered loving them as a kid, and they’re just as good (if not better) now. I have to assume some sort of embedded memory of those is part of the reason the scores from Mishima and Kundun resonated so much with me.

Here’s one of the clips, and they’re all linked above:

I hope Sesame Street still has stuff this good.

Via your daily awesome (via mefi)

I don’t get HBO (or cable for that matter), but I caught a new show “Flight of the Conchords” in a hotel this week.  (Am I totally late to this party?)  The show is based on a band by the same name.  They are “New Zeeland’s fourth most popular folk-parody group.”

Anyway, their live show includes “Think about it, Think, Think about it“, a song about dealing with the issues, and “The Humans are Dead“, an ode to our future robot overlords.  Here’s a clip of the HBO show.  Not for everybody, but what is?

Ondi Timoner, the documentarian behind the excellent DiG!, is apparently unrolling a new documentary about religious cults called Join Us (sorry, free registration required).

If you’ve not seen DiG!, I highly recommend it–it traces the awesomely melodramatic rivalry between the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre, two bands vying for the limelight. The real star of that documentary is Anton Newcombe, the musician behind BJM; he comes across simultaneously as a raving loon and an intensely talented musician. DiG! is entertaining in a look-at-the-train-wreck sort of way, and it introduced me to music I’m still listening to years later. I suspect that Join Us will be worth checking out as well.

So word has it that Hillary Clinton’s campaign theme song is “You and I” by Celine Dion. (Think VERY VERY carefully about whether you want to click that link. Just sayin’.) Angels and ministers of grace, preserve us.

This is unacceptable. Fellow Americans, I hereby vow that if I ever run for office, the official song of my presidential campaign will be “Eurotrash Girl,” as performed by Cracker:

Of course, I’ll use the 8-minute album version, not the 5-minute Youtube version that’s been dumbed down for the unwashed masses.

[Note: I thought it might be fun–for me, at least–to review some of the more obscure bands in my music library. More interesting than hearing me drone on about the latest U2 album, right? Well, here goes.]

Back in 2000, I came across, entirely by chance, an indie Christian industrial band called Aleixa. I took a chance on their latest album at the time, Disfigured, mostly out of curiosity at what “Christian industrial” might sound like. As it turned out, the album ended up with a permanent spot on my favorites list.

To my great disappointment, Aleixa disbanded not long after that album. They had recorded one previous album in 1996, but due to the band’s general obscurity I was never able to track down a copy. So imagine my surprise when just the other day I came across Honey Lake, Aleixa’s first album, in the $1 bin at the local used music store.

Honey Lake falls into what you might call the “industrial synth-pop” genre: hard guitars laid over a moderately complex, and often danceable, electronic beat. What really grabs your attention, though, are the ethereal vocals by Laurel Snapper, whose voice both complements and contrasts with the guitars and beats. The individual songs vary musically from harder, more industrial crunch to catchier dance tunes.

Lyrically, the album is pretty dark and emotional for a Christian band; many of the songs are bleak and spiritually troubled, delving into topics like depression, suicide, anger, and self-esteem. There are certainly glimmers of hope throughout, but many songs come across as cries for help from somebody facing spiritual despair. “Spark,” for instance, opens with this:

i’ve got a knife that’s up in the kitchen
i’ve got a knife that’s ready to take the plunge
i’ve got a knife that’s ready for marriage
i’ve got a knife that wants to have some fun

i’ve got a life that ain’t worth living
i’ve got a life that i wanna give back
i know you’ll be better off without me
there’s too much pain baby there’s too much pain

The very next song, “I Could Murder,” opens with a creepy sample of a cheerleader squad chanting “M-U-R-D-E-R K-I-L-L” and goes on to lament the potential for evil inside everyone: “I could murder / I could kill / there is something, something inside me”.

Other songs reach more successfully for hope, but it’s often hope that lives on in spite of pain; there’s no hokey reassurance that accepting Jesus into your heart will make your life A-okay. What comes across in the course of the album is a more subtle exhortation to hang in there despite whatever you’re suffering or experiencing, because one day (but not today) that pain will be wiped away. In one of the closing tracks, “Some Things Will Never Go Away,” Snapper makes one of the album’s few explicit references to Jesus Christ:

i can’t change what i feel inside
i can’t change what’s here in my mind
it won’t go away i think it’s here to stay
to weigh down on me
feeling lost again i’m waiting outside
i know that jesus is the way
i know that jesus is the way

It’s an angsty, melodramatic, but real-life faith, at least compared to the squeaky-clean theology found in much of CCM. I don’t think these lyrics would be considered unacceptable today, but ten years ago they caused enough controversy in the Christian music market that many Christian music stores declined to carry the album. (Their second and last album, Disfigured, is a bit more open about the band’s Christian faith, but also includes one song taking an angry swipe at Christians critics who complained about Honey Lake’s dark tone.)

So what do I think of all this? I think Honey Lake is a fine, fine album. The music is catchy and interesting, the lyrics are relevant and provocative, and hearing Snapper’s sweeping vocals makes me weep for the day that Aleixa disbanded. That praise aside, Honey Lake does feel less polished than Disfigured; some of the songs are much better than others, and in general there is a sense throughout Honey Lake that Aleixa is still working out its signature sound.

Disfigured is the album to start with if you want to hear them at their best, but Honey Lake is definitely worth picking up if you at all enjoy their music (and if you’re lucky enough to stumble across it; as far as I can tell, both albums are quite out of print). Aleixa is one of the lost treasures of CCM; one can only hope that Kevin 151 and Laurel Snapper, the figures behind Aleixa’s music and vocals respectively, will one day join forces again.

There’s never been an album I’ve anticipated as hotly as Maroon 5’s followup to 2002’s Songs About Jane. It bothered me a little, since such anticipation generally elevates an album to unachievable heights of expectation, which just kills it for me when it finally comes out only to disappoint. But the band made it very difficult to not build an enormous cache of expectations, given a full touring schedule (M5 is a fabulous live band) and five loooooooong years since a stint in the studio.

I’m happy to report, however, that IWBSBL does not fail to impress.

It’s a very different album from SAJ, though there are plenty of similar elements. The funk is funkier; Adam’s vocals are higher, almost a caricature of himself; the sexual innuendo is spread throughout, going well beyond simple suggestion. The music is more electronic throughout, as is evident on the first single, “Makes Me Wonder”. “Wake Up Call” is probably the best “pure Maroon 5″ song: forward keyboards, big beats, Adam waxing about the man he just shot dead after finding him with his girl. Other signs of greatness are “Kiwi” (which is a not-so-thinly-veiled reference to oral sex, but is just a great musical song) and the finale, “Figure It Out”, which is probably the most creative effort on the album (featuring cowbell drumming!). There are more songs on IWBSBL that feel more like filler than on SAJ; all in all, it’s a little hit-and-miss, but the hits are big hits, while the misses are more just mediocre, not bad.

If you liked Songs About Jane, and you’re good with more electronic funk (think Jamiroquai), AND you aren’t daunted by very sexual (but not vulgar, for the most part, which is odd) lyrics, I can wholeheartedly recommend It Won’t Be Soon Before Long.