Sufjan Stevens reminds me a lot of Grady Tripp, the main character in Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys (surprise! I'm a book nerd too!). Grady Tripp is a pot-smoking college English professor who is working on a follow up to his critically acclaimed best seller, which he wrote 7 years ago. Everyone thinks he has writer's block. He actually has the opposite problem, he can't stop writing. He is already well over 2,000 pages and, has several weddings, murders, catastrophes and calamities still to add to the book before it will reach it's conclusion. He has been working on the book for 7 years, he has included in it a genealogy of the major characters' horses, and their dental records. He simply can't stop himself.
Similarly, "Illinois" is, I believe, the second album in Sufjan Stevens' attempt to make an album for every state in America (there's 50 of them for those of you who struggled in American History). He has since abandoned the project, and released a new album "The Age of Adz" which I haven't listened to yet. The itunes version of "Illinois" has 26 songs on it. The normal version has 22. The majority of songs are over the 5 minute mark and have titles such as "The Black Hawk of War, or How to Destroy an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning", "A Short Reprise for Mary Todd, Who Went Insane but for Very Good Reasons", and my personal favorite "They are Night Zombies!! They are Out Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhh!!" He can't seem to stop himself from writing.
The album (recently named Paste Magazine's Best Album of the Decade) is a sprawling work. There are choirs, horns, strings, banjos, wurrlitzers, pump organs, droning sound effects, guitars and more choirs. All of it is built around Sufjan's quiet whispery voice. Lyrically the songs all focus around some aspect of Illinois' history or notable people and incidents from the state. Most of the songs have a slow mournful sound to them and fall into the mid-tempo ballads category. Occassionally, he mixes it up: the slow funk of the Zombies song (I'm not going to re-write all of that!), and the guitar rock of "The Man from Metropolis Steals Our Hearts" or the big piano chorus of "Come on! Feel the Illinoise!". This isn't to say that all of the slow stuff is bad, "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." is a great song as is "Decatur, Or, A Round of Applause for your Stepmother", "Casmir Polaski Day" and the anthemic "Chicago".
I like the record. It doesn't fit nicely into one category. It sprawls between folk music, classical, operatic, and pop. But it sprawls a little too much. There are too many noise interludes, too many choirs singing the chorus' and few too many slow ballads. If Stevens could reign himself in a little, and edit himself, it would be a better, more consistent record. After a while it begins to seem tiresome to listen through another musical interlude, or another women's choir singing the chorus to a song that has gone on for 6 minutes. I normally like songs that are a bit longer, but for whatever reason, this record seems to drag on. It's not just that it's long, it's that it feels long.
Stevens is certainly an interesting song writer. And I think there is something to be said for aiming high and trying to make something big and bold rather than something that just tries to fit in. I just wish he could stop himself once in a while. There's nothing wrong with a song not having a 3 minute noise track intro, or just having 5 slow ballads instead of 10 on a record. In Wonder Boys, a character remarks after reading most of Tripp's novel, that it feels like he didn't make any choices. Instead of choosing what to include and what to leave out, he just included everything. "Illinois" is kind of the same thing. Stevens just included everything, and while the good stuff is really really good, you have to wade through some mediocre music to find it.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Rap v. Country Music
In the wake of the CMT Awards and Taylor Swift dominating every conceivable music sales record there is, I thought it would be a good time to bring up an interesting thought I had the other day.
Hip-hop takes a lot of heat for the content of it's lyrics. And rightly so. There is a lot to not like in hip-hop. The music is often misogynistic, and focuses on things like violence and drugs. Now, I've always said that rap is a PRODUCT of life in the streets, it does not cause it. Music is a reflection of culture, it does not cause culture to exist. We like to blame music for the ills of our society but more often then not, musicians tend to write about what they see around them, not what the wish they see. Rap takes a lot of heat for "glorifying drug dealing and using". While there is definitely some validity to that, if you're going to kill rap music for their talk of drug use, you have to kill country music as well.
Quick, write down 5 songs by 5 different country artists. It's ok, I'll wait. Got it? Good. Now, I'm willing to bet that 4 out of those 5 songs all contain some sort of reference to alcohol (1 is probably a Taylor Swift song and she's squeaky clean). Alcohol use (and abuse) is probably mentioned in 9 out of 10 country songs, period, across the board. Think I'm wrong? Just listen to country radio and count how many times someone mentions "a bottle of whiskey" or "a cold beer". Yet, parents would much rather have their children listen to country music than rap. Country music has that family values feel to it, but it's not. Alcoholism is a LOT more prevalent in America than crack cocaine usage by a wide margin (I don't know the exact stats and I'm way too lazy to look them up). So if we're going to give rap hell for talking about drugs, we HAVE to give country music hell for glorifying alcoholism. Period. Jack Daniels is as a country as cowboy hats and belt buckles. And in a country where alcoholism is rampant, and DUI's kill almost as many people as heart attacks (I'm guessing), that's not a good thing.
Sure, rap has other issues (the n word for example), but if you don't like a style of music because of it's subject matter, you need to be consistent and not just pick and choose what problems you want to ignore. If you want to lash at Kanye for "We Don't Care" then you need to remember Toby Keith's "Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses".
SIDE RANT THAT IS SORT OF BUT NOT QUITE RELATED: I'm sick of hearing that rappers aren't talented. Rap has, without a doubt, the best collection of song writers there are. Do you really think "Honky tonk ba-donk-a-donk" required more talent to write than "Big Pimpin'"? Go back and listen to them both and try and tell me otherwise!
I'm not saying you should burn all your country records in protest. I'm not saying Nicki Minaj is a better role model than Carrie Underwood. I'm just saying "Call it both ways!" I'll step down from my soapbox now.
Hip-hop takes a lot of heat for the content of it's lyrics. And rightly so. There is a lot to not like in hip-hop. The music is often misogynistic, and focuses on things like violence and drugs. Now, I've always said that rap is a PRODUCT of life in the streets, it does not cause it. Music is a reflection of culture, it does not cause culture to exist. We like to blame music for the ills of our society but more often then not, musicians tend to write about what they see around them, not what the wish they see. Rap takes a lot of heat for "glorifying drug dealing and using". While there is definitely some validity to that, if you're going to kill rap music for their talk of drug use, you have to kill country music as well.
Quick, write down 5 songs by 5 different country artists. It's ok, I'll wait. Got it? Good. Now, I'm willing to bet that 4 out of those 5 songs all contain some sort of reference to alcohol (1 is probably a Taylor Swift song and she's squeaky clean). Alcohol use (and abuse) is probably mentioned in 9 out of 10 country songs, period, across the board. Think I'm wrong? Just listen to country radio and count how many times someone mentions "a bottle of whiskey" or "a cold beer". Yet, parents would much rather have their children listen to country music than rap. Country music has that family values feel to it, but it's not. Alcoholism is a LOT more prevalent in America than crack cocaine usage by a wide margin (I don't know the exact stats and I'm way too lazy to look them up). So if we're going to give rap hell for talking about drugs, we HAVE to give country music hell for glorifying alcoholism. Period. Jack Daniels is as a country as cowboy hats and belt buckles. And in a country where alcoholism is rampant, and DUI's kill almost as many people as heart attacks (I'm guessing), that's not a good thing.
Sure, rap has other issues (the n word for example), but if you don't like a style of music because of it's subject matter, you need to be consistent and not just pick and choose what problems you want to ignore. If you want to lash at Kanye for "We Don't Care" then you need to remember Toby Keith's "Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses".
SIDE RANT THAT IS SORT OF BUT NOT QUITE RELATED: I'm sick of hearing that rappers aren't talented. Rap has, without a doubt, the best collection of song writers there are. Do you really think "Honky tonk ba-donk-a-donk" required more talent to write than "Big Pimpin'"? Go back and listen to them both and try and tell me otherwise!
I'm not saying you should burn all your country records in protest. I'm not saying Nicki Minaj is a better role model than Carrie Underwood. I'm just saying "Call it both ways!" I'll step down from my soapbox now.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
The Avett Brothers- Live Vol. 3
The blog got a facelift!! This means it's time for more music!
There is a delicate balance in live music. At what point does technical perfection (i.e. making sure every note is correct) hinder the performance? Classical music puts technical perfection first and instead of a lively and entertaining show, you get a group of people, seated, totally unaware of the audience and completely focused on nailing every single note. The inverse of this idea is something like punk rock: turn up the amps, who cares if you mess up, or if the drummer is a little off, just jump around and go nuts and the people will love it. Ideally, I guess you would want to be somewhere in the middle, a lively performance to excite the crowd, and a technically proficient performance. The Avett Brothers tend to ere on the side of the performance.
The Avett Brothers are a country, folk, bluegrass, rock group from North Carolina. The band, composed of two brothers, their friend on bass and a few other musicians (cellist and drummer) who come in and out. The band's newest album "I and Love and You" and its title track both favor much less banjo and more piano ballads. But live, the Brothers tend to go with the tried and true formula of banjo, acoustic guitar, and upright bass at full volume sung/screamed with as much energy as they can possibly muster. Their new live album is borderline exhausting, if not for the few slow ballads hidden throughout the set, you get the feeling they would just drop mid-song from exhaustion.
The live album captures a concert they did in their native Charlotte, NC after the release of "I and Love and You". The band is ecstatic to be home and you can feel it through the speakers. After wrecking the beginning of "The Ballad of Love and Hate", guitarist Seth Avett apologizes saying "I'm so happy I can hardly stand it right now" and starts the song again. It's that kind of a sloppy performance. They play so hard and so fast that they tend to drown each other out, guitars and banjos aren't balanced and they scream until it sounds like their throats bleed. But damn if it isn't fun!
You can hear them trying to catch their breath between words, their throats sound strained, the minimalist style of instrumentation is pretty bear bones, but still, it's a rollickin' good time (so good in fact that you want to leave the 'G' off the end of words and replace it with an apostrophe!). On their records (Emotionalism is my personal favorite so far), that sound doesn't always translate. They just don't seem to fit well in a recording studio, but on stage, it's what the Brothers are made for. They are at home, in their element, and all those songs that seem to be missing something, or just a little bit rough around the edges, sound perfectly at home when being played at full volume in front of a raucous crowd.
The song selection leans heavily on old favorites the oddly sweet "Murder in the City", a crowd and personal favorite "Shame" and "Talk on Indolence" the beginning of which must be heard to be believed. "Paranoia in B Flat Major" and "When I Drink" are other favorites. Some of the new stuff: "Kick Drum Heart" and "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" also fits in well. The change from banjo rock to piano ballad isn't as weird as you would think it is. All in all, it's a hell of a lot more fun than a night at the opera.
There is a delicate balance in live music. At what point does technical perfection (i.e. making sure every note is correct) hinder the performance? Classical music puts technical perfection first and instead of a lively and entertaining show, you get a group of people, seated, totally unaware of the audience and completely focused on nailing every single note. The inverse of this idea is something like punk rock: turn up the amps, who cares if you mess up, or if the drummer is a little off, just jump around and go nuts and the people will love it. Ideally, I guess you would want to be somewhere in the middle, a lively performance to excite the crowd, and a technically proficient performance. The Avett Brothers tend to ere on the side of the performance.
The Avett Brothers are a country, folk, bluegrass, rock group from North Carolina. The band, composed of two brothers, their friend on bass and a few other musicians (cellist and drummer) who come in and out. The band's newest album "I and Love and You" and its title track both favor much less banjo and more piano ballads. But live, the Brothers tend to go with the tried and true formula of banjo, acoustic guitar, and upright bass at full volume sung/screamed with as much energy as they can possibly muster. Their new live album is borderline exhausting, if not for the few slow ballads hidden throughout the set, you get the feeling they would just drop mid-song from exhaustion.
The live album captures a concert they did in their native Charlotte, NC after the release of "I and Love and You". The band is ecstatic to be home and you can feel it through the speakers. After wrecking the beginning of "The Ballad of Love and Hate", guitarist Seth Avett apologizes saying "I'm so happy I can hardly stand it right now" and starts the song again. It's that kind of a sloppy performance. They play so hard and so fast that they tend to drown each other out, guitars and banjos aren't balanced and they scream until it sounds like their throats bleed. But damn if it isn't fun!
You can hear them trying to catch their breath between words, their throats sound strained, the minimalist style of instrumentation is pretty bear bones, but still, it's a rollickin' good time (so good in fact that you want to leave the 'G' off the end of words and replace it with an apostrophe!). On their records (Emotionalism is my personal favorite so far), that sound doesn't always translate. They just don't seem to fit well in a recording studio, but on stage, it's what the Brothers are made for. They are at home, in their element, and all those songs that seem to be missing something, or just a little bit rough around the edges, sound perfectly at home when being played at full volume in front of a raucous crowd.
The song selection leans heavily on old favorites the oddly sweet "Murder in the City", a crowd and personal favorite "Shame" and "Talk on Indolence" the beginning of which must be heard to be believed. "Paranoia in B Flat Major" and "When I Drink" are other favorites. Some of the new stuff: "Kick Drum Heart" and "Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise" also fits in well. The change from banjo rock to piano ballad isn't as weird as you would think it is. All in all, it's a hell of a lot more fun than a night at the opera.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)