By Vadim Rizov
[Editor's Note: "Indie 500", a look at the music scene past and present, is published every other Thursday, alternating with John Lichman's Japanese cinema/anime column, "Idiot Savant Japan."]
Beach House are a band with a problem. Their self-titled debut seemed fully formed: nine songs virtually indistinguishable on first listen, relying on a command of minimal instrumentation and slow tempos. Further listens revealed that the songs were actually structurally and melodically quite different, but it's drug music: hazy, narcotic stuff, gaining its initial impact from uniform atmosphere first and difference later. Where to go next but repetition?
Devotion (technically coming out next week, but surely blowing up a million BitTorrent feeds near you) blows past the sophomore slump in record time. It's a more expansive album in every way: rhythmically, instrumentally, better mastered (no hiss anymore), you name it—and the really amazing thing is that they manage to keep upping the ante for most of the record rather than blowing their bag of tricks in the first five minutes. Of course, it helps when you're starting from nothing, and opening "Wedding Bell" is just about poised there: the first sound is literally sandpaper shuffling. But the shuffle is the key—in the band's micro-sealed dynamics, adding a little swagger is crucial. This is one of those follow-ups that retroactively points out the flaws of what seemed fully-formed at the time (cf. Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings And Food—or, on less rarefied ground, You Could Have It So Much Better vs. Franz Ferdinand).
If the debut gained its power from the cumulative impact of a rarely disturbed hush, Devotion is about as loud and epic as an album can be from a two-person band where neither guitar nor drums are the primary instruments. It's a steady upward climb: there's a steady two-four kick-drum on "Holy Dances," which is practically a John Bonham solo in context. Whereas before organ was prominent only through sustained VU chords, "All The Years" has the nerve to pull out some arpeggiated lines that wouldn't be out of place in Phantom of the Opera, and "Heart of Chambers" expands the dynamic range with a guitar line that climbs nearly three octaves.
I'm reduced to bland technicalities because Beach House is still basically a girl with a pretty voice singing some very slow songs; the difference seems to be that before the music served only to foreground Victoria Legrand, whereas now it's apt competition. Devotion is a knock-out album by a band that seemed to have pegged itself down already.
Speaking of Victoria Legrand: yes film score fans with long memories, she's indeed the niece of that Michel Legrand, and There Will Be Blood is the last great film score. I've decided the only way this column will ever blow up is through ridiculous hyperbole, so bear with me for a second here. Last year, for about two seconds I seriously thought about contacting a bunch of editors blind because I thought I had a pitch for a feature (didn't go anywhere, thanks for asking): the indie rockers taking over the soundtrack business. This is only half an exaggeration: John Williams won't be alive forever (keep the cheering down to a minimum, please), and the original score is nearly dead now anyway. What started as a hack-y Hollywood trend denounced by film-score hounds (I was one once, pre-pubescence, when it served as a bridge between classical music and pop)—the erosion of the score in favor of a jam-packed tie-in soundtrack, full of tossed-off B-sides, one-offs and greatest hits that could be used for ancillary profits in case the movie tanked—has become, de facto, the expressive norm for filmmakers presumably tired of the melodic and unimaginative. (Why, they're just like indie rock critics! Anyway...)
P.T. Anderson was once the enemy—if by "enemy" you mean "made greater expressive use of Supertramp than was previously thought possible"—but now he's given rise to two semi-major voices in the field. Jon Brion's score for Punch-Drunk Love and now Jonny Greenwood's score for TWBB have far larger followings than just the usual listeners. They're just joining the ranks of indie-rockers who, following godfathers Danny "Oingo Boingo" Elfman and Mark "Devo" Mothersbaugh, prove that conservatory training is out. (Others who've joined them: Mark Olliver Everett (better known as the frontman for Eels), who scored Levity, and Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay, whose nearly unlistenable score for Rocket Science had one too many quirky jews-harps for my taste.)
Greenwood is by far the most conservative of the bunch, meaning that he's produced an impeccable and, it should be noted, completely awesome love letter to 20th-century dissonance; indeed, it could be the most chromatic score of its kind since John Williams (you can't get away from him!) did a surprisingly good job on Close Encounters Of The Third Kind—a movie TWBB referenced with its first shot. I can't recall the last time I've heard so many back-to-back string quartets, pumping out the Soviet classicism like no one's business (those more grounded in Prokofiev and Shostakovich than myself may just yawn). All the dissonance is structured around a simple three-note theme as piercing as any Ennio Morricone trumpet.
This is the first time in years I've listened to a soundtrack to get back in touch with my favorite parts of a movie, so the fact that the cues are sequenced out of their film order fucks with my head a bit: "Henry Plainview," aforementioned CE3K-baiting opening, comes five tracks in. The money track is "Prospectors Arrive"—the hauntingly empty cue playing as Daniel Plainview addresses the town as to what he hopes to achieve. (Schools, irrigation, etc.) Listening to it is a mental tracking shot of its own, but—to answer the Radiohead factor—this score really isn't that far off from Greenwood's home band after a few listens. "Prospectors Arrive" is as in thrall to quiet melancholy as, say, "You And What Army." It's a terse, lovely soundtrack, and I can't recommend it highly enough; if nothing else, with Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise virus going around, it could serve as a fine in-point for anyone wanting to get further into the subject.
If someone wanted to call me on the somewhat smaller swath of albums being taken down in this column, well, it's true. Part of the reason involves taking time out to listen to stuff generally off my radar (last time I'll plug this, I swear, maybe: Barton Carroll is decent, The Shackeltons not so much—the comments on the latter are a blast though). But what do I have time for? Why, Rock Band, which some friends of mine bought recently. Some thoughts:
* Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein had a nicely contemptuous appraisal in Slate. While noting the obvious with great elan—viz., this game has nothing to do with the actual experience of being in a band or playing music collectively—she also points out that the drums "would look at home in a 1980s Flock of Seagulls video—four color-coded circular drum pads and a kick pedal." Indeed, the lack of songs with treated '80s drums is sad. There's a total lack of '80s synth-pop here, which seems like a waste of potential.
* Score one more for Brownstein: "Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song." Yeah it does. Simplified drum parts or not, the rather meat-and-potatoes song selection reminds you that, even if you're doing the Dave Grohl part for Nirvana, you have to keep that fucking 2-4 and hit the kick drum. Back to basics, which gives you, in a way, an even greater for drummers if you're the kind of person who tends to tune out the basics and listen to the frills.
* Speaking of St. Kurt: "In Bloom" is the song where he screams "He knows not what it means when I say"—and here Rock Band's lovely transcriptions help the vocalist out—"Yeaaaaaaah. UUUUUUUUUUH." [Paraphrased.] This is either the smartest or dumbest fan flip-off of all time, a teen flipping out at people for ignoring their lyrical wisdom, then pointedly offering wisdom.
* Apparently none of the songs we played involved "Tier 9" mastery, but have you ever noticed how insanely Julian Casablancas shreds his vocals on the Strokes' "Reptilia"? It's worse than Cobain's roar; I just never noticed before because of the intentionally distanced recording of the first two albums. Then I listened again, and he's just killing himself. Why? I think part of the answer is because on the third album, he let himself record without interference, and he turned out to sound just like Stephin Merritt. That was freaky.
* While Rock Band has its share of humorless, pompous Classic Rock monstrosities—Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time" is the dumbest song ever—it does a way better job than Guitar Hero of letting all the kids at the party play to something they knew. Forget '90s alt-radio staples like Nirvana and "Creep"; when I was in high school and all the hipster kids were geeking out about the presumably indisputable genius of The New Pornographers (I disputed, but never mind), never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that frat houses in four years would be confronted by the sheer oddity of the song and dismiss it as harder to master than Boston's wanky bullshit. Or that the New Pornos would come close to being the new prog rock for sheer notes per minute.
* What's the most fun song to play? The other high-school flashback song that's now even more mainstream than it was when the high school hipsters deemed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sell-outs for getting on MTV? "Maps". The revenge of the high school nerd is complete.
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Vadim Rizov is a New York-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Reeler, Nerve, and, oddly enough, Salt Lake City Weekly.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
"Indie 500": Beach House, There Will Be Blood, Rock Band
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21 comments:
Dumbest song ever? That's a pretty damn big claim from somebody who likes Nirvana (a band I've never, ever gotten beyond the fact that they had a great drummer and a couple of catchy minor-league garage-rock knock-offs). Besides, that Boston song was my class song when I graduated high school some years before you were a glimmer in your parents' collective eyes.
Definitely want to check out the Jonny Greenwood score, but I need to get out and see the movie first.
Eh, not the dumbest song ever...but it's dumb in a way that defies you to figure out if Cobain really is that needlessly angsty ("NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME!") or if he's mocking that image. Or both. It's not like self-consciously dumb rock.
Check out Mr Greenwood's "Superhet Popcorn Receiver", if you can. It's an impressive Ligetti-like sound mass of strings. Quite lovely.
LIGETI. Yeah, him too. Is my ignorance shining through yet?
I know I've been a dick before but there's a sense of musical elitism in these posts that hurts to read. There's nothing wrong with 'Foreplay/Long Time' especially the 'Foreplay' part...and plenty of modern indie rock is rooted in that weird prog/pop mix...but yeah, it's not that I'm this Boston fan, it's just unnecessary snobbery, especially coming from someone who writes about indie rock, is frustrating.
That anyone would waste breath defending any song by Boston defies reason. And, yes, I was there when the band was big. Didn't get it then, don't get it now. It's music by MIT grads for people without any actual appreciation for or understanding of rock and roll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockist
Boston was popular in its day, but it was never cool. Yet the crispness of the playing and the sincerity of emotion has given at least some of the band's music legs (the singles, really). As super-popular pop-rock arena-friendly groups go, I'd rank them ahead of Aerosmith, who always struck me as much more calculating and insincere in their bombast.
Plus, "More Than A Feeling" has gotten me through a lot of rough times. I'm just sayin'.
Pardon the interruption. The old man will now return to his stamp collection.
Matt, I'm much older than you, but perhaps that explains my personal crustiness on the group.
One poster above described Boston's music as prog/pop, and I'd agree, only the Prog portion refers not to progressive but pre-programmed. Boston's music was so precise and computer generated that it lacked any kinda humanity or soul.
As for Aerosmith, they just stole their licks rather shamelessly from Led Zep and grafted them on the debauched image of the Glimmer Twins. No less calculating, but at least some of their tunes were listenable. Can't say the same of Boston.
Crusty the Clown returning to his lair.
Boston are Journey without the weird irony but actually sincere appreciation masquerading as irony that has made them sort of cool in the past ten years. Yeah, 'More than a Feeling' is a warm and sincere song and seriously, 'Foreplay' is fucking awesome. I'm a 23 year old who listens to and writes about rap almost exclusively, but c'mon, one can see why this music is at the least enjoyable. The issue is more music elitism, the John Williams comment was equally annoying and dismissive...
Ah, "Foreplay" is only on there so the kids'll go, "Hey, awesome, Girl Talk!"
Or maybe not.
Vadim, thanks for mentioning the New Porno's song. Me on drums:
"Electric Version! All right!"
"Oh fuck! This is hard!"
This conversation is pretty funny, especially when you consider that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" uses the same chords as "More Than A Feeling" for its chorus.
Yeah, lest we forget, Cobain got it too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n2TVI1Ij3E
C'mon Brandon, give it a rest. I'm sorry I picked on poor, defenseless Boston; I'm sure the people who bought 17 million copies of their debut are all just feeling horribly condescended to right now. Of course I like "More Than A Feeling"; it's like fucking "Take On Me" or something, a ubiquitous pop hit that's impossible to dislike. As for John Williams, did you miss my CE3K shout-out? Because the man started as a jazz-type scorer and displayed a lot of commendable skill and versatility before turning into everything that's bland and wimpy about Hollywood scores.
But thanks for the idea. In the weeks to come, I'll be discussing why Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan all suck. ELITISM 4EVS
It's not like a ride you on a weekly (or bi-weekly) basis, I seconded a comment by another poster. It's cool to be all ironic and condescending about everything, I know, but if you're a writer, you should probably take criticisms from readers a little more seriously.
What makes it depressing is that you're presumably, writing about music a lot of readers haven't heard of but from a perspective that's going to offend their sensibilities. It's all a smarmy jerkoff and I don't really see the point in it, especially because you go out of your way to attack SUPER-OBVIOUS targets, often ones that mean something to your readers. You look foolish going after BOSTON and snobbishly assuming everyone will agree.
As for indie rock, indeed, Girl Talk sampled Foreplay (unironically) and back when I even vaguely pretended to care about such things...there was a KILLER Sleater-Kinney cover of 'More Than A Feeling'...dudes like Ted Leo cover Kelly Clarkson, and not to be funny, but with indie being what it is (very popular, not indie in the conventional sense anymore), there's no reason to have this silly elitist attitude.
As the guy who first tried to defend Boston, I'm now gonna defend Vadim's right to slag them off any time he feels like it, and act as though that's what we're all supposed to think.
That's one of the things critics do. Critics have opinions, and I don't see why insulting "Foreplay/Long Time" and assuming we're all supposed to agree is any different from a film critic on this blog saying something insulting about a Steven Seagall movie. It's not snobbery if you really and truly think the song is dumb. It's only snobbery if you haven't thought much about it, and just adapted the traditional rockist opinion that commercial rock was dumb until Nirvana saved it (or something like that).
In this day and age, we've lived through thirteen different levels of irony and sincerity heaped upon listening to the classic rock of the 70s. Like Dan, I think, I was there fighting the Punk Rock / New Wave Wars back in 1978 and 79, when you could actually get beaten up for saying you hated Boston and loved, hell, the Clash or Elvis Costello or the Ramones, to name three obvious icons.
Now, I hated Boston then, and I played an ironic version of "More Than A Feeling" in a punk band in the mid-80s and that was another reason I thought Nirvana wasn't doing anything I hadn't done myself (except with a better drummer and a guitarist who could actually play lead). I recognized those same three chords in "smells Like Teen Spirit."
Anyway, I've gotten away from my point, which is that if you expect a critic to try to avoid insulting popular artists simply because that might step on the feelings of 17 million record buyers, you're not going to end up with a critic who's willing to say much of interest. He's got to say what's in his head, and we're all free to disagree or agree with all or some of it.
My issue was that it's an unnecessary and sort of out of nowhere attack that isn't backed by anything. It wasn't criticism but a completely snide remark that for one reason or another, affected some of his readers, and his refusal to you know, even respond (in part because he's salty I've gone after his lack of knowledge before) is silly. Vadim's snark there is not criticism because he simply says something music critics have been saying forever and hopes/assumes everyone will agree...he's allowed to say it because there's a gross tradition of critics being smug pricks? Okay-
While your references to growing up and being possibly attacked by Boston fans is true and a context I'm aware of- it doesn't mean anything because it isn't 1977 or 1981 anymore That's my point with my references to current indie artists who have embraced mainstream music and culture, for better and worse.
I don't know what context Vadim sees indie rock in, but one gets the sense he see is it as better or smarter or whatever than Boston and if it is, then yes, he's as silly as film critics who make fun of Seagal movies in FILM- as opposed to movie- reviews.
But again, aren't most of us beyond that and either post-modern enough to accept that high/low is porous or see the divide between "high" and "low" as just a reality and therefore, crapping on Seagal in a review of something generally accepted as smarter, kinda pointless? Lincoln Center ran a retrospective on Richard Fleischer; there's no reason why Boston couldn't move out of the current status as hated-on by rockist music writers...especially third-generation rockists...
If it helps, please preface every single sentence I write with the words "In my opinion." This is how criticism works, even the snarky toss-offs: it's subjective. I never have claimed to be the last word on anything, nor can anyone.
Steve Pick: I don't know who you are, but I just noticed you're my most regular commenter. You rock etc.
I give up. It's weird that your responses to these way more civil critiques are the same but I get it: It's fun to be snarky and not you know, think about what you're writing, I can do it too. Here's what I would say:
Keep on keepin' on V. I look forward to further posts where you talk out of your ass...First hip-hop, and in this entry, classic rock AND modern classical! The world needs more smarmy guys from New York to validate indie rock!
Hey, don't be so hard on yourself. You've been writing without thinking this whole time; you don't need to signpost it.
Leaving Boston aside for a minute:
Vadim, any thoughts on the Blood soundtrack's glaring omission of the piece played during Plainview's first big oil gush? Second time I saw the movie, I clocked it around six minutes of tremulous clicks and clacks, like a Satan-commissioned Rube Goldberg machine.
I dunno why it was left off the CD, but I'm dying to know - and to hear it again, without spending $12 at Lincoln Plaza.
I'm guessing that would be part of the stuff re-used from Greenwood's score for Bodysong, which was the reason the Academy stupidly disqualified the film for contention in the original score category...just over half an hour of material wasn't enough. If you look up that soundtrack, it could be on there. Just a guess.
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