THE BOOKS: THE LEMON OF PINK (2003)
1) The Lemon Of Pink; 2) The
Lemon Of Pink; 3) Tokyo; 4) Bonanza; 5) S Is For Evrysing; 6) Explanation Mark;
7) There Is No There; 8) Take Time; 9) Don't Even Sing About It; 10) The
Future, Wouldn't That Be Nice; 11) A True Story Of A Story Of True Love; 12)
That Right Ain't Shit; 13) PS.
Hello and welcome to today's edition of «No
Bull Session With Big Daddy». In the news: The Books release a follow-up to
their critically appraised debut, Thought
For Food. Called The Lemon Of Pink,
it is one minute shorter, but one track longer than its predecessor, and
continues in the same direction. This makes it, once more, an excellent target
for our program.
A lot of reviews and evaluations of the album
use different words to paraphrase more or less the same conclusion: «a chaotic
jumble that should be a complete wreck, but somehow, for some reason, it
works». Each time I read something of the kind, I want to turn into a little
tick and crawl inside that particular person's ear — no, not to eat his brains
out (although that might be an option), but simply to witness his true
reaction to a Books album. Because the nagging question is: what works? What kind of gold mine are
these guys working on that remains inaccessible to us outsiders?.. Could you be
more specific? In fact, could you be more specific?
That said, let us be just. The Lemon Of Pink is a bit less extremist and a bit more musical
than Thought For Food. The samples
are still at the forefront of everything, but there are now tracks like ʽTokyoʼ,
where an actual acoustic melody — and a pretty one, too — runs over its entire
length, while Japanese stewardesses welcome you on the flight and off it. The
main theme of ʽTake Timeʼ may even be memorable, with the valuable help of the
pendulum chorus ("take – time, take – time..."). And there are bits
of impressive acoustic playing scattered here and there all over the place,
particularly on the second half of the album.
This all makes The Lemon Of Pink sound like a rather vapid, distraught jam session
played by a couple of professional musicians that just got together to fight
boredom on a lazy, hot summer day. Pile some speech samples on top of it, and
whoops, you got yourself an art statement. Take away the samples, and you get
back your lazy distraught session. I just keep vacillating between rational
hatred for the former and friendly indifference towards the latter.
The little speech-filled links are friendlier
and funnier this time, though. ʽBonanzaʼ is a bunch of chopped up, mumbled
phrases in an unrecognizable language (Dutch?), recited by a toothless old man;
ʽExplanation Markʼ sounds like several over-imposed phonetic lessons; and ʽPSʼ
finishes the album with a recording of several people preparing to start
something potentially important, but always failing due to uncontrollable
giggle attacks. While it's all silly, it at least sounds friendly and even
«cute», which might be a starting point for liking the whole thing.
Alas, even if the record succeeds in not
generally breeding negative emotions, it still never gets anywhere beyond
«cuddly». Tracks like ʽThe Futureʼ and a few others occasionally sound close to
The Beta Band — lulling, melancholic singing to folksy acoustic patterns that
may, at any time, be interrupted by a heavy whack on the head with a frying-pan
or your local rose-colored alien friend whizzing by in his flying saucer. But
the Betas had the will to transform these psycho-folk vibes into actual songs,
whereas the Books seem determined to put a totalitarian stop to these vile,
commercial, intellectually insulting cravings.
With ʽTake Timeʼ and ʽTokyoʼ, their noble goal
is almost ruined, because there are two or three things I still manage to
remember about these tracks. Elsewhere, they are more successful. But if you
are into The Books at all, you should be into hardcore — compared to Thought For Food, The Lemon Of Pink is a fucking sellout. As a pleasant collection of
songs, it fails; as an artistic statement, it adds little to its predecessor;
as a user-friendly sonic environment celebrating the simple joys of Planet
Earth, it probably works best when your name is Major Tom, and you cannot hear
me. Thumbs
down either way.
I'm going to use "That Right Ain't Shit" on an internet comment someday. And I'm going to make it work, unironically. This, I do solemnly pledge.
ReplyDeleteIt's indeed Dutch. It's, I think, an accent someone from Amsterdam might have (it sounds a bit old-fashioned too) and he just repeats phrases like "oh, oh, geeh, hm, oh boy, dear, gosh" (but in Dutch of course). I don't recognize the sample, no idea where it's from.
ReplyDeleteI think your criticism is as disproportionate as the appraisal you oppose. As I see it, The Books was a working project, "we'll try these little things we've been devising, you take your coffee and relax" kind of thing, that went more visible than it was supposed to. I don't think the fact that they're not even trying to make songs or convey an emotional range indicates they're also against any of that. Now if critics want to rave about it, that's a critics' problem. There's always been a searching side of music-making and it has its place, its public and its needed feedback -there's no need to hate it just because it's not what it's not.
ReplyDelete