Album / Video Of The Week, Nov. 24

Album of the week: Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell

Guess what, I finally listened to a Lana Del Rey album from start to finish... really, the things some people will stoop to in order to give this millennium a fair chance. Anyway, from what I can tell by comparing it with her earlier songs that I heard, the main differences are that (a) she has gone completely retro this time and (b) she finally dropped some of the most annoying mannerisms she had to her singing style (like that awful artificial lisp, for instance). Now all of us boomers and Gen X-ers are officially free to cream all over this Laurel Canyon-style material.

Honestly, I could be as happy as anybody to spend my days counting all the endless references to old school artists and realities that she makes in these songs, but it would help at least a little bit if they were good songs. They aren't. This watery, atmospherically monotonous piano balladry, all of it based on chords that people had flogged to death at least 40 years ago, puts her at best on the level of somebody like Carly Simon, if we use the era celebrated on this album as a base reference (and even then, Lana still has a long way to go to get her own 'You're So Vain'). I do believe everybody understands that, more or less, and when discussing the record people quickly move on to the lyrics as her strongest selling point - but when the thing that most vividly jumps into view, before everything else, is the amount of times she says "fuck" (and just about every song on here makes at least one reference to fucking), the cleverness of the lyrics in general is somewhat overshadowed by the mock-shock factor. Maybe it is somewhat original to sing "fuck it, I love you" in the sweetest falsetto, but "fuck it" and falsetto go together about as fine as dog shit with Dom Perignon - and that is not being condescending to dog shit, no sir.

That said, I wasn't really annoyed by the album, even if I may have slept through some bits of it. If anything, she did a really good job trying to convince skeptics like me that she is not just a fake poseur - her admiration for an epoch long gone by is perceived very clearly. But the very fact that she is going back fifty years to try and offer a fresh perspective on the present, and that the results of this experiment are currently lauded as one of 2019's greatest artistic successes, speak for themselves. Imagine the Beatles, in 1967, coming out with a groundbreaking revolutionary effort - Alexander's Fucking Ragtime Band. Of course, plenty of listeners today won't be getting the irony of naming one of your songs 'Cinnamon Girl', or, perhaps, won't even recognize where the line "summertime, and the living is easy" comes from. Or they might be amazed at the stupid synth solo that doubles the length of 'Venice Bitch' in a clear nod to the progressive passages on mid-Seventies' records. But if you do put things in perspective, Norman Fucking Rockwell! emerges as little more than a cute pastiche, ever so slightly verbally modified for the rules and conventions of the 2010s.

Here is the title track, which is fairly diagnostic of the album in general. I don't have anything against its misandry - these things are rightful pay-offs after decades of 'Under My Thumb's - but I do find the melody pathetically weak, sort of a McCartney-Joni Mitchell mash-up that never resolves into anything particularly interesting.

Video of the week: Carole King - Live At Montreux

Since we're on the subject of female singer-songwriters and the "Me decade", why not throw in a bit of promotion for this latest release in the Montreux concert series? There's precious little footage out there of Carole King in her prime, I'd only really seen her recent performances, and so to have about an hour of material from her, singing big hits from Tapestry and performing nearly all the titles from her much underrated and unjustly forgotten Fantasy, is a total delight. Young, shy, sincerely in love with her own music, having fun on stage with a versatile and respectful band - impossible not to like this. Here's 'You've Been Around Too Long' from the show, a little piece that demonstrates the fine jamming power of her backing band and her own more than respectable piano skills (this is certainly not her main selling point, but it's also important to remember that she was much more than just a formal hookmaster).

Album / Video of the week, Nov. 17

Album of the week: FKA Twigs - Magdalene

This record shot up the RYM charts really quickly - released on November 8 and made its way into the RYM top-3 for 2019 literally in a matter of days - so, naturally, my curiosity was piqued. Apparently, Tahliah Barnett, a.k.a. the unpronounceable FKA Twigs, passes all the preliminary modern requirements for critical appraisal with flying colours - she is a woman, she is of Jamaican origin, she is based in London, she has ambitions, and she is all about mixing mainstream musical and production values with indie-styled artistry. She also has an immaculate soprano (way too glossy and voice-talent-show-ish for my tastes, though), lyrical talent, and a desire to artistically rehabilitate Mary Magdalene by turning her into a symbol of her personal passions and sufferings (yes, this is officially a breakup album).

In a nutshell, the description for this album is - take your average Ariana Grande, cross her with a modest, but not off-putting, amount of Medulla-era Björkisms and Hounds Of Love-era Kate Bushisms, and see what happens. I appreciate the effort and don't want to accuse the record of a lack of sincerity, but the usual problem with such things is that there is simply too much synthetic gloss around for this sincerity to be convincing. "Glitch pop" is a very stupid thing per se, and Barnett's vocals are pretty much the only thing that is interesting about the production - everything else is just your run-of-the-mill loops and hoops. But even the vocals are way too glossy: each new track just gets me more and more puzzled about why I am supposed to prefer any of this over the average Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, or, indeed, Ariana Grande. (Or perhaps I'm not supposed?). The actual vocal hooks are extremely shallow and don't seem to break any new musical ground, and the lyrical depth is nothing to write home about ("I'm fever for the fire / True as Mary Magdalene / Creature of desire" might probably offend the Church, but even so we're hardly talking Last Temptation Of Christ level of quality here).

Overall, this is precisely the kind of thing I wrote about in my last essay - a musical piece whose artistic ambitions are severely undermined by having "corporate culture" tattooed all over it, and by the "we have it easy" issue, because, allegedly, it's all about SUFFERING and PAIN, but there's not a single song here that would seriously lead me to empathize with the lyrical hero. Of course, it very well might be YOUR thing, but I need my liquor much, much stronger than this.

She does have a fine voice, admittedly - here's a number that features at least a couple examples of gorgeous phrasing (if only they were framed in a better musical context):

(PS: All said, Magdalene is at least listenable, which is much more than I can say about her first album, which is just a never-ending monotonous string of electronic pulses and hushed kitten vocals.)

Video of the week: Aimee Mann - Live At St. Ann's Warehouse

Since we are still on the subject of strong women making clever and emotionally resonant musical points, this is as good a spot as any to throw in some support for one of the most underrated ever, and one of my favorite singer-songwriter ladies of all time. If you have any interest in Aimee at all, her only live DVD, released in 2004, is a MUST. It features her at her absolute peak, right off the success of Bachelor No. 2 and Lost In Space, her most fully realized albums, offers a fine setlist, and she is just so unbelievably cool to look at - a strong feminist personality who actually knows how to write interesting melodies, marry them to intelligent lyrics, and construct a uniquely atmospheric musical personality on top of it all. (And, hush hush hush, having an actual band playing live instruments around her doesn't hurt things a bit - who would have thought?). No production gloss, no glitzy imagery, and no problems at all getting me to empathize. Here's one of my favs from Lost In Space:

Album / Video of the week, Nov. 10

Album of the week - The Swans: Leaving Meaning

I never got to systematically review the Swans past their first few albums, but I've listened to them quite extensively over the years, and was quite amazed how Gira re-emerged in the 2010s to much greater critical and fan acclaim than the band had ever managed to gather in its youth. Since The Seer, I think, just about every Swans release got rave reviews, but this newest offering, once again a double-CD beast of epic length, seems to be "coasting". It is more quiet and hypnotic, more OM-like than the dense Freudian jungles of The Seer, and you really have to get yourself in the mood for lots and lots of winding repetition to enjoy it. Sonically, I don't think Gira and company are reinventing themselves here, it's basically just a collection of very static, very somber grooves for the latest funeral of your soul. Actually, scratch that, it's not that dark or depressing, and some of the songs even sound downright optimistic; the penultimate number 'What Is This?' is like the band's equivalent of a drunken sea shanty. I just prefer Gira when he's sober and terrifying, not slightly drunk and relaxing, but if you gotta do that sometimes, then you gotta. Anyway, good record, but probably won't even make my personal top 5 for the band.

Here's their anthem of their own personal Sun cult:



Video of the week - Leonard Cohen: Live In London (2009)

I don't have any Swans DVDs, but somehow thoughts of darkness and death (as well as the constantly recurring dark folk motives in Gira's music) led me through an association chain to Leonard, whose relatively recent death I haven't commemorated in any way, so let me briefly atone by reminding everybody that this is one of the greatest concert movies of the 21st century - it not only reminds you that Cohen was one of those few musical artists whose late output matched his early output perfectly well in quality, it also reminds you just how perfect in all possible respects his artistic personality had always been, with an ideal balance between intelligence and emotionality, sincerity and sarcasm, humor and seriousness. Here, on 'Tower Of Song', there are at least three distinct moments during the performance that are at the same time hilarious and philosophically profound, and I challenge you to find them (don't worry, it's a perfectly easy challenge, though). As of now, I find myself returning to this concert at least once a month, and feel like it makes me a better man each single time.

An apology, and a new mini-format (for a while)

An Apology

Hello everybody, and sorry again for vanishing from the blog for more than two months after getting that lengthy anniversary essay off my chest. I wish I could cheer up my small fanbase by announcing that I have stockpiled a ton of new reviews in the meantime — but I havenʼt. Most of the time I actually spent on musical writing during these past two months (and it wasnʼt even that much time) was spent polishing up and proofreading some older stuff that I hope to have online back at the old site in a while. 

I will not be returning full-scale in the very nearest future, either, for a variety of reasons (some of which include work overload and a new hobby that is completely unrelated to music but which I might share with some of you some day). Fully refurbished and polished pages on some major artists will eventually appear on the old site, but not before they are completed — I will post links to any relevant updates here. Just so I donʼt forget about the world at large in the meantime, and the world doesnʼt completely forget about me, Iʼll continue updating this blog on a small scale. 

Namely, Iʼve been wanting to share ongoing thoughts about some of the newest music Iʼve been listening to — largely so that all the observations I posted in that essay wouldnʼt seem unsupported by evidence — and then Iʼve also wanted to take up a small project about reviewing my pretty large collection of musical DVDs... and then I thought, why not make this a double bill for fun? A mini-review of a recent album, and then a mini-review of a musical video that, for some reason, came into my mind in connection with the album — why not? Letʼs see how it works, first time around.

Album of the week — Weyes Blood: Titanic Rising

Heard a lot of good things about Natalie Mering from people with excellent music taste, and now her latest album seems to be doing pretty well, so had to check this out for myself. No surprises whatsoever: based on descriptions, I expected to hear immaculately produced and arranged Seventies-style art pop, and this is precisely what it is. Mering has a wonderful voice, a great sense of taste, and the only thing that distinguishes Titanic Rising from a Traveling Wilburys-style union of Karen Carpenter, Agnetha Faltskog, Emmylou Harris, and Annie Haslam (with most of their instrumentalists in tow) is 21st century level production (and even that is not really obvious on songs like the opening ʽA Lotʼs Gonna Changeʼ). Alas, just as equally predictable is the realization that most of these melodies are boring as hell — the base melodies milk all the classic chord progressions, and the vocal hooks are all derived from whoever her principal idol might be (Harry Nilsson?). Ultimately, just another triumph of atmosphere over substance, another example of a gorgeously tasteful and intelligent (and, for that matter, quite beautiful) human being who loves loves loves good music, but can only pay it respectful tribute without being able to take it to some other level. Some people actually seem to go crazy over those soundscapes, though — go figure.

This is one of the better songs:

Music DVD of the week — ABBA: The Movie (1977)

Since ʽA Lotʼs Gonna Changeʼ reminded me of ABBAʼs slow ballads for some reason, itʼs as good a pretext as any to put in a good word for this oddity — most people who want a glimpse of live ABBA usually go for the 1979 Wembley concert, which is good, but captures the band very slightly past its peak, right smack in the middle of the disco era. ABBA: The Movie suffers from an odd "plot" where an Australian DJ has to hunt the band for an interview as they jump from one venue to another, but, thankfully, itʼs not intrusive — the main thing is that you actually get to see quite a few of the bandʼs best tunes played live before receptive Australian audiences. This was when they were still in the middle of conquering the world and working their asses off for that goal, and it shows. My only sadness about the movie was that the tour actually took place before The Album came out, so most of the great songs from it had only been included in the form of (slightly surrealistic) music videos — ʽEagleʼ, ʽThe Name Of The Gameʼ, etc. Regardless, now that we all have accepted ABBA into the pantheon, The Movie should definitely be acknowledged as one of the greatest concert movies of all time. (And yes, the sound has been pretty heavily overdubbed in post-production, but we never heard that, did we?).

Here's one very early ABBA song you don't often hear, but they absolutely tear it up:

Stay tuned for more updates next Sunday!