Songs Of The Days: Week 17

Apr 23: That Handsome Devil - Pills For Everything (A City Dressed In Dynamite, 2008)



Apr 24: Ram Jam - Black Betty (single, 1977)



Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Black Betty (Kicking Against The Pricks, 1986)



Apr 25: Fugazi - Waiting Room (Fugazi EP, 1988)



Apr 26: Violent Femmes - Add It Up (Violent Femmes, 1983)



Apr 27: Peggy Lee - Fever (single, 1958)



Apr 29: Eels - I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart (Blinking Lights And Other Revelations, 2005)



Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 2002)



Stevie Wonder - Tuesday Heartbreak (Talking Book, 1972)

Week 16: The Black Keys - El Camino (2011)

"To me, this award means a lot because it shows that the human element of music is what's important. Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument and learning to do your craft, that's the most important thing for people to do. It's not about being perfect; it's not about sounding absolutely correct; it's not about what goes on in a computer. It's about what goes on in here [the heart] and what goes on in here [the head]."

-          Dave Grohl, accepting the award for Best Rock Performance at the 2012 Grammy Music Awards

Considering how often I bitch about music not having enough emotion or authenticity, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you were starting to wonder why I don’t actually post actual rock music. Aside from The Woods and The Moon & Antarctica, I’ve barely even discussed rock genres in a direct manner. Most of what I have said about such music is in historical or comparative terms, and I’m sure that can be vaguely infuriating to those of you in the audience who are asking yourself why, exactly, I don’t try to enjoy myself a bit.

Aside from the fact that I’m English by blood and therefore utterly incapable of true joy and/or happiness, there’s the simple fact that my self-imposed limitation of new bands (post-90s, basically) and new albums (post-2000) has drastically limited my options for good old-fashioned rock music to discuss. As Dave Grohl inadvertently demonstrated at the 2012 Grammys when his excellent speech (quoted above) was cut-off by an LMFAO song, reducing him to hollow yells of “Long live rock n roll,”, rock has been largely irrelevant to modern pop music for a long time. For proof, look no further than the competition Foo Fighters had for Best Rock Performance: “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” by Coldplay, “Down By The Water” by The Decembrists, “The Cave” by Mumford & Sons, and “Lotus Flower” by Radiohead, none of which I would unflinchingly label as ‘rock’ music.

Let’s compare each to Grohl’s speech. Both Coldplay and Radiohead make heavy use of synths in the songs in question, and some effect has been applied to Chris Martin’s vocals for sure. As for Radiohead, I like “Lotus Flower” but there’s no way in hell that’s a rock song. The Decembrists song, while honestly quite good (I skipped The King Is Dead completely, and that seems to have been a mistake, honestly) has very heavy bluegrass and, as always, folk elements. You could call it alternative rock, sure, but it seems like a greater stretch than the Grammys would have had back in the 90s. Ditto to “The Cave”, which is remarkably similar to what The Decembrists might sound like with less people, slicker production, and some of those Queen-style vocal overdub choirs.

Songs Of The Days: Week 16

Apr 16: Sugarloaf - Green-Eyed Lady (Sugarloaf, 1970)



Apr 17: Nine Inch Nails - Terrible Lie (Pretty Hate Machine, 1989)



Apr 18: Scott Walker - 30th Century Man (Scott 3, 1969) (not available on Spotify)



Apr 19: The Dead Weather - Die By The Drop (Sea Of Cowards, 2010)



Apr 20: Elton John - Levon (Madman Across The Water, 1971)



Apr 21: Van Morrison - I Forgot That Love Existed (Poetic Champions Compose, 1987) (not available on Spotify)



Apr 22: The Strokes - Is This It (Is This It, 2001)

Week 15: The Tallest Man On Earth - Shallow Grave (2008)

Robert Johnson’s shadow falls on everyone in music that seeks authenticity. Those 31 songs, so mythologized by artists all around the Western world, crop up time and again in the way of references both stated and implicit. Even those who don’t acknowledge, or are simply unaware, of Johnson’s legacy will likely feel an echo of it in some way during their career, whether by the choice of a producer or by a lengthy comparison written by some critic.

I’d argue that Johnson’s music had three major effects on music: it helped create the blues craze in England, which provided the counter-point to the Motown and vocal jazz influence expressed in the music of The Beatles and The Kinks, among others; it helped develop the model for musical authenticity, as I alluded to above; and it taught musicians and producers that music didn’t have to sound “good” to be popular or influential. The first point isn’t strictly relevant to this post, nor is the second, for reasons I’ll get to in a moment, but the third is extremely important.

Authenticity and lo-fidelity are often bundled together, but I want to tweeze them apart for the purposes of this write-up, partially because I’m assuming you’re all sick of hearing me talk about the former. The connection between the two is simple, and one I’ve talked about before: older, “authentic” music was poorly recorded due to the poverty of the artists and the poor technology available to them. The two were tied together by coincidence rather than explicit choice. There’s plenty of brilliant blues and folk from the 50s that sounds comparable to music from decades later, so it’s hard to say that artists like Robert Johnson were poorly recorded for some artistic, “authentic” reason.

Songs Of The Days: Weeks 14 & 15

Apr 2: Blitzen Trapper - Black River Killer (Furr, 2008)



Apr 3: Q Lazzarus - Goodbye Horses (single, 1988)



Apr 4: Big Boi vs The Black Keys - Everlasting Shine Blockaz (The Brothers Of Chico Dusty, 2010) (not available on Spotify) (freely available)



Apr 5: ZZ Top - La Grange (Tres Hombres, 1973)



Apr 6: Death Grips - Spread Eagle Cross The Block (Exmilitary, 2011)



Apr 7: GZA/Genius - Duel Of The Iron Mic (Liquid Swords, 1995)



Apr 8: Treat Her Right - I Think She Likes Me (Treat Her Right, 1988)



Apr 9: Willie Wright - Nantucket Island (Telling The Truth, 1977) (not available on Spotify or YouTube, go here instead)

Apr 10: jj - Kill Them (Kills, 2010) (not available on Spotify) (freely available)



Apr 11: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - I See A Darkness (I See A Darkness, 1999) (not available on Spotify)



Johnny Cash version:



Apr 12: Darren Korb - Build That Wall (The Bastion OST, 2011)



Apr 13: David Bowie - Time (Aladdin Sane, 1973)



Apr 14: Big Audio Dynamite II - The Globe (The Globe, 1991)



Apr 15: Iron Maiden - The Prisoner (The Number Of The Beast, 1982)

Week 14: Adeem - Volume In The Ground (2011)

Narrative is exceedingly rare in music, popular or otherwise. Though moderately present in short-song format (especially in country, folk, and, if we’re generous with our definitions, blues) it’s virtually unheard of in the format of a full album, in spite of the fact that most popular music is directly derived from the traditions of opera and musical theater. These forms of lyrical songs, as opposed to earlier vocal music, form the basis for most Western music, especially the music of the early British Invasion and the Blur/Pulp-style Britpop bands of the 90s.

Most narrative music is done in the style of a character sketch. Eschewing any kind of plot or supporting characters is an obvious choice, considering the first wave of such songs were in a period dominated by singles. Even Frank Sinatra couldn’t completely alter the field; though he invented the modal concept album in the mid-50s, it wasn’t until The Beach Boys and The Beatles era of pop music that people began valuing LPs over individual singles. Both of those bands helped further the idea of the album as art form and coherent package by producing “all killer, no filler” albums, the likes of which were virtually unheard of outside of collected editions of classical symphonies or musicals. Both bands also helped further the idea of the concept album, presenting both Pet Sounds (“a teenage symphony to god”) and Sgt. Pepper (a tribute to British musical theatre) in language both familiar to potential listeners and grounded in traditional thought.

Week 13: Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica (2000, remastered in 2004)

The one genre I haven’t really discussed much is the horribly broad, entirely non-descriptive ‘alternative’. This has mainly been due to a lack of energy; unpacking the alternative genre is like breaking down the meaning and history of ‘rock’ as a genre name, except even vaguer. Rock has at least a few, albeit slim hand-holds for identification (electric guitar, strong percussion, long hair, etc). Alternative, much like indie, has little cohesion at all.

The easiest way to define the alternative scene is with the word ‘eccentricity’. Alternative music often has a wide range of influences, both in sound and lyric, which makes sense considering it began developing in the 80s, later reaching its crystallization point with the Pixies and the Northwest grunge scene. Alternative, by and large, is music made by music nerds and music lovers, combined with a somewhat infuriating need to impress the listener.

That drive to impress, shock, or otherwise astonish one’s audience is what leads alternative bands to erect something of a wall between their basic songs and the presented product. One of the clearest examples of this is Nirvana’s “Rape Me” which, structurally speaking, is a nearly perfect/archetypal piece of rock music. The lyrics are another story, obviously, as is the distortion-heavy production and Cobain’s screamed vocals (particularly at the end). This is the wall so characteristic of the alternative scene; it seems born of a strong desire to both distinguish oneself from the competition and to distance oneself from the audience.

It could also be seen as an example of how the scene attempted to distance itself from the classically composed Tin Pan Alley sounds of pop and R&B. Alternative singers rarely qualify as even halfway-competent when judged by traditional standards; much like classic blues singers, they simply don’t match the cookie-cutter model of singing, and this gives the best alternative songs enormous personality. Forced to accommodate their less than brilliant lead singers while also presenting some measure of variety on their albums, the songwriters and performers of an alternative band are forced into creativity. Hard times breed creativity, it seems.

Songs Of The Days: Weeks 12 & 13

Mar 19: Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat (Year Of The Cat, 1976)

Live version:

Mar 20: Rick James - Ghetto Life (Street Songs, 1981) 

Mar 21: Rick James – Give It To Me Baby (Street Songs, 1981)



Mash-up with Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani (L.A.M.B., 2004):

Mar 22: Frank Sinatra - The Best Is Yet To Come (It Might As Well Be Swing, 1964) 

Mar 23: Bill Withers - Who Is He (And What Is He To You)? (Still Bill, 1972)

Mar 24: Tennessee Ernie Ford - 16 Tons (single, 1955)

Mar 25: Genesis - That's All (Genesis, 1983)



Mar 26: Jedi Mind Tricks - Uncommon Valor (Servants In Heaven, Kings In Hell, 2006)



Mar 27: Tom Waits - 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six (Swordfishtrombones, 1983)



Live version:

Mar 28: Morphine - Whisper (Yes, 1995) 

Mar 29: The Turtles - Happy Together (Happy Together, 1967)

Mar 30: America - Sister Golden Hair (Hearts, 1975)

Mar 31: Roxy Music - Ain't That So (Memento, 1979) 

Apr 1: Jay-Z/Danger Mouse - Dirt Off Your Shoulder (The Grey Album, 2004) (Not available on Spotify)