Archive for June, 2009

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Cheap Trick: The Latest

Posted in Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 30, 2009 by jnagle4

cheap trick the latest

When Cheap Trick released Rockford in 2006, it was a revelation.  With the help of outside songwriters and producers, the band successfully updated their sound and reminded rock fans why they liked Cheap Trick.   The Latest isn’t the burst of fresh air that Rockford was, but it still delivers.

Cheap Trick doesn’t try to expand their sound here; they just stick with what they are good at.   Like AC/DC and The Ramones, the basic sound of Cheap Trick isn’t broken, so they don’t fix it.  The Latest is a collection of twelve poppy melodies accompanied by loud guitars and British Invasion drums.  The songs are simple, direct and to the point.   When you buy a Cheap Trick album, you know exactly what you are going to get.  It’s a very comforting feeling.

The album kicks off in roaring fashion with a cover of Slade’s “When the Lights Are Out.”  This is a masterstroke, because it shows the band in their element.  Bun E. Carlos plays a simple, happy beat, Tom Petersson plays behind him, Rick Nielsen pounds out the power chords, and Robin Zander belts out the chorus.  It’s as if the song was hermitically sealed in 1977, complete with a gaggle of screaming girls at the end.

Cheap Trick has always been heavily influenced by The Beatles, but the influence is really obvious on The Latest.  A few of Nielsen’s riffs and solos sound like outtakes from the Revolver sessions, especially “Everybody Knows.”  Robin Zander’s voice changes depending on the context of the song.  On “Everybody Knows,” he sounds like he belongs in The British Invasion, but on the surf-inspired “California Girl,” he has a more American tone.  Zander’s voice is still pitch perfect.  He hits every single note without the aid of a vocoder or Autotune.  Considering that most singers from his era have completely worn out their voices, Zander is remarkable.

Like Rockford, The Latest hits all of Cheap Trick’s musical bases.  “Sick Man of Europe” is Cheap Trick trying to sound like Cheap Trick, complete with self-deprecation (“This ain’t the new/it’s the old generation”).  The rockers are decent, but the ballads are marred with complicated arrangements and string sections.  The strings get in the way of the most important element of Cheap Trick’s sound, the melody.  If you strip away the strings, the core sound is there, clogged with unnecessary window dressing.

The strings are a small part of the album’s biggest handicap, the production.  The album was mixed by Chris Lord-Age, who produces most mainstream rock records and you can certainly tell.  The Latest sounds very compressed, especially on the hard rock numbers.  Bun E. Carlos’ drumming has an oddly electronic twinge.  It’s hard to imagine a purist like Carlos going to the dark side, but the drums sound robotic at times.

Ultimately these are minor quibbles, because The Latest is a Cheap Trick album.  It sounds like a Cheap Trick album.  There is nothing on the level of “Surrender,” but there doesn’t have to be.  There are plenty of big hooks, massive choruses and power chords.  The Latest is a fun album, and Cheap Trick is a fun band.  What more can you ask for?

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The Greatest

Posted in Essays, Music, Thoughts and Meditations with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2009 by jnagle4

michael_jackson

“Michael Jackson is the greatest recording artist of all time.” –Diddy

In the past 48 hours, I have found out just how much Michael Jackson meant to people.  In recent years, I tended to downplay his importance in American culture, because I didn’t really comprehend it.  The outpouring of grief over the past two days is like nothing I’ve ever seen.  The only thing I can compare it to is the death of Princess Diana a decade ago.  Millions of people have lost their Elvis Presley.

For many people, Michael Jackson is the beginning of their musical education.  Thriller was the first record they ever bought, or they fell in love with the Jackson Five.  MTV has been crammed with modern pop stars proclaiming, “If it wasn’t for Michael Jackson, I wouldn’t be here.”  I understand the grief, and I certainly appreciate the influence.  However, I cannot and will not pretend that Michael Jackson is the greatest recording artist of all time.

When I first heard that Jackson had died, my first thought was not “How sad,” but “Here comes a tidal wave of hyperbole.”

Michael Jackson is a perfect gateway into music.  His best work is complex, yet totally accessible.  The dancing, the outfits, the image is larger than life and easy to latch onto.  It’s easy to see why a generation of entertainers patterned themselves after him.  The problem is that their musical education begins with Michael Jackson and goes forward.

When Diddy claims that Michael Jackson is the greatest artist of all time, he shows an astonishing lack of musical sophistication.  He doesn’t understand that saying someone is the “greatest” doesn’t really mean anything.  All great artists borrow from their influences and then take it a step further.  For example, Michael Jackson is a combination of James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Fred Astaire.  Elvis Presley is a combination of The Statesmen, Hank Snow and Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup.   No artist is completely organic; they are directly or indirectly created by their influences.

If there is a “greatest artist of all time” out there, I humbly nominate Louis Armstrong.  Why Louis Armstrong?  He basically invented American singing, introduced the concept of the solo, and every musician who came after followed in his footsteps.  Yes, he was influenced by King Oliver and Buddy Bolden, but their records are hard to come by.  Besides, Armstrong played on most of Oliver’s important recordings.   Every single artist has been ripping Armstrong off for the past hundred years, whether they know it or not.  Unfortunately Miley Cyrus will never purchase a copy of Hot Fives and Sevens, because Armstrong isn’t exactly a photogenic man and the film clip for “I Covered the Waterfront” doesn’t have any pyrotechnics.

By the same token, Thriller is not the greatest album ever made.  Yes, it sold a metric ton of records.  Yes, I am aware that Eddie Van Halen played the solo on “Beat It.”  Yes, I have seen the video for “Billie Jean,” several times today in fact.  No, I cannot write a better song than “Wanna Be Starting Something,” which is probably why I became a critic in the first place.  Now that I’ve answered all your questions, I can continue.

Somewhere along the line, the word “popular” became equated with the word “good.”  Thriller is a great record, I’m not denying that.  However, I can think of 100 records that are superior, including Off the Wall.  Because Thriller has sold 40 million records, people tend to overlook that it is quite uneven.  It contains three classic songs, one good one and the rest is filler.  It is an enormously important record from a cultural standpoint; it’s just not in the same league with Blonde on Blonde, Revolver, Kind of Blue and Pet Sounds.  Michael Jackson set out to make the biggest record of all time, and he did.  Unfortunately, when you set out to make an ultra- commercial record, art gets pushed aside (see also: Born in the USA).

If Michael Jackson is your favorite artist of all time, that’s great.  If Thriller is your favorite record of all time, that’s fine too.  If you think MJ is bigger than Elvis ever was, God bless you.  However, don’t proclaim anything to be the greatest unless you have the facts to back t up.

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The Death of Michael Jackson

Posted in Essays, Music, Thoughts and Meditations with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2009 by jnagle4

michael jackson

Michael Jackson is dead.  The media claims to be  sad, but they are salivating.  They finally have something to cover besides Gov. Sanford and the conflict in Iran.  An American icon has died and a celebrity obsessed culture is called to mourn.   I’m just as guilty as the mainstream media.  I posted a brief statement when the story was confirmed, unsure of how I felt.

This was a precarious position to be in, since it is my job to care about such things.  It’s weird, because I’m a very emotional person.  When Joey Ramone died, I was sad for a week.  I cried for George Harrison, Dimebag Darrell and even Robbin Crosby.  Michael Jackson eclipses them all, and I hadn’t  figured out my emotional stance.

When the Los Angeles Times confirmed his death, I was shocked.  My whole body felt thick, as if it was preparing itself for grief.  I played “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” “I’ll Be There” and “Ben.”  The thickness went away. My mourning period was over.  Meanwhile, Facebook was exploding with grief.  I understood how people felt, but I couldn’t identify with their grief.  People were talking about what a masterpiece Thriller is, and I flippantly thought “It’s not even the best Michael Jackson album.”  Maybe my friend Brendan was right.  Maybe I do hate everything.

While I was overthinking my position, Touré, an editor for Rolling Stone, was on Dateline.  Touré is one of the best music writers in the world, so I was interested to hear what he had to say.  He was doing the usual celebrity death interview with Ann Curry, and then he claimed that Michael Jackson was bigger than Elvis Presley.  I felt the rage boil up from the bottom of my stomach.  Did he really mention Michael Jackson and Elvis in the same sentence?  I was livid, preaching to my poor friend Shaun, who suffered through another sermon of pro-Elvis propaganda.  When Shaun went to bed, everything came together.

I am passionate about Elvis Presley.  I have almost everything he’s ever recorded. I’ve seen every movie and plan to visit Graceland some day.  Elvis died before I was born, yet I feel an emotional bond with him.  I don’t have that bond with Michael Jackson.  He made some great music and was a legitimate cultural force, but the love isn’t there.  This has nothing to do with the scandals that tarnished his reputation; I’ve always felt detached from him.

People are comparing Michael’s death to Elvis and John Lennon.  In terms of magnitude, that’s about right.  However, he reminds me more of Judy Garland.  Both were brilliantly talented children, blessed with a beautiful voices and impeccable dancing skills. They were pushed into showbusiness by their parents, and gave up real childhood in the process.  Both of them spent a lifetime looking for real love and acceptance, and never really got it.  They retreated into reclusive fantasy worlds to compensate, occasionally popping up for a comeback.  The weirdness drove the public away and they both died alone.  When somebody dies, the world finally realizes what it has lost.  I don’t know what that says about the human race, but it certainly isn’t flattering.

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Michael Jackson: 1958-2009

Posted in Music with tags , , , , , , , , on June 25, 2009 by jnagle4

Michael_jackson_bad_cd_cover_1987_cdda

Damn.

For the record, Off the Wall is a better record than Thriller.

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Patterson Hood: Murdering Oscar and Other Love Songs

Posted in Music, Reviews with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2009 by jnagle4

murdering oscar

Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood has been working on Murdering Oscar and Other Love Songs for almost two decades.  There are songs from the early 90s, written a few months before the breakup of Adam’s House Cat.  There are songs written as Hood was forming The Drive-By Truckers with Mike Cooley.  There are songs written while on the road with the DBTs, and songs written in his daughter’s room.  Murdering Oscar was written during every phase of Patterson Hood’s adult life, which makes it very personal.

Although the songs were written at different times, Murdering Oscar does not have the scattershot pacing of a b-sides collection.  The songs build on each other, creating a perfect balance.  The dark themes are offset by lighter, more nostalgic moments.

The music isn’t far removed from Hood’s work with The Drive-By Truckers, a hybrid of Southern rock and traditional country.  Hood throws a couple curveballs in as well, including a cover of Todd Rundgren’s “The Range War.”  Hood slows down the tempo slightly, turning into a traditional country ballad.  He plays piano on “Pride of the Yankees,” and although he claims to have rudimentary knowledge of the instrument, the melody is gorgeous.

Sonically, Murdering Oscar is unlike any other record released this year.  The entire album was recorded on vintage analog equipment, and you don’t have to be an audiophile to appreciate how great it sounds.  With a good pair of headphones, you can isolate every instrument and pick up all the subtleties of the arrangements.  The warmth of the sound is a welcome relief from the overproduced slickness of most modern music.  Murdering Oscar sounds like it could have been made at Muscle Shoals in the mid-70s.

This is appropriate, since Hood’s father David was a member of Muscle Shoals session band.  David Hood plays bass on several tracks.  Family is a recurring theme on Murdering Oscar, both immediate and extended.  Many of the songs deal with Hood coming to terms with being a first time father.  On “Pride of the Yankees,” he talks about protecting his daughter from the evils of the post-9/11 world.  The Lou Gehrig reference is a callback to a seemingly simpler time, but also functions as a subtle reminder that the world has always been unstable.  “Granddaddy” is the polar opposite of “Pride.”  Hood is genuinely thrilled to be a father, and there is audible joy in his voice when he sings about hiding candy around the house “so all the little ones will come and see me.”

There have been a lot of big ticket albums released in the past two weeks.  They came with so much hype that it was almost like they were products.  You were listening to a brand extension, not an album.  Murdering Oscar and Other Love Songs is not a product, it’s an album.  These songs were written at different times, but they all work.  This is a testament to Patterson Hood’s ability as a songwriter and an artist.  By taking his time and not rushing anything, he created a beautiful piece of work.  When was the last time you bought an album that had complete liner notes?  It’s the little touches that make this album so special.  When the final notes of “Back of a Bible” fade out, you feel like you’ve spent time with an old friend.  That’s a rare thing.

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