A few months ago, after years of well-publicized internal feuds, sibling rivalry, and cocaine abuse, the 90s alt-rock colossus of Oasis finally -- officially -- disbanded. The dissolution of their relevance preceded that of the actual group by about a decade, but I think the latter will help to facilitate some important developments in music trends over the coming twenty-four months or so. You see, don't mean to patronize, but trends move in cycles. With the swathe of "nu-gaze" that's cropped up over the past few years, the winding path of Retro has found its way to the Nineties. Who knows whether early 90s Shoegazer music was actually good; what matters is that it wasn't very cool during its "heyday," for lack of a better term, and thus serves as a perfect emblem of coolness now. So everybody and their mother jumped all over it. But as it did sixteen or seventeen years ago, this new generation of Shoegaze will inevitably give way to what will end up being labeled as the reincarnation of Mid-90s Alt-Rock, and possibly even -- dare I say it -- Britpop.
With Oasis officially out of the picture, they're now fair game -- nay, ideal candidates -- to be repurposed as kitschy retro-novelty. That's right -- bust out the t-shirts. Personally, I'm going to promptly go dig through my old CDs and rip all the Oasis I can find onto my iTunes in preparation for heavy rotation. You might be laughing now; just wait until you're the unassuming butt end of any conversation you'll be having with someone cooler than you circa mid-2011. "Oh, what's that you've got there? A Jesus and Mary Chain tee? Listening to some Slowdive? That's pretty sweet. Me? Oh nothing, just listening to my Parklife cassette...and wearing my Suede '93 tour shirt" Burned.
To celebrate the pending trend shift, I've featured some non-album Oasis songs that many of us stateside may not have been exposed to. These are nothing short of straight fire:
"Cloudburst" from the 1994 "Live Forever" single:
"Whatever" from the eponymous 1994 single; also a prime example of Oasis' frequent, err, "misfortune" of getting into hot water for lifting lyrics and/or other musical elements from existing songs:
"Your budget on my neck," brags Cam'Ron on the latest installment of an increasingly diverse and promising line of output from producer Alex Kresovich. The project is Gold N' Fly: 007, which uses the music from Goldeneye 64 -- arguably the best video game ever -- to remix hip-hop acts that are probably more popular than they deserve to be. Cam's line is funny considering the budget for the project was probably not much higher than $0, but as such its presence here is a bold statement, even if unintentional, on the ever growing accessibility of the music industry and the blurring line between amateur and professional (and which is also starting to become a recurring theme of this blog).
And thank G to the D, or else we'd never have gems like Gold N' Fly knocking at our front door. With this collection of innovative tracks, Alex reaffirms his breadth of skill as a sample-based producer and his penchant for tackling challenges of thematic creativity. I guess the ultimate litmus test for any kind of narrow-focus concept art is, does the audience actually enjoy it? In this case, it's hardly a question. Even if you've never heard of Goldeneye 64, Nintendo, or James Bond, you'll be hard pressed not to get a kick of head-bobbing pleasure out of the stuff here. For those of us who've spent countless hours of our youth (and, uh, in times more recently than we'd like to admit) huddled in basements with friends in front of the namesake video game, the music will assume a dimension of nostalgia, and remind us that those were hours well spent.
Some listeners might find it to be too much to digest all at once. A few of the tracks err on the side of drawn-out or repetitive, but die-hards will appreciate the proof that the hip-hop epic is still alive, somewhere. That being said, nobody will disagree that the 22-track, 70-plus-minute album could have stood to have some of the fat trimmed. Luckily, though the whole may not outweigh the sum of the parts, the parts themselves will assuredly shine in countless other contexts; e.g., I see deep and rich fodder for "best-of-my-fave-rapper" playlists for years to come. There are miles of trunk-thumping jams for cruising around town with your brahs next Friday, and plenty of partytime essentials. Though Alex's multi-angle stylistic assault can be overload for newcomers, after a few listens you'll start to appreciate the colorful patchwork; it warrants repeating that, at the very least, there will be something for everyone here.
Once you get down with the producer's modus operandi, you'll have trouble denying or resisting his musical allure. Alex has always had an uncanny grasp on tone and flow, particularly as it relates to aligning that of a given rapper's with that of his beats, and the tracks here evidence definite growth in this vein. Lil Wayne's "Fireman" is handled particularly deftly, the beat accentuating and augmenting the dramatic slowburn of the original track. Obie Trice's "Cry Now" channels raw energy, and Cam'Ron's "Get 'Em Girls" finds a brooding, subterranean beat that rivals the original. I can't pick out a clear standout track -- but I can say that the album's first lyrical track (its second actual track; Alex's albums necessarily have "intros" and "outros," a drama-heightening gimmick that will most likely summon the skip button, but which I suppose is standard in hip-hop), Tech-N9ne's "Everybody Move", might be the most memorable. It blows the door down with its singeing, relentless jabs of snare-y percussion and guitar distortion, while the rapper's tongue-twisting lyrical onslaught sets the stage for the rest of the album.
To dip back into the theoretical, Gold N' Fly really ends up as both an homage to each of the gun-toting, rim-riding, drug-hustling, money-flaunting, woman-disrespecting mainstream rappers who made the cut and a play on them. For all of their countless boasts of cash, cars, and other tokens of wealth, they're humbled by a bedroom producer fucking with some video game samples. Fucking with video game samples to create songs on par with their originals, might I add. Thankfully, we're no longer living in a society that would have punished such abandon for class disparity with gruesome execution, but instead in one where communicative and electronic advances have enabled such indulgences and facilitated their widespread distribution. So download Gold N' Fly: 007, and support the advances the last 7000 or so years of human civilization have brought us!
I get the best laughs out of the way things get phrased sometimes on Wikipedia. Like some things, sorry, you just cannot discuss with a straight face, as Wikipedia attempts in ubiquity. For instance, rap feuds:
When asked about the beef between 50 Cent and Rick Ross, The Game sided with 50 Cent and said that things are not looking good for Rick Ross. However, he offered to help Rick Ross get out of this situation, stating "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man," and, "50 eating you, boy."
Speaking like a quirky science professor to a lab full of students, or like the cool dad showing his teenage son and friends his old Pink Floyd records, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne obliged the audience assembled at Cornell University's Barton Hall for his band's concert there on April 18th to take the show into their own hands and make it the "second most legendary concert ever" at the venue. The titleholder would of course be the show the Grateful Dead played there in May of 1977 -- an event quite unlikely to be trumped, considering, at the very least, its placement in the timeline of rock and roll, and, at most, that its memory has become so decorated with immortality and magnitude that its being one of the "greatest shows in history" has practically been established as fact. I was at first skeptical of Coyne's repeated coaxing that the crowd deify the show; can something really become legendary by intention? Or does the definition of legendary entail a certain prerequisite of spontaneity? Either way, very few events can be deemed such before, let's say, a decade after their occurrence, so we'll have to let this one marinate for a little while before we can make an accurate judgment. Suffice it to say, there were enough crazy effects, lights, balloons, laser pointers, psychotic video images, confetti, megaphones, bangs, booms, gizmos, gadgets, and, oh yeah, totally awesome music to make the show something memorable for everyone there.
I'm speaking as someone who has come to appreciate the Flaming Lips relatively late in their 20-plus year career, but the thing that occurred to me during the show is how seriously they take themselves as a musical act. That's not to say that the members take themselves seriously as individuals -- in fact, from what I can tell, anyone who takes his or herself too seriously in the music industry won't last very long (I'm looking at you, Scott Stapp). But plenty of artists take their musical output, and performances, quite seriously. For those who've carved out their homes amongst the dense lowland forests of psych-prog and art rock, as the Lips have, I suppose it's a common theme. It's a delicate approach; if handled improperly, you'll fall flat on your face. While it's entirely conceivable that many artists might've stepped up to the mic and said something like, "Hey everyone, tonight we're going to make this show LEGENDARY, wooo!", I don't think many would have meant it as literally as Mr. Coyne did. He meant what he said. Moreover, he truly believed that his band had what it would take to accomplish it. You might jump to classify such an attitude as arrogance; as irreverent hubris. However, I see it as a confidence earned with experience; swagger. He knows that in their performance, there is power: there are elements to move people, to perplex and to astound, and to create palpable memories and emotions that last longer than the show. Wayne Coyne and his bandmates take the Flaming Lips, a living, breathing force unto its own, very seriously.
Not from the show at Barton, but excellent quality:
And for all his showmanship, what with the laser pointers distributed to the audience, who were asked to point them all on Coyne at one point, the inexplicable pair of ten-foot creature costumes that ambled onto the sides of the stage at one point, his trademark plastic-ball crowdsurfing to open the show -- the man is quite human. I don't just mean so in the obvious sense of connecting on some personal level with the audience, which damn near any performer who isn't rigid as a telephone pole or part of some elaborate theatrics usually manages to do. Coyne is impulsive and fickle onstage, one minute fixated on some handheld balloon-blowing firearm, the next bashing on a cymbal. He's having a great time, but is always looking for ways to make it better. It gives the performance an improvisational feel. All of the elaborate props and effects are just a part of some massive grab-bag of birthday-party gimmicks, any of which might come exploding out on a whim. When they do, there's no real plan from there -- it's up to the Flaming Lips, their frenetic frontman, and the audience to decide what to do with them.
The crowd at Barton Hall received the approach quite warmly. If there was any doubt on the show's legendary-ness, it wasn't to be found amongst the throngs of cheering collegiates. All the props and goodies, they really ate that shit up. Not that you can really go wrong giving out hundreds of free laser pointers to an audience before a concert and encouraging their generous use. Still, it was aptly placed and felt natural. For those hard-to-pleasers less dazzled by flashy theatrics, there was no shortage of excellent music. The band played a set balanced with material from their latest Lips-proper album Embryonic, a few of the recognizable staples from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and "She Don't Use Jelly." Making an only half-subtle attempt to play to the audience, obscurer material was omitted; in fact the performance included no songs from 1999 breakthrough The Soft Bulletin. But what would you expect -- it's a concert on a college campus in the middle of Goddamned nowhere, you've got to connect to them.
If there was a low point of the show, it was the first encore (and luckily not the last). Understudies Stardeath and White Dwarf, who had opened the show, joined the Lips onstage and performed a cover of Dark Side of the Moon closing suite "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse". A couple months ago the two groups collaborated and put out a complete cover of the iconic album, so it made sense to play some of those songs (I was surprised, at first, that more weren't included; in hindsight, it probably makes sense for the reasons explained in the previous paragraph). I have not listened to any of this project yet. However, I have to say that I was confused, and disappointed, with the handling of these two songs at the concert. Where "Brain Damage" is supposed to be a bubbly, deluded comment on the surreality of life, it was here treated with meaningless, minimal organ chords; "Eclipse" is supposed to floor and overwhelm with a wall of unsubsiding imagery, while here its momentum was destroyed by the instrumental pause after each phrase. If my opinion on these matters is at all credible, I'd go so far as to say that Floyd was misinterpreted. But, as I explained to my friends after the show, who am I to be judging an interpretation of Dark Side of the Moon, much less from a guy who was around when it came out?
Whatever internal debate was raging within me about whether I actually wanted to go so far as to declare the Dark Side covers failures was quickly displaced and likely forgotten as soon as the Flaming Lips returned to the stage for their second encore. In what became a quite sobering and heartfelt moment, Coyne explained that the father of one of the roadies had recently passed away. At the funeral, the song about to be performed had been played -- and for fear of instilling unhappy memories in the youth, he once more implored the crowd to make the moment an uplifting and memorable one. The song was "Do You Realize??" and it turned out to be a thoroughly moving performance. The intent was honest and the emotion was wholly genuine. Coincidentally or otherwise, its juxtaposition with the first encore was interesting, and, simply, perfect: while Dark Side of the Moon ultimately concludes that human nature is inherently whimsical, cantankerous, and cruel, "Do You Realize??" declares the contrary. It represents a sort of at-the-end-of-the-day the-sun'll-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life and the human race, and expresses confidence that there's at least some shred of goodness to be found somewhere in every heart. The enormous screen behind the stage displayed the feed from the miniature camera mounted pointed inwards on the microphone throughout, and there were tears visible in the singer's eyes. And at the end of the riveting performance, amidst thundering cheers, flashing lights, and the snowstorm of confetti being jettisoned from the massive onstage cannons, Coyne smiled and waved and said "I know you do," ostensibly a response to the question posed in the song's title, and then was gone. Who knows what they'll say in ten years -- but that night, he was a legend.
MGMT are in a tough spot. How exactly does one follow Oracular Spectacular? It's not that it's necessarily such an amazing album, in fact I'd call it "good" at best. It's that three songs from the album -- "Time To Pretend," "Kids," and "Electric Feel," in order of importance -- changed shit. A year and a half ago, these songs came crashing into the public conscience, from whence who knew, demolishing whatever fragile wall remained between indie and mainstream. As this new sound permeated even the most insular of cliques, the "from whence who knew" turned into rallying cries of "Brooklyn! Brooklyn! Brooklyn!" Ear and eye were turned towards the gentrifying borough for queues on how to live life. It was "Time To Pretend," in particular, that captured the airwaves and accelerated the hipsterization of pop culture. From features on TV shows like Gossip Girl and 90210, to just about any mix a college student made during 2008, to cocking my eyebrow as the unmistakable "na-na-na-na-na NA NA!" suddenly filled the gold-trimmed ballroom at Boston's Fairmont Hotel where several hundred formally-attired yuppies were gathered for my company's holiday party, it was inescapable. Tough to follow? Perhaps an understatement.
Luckily, MGMT recognized this. There is no Time To Pretend on their sophomore album, Congratulations (it's actually their third album as a duo, but for all intents and purposes let's stick with calling it their second). Any artist with half a lick of musical prudence would have known better than to attempt such a repeat. To do so would surely have betrayed the core message the song itself preaches: indulge ourselves as we may in things like drugs, alcohol, money, parties, moving to Paris, and fucking with the stars, we'll never quite recapture the naive thrill of childhood. Similarly, Time To Pretend happened and won't happen again.
And it wouldn't have been as much fun anyway, would it have? MGMT, having declared that they would create a great album over a really great song, or even a handful, have set about to focus and refine the jittery electro-psychedelia that betters the less radio-friendly moments of Oracular Spectacular, rather than try to recreate its catchy anthems. The new approach is much closer to old-fashioned 60s psychedelia, sporting a splash of soulfulness, possibly dabbling in 5th Dimension territory. Indeed, "Someone's Missing" has got more than a splash; its dramatic finale is straight-up Jackson 5. But they keep things diverse. The progressive touches that appeared on Spectacular are found again -- though more tactfully applied -- most notably on "Siberian Breaks," a lengthy organ-laced number with a couple tempo shifts and so on (and definitely an album highlight). In spite of the ornate arrangements, in many places MGMT almost seem to attempt assertion of mature restraint -- perhaps best expressed by Stereogum, in accidental allegory, when they posted the 4:16-lengthed video for "Flash Delirium": "why not four more seconds, guys?"
The approach raises the question of whether they're a group who benefit from restraint. Their music, image, and everything in between beg excess. Of course, maybe that's only what's been established by audiences -- which, as we've discussed, is kinda what MGMT are trying to buck. They want to show us they can be the shrewd, frugal songwriters too. There are certainly no cheap thrills to be found here. Withdrawn into a grey area of cryptic might-be-irony, the songs land somewhere between detached tragedy and post-high delirium, encumbered only by the obviousness of the effort that went into them. It's assuredly less approachable; what remains to be decided is whether it's in a good way or bad way.
It could also all be a part of MGMT's master plan to return to the underground world they inadvertently shattered for themselves. They make no secret of their admiration for the fringe: as if enlisting the help of Spacemen 3 cofounder Pete Kember to work on the album weren't enough, one track is titled "Song for Dan Treacy" and another is called "Brian Eno". Even if the latter is some kind of tongue-in-cheek self-mockery (and hey, I've always contended they owe rent to David Bowie), name-dropping such champions of the avant garde on two of the album's nine tracks is slightly uncouth and smacks faintly of "trying too hard;" it's probably outright futile, considering the ascension to mainstream culture MGMT have already made. Still, while they may be powerless against the historical and societal forces of categorization, I'm willing to applaud them for sticking to a vision of individualism and identity. It beats letting twenty-year-old chicks sucker you into writing more soundtracks for their wannabe-hipster ambitions. Their longing for fringe notoriety may remain forever a fantasy, but Congratulations is a step in the right direction for the duo. It is consistent, fruitful, and confident -- and I'm betting it won't be their best album.
It comes out on 4/13, but you can stream it on MGMT's website (and upload personal art): www.whoismgmt.com
"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new."
-Anton Ego, from Disney's Ratatouille (2007)
A few months ago, after years of well-publicized internal feuds, sibling rivalry, and cocaine abuse, the 90s alt-rock colossus of Oasis finally -- officially -- disbanded. The dissolution of their relevance preceded that of the actual group by about a decade, but I think the latter will help to facilitate some important developments in music trends over the coming twenty-four months or so. You see, don't mean to patronize, but trends move in cycles. With the swathe of "nu-gaze" that's cropped up over the past few years, the winding path of Retro has found its way to the Nineties. Who knows whether early 90s Shoegazer music was actually good; what matters is that it wasn't very cool during its "heyday," for lack of a better term, and thus serves as a perfect emblem of coolness now. So everybody and their mother jumped all over it. But as it did sixteen or seventeen years ago, this new generation of Shoegaze will inevitably give way to what will end up being labeled as the reincarnation of Mid-90s Alt-Rock, and possibly even -- dare I say it -- Britpop.
