As a critic, I had to write about the National — report them, box them, sum them up. I once described them — in indelible ink, I’m sorry to say — as “sounding like U2 on a bender.” Deadlines, you reach for that stuff, you don’t look back. Free of the assignments now, I’m enjoying actually getting to know this band like a real human being. One day this week, an appointment canceled and I spent an hour wandering campus, a flaneur in earbuds, listening without note-taking, loving. With American Music Club largely a gone concern, the National fills its borders and makes peace with pathos. But such muted, mumbled passion — this newest album, Trouble Will Find Me, is a symphony of restraint, an odyssey on a wine-darkening sea swirling with pre-panic and forecast regret. Every pulled punch lands squarely, every urgent squall falls apart sweetly. Matt Berninger, a low baritone in a high-tenor world, shuffles in slippered feet through Mark Eitzel’s broken-glass wake, dotes over his songs, poking at them with his sheepish staccato, with a band upholstering its sound in cushy tones and alluring pats (does Bryan Devendorf even have any cymbals?). Viscous and visceral, a joy to imbibe.
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The ones who embraced the countryish side of the ’80s, they’re special. Beyond the synth-pop and college rock, the New Wave and New Romantics, even the Paisley Underground, there were the cowpunks. They were refreshingly less self-righteous than most of the pearl-snapped, No Depression-quoting blowhards the following decade. Centered in L.A., hilariously, all those crisp but gritty backbeat bands — Lone Justice (all hail), the Blasters, Blood on the Saddle, Screamin’ Sirens, the Long Ryders (didn’t they just regroup?), Tex & the Horseheads, Beat Farmers, Wall of Voodoo probably counts, as does Green on Red — in the center of which was X.
When I arrived in Tulsa, Okla., in the early ’90s, it was its own cowpunk (though by then alt-country-labeled) outpost — the twisted rootsabilly snarl (and, in concert, the chainsawed bologna) of Billy Joe Winghead, Brian Parton and his Rebels, the Boondogs (for a splendid brief time), the Red Dirt Rangers (in their rockin’ moments), Bob Collum (before his legendary hitchhike overseas), Mudville, Phil Zoellner’s bands, whoever was booked at the Deadtown Tavern and whoever drifted over from Stillwater (Cross Canadian Ragweed, Jason Boland, etc.) and … hell, anyone remember Ester Drang’s twangy offshoot, Lasso? — in the center of which was Tex. Decent doc on Netflix: "Upside Down: The Creation Records Story" tells the strategically scuffed tale of the UK pop label and its impressive influence from the mid-’80s to the mid-’90s.
I say decent only because it’s overburdened by the usual tales of drug-fueled office parties and Alan McGee’s lame “wildness.” There are some tasty musical moments, though — like the Jesus & Mary Chain guys listening to the Shangri-Las and comparing their own first single to “Be My Baby,” followed later by Swervedriver making similar claims about their own potent mixture of pop and noise — and a few holy-crap-I-forgot-about-thems (the Loft! House of Love! TV Personalities!). It all devolves, of course, into the ’90s acid-house b.s., and the narrative here follows the delivery of dance music right into the heart of pop. Primal Scream’s “Loaded” and the subsequent album was interesting, sure, but as the fun drains out of the film, it also drains out of the music. The leather jackets with love beads, the bongos on “Top of the Pops” — oy, thank God the label also had Teenage Fanclub. The life of Pete Seeger inspired a lot of wonderful words this week — eulogies, appreciations, retrospectives, think pieces, memories from Arlo, one singularly stupendous comic strip — and I could write a lot more. I’ll keep my belated memories brief, because Woody Guthrie’s own summation of his friend, below, is just about the best thing worth reading (and reading aloud) in remembrance of one of the greatest cultural figures this country ever produced, a living archive of every generation thus far of American folk music.
Life is great like this: I spent an afternoon this week unpacking the remainder of my library (delayed, as often happens, months after moving in), and basking in the intense comfort of having treasured volumes once again within reach; then, I sat down with a well-earned cocktail and opened Illuminations, a collection of Walter Benjamin essays recently added to my to-read shelf — and what to my wondering eyes should appear but the anthology’s first selection: “Unpacking My Library.”
I’m no longer a full-time critic, but a lifelong reflex still kicks in each December: gotta make my year’s top 10 list! So, for whate’er ‘tis worth, for whomever may still care: personal and critical faves from 2013 … Janelle Monae, “Electric Lady” (Atlantic) You might not think an Afrofuturist sci-fi concept album would be an easy project to follow up, but Janelle Monae — literally and figuratively — didn’t lose the plot on this year’s “The Electric Lady,” the continuation of the “electro-sophista-funky-cated” world of oppressed but soulful androids introduced on 2011’s flawless “The ArchAndroid” (my list-topper in 2011) She doesn’t just keep the narrative and groove going, she brings an elegance to it. This sophomore effort comes front-loaded with entertaining guest stars, from Prince to Solange, though they’re needless next to Monae’s natural and formidable songwriting and vocal talents. Yet another album for brain and booty. (Read more) “The difficulty is not getting bored with the central character.” This was Morrissey’s response last year to my question about the progress of his memoir. He was speaking as the author, though one might wonder if the same experience now can be said for the reader.
To be sure, the book is rarely boring. A playlist of virtual pop stars (click here for full list)
Drawn from one of the historical sections of my research, here’s a hopscotch through six decades of virtual pop stars (non-corporeal, mediatized characters presented as a singular musical performer, whether an individual or group) you may or may not have encountered: 1. Alvin & the Chipmunks, commercial (1960) 2. The Impossibles, cartoon bump (1966) 3. The Archies, “Sugar, Sugar” (1969) 4. The Beagles, “Foreign Legion Flops” (1969) 5. The Banana Splits, theme song (1969) 6. Josie & the Pussycats, theme song (1970) 7. Silicon Teens, “Memphis, Tennessee” (1979) 8. Max Headroom, on “Late Night With David Letterman” (1986) 9. California Raisins, commercial (1986) 10. Jem & the Holograms, “Real Me” (1987) 11. Prozzäk, “Sucks to Be You” (1998) 12. Gorillaz, “Clint Eastwood” (2001) 13. One-T, “The Magic Key” (2003) 14. Vbirds, “Virtuality” (2003) 15. Crazy Frog, “Axel F” (2005) 16. Pikku Orava, “Maalaispoika oon” (2006) 17. Mistula, “Baptized” (2008) 18. Dethklok, “Go Forth and Die” (2008) 19. Hatsune Miku, “World Is Mine” (2008) 20. Studio Killers, “Eros and Apollo” (2012) 21. ODB hologram @ Rock the Bells (2013) In four decades I haven’t tired of Gene Simmons’ tongue as much as I’ve grown sick of seeing Miley Cyrus’ in the last four weeks. While I’d rather let her lick me than contribute any words about her ballyhooed but belabored and rather pathetic attempt at reinvention, I’d at least like to thank her for contributing to the great week I’ve had. Seeing all these photos of Cyrus skanking around with her faux flat-top and wagging tongue reminded me of one of my New Wave touchstones, Grace Jones (and obviously a new inspiration for Miley, though perhaps for the wrong reasons), which sent me spelunking back through her wonderfully snarling but celebratory catalog.
Janelle Monae’s latest jams have been lighting up my social media feeds with exclamations of joyous discovery. Glad to know the girl’s finally getting around. Easily one of the most talented artists my generation has seen thus far, Monae has suffered a bit from exactly that kind of sudden, superlative praise. As Pitchfork noted in its review of Monae’s newest LP, “The Electric Lady,” “She arrived so thoroughly anointed by so many key figures in the entertainment industry that it has sometimes felt pointless to try and touch her.”
Two more dead rappers were resurrected this weekend: N.W.A.’s Eazy-E (died of AIDS complications in 1995) and Wu-Tang’s Ol’ Dirty Bastard (OD’d in 2004). Using the same technology that brought Tupac Shakur to the Coachella stage last year, both late MCs reappeared as simulated holograms to perform alongside their surviving cohorts at the L.A. stop of the Rock the Bells hip-hop tour.
An astute critic I know recently reminisced about the particular genius of Elton John’s 1975 album “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,” and it sent me reeling back through what is easily the peak artistic achievement of John and his lyricist Bernie Taupin. Sure the album was a hit (the first LP to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s pop chart) but the scale of John’s eventual career — writing the very consumer-driven treacle he disparages on this album — has somewhat overshadowed its majestic legacy. A snobbish question: Does it take a writer to truly appreciate this album about writing?
The first time I saw Hatsune Miku in concert, I started scribbling notes. “It’s Rei Toei!!” was the first thing I wrote. That was the 2011 Live in Sapporo show, simulcast to movie theaters in nine U.S. cities. Last weekend, celebrating the Japanese digital idol’s sixth birthday (well, her sixth 16th birthday…), Miku’s Magical Mirai concert was broadcast on delay to just two cities here (LA and NYC) — but the show was a remarkable improvement and a blockbuster performance all around. I couldn’t help but scribble more notes, including this possibly more telling one as Miku appeared with a guitar: “Transformation to Madonna complete.”
Hatsune Miku turns 6 this month, the ol’ gal, and she’s celebrating with another global simulcast concert event — the Magical Mirai 2013, a concert at Yokohama Arena broadcast on delay to movie theaters around the world, including Los Angeles and New York. Fans gather in each venue to watch the same show at the same time — a world tour without the performer having to travel. But why is a “hologram” like Miku the only performer regularly doing this?
Because she can, of course. Digitally animated performers like Miku, or 2.0Pac from last year’s Coachella, aren’t actual 3D holograms — but they aspire to be. As such, they’re paving the way for a future (not necessarily the future) of live concerts. They hint at the possibility of one day alleviating the extraordinary stress of touring, for both musicians (oy, the schlepping) and fans (the sound sucks, the sightlines suck, the beer sucks, and would y’all shut up and please put your freaking phones down?). The alternative: intimate shows for those who want to be there, and beaming it into living rooms — seriously beaming it, in 3D — for those who don’t. Pulled out the Walkman and some cassettes last weekend. I let the Smithereens’ “Green Thoughts” repeat a few times, an album I miss because for some reason I don’t own a digital copy. Suddenly, I became spellbound by only a memory, a deep black trip through some houses I used to live in and a world I once knew.
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I'm THOMAS CONNER, Ph.D. in Communication (Science Studies) and culture journalist. Archives
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