Rants/Praise for Music

Posted by Johnny at 11:55 p.m.

I haven't really done this on the site before, but I'm going to give it a shot: music reviews.

Country Music (recently, in general)
Ok, I'm not typically one to make judgements on a whole genre of music, but what the fuck? I was listening to country in a bar tonight with Reid and I was trying to figure out why I didn't like it. The reason is that none of it encouraged me to think in the very least. It was all pretty much the twang equivalent of party rock, but not nearly as good because the music sucked as much as the lyrics. I mean, who wants to hear a song where some guy tells his girlfriend to get a job? It wasn't even witty, it was pretty much, "I'm a working man, so you should work too." So pithy. It really stimulates the lobes.

The only pure country music I've ever liked is some of Dwight Yokham's work, but that's mostly because the melody's are fantastic and the songs have emotion. So, my faithful reader base of 3-4, is there any country music worth my time? I'd like to know that at least 2% of the genre isn't crap, but I haven't been successful so far, nor do I have the desire to pursue this question any further. Thus, I delegate.

John McLaughlin - Industrial Zen (2006)
There's a reason I stopped listening to new jazz, and this is it. I thought, "sweet, John McLaughlin of the Mahavishnu Orchestra just released a new album. That'll be a nice diversion of his brand of unique rock-jazz fusion for sure." How I was wrong. This is the generic / muzak side of the line that fusion players straddle with every CD they release. Dave Weckl has been on the wrong side of this line since Master Plan, but drummers keep buying just to absorb his instrumental prowess. That's not jazz. I didn't buy a Michael Brecker CD to hear a sax player go through every scale he knows at break-neck speeds, nor did I buy a John McLaughlin CD to hear shitty melodies played by synths and over-processed guitars, saxes, and drums. Back to Inner Mounting Flame for me.

Robert Fripp - Exposure (1979, reissued on CD in 2006)
As with John McLaughlin, Robert Fripp is a relatively obscure face in music that not many would know. If anyone has ever heard of King Crimson, Fripp would be their mastermind/guitarist. He's one of the most innovative guitarists in the world and continually stretches the boundaries of guitar sound past its breaking point. In King Crimson, his contribution was a huge, yet eclectic sound, especially in the later years. At some point, his work in King Crimson led him to invent a technique to achieve essentially infinite sustain with his various effects, which he used to create what he called soundscapes. Personally, I haven't been able to really get into his soundscapes much, because I don't reserve enough time in a day to just sit and listen to music.

Thus, I bought his only solo release that wasn't a soundscape. In fact, it's quite a mixed bag of different styles, ranging from punkish tendencies, to Crimsonesque heavy prog riffs, to just plain weird stuff. The vocalists he recruited for the job were great, especially the woman. On the title track, she sings/screams the word "exposure" over top of a sweet riff and guys spelling out the same word in the background. Sweet shit. The songs are too varied to go into detail, but I'd recommend giving it a listen to anyone who wants to be continually surprised when they listen to an album.

Peeping Tom (self titled, 2006)
As usual, I save the best for last (pleasure-delayer, I am). This is also the album that I didn't think I would like at all, given the base genre, which is Trip Hop. I wasn't even sure what trip hop was, but the name sounds a lot like hip hop, so I had fairly low expectations. What I found was a rare gem that completely shattered my expectations.

In case you're interested, this is a Mike Patton album. He was the front man for such projects as Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, the Fantomas, Tomahawk, Lovage, and even the Dillinger Escape Plan for a very brief stint (a really cool EP). I doubt most of these bands are on anyone's radar, but most of these groups were active in the last 5-10 years, which would be impressive in itself if you ignored the fact that he has his own label and often takes the producer's chair. He's been called the side-project king and is easily among the top 5 vocalists in rock. The man's voice is quite literally an instrument, and he uses it to its fullest capacity in all of his projects.

Peeping Tom finds Patton collaborating with an impressive list of featured artists (yes, like they do in rap). I thought it was a joke at first, especially since I saw Norah Jones' name listed as a feature. More on this later. Anyway, the music is somewhat of a cross between hip hop and rock, which turns out to be really cool. The foundation layers are real instruments (drums, bass, some guitar, keys) so it doesn't have that shitty rap sound. And for the most part, Patton (and the featured artists) are singing, so there's only a small bit of rap that you have to put up with, and this bit is actually not bad.

The first thing I noticed is that the songs have fantastic melodies. The first one has a Patton-ted (haha) vocal freakout for a chorus, as I was hoping for. The others make use of his voice for effect predominantly in the background, but it really makes repeated listens rewarding.

The lyrics, as expected, were clever and more mainstream-ready than his previous work. The song "Mojo" is written from the point of view of a drug addict, but it's fairly tame compared to anything off of Alice In Chains' Dirt album. Other songs have varying subject matter, but they're tied together by some killer grooves and melodies. A lot of it rocks pretty hard too and, of course, Patton's vocals are in top form when he takes the lead.

My favourite song on the album is called "Sucker," and features Norah Jones dropping the MF bomb. I couldn't believe it when I heard it the first time. I mean, her voice makes the track unbelievably sexy as it is, but when she sings/breathes/oozes the following line, in triple harmony with herself, "What makes you think you're my only lover / the truth kind of hurts don't it, motherfucker," I almost creamed my jeans. My new goal in life is to have sex with Norah Jones, and have her tell me that exact line after I tell her that I love her. I can't believe he convinced her to sing that.

No matter what your preconceptions are of trip hop / rock / etc, this album is definitely worth a listen. It's growing on me like a coating of delicious chocolate (I'm on drugs).

I'll be back with another similar post sometime next week, hopefully.