New Album: When I reviewed Panic! At the Disco’s album Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die a few weeks ago, it stood at #2 on the charts. The only album ranking higher was this one, Miley Cyrus’ new album Bangerz. Considering that the media was all aflutter late summer over Miley’s antics at the VMAs with Robin Thicke, the music videos for her singles, and the whole “Miley/Molly” controversy surrounding her alleged name-drop of the drug, she has definitely been one of the most heavily-publicized artists this year and her album has gotten a lot of buzz through that. Is it worth all the hoopla? In my view, not really.
Yes, she has the singles that have been blasting over the airwaves since this spring, “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball,” which seem to anchor this album and are pretty solid pop songs. However, this album is pretty all-over-the-place on the non-singles tracks, which shows she’s versatile, but it doesn’t make much sense. “Adore You” is a draggy slow jam, “SMS” is just mindless, incessant beats, “4×4” seems to be her foray into techno-polka, and “FU” sounds like something you could hear at a Gatsby party that gets crashed by Skrillex. Once you strip away all the autotune, she is actually one of the better singers in the pop world today, but the production on this record often layers on vocal effects such as slight phasing, auto-tune, and automatic double-tracking, but to sound good she really doesn’t need it. The singles are great pop songs, but it’s not representative of much of the album. I dunno, I just don’t feel it.
What I’ve been listening to:
While I have been mainly listening to albums that I have already reviewed such as By The Throat and Pink Moon, one of the others that I’ve been checking out is the Tallest Man on Earth’s 2008 debut Shallow Grave. This Swedish songster echoes early Bob Dylan’s sound with just a single acoustic guitar or banjo and a slightly creaky voice, but all the songs on here are beautiful, simple folk songs about pastoral scenes and life in rural America. If you didn’t know the singer was born in Sweden in the 1980s, you’d think you were hearing some old hillbilly singing on his front porch in West Virginia. Definitely check this whole album out.
Another is a live album from the seminal proto-punk group The Velvet Underground, whose frontman Lou Reed passed away last week, called La Cave 1968: Problems in Urban Living, which captured a set of theirs from 1968 at a club in New York. It definitely captures their energy and intensity onstage and why they are one of the most influential music groups in history. While it is quite lo-fi, Lou Reed and Sterling Morrison’s guitars come in loud and clear, anchoring the tracks for other accoutrements, such as John Cale’s viola and organ and Maureen Tucker’s insistent drumming. If you haven’t checked them out before, now is a good time. Choice tracks include “Heroin,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” and “Sister Ray.”
Finally, I have also liked the 2005 Sigur Ros album Takk…, which means “thank you” in Icelandic, the group’s native language. This Reykjavik quartet came into prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a post-rock band, not relying on heavy guitars and a normal verse/chorus song structure, but instead using bowed guitar, nonsensical falsetto vocals (singer Jonsi is just using the voice as a melodic instrument, like really slow scat singing) when not singing in Icelandic, and almost classical crescendos and decrescendos. It’s kind of hard to explain. Just listen to “Saeglopur” and “Glosoli”, and you’ll see what I mean.
Local Music News:
1. Folk songstress, poet, and feminist icon Ani DiFranco will be playing in Northampton at the Calvin Theater on November 10. Come see this renaissance woman work her magic onstage.
2. Singer/Songwriter Frank Turner will also be coming to the Calvin Theater, but on November 24. Touring on the success of his newest album Tape Deck Heart, he has been bringing his classic-rock influenced sound to millions across the world, and he’s coming right here to give it to the Pioneer Valley.
3. Local sensation Wishbone Zoe will be bringing her blend of old-time acoustic music, noise rock, and cabaret to the Luthier’s Co-Op in Easthampton on November 15. She’s been playing all around the NorthEast for the better part of this past decade, and if you like things slightly avant-garde, she’s well worth checking out.