| First Listen: Janet and Alanis. |
[Apr. 7th, 2004|06:58 pm] |
Janet Jackson has returned with full raunch factor entact, but her first single, "I Want You," is a laid-back R&B stroll, more than a fast-breathing grind.
What's disappointing about "I Want You" is that it ends half-way through the song; the rest is all repeating the dismal chorus. There's no clear hook, and it's pretty mellow listening that's perfect for lounging around your house while crying over unrequited love. However, standing apart from that scenerio, there's not much around. By the end, Janet's doing her third or fourth repeating of the chorus (actually, responding to the chorus with the same words; she stops singing the actual chorus after the first time).
It just doesn't go anywhere. The accompanying music video features an melancholy, yet still smiling, Janet wandering the streets, getting a Snapple at a bodega, and getting a ride on a public bus to get to the YMCA-ish building to find her love. Also, her love welcomes her with open arms and kisses her sweetly. It seems odd to see that after Janet's spent three and a half minutes singing about how she might as well be invisible to him.
Alanis Morissette has come back also, self-satisfaction in hand. In 'Everything," she bows down to her sympathetic, empathetic, wonderful lover who is there regardless to her being "a nightmare." Notable - if only because every other article will mention it as if it matters - "nightmare" was an afterthought; the original line read "asshole," and it's unclear whether the album version was the one that was forced to change, or simply the single version. As it stands, "nightmare" makes more sense in context.
The song is quite lovely, short, and joyful. Alanis sounds like she's found peace. Whether that may alienate her current fanbase who loved her angry and loved her soul-searching, it'll be interesting to see how they feel about her finding said soul.
The video makes lite of Alanis' new haircut, where she receives it directly on camera. The cut suits her; she doesn't look like Alanis anymore, but she's adorable. The track is also a rarity for Morissette in the sense that on the album, it's the finale. It will be interesting to hear how the song concludes the statements on the LP, but as a stand-alone track, is downright sweet. |
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| American Idol's Clay Aiken: The Personality of Corduroy Sheetrock. |
[Dec. 3rd, 2003|07:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
There's little to be said about Clay Aiken, the American Idol... winner... or loser... Whichever... alumnus. It seems you can lose that show and still be as famous as the one who actually does. And oftentimes, they're just as talented. And oftentimes, that's kinda sad. So, while there's little to be said, I am tempted just to ignore him entirely. However, I hate him. So, that's unlikely.
I heard the name 'Clay Aiken' a few months ago. I thought he was a baseball player.
Clay, in the grand tradition of... Kelly Clarkson and Justin Whatshisname... has high aspirations. While he's not trying to be Mariah or Timberlake like his predecessors, he still lacks a certain originality. Or singing ability.
In his debut single, "Invisible," which is about as bland a middle-of-the-road pop song as we never thought possible, he sings of his invisibility to a woman who is apparently seeking love elsewhere. Oh, but stupid woman, you don't know what you're missing!
The equally flaccid vidclip that accompanies this tortured unrequited love (and artistry) has Aiken pouring his denim heart out, over emoting to a crowd of highly delusional women. I'll sidestep the fact if this man's trying to tell us through song that he's so unpopular with the women, why is he showing us that he apparently has his pick of maybe 50 right there? They're all looking appropriately doe-eyed and probably willing to at least sleep with him to out-do the Frenchy pornography scandal.
Instead, let's watch as Clay pretentiously flashes his bizarre satisfied smile (hey, that's some amusing heartbreak there!) and as everyone turns to watch this GAP boy singing in the middle of the square. Suddenly, everyone is enamored. Preppy girls wander over, Compton boys bop their heads, and the bubblegum lovers have found their new Christ. You'd almost believe that they probably weren't paid to look interested.
The man's trying to be John Mayer. And John Mayer's trying to be Dave Matthews, anyway. Oh, but that's another rant entirely.
Yet to be satisfied by any American Idol, these are not would-be-superstars I want to root for in the long run. They have this squeak image that's neither tabloid or record-selling friendly; and Fox-TV has them eagerly acting as if they are greatest musicians on the planet. What's sad is not that Justin, Kelly, and Clay suck... It's that they have no idea how much, or especially why they suck.
And furthermore... this throwing of "American" is bothering me. Why must all of this nation be blamed for this? |
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| First Listen Review: Mandy Moore - "One Way or Another." |
[Oct. 26th, 2003|04:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  sympathetic | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "One Way or Another (Album Version, 3.31)" - Mandy Moore | ] |
I'll walk down the mall,
Stand over by the wall,
Where I can see it all;
Find out who ya call.
Lead you to the supermarket,
Check out some specials and rat food;
Get lost in the crowd.
One way or another, I'm gonna getcha.
Speaking as someone who usually finds Mandy Moore's music to be offensive to the psyche, I admit that I jumped at the chance to hear her new version of Blondie's "One Way or Another." After hearing Britney cover "I Love Rock and Roll" and "Satisfaction" to at least minimal-embarrassment (and "I Love..." was actually pretty good), I was really curious as to what the hell she was thinking. Here, as a track from her new album o' covers, Coverage, was my chance.
First off, Deborah Harry is hard to improve upon, especially with this signature of Blondie's. She knew how to belt, how to sigh out some breathy lyrics, and the music is top notch rock. It just makes you want to stalk someone...
But this ode to vicarious living is melted down to rock-lite, and Blondie made the fairly vacuous lyrics that far more appealing. Here, they sound kinda dumb: "Check out some specials and rat food?" Also, this sounds like a cover, and not a very good one... Mandy hasn't made this song her own, she's only failed miserably at making it exactly like the original. Props do go out, though, as she seems completely oblivious to the fact that the song's an entirely incongruous match for her. She does give her all, as proved by her vocals, and the fact that she's showing she's really trying to rock.
Most laughable moment: Mandy saying "This is new wave" before the song's first chorus. Wow, that's really irritating.
Best moments: The Bif Naked-esque "Oooh woah"s in the background; the admittedly quite appealing "na-na" bridge, that really would be great if it were in another song. |
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| First Listen Review: Britney Spears & Madonna - "Me Against the Music." |
[Oct. 17th, 2003|07:49 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  confused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Me Against the Music (Radio Bootleg Version, 3.39)" - Britney Spears featuring Madonna | ] |
We're almost there
I'm feelin' it bad and I can't explain
My soul is bare
My hips are movin' at a rapid pace
Baby feel it burn
From the tip of my toes, runnin' through my veins
And now's your turn
So, it was clever of Madonna to incorporate Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera for her "return" to the MTV Awards, with the "Like a Virgin/Hollywood" extravaganza that was arguably the best MTV stage performance in the last 10 years (since Madonna's revolutionary - for the Awards - "Vogue" performance). However, it was... less... clever to pay a nod to Missy Elliot and their Gap commercials.
Maybe Madonna should've worked with Christina...
Britney's next single is "Me Against the Music," a nonsensical romp through ego and self-exploitation. Madonna namechecks Britney at least six or seven times a verse, and this low-fi "Music makes the people come together" is more "Music is what makes me bitchy; I hate you all, hataz."
What's the point? If Britney was aiming for political statement and a strong fuck-you to critics, she loses all meaning... Quickly. Apparently, though, she wants to "get in the zone." I'm not entirely sure what zone she's seeking... Dead?
More disappointing then Britney utterly sucking, is Madonna. Her vocals are uninspired, sure, but she sounds strained. It's distressing; Madonna sounds old. The woman who has defied age and time... sounds old. And kinda bored.
For a call to dance, they sound kind of underwhelmed.
And what music is she against?! |
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| Music Video Review: Dixie Chicks - "Top of the World." |
[Sep. 25th, 2003|02:32 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  impressed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Top of the World (Album Version, 6.04)" - Dixie Chicks | ] |
There's a whole lot of singing that's never gonna be heard
Disappearing everyday without so much as a word somehow
Think I broke the wings off that little song bird
She's never gonna fly to the top of the world right now
Top of the world
In their new music video, the Dixie Chicks tackle three distinct eras, and the inadequacies than humans feel in certain family situations.
Lead vocalist Natalie Maines is in the present day, unable to relate to her daughter as her father waits to die, before her. Martie Maguire, trapped in a loveless 70s marriage, and Emily Robison, a gorgeous single mother from the 1950s, support the storyline.
The song itself is a six minute violin-heavy depression, and an ambitious choice for a single. Everyone looks great within it; Maguire like an extra from The Wonder Years, Maines much like Amber Benson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Robison with cascading curls and deep, flattering lipstick.
Using interesting warp techniques, Maines and "her father" figure swap lip-syncs during the verses. Eventually, all the Chicks fade in an out, replacing the face before them. The song itself is lush with sadness, and in the end, only two Chicks (Maines, Maguire) finds solace. Maines' character plays with her daughter with wide-eyed innocence, and Maguire teaches her daughter how to play the violin. Robison is left alone, in her chair, her son staring at the wall.
Beautifully shot, the video has no clear grasp of a topic. What is wrong with these families? There's no answer; and perhaps that's the point. However, it seems largely unfinished, even for a video that extends the standard length by at least a minute and a half. Nothing is solved. And in that instant that you realize that, it suddenly becomes that much more realistic.
And then, upon second viewing, or maybe perceptive first, you realize that the 50s son is the 70s husband is the 90s old man. And that's a timeline that has deep roots in disturbance.
Solid. |
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| Liz Phair. |
[Jul. 9th, 2003|04:00 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  aggravated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Liz Phair - "Friend of mine" | ] |
There are the obvious comparisons to Exile in Guyville. Her latest work. Her most recent CD. It's not the same thing as her debut album. I just wanted to make that clear. It apparently seems to be the most important thing to announce for any reviewer giving Liz the critical finger.
With words like "insipid," "ridiculous," and "betraying indie roots" flying, few are talking about the actual tunes. Everyone likes to bring up the fact that Liz Phair worked with the producing team Matrix for this last, self-titled CD.
The Matrix worked with Avril Lavigne.
Hurl her into the box of snakes and rats now!
Ok, well, the Matrix worked with her on four of the tracks: "Why Can't I?" (the first single), "Extraordinary," "Rock Me," and "Favourite." The rest of the fourteen track disc features nine Phair-only originals. But apparently the Matrix has sucked her into their evil Lavigne grip.
As music, the CD is hardly mainstream. For some reason - and because I have the IE window open to it, I'm going to cite allmusic.com as an example - they keep saying she's making bids for mainstream. This seems possible. Liz has been considered an alt-queen in a very different way than Ani DiFranco or Tori Amos has... Tori must've sold her soul long ago for "Cornflake Girl" and Ani has yet to have a hit that's actually her singing ("32 Flavours" was remade, and that was the popular radio track.) Amazing the pressure placed on artists to keep up with their past work.
I think of my potential hypocrisy, stating a month ago that I was disgusted with the recent state that Jewel was in. Well, to compare Jewel to Liz Phair is like comparing... Jewel to Liz Phair... But, other than that, my main beef was that Jewel wasn't adding anything of actual substance to her discography. She was making herself seem less intelligent than she fooled us into believing she might've been.
Liz the same pattern, just different stitching with this disc: she likes boys. She likes boys a lot. Plus, she likes to fuck them. And more than she likes fucking them, she likes to sing about fucking them. Guyville had provocative songs just like the new self-titled disc. They were just lower quality. That apparently made them better.
I will immediately cop to the fact that "Divorce Song" and "Fuck and Run" are amazing songs, and "Flower" has some decent word-table-turning-play. So, she's saying the word "fuck" less, saying the word "cum" a little more (so much, it's in a song title)... Detailing travels from the perks of dating a younger guy to her most consistent companion to her crotch: her underwear.
Is it witless? Rarely. Less than classic? Elements of squeak of I-couldn't-think-of-a-rhyme... the chorus to "Take a Look" briefly mars the otherwise excellent song... But it's no bigger crime than the laughable scrawlings that make up "Never Said" from her first album.
This being her fourth album, everyone's going reversal with their opinions are her second and third... It's enough to think that Liz Phair is the latest Phantom Menace tale... Whitechocolatespaceegg manages 'cause you can bop your head to "Polyester Bride" (which is not knocking the track; it's classic)...
Liz Phair is being bombarded with "soulless." Last year, people were tapping their shoes to "Complicated," and suddenly that's bad form... And for the record, Lavigne has nothing to do with Phair. I like both musicians enough - and for Phair-haters, maybe that says something - but Liz Phair never comes off unintelligent in her work, while Lavigne is clearly yet to reach her height of vocabulary. We hope.
The slags irritate me, I'll admit, because I found it a life-changing album. Perhaps my life is worse for it, because suddenly it's sold out alongside her. Sounds good to me. |
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| Jewel. |
[Jun. 4th, 2003|11:04 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | disappointed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jill Sobule - "All the young dudes" | ] |
When did Jewel start to suck?
Ok, I know that answer already.
Why does Jewel still suck?
Jewel burst onto the scene, with a mild ego, in Pieces of You, a highly personal album that seemed pleasantly rough and achingly unpolished. Tracks like "Foolish Games" were re-mastered for single release, which contrasts the otherwise frequent sound of recording in a closet. There were some cringe-worthy moments (the slit-your-wrists simplicity of the title track, and the drawn-out opus you wish you could care about in "Adrien"), but on the whole - it was a good album.
"Foolish Games", "Morning Song", "Don't", "Angel Standing By", "I'm Sensitive", and "Who Will Save Your Soul" are great songs.
Then something happened...
Yeah, "Hands" was okay, but something was frightening with Spirit, the overblown and pretentious follow-up that used the same fucking lines over and over, said in the same look-how-deep-I-am way... The one stand-out was "Jupiter", a gorgeous love song.
It was remixed into oblivion.
Jewel sucked all of a sudden, on a level that "Adrien" couldn't touch. Contrived? It was painful.
I'm going to ignore all the obvious jabs at her poetry books. The fact that they exist in multiple formats is enough.
This Way came barreling down. I tried not to laugh at Jewel's musical complaints over people being egotistical. Some decent songs, including "Standing Still" and "Jesus Loves Me." The liner notes were the most irritating, where she went briefly track-by-track over the inspiration behind them. I think that's a neat idea, but not when the artist seems patronizing and short with the audience she's supposed to be entrancing.
Suddenly, Jewel's more pop then Willa Ford -- how did this happen? Jewel, who sounds stoned out of her mind when she talks in concert now (as seen in an MTV special), has a new single called "Intuition." Before the album that "Intuition" is on even came out, it was being used to hock women's razors.
I'm not above capitalism, but I'm also of the mind that quality artists shouldn't make dumb music and then allow themselves to be overexposed in a market that their dumb music has nothing to do with. It'll be months til those ads go away. The song can't carry it. Jewel can can't carry the song. I'm suddenly hostile over women's razors!
It's quirky enough, musically, but the lyrics lack even a shallowness. She sounds like she's just going through the motions, trying to get airplay in an Avril Aguilera world. Hell, Lavigne and Christina are putting out better stuff then this using terms like "sk8er" and "dirrty"!
It's all very disconcerting. Jewel doesn't have to suck. She doesn't. She has proven that. But not nearly enough to prove that she's still a good artist. |
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| Kathy Griffin. |
[Jun. 4th, 2003|01:28 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  complacent | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Evanescence - "Where will you go" | ] |
"Why would this be more embarrassing than anything else I do in my career? I was a judge on Star Search last week." - Kathy Griffin.
I love Kathy Griffin. I saw her Comedy Half Hour some years ago, and thought it was hysterical. I loved her - but hated Brooke Shields - in Suddenly Susan. I loved her Kathy's So-Called Reality series about Survivor and Temptation Island far more than the series that it was making fun of. It was canceled, as novelty shows on MTV are known to be, but if I saw her in a magazine or a newspaper article, I always made sure to watch it. I may also be one of four people who actually can point her out in her six second lasting, one phrase cameo from Pulp Fiction.
She is making the occasional headline on page D-35, still. Most recently, I saw an article by Joel Stein in Entertainment Weekly from the May 30th issue. Kathy Griffin is going buck wild with plastic surgery.
Griffin, who had previously paid for a nose job and a "mini face-lift" with her own cash -- a botched liposuction was on the house -- decided she couldn't do ABC's reality show [Extreme Makeover]. There's not enough of the real me left to have an extreme makeover," she told me exclusively over the phone between procedures. Instead, she got a brow lift, Botox between her eyes and on her crow's-feet, Japanese hair straightening, laser removal of lines under her eyes and above her top lip, a vacuuming of dead skin from her hands and neck, and a full set of veneers for her teeth, all for free. "I'm not trying to look 20, " she said, "but I am trying to look Suddenly Susan season 2 [. . .] I don't feel like this would help me get jobs [. . .] It's just pure vanity."
Ok, so she has lots of money... and is getting lots of plastic surgery... This disturbs the hell out of me not because I'm thinking of Fight Club-esque bags of fat be carted away (well, now I am...), but because she's beautiful and I think plastic surgery is creepy. I can understand fixing some things, but thanks to MTV's True Life, I can't figure out where you stop...
How do you possibly know when you're done?
I'm going to completely ignore the stupid option of stating she's "sold out," mostly because that phrase doesn't mean anything in this age where to be star you have to whore yourself out to Pepsi.
Here, she's getting herself closer to the image she would like to be, making some press, and may get some gigs out of the deal - even if she says that's not her intention, she's still an actress. She is quoted, "I like who I a fine, but I would like a free brow lift... Nobody says you're pathetic for going on Oprah and getting a makeover." Stein and are in agreement, that while almost everyone we know thinks that, yes, they are -- we see the point. Also, I'm not an avid watcher of Oprah in the slightest, but do they do in-studio brow-lifts?
I'm not sure how many points Kathy gets for self-esteem, but this anti-celebrity outlook is refreshingly head-cocking. Her recent escapades have including going on Celebrity Mole and winning, and being the first celebrity contestant to keep the money and not give it to some charity; her stand-up has included tales of hiring male prostitutes and being with "really tiny" men... So, discretion's not the highest concern, really -- this news was revealed on Entertainment Tonight where she proudly showed off recent events.
At least she's proud. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 29th, 2003|08:52 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  okay | ] |
| [ | music |
| | "Lights Out" - Lisa Marie Presley | ] |
Fjord. |
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