week of January 22, 2005
#1 this week, #1 last week, 14 weeks on chart
What’s amazing to me about the “Let Me Love You” isn’t the tune’s particular catchiness (I mean, it’s alright), but the way it places itself in that very specific slow-dance space. More, it conjures the same vibe as (say) “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton, even though it literally sounds nothing like it, and draws from an entirely different palette of synthesizers and sonic gimcracks. In some ways, it’s like discovering that we can keep finding new and exciting ways to mix different elements with (basically) the same results. (In other ways, it’s like remembering that one can mix any number of radically vivid colors together and still get brown.)
But let’s go with the former for the duration of this post.
The base of Scott Storch’s production is an alternating groove of subtle bass drum (with subtler melodic properties) and handclaps. Then there’s swelling synth string section that sounds on the verge of shorting out (though it could be the mp3). There’s also another keyboard that surfaces occasionally that sounds a bit like a pedal steel swoop, but it disappears quickly. This all makes the vibe, Mario’s voice merely reinforcing it, and adding a few more hooks to the top.
I particularly like the not-really-call-and-response that feeds into the chorus, where no questions are posed (and no answers are given), and Mario sorta sounds like he’s reacting to obviously rhetorical inquiries even though it’s just obvious boasting. Lots of voices: “You’re the type of woman.” Mario: “deserve good things.” Lots of voices: “Fistful of diamonds.” Mario: “Handful of rings.”
Maybe that’s what good pop is: answering questions that weren’t asked with answers that aren’t answers. How’s that for a Greil Marcus-y conclusion?
Cue Warner Brothers outro theme, Porky Pig, and “That’s All Folks!”
A few days ago, my neighbor’s new loftmate introduced me to mancala — an ancient (?!) game involving strategy and the counting of rocks.
“I call it ‘Ug!'” my friend grunted happily, upon the realization that people of any age from any culture in any period of history could (and likely did) play and understand the utterly elegant principles of the game.
The rules are simple: pick up a pile of shiny pebbles and move them around the board, counting them off as you go. If your last piece lands in your mancala (your bank at the end of your side), you go again. If it lands in an empty bowl on your side, you collect whatever pebbles are in your opponent’s adjacent space.
And from those two rules flower all manners of possibilities, and various strategies by which to parse them. Over the past several days, several friends have dropped by, each with their own minute variations. Each has shifted the game in new ways. On the cyberweb, we’ve found other variations — Egyptian rules, Nigerian rules, Ethiopian rules.
Especially if one has been playing for an hour or so, allowing himself to get fully inside the logic, the introduction of a new rule is a mathematically awesome experience, his brain automatically spinning out equations, unfolding inwards into hypothetical spaces of endless pebbles.
There, I encounter eternally finite riddles, and the vague ghosts of fellow puzzlers past. I envision myself in the midst of some desert city, playing mancala in a cool alleyway between wind-beaten sandstone structures. I am winning.
It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but I’m gonna be playing at Kenny’s Castaways with my old friend Danny Gale’s band, GOBA, this Wednesday (the 12th).
I’m gonna be on around 9:30-10ish, supposedly. My set will likely include some (if not all) of the following: ukulele, yodeling, maritime themes, musical nails, and a couple of songs backed by Danny & GOBA.
I’d love to see ya.
Kenny’s Castaways
157 Bleecker Street
(’cause I know how much you love goin’ to Bleecker Street)
More observations about Tim Smolen’s Smile:
– The various sources enter at different points in the stereo image, popping in and out of the mix, and giving the recording an almost literal depth.
– Going with Brian’s original ending to “Good Vibrations” is probably okay, after all — though I still can’t stand the 2004 version in that regard. But, ultimately, it does no harm to the canonical civilian classic, and even suits the album well — not because the lyrics fit with Smile’s “concept” better (or worse), except that it’s Brian’s version. Given what Smile is, I can see how that would be meaningful, beyond any petty anti-Mike Love sentiments that might be lingering in our favorite vegetable.
That and hearing the 20something Brian croon the lyrics as opposed to the 50something Brian really underscores the song’s context as a dopey-love sequel to Pet Sounds (and everything else in the Beach Boys’ catalogue, for that matter).
– There are still a few things I’d edit. Some of those new lyrics sections could really use a snip — especially the out-of-character maritime jig affixed to the delightfully pastoral Americana backing track of “On a Holiday” (one of the most alluring bits of the initial Smile bootleg I got a few years ago). So that leaves the question: who’s gonna keep fucking with Smile? Are people gonna start making aesthetic choices about it? How far can you refine it?
‘kay, promise I’m done for now.
Well, it happened.
Somebody – specifically Tim Smolen – re-edited the ’60s tapes of Brian Wilson’s Smile into the order suggested by the version completed last year by Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and company. Smolen’s attention to detail is wonderful. The original recordings are used wherever possible, often to the last possible second before vocal parts from the Nonesuch edition make their entrances (such as on “Wonderful”).
Listening on headphones, everything has a slightly digitalized quality, the result of a ProTools mixdown, or perhaps even a layer of mp3, which is a little off-putting at first, but also provides a surprisingly level playing field for the sources. The pristine digital fidelity of the new Smile thus blends more easily with the high-generation fuzziness of the oft-bootlegged studio leaks.
I’m still a little miffed about the treatment of “Good Vibrations” on Smile 2004. I think the “original” lyrics that Wilson reverted to (presumably so he wouldn’t have to sing words penned by estranged cousin Mike Love?) are pretty lame. More, I think it makes for a horrific closer, and will be dead in my cold, cold grave before I recognize anything other than “Surf’s Up” as the proper ending to the suite. But, Smolen does some good work here.
For starters, he fuses the famous single recording with the earlier takes of the original lyrics and omits the clunker about “working on my brain.” The words are still kinda dumb, but – y’know what? – so is most of Pet Sounds and that’s still heartbreaking. At least on the original “Good Vibrations” recordings, Wilson sings the lyrics with such wide-eyed eyed California beauty that you can take ’em seriously. Sort of.
Smolen also fuses on the retarded false ending that Smile 2004 has (instead of the more graceful theramin fade-out), though makes up for it with the left-field inclusion of the near-a capella “You’re Welcome” – from 1968’s Wild Honey, and previously unconnected to the Smile sessions – as an “Our Prayer”-like coda to the album. “Of course! How obvious!” I thought, when I heard “You’re Welcome” fading in, that same amazed glee I experienced when I heard “Gee” fade out of “Our Prayer” for the first time.
As strange as it is to say this, I think Smile is really finished.
Weird.
see also:
– Wouldn’t It Have Been NIce?, my February 2004 Smile feature for Salon.com.
– Their Hearts Were Full of Spring, in the Winter 2005 edition of Signal To Noise, on newsstands now (not online).
Props to Tim Smolen for making the recording, and David Jay Brown for sending me the disc.
Weird Al’s brilliant polka medleys were my first exposure to oodles of popular songs, including a good portion of the Stones’ repertoire (“Hot Rocks Polka,” from UHF), early ’90s power pop (“Polka Your Eyes Out,” from Off The Deep End), and – since my hippie parents (Jah bless ’em) never got cable – even MTV standards (“Polka Party” from, um, Polka Party).
Tonight, I downloaded everything that I’d been missing — mostly from the albums Al has released since my 1997 high school graduation. And, having since become that most impolite breed of listener known as a “rockist,” this is some of my first exposure to many of the relatively contemporary numbers included. Once again, Al is serving as my Cliff’s Notes.
The polkas are incredible: succinct indexes of melody that create a surprisingly level playing field for the quality of the songs. Somebody could write a wonderful musicological essay about the timeless (?) themes revealed by these juxtapositions. (I’ll just add that to the list of things to do…)
In consulting the ever-helpful All Music Guide, I discovered several refreshingly thoughtful reviews of Al albums by the likes of AMG founder Stephen Thomas Erlewine and avant-garde banjoist Dr. Eugene Chadbourne (when the hell did he write for All Music?).
Erlewine’s critique of the recent Poodle Hat is genuinely impassioned — though his charges against “Angry White Boy Polka” seem overblown. While the title certainly doesn’t describe The White Stripes or The Strokes too well (at least compared to, say, Eminem), the juxtaposition of the latter and the former is preceisely what’s important. The Strokes’ “Last Nite” as doo-wop ragtime is a Zappa-like twist of genius
(And, at the risk of turning into the guy from The Onion‘s “I Must Take Issue with the Wikipedia Entry For ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic” piece, I’d also like to correct a repeated gaff in Chadbourne’s insightful reviews of Al’s first three albums — specifically that “no children of any age have expressed much interest in the original material [on In 3-D].” As literally one of the mythical 11-year olds Dr. Chad refers to elsewhere, I loved his original tunes just as much as his parodies, so much so I don’t remember even differentiating between ’em.)
Well, now that that’s outta my system…
(PS. Anybody know when The Onion’s archives became subscriber only? Weak.)
Watching the Flaming Lips’ New Year’s show at Madison Square Garden last night, opening for Wilco, wasn’t so much about being surprised but about seeing the culmination (one hopes) of Yoshimi, knowing exactly what was coming, and enjoying every second of it. It was beautiful to see the Lips’ stage show transplanted into such a large room. Part of the drama was wondering whether or not it would work.
I was in the upper 300s, straight back and across the room. As their set opened, the Lips looked very small and distant, the sound muddy and gross, the houselights still dim above our heads. But the balloons kept coming, growing like a lush psychedelic flower from the stage as fast the Lips’ Okie buddy roadies could fill ’em, It was like the climax of Akira in slow motion.
By the end of “Race For the Prize,” the room was filled with color, and the Lips were in charge. Wayne Coyne does a very good job of making it look and sound like he’s giving the audience exactly what they want. And certainly the sing-alongs, the images of Dick Cheney and company flashing on the screen during a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” the goading from Coyne, etc., can all be used as evidence that the Lips are pandering.
But then what do you make off all the truly gruesome images flashing on the screen in the Lips’ videos? The blood and the guts and the people getting shot, cut open, collapsing, dying? Is that what people want? Is it Coyne’s party trick to make people think that they do?
I think it’s high time for the Lips to take the money and run, to go finish Christmas on Mars before it turns into Coyne’s personal SMiLE.
Good golly gosh. I bought this website well over a year ago, put that damn message up, and then promptly got sucked into a half-dozen other projects (including co-curating an art exhibit about spam, co-editing an issue of Relix about Phish, finishing an album, writing the libretto for an opera, DJing a wedding, and writing). And didn’t update this. Yeah, right, right. I know. Anyway, this is a start.
#6 this week, #6 last week, 11 weeks on the chart
Here’s the second appearance of motor-mouthed Twista since I relaunched this project. The follow-up to “Slow Jamz” is cool, and I like a lot of the production a bunch, but it doesn’t gel for me as a song. There is no single moment that I can latch onto — a little in-joke, or a vocal hook that lodges itself in my brain. Of course, there are things we’re supposed to notice: Twista’s hyperspeed vocals, West’s sing-songy chorus, etc., but none of them – for me – create that really satisfying sense of fun that comes with a great pop tune (and certainly did so with the hilarious/sexy “Slow Jamz”).
I do like the beginning a fair bit, though grimace when I imagine stodgy old LA session string players performing this at the Grammys or some shit. Either way, it’s a cool little tension builder (like the crashingly bombastic orchestral flourishes that would often begin old Sinatra sides). There’s that bit of braggadocio (“you didn’t think we could do it again…”) and the drums somehow overtake the orchestra, which simultaneously accelerates and fragments into stuttered samples. Great effect. It’s a great 30-second tag opening, then into the chorus.
West’s chorus drives the point home, before handing off to Twista. A lot of Twista’s appeal is his virtuosity, I think — something about the way he is able to effortlessly overlay rhythms atop his precise delivery. I like that, too. (Though I also suspect he might be looked back on as the Yngwie Malmsteen of rappers, where it’ll later be revealed that the whole thing was a ProTools-altered sham…)
The collage of samples and production throughout the song – which switches, quasi-episodically, between Twista and West – is subtly astounding. The beats meld perfectly with the string samples, as well as a twinkling little piano figure that’s too fast to be an arpeggio, but too slow to be a chord (is there a word for that?). There’s also a sample of singing woman. Together, all of these elements syncopate grandly, locking in around each other. Unfortunately, they never quite transcend themselves, never quite combine themselves into that magical arrangement of elements unglimpsable during the song’s opening.
I do quite like the bit later in the song when West proclaims “see baby girl, you see how you make a brother break down” as the fractured beats suddenly smooth back out into a “live” orchestra. That, too, is a cool effect — a sonic/technical feat, at the very least. After that, though, it jumps back into the chorus, which I think is unfortunate. I think I’d like this song more if there were more attention paid to its architecture — the way it flows, and the way it ends. Likewise, after the intro, it’s a fairly simple ABABCAB structure (or something), where the C (“see baby girl…”) reaches no further out than to reprise the intro. I wish it went deeper.
