Cover of Björk's Homogenic (One Little Indian, 1997); image courtesy of slantmagazine.com

Cover for Björk's Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001); image courtesy of harmony-korine.com

When I began conceptualizing this blog in the ol’ brainspace, one of the first sections I came up with was “Records That Made Me a Feminist.” I knew Björk was going to get at least one entry. Homogenic and Vespertine each played a vital part of shaping my politics. So, I figured out I’d probably have to write about them together.

Pairing albums for this section of the blog is something I originally wanted to do this when covering Erykah Badu’s Mama’s Gun, which I started listening to around the same time as PJ Harvey’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea. I liked the idea of dialoguing seemingly dissimilar work by female artists with one another, but I feared covering those two albums together would short-shrift the artists who made them. However, talking about two distinct pieces of work by one woman seemed easier. And essential. So here we go.

I must admit that covering Björk’s 1997 and 2000 full-length releases present its own political challenges that makes me think critically about how I understand and practice feminism. Both of these albums made me a feminist largely because of the boys I was preoccupied with at the time.

But while my initial reception and resulting connections to them were tied up with potentially normative feelings around romantic angst and heterosexual coupling, I feel the albums speak to my development at the time as well as transcend it. In other words, Homogenic and Vespertine may remind me of boys I used to date, but they speak to larger, more overtly feminist issues as well.

Of course, being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t like boys or be hung up on them from time to time, so long as you don’t let them run your life. Which I don’t think Björk endorses in either of these records, even though she herself has an ambivalent relationship with feminism (though not with calling out the music industry’s sexist practices of attributing male engineers and instrumental songwriters).

Importantly, as both albums were prescient to my development, they also went over my head when I first listened to them. Debut and Post were more accessible and, as a result, I liked them almost immediately. It was hard for 10-year-old me not to fall for the girl dancing through New York City on a flatbed in the music video for “Big Time Sensuality.”

But Björk’s next two albums took more time to process. Both albums mark advances in the artist’s production sensibilities, approaches to music-making, and interest in electronic instrumentation. Thus, just as Björk had to evolve as a musician before creating these albums, I had to mature a bit as a person before liking them as a fan.

So, Homogenic came out just as I was starting high school. I don’t exactly remember when I bought it, but I think it was sometime toward the end of junior year. I completely ignored it at the time. Or rather, I listened to it once, went “ooh, so angry!” and put Post back on.

The particulars I’ll keep to myself for the sake of decorum. Suffice it to say that I dated someone for a little while, fell in love, we broke up, and I spent a little over a year trying to get us back together. It didn’t work out. Eventually I got over him and whatever I thought we were, but not without some pain and denial and then serious personal re-evaluation. The healing process involved some righteous anger, loud parties, several bottles of wine and other goodies, and burgeoning feminist development. After a rough start, 19 turned out to be a pretty okay year. Homogenic was its soundtrack.

Now, I have no problem acknowledging that this guy was a total jerk to me. But feminism isn’t only about recognizing and calling out chauvinistic bullshit. It’s also about self-empowerment, personal accountability, and un-learning heteronormativity and patriarchal co-dependence. It isn’t always just the guy’s fault, even when it is.

Thus, I also have to own up to being really needy and delusional at the time. I pinned my worth on whoever I was dating without questioning whether being with them was actually good for me. So I projected my own big feelings and insecurities on someone who clearly didn’t want to be with me. I was ignoring the reality of the situation and, as a result, my own well-being. I finally recognized what I was doing when confronted with the lyric “How could I be so immature to think he could replace the missing elements in me — how extremely lazy of me.” 

Kinda appropriate that a break-up record got me over mine, no? Apparently, Björk made the album after breaking up with drum’n'bass musician Goldie while they were working on their own project. Hence lines like “So you left me on my own to complete the mission, but now I’m leaving it all behind.” But it pretty much hit all the right notes of melancholy, indignation, rage, and feisty recovery for me. I’m a quarter Norwegian on my mother’s side, so even the line ”I thought I could organize freedom — how Scandinavian of me” in “Hunter” applied.

Attention must be paid to the album’s sound and how it marked a musical departure for Björk. Post was an eclectic mix that boasted songs like “Army of Me,” “Enjoy,” and “Headphones,” that opened up her sound to include state-of-the-art aggressive digital distortion and serene electronic minimalism.

While this was evident in the production work Tricky and 808 State’s Graham Massey did on Post, it wasn’t the focus. It would come to define the artistic work she began doing with producers like Mark Bell on Homogenic and would continue to do with Matmos on Vespertine. But I’d hedge that most casual listeners just remember Post’s ”It’s Oh So Quiet,” which was produced by Björk’s then-mainstay, Nellee Hooper, the man responsible for all the production on her breakthrough Debut. He was also responsible for “Hyperballad,” which I’d argue suggests the artist’s shift, which is fully evident on her next album.

Man, I wish I could post the music video, but WMG has apparently disabled the audio. All the more reason to check out Michel Gondry’s Directors Label DVD, or any of the other myriad DVD titles that have documented her videography.

So Homogenic marks a transition from being a pop star to an artist who challenges her listeners’ ears and expectations with each release. By 1997, we also heard alternative pop stars like Beck and Radiohead establish themselves similarly with Odelay and OK Computer. We would hear Radiohead do it again in 2000 with the mind-blowing Kid A, where they really demonstrated their love for electronic instrumentation and experimental production techniques.

Björk was already on this path in 1997, but while Radiohead looked outward toward the fallabilities of modern life, Björk looked inward at the seductive pleasures and wobbly peculiarities of domestic life and partnership on her next record, rapturing at her voice’s clicks and finding percussive possibilities out of shuffled decks of cards. I don’t think these innovations went unnoticed when Radiohead went to work on In Rainbows. To me, Vespertine’s influence is all over a song like “Nude,” which was originally an outtake from OK Computer. This is further confirmed by the band’s rendition of Homogenic’s ”Unravel” as a tip of the hat. As if lead singer Thom Yorke’s backing vocals on “Náttúra” aren’t enough.

Hmmm. Maybe at some point, I’ll consider Yorke’s duets with Björk and PJ Harvey. Yorke is one of my favorite vocalists, a fact confirmed by a recent revisit of Hail to the Thief. If one of my friends ran a blog on male masculinity and music culture, I’d pen a guest entry in a second.

But I was afflicted with a troubled mind when Vespertine first came out. In addition to boy heartache, I was going through some considerable familial strife. I was also starting my first semester of college, so a tackier person might blame 9/11.

After seeing the music video for “Hidden Place,” I dutifully bought the album, along with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, another at-the-time inscrutable release, at the Tower Records by campus. I listened to the album a few times, but my head was not in the right place for it. It was too contented and quiet. I couldn’t hear it. And then for a little while all I could hear was Homogenic at full volume.

Stills from the video that convinced me to buy "Vespertine"; image courtesy of unit.bjork.com

To be blunt, Vespertine didn’t really make sense to me until I started having sex. Critics like Ryan Dombal would seem to concur. I remember seeing her performance of ”Cocoon” on Jay Leno and thinking that it was really quiet, but totally not getting how micro-embodied intimacy is the song’s entire purpose. While I had a good understanding of mechanics and had engaged in related activities before going into my first listen, I don’t think a song like “Cocoon” makes sense to a person unless they’ve experienced it, to speak euphemistically, in a corporeal sense.

BTW, yes that is Bill O’Reilly adjusting his tie. If he was actually listening to the song, I’m sure he’d be appalled by how delightfully, defiantly sexual this song is and that it was performed uncensored on network television. Watching it now, I can’t believe I wasn’t really listening. Maybe I should have been leaning into the television.  

Again, the particulars here aren’t really important. I was a week or so into being 20 and, frankly,  didn’t want to be a virgin anymore. The guy was someone willing, it was fun, and didn’t last very long.

In short, the romanticism and emotional connectedness that is often built into such an experience was not there, nor do I regret that it wasn’t. I would find that later, which would make my understanding of those aspects of Vespertine more profound and further develop my feminist principles.

I bring sex into the discussion because I, to borrow briefly from Arrested Development’s George Michael Bluth, find Vespertine’s complex eroticism one of its most key contributions to what made me a feminist. Though perhaps a stretch and certainly not without its own distinctions, I tend to think of this album in accord with Audre Lorde’s wonderful essay “Uses of the erotic: the erotic as power.”

And while I don’t know if this entry’s subject has read the essay, something tells me that the same woman who identifies as bisexual and recognizes the erotic potential in mundane activities would concur with much of the theorist’s thesis.

Of course, feminists must also have the wherewithal to recognize that eroticism, even ephemeral evidence like orgasms, are luxuries to some women and girls. Not everyone is given a space, a country, or a political system that allows them the safety and freedom to enjoy and explore these possibilities.

But eroticism isn’t about cataloging who did what to whom for Björk. As David Fricke gestured toward in his review of the album for Rolling Stone, it might be everywhere, at once tangible and theoretical.

This is where I think it’s important to consider the album’s production sensibilities and Björk’s particular uses of her voice. In addition to non-conventional practices like sampling and turning seemingly non-musical domestic items into instruments, the singer’s voice is the album’s real focus. Because of how closely she’s miked, you can hear every tic, breath, whispered turn of phrase, and any other sound coming out of her mouth. As a result, her voice becomes a varied and vital instrument, an idea she has continued to develop and that has continued to stay with me.

#1.  Radiohead, Kid A (2000): Anticipation for a follow up to 1997’s hugely successful Ok Computer was immense, and for good reason.  Once thought of as standard bearers of the brit rock movement of the early 90s, Radiohead stepped out of that mold with a more expansive collection of work that took form as a concept album.  Beyond the signature arena-rock sound were more sonic textures that made for an amazing album that truly set them apart from their fellow countrymen.  With the release of Kid A, never again would they be compared to anyone else.  Like any other fan of Radiohead, I went through 4 stages while digesting this album; shock, disgust, curiosity, then finally sheer admiration.  Mostly gone were the guitar-oriented songs that were the hallmark of both Ok Computer and The Bends.  In their place were songs like the opener, “Everything in its Right Place.”  An entirely electric, experimental tune with a very unconventional song structure;  needless to say I was not thrilled.  But in time, I grew to realize that it wasn’t the music that I didn’t like, it was the fact that it was different from what I had come to know and love about Radiohead.  Taking the record on its face, it is a wonderful mixture of electronica, alt-rock, classical, techno and even jazz fusion; a huge contrast from anything they had done before.  There’s still some guitar-driven stuff here on tracks like “The National Anthem” and “Optimistic.”  But more often they choose to eschew distortion pedals for exotic synthesizers and other creative sounds like on the technocratic “Idioteque;”  An earnest shout out to techno progenitors Kraftwerk.

All across the musical landscape, it is common practice for bands to mail it in once they’ve reached superstar status [see U2].  Instead of taking the easy path, Radiohead embarked on an ambitious undertaking.  It is for this reason that it stands atop my list of the best albums of the decade.

Faves: Everything in its Right Place, The National Anthem, Optimistic, Idioteque.

WHAT IS MYSTERIOUS EXACTLY?! WHY DO SO MANY DIFFERENT WEBSITES OR NEWSPAPER ARTICLES DESCRIBE THE SOLO ARTIST AS “IN HIS OWN LITTLE WORLD,” “OUT THERE IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE” & MANY MORE SHADOW-LIKE DESCRIPTIONS THAT CREATE THE “MYTH OF THE MYSTERIOUS ARTIST WHO MAKES UNIQUE & COMPLEX NOiSE” – I HAPPEN TO LOVE THIS MUSIC BECAUSE I HAVE GROWN TIRED OF ALL THE “INDIE,” “HIPSTER” & “UNDERGROUND” BANDS THAT SOUND THE SAME AND MAKE AT LEAST TRES TRACKS WELL OVER 5 MINUTES LONG THAT THE MAIN MUSIC SITES BUST A NUT OVER EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOTHING EVEN CLOSE TO SPECIAL. FOR THEM TO LOVE RADIOHEAD IS A-OK BECAUSE THAT BAND CREATES MUSIC NOONE CAN TOUCH. THEIR B-SIDES THAT WEREN’T EVEN RELEASED BY THE BAND (8 TRACKS FROM IN RAINBOWS) USUALLY COMPARE SIDE BY SIDE AND SOMETIMES EVEN MURDER CERTAIN TRACKS OFF THE ACTUAL ALBUM. ANY OTHER BAND WOULD MAKE AS MUCH MONEY POSSIBLE OFF OF SONGS THAT WEREN’T ON THEIR #1 SELLING CD ACROSS THE WHOLE GLOBE (ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS AFTER THEY SOLD MILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF CD’S FOR A PAY WHAT YOU WANT SCHEME 3.42 MONTHS EARLIER, WHICH ALSO LED TO BIG TIME ARTISTS SUCH AS JAY-Z & TRENT REZNOR TO FOLLOW SUIT) ~

SO, HE DREAMS AWAKE IS BASICALLY WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL HIM, BUT I HAVE FOUND 48 SONGS OF HIS AROUND THE INTERNET AND I LOVE ALL OF THEM IN THEIR OWN SPECIAL WAY.. CLOSE TO 50 SONGS RECORDED AND EVEN THOUGH HE DECLINES INTERVIEWS AND ALL THAT, I HEARD A PHONE INTERVIEW HE DID WITH AN INDIE WEBSITE/BLOG AND HE SAID THAT HE ISN’T TRULY HAPPY WITH ANYTHING HE HAS MADE UP TO THIS DATE AND THAT HIS DEBUT ALBUM WHICH IS HALFWAY COMPLETED IS LIGHT YEARS AHEAD OF THE SONGS PEOPLE CAN FIND RIGHT NOW. HE PLAYS BY HIS OWN RULES, MAKES SONGS IN THEIR OWN FORMULAS/KEYS/SCALES/FORMATS/ETC. & I WILL PROCLAIM HIM THE NEXT RADIOHEAD FROM ONLY HEARING THE 48 SONGS HE MADE ON HIS OWN.. IMAGINE IF NIGEL GODRICH PRODUCED HIS FIRST CD!! JEEZ LOUISE!! I JUST WANTED THIS IN PRINT. I LOVE YOU HDAWAKE! I LOVE YOU EVEN MORE RADIOHEAD!!

As for the question that prompts such an answer? “Is the internet stifling new music?”

Via BBC no less.

The article is written by once-rock star John Taylor, former bass player for Duran Duran and Power Station. The man has been pelted by his share of female undergarments while performing live, and it shows:

When artists today are asked to Twitter their every thought, their every action, to record on video their every breath, their every performance, I believe they’re diluting their creative powers, their creative potency and the durability of their work.

And in the long run I believe they’re also diluting the magical power and the magnetic attraction that they can or will ever have over their audience.

Right. So the inaccessible rock god has given way to the singer-songwriter who shares a campfire with us all. That has long been established. But why exactly is the internet stifling new music today?  What makes the situation now any more dire than it was ten years ago?

My stepson is at New York University (NYU) and he was telling me how he’s currently into Cole Porter, music from the 1920s and swing music from the 40s. So the availability and accessibility of music on the internet today is truly incredible, and I applaud anything that can inspire interest or curiosity in anyone.

But this also means that those of us who before would have been looking towards the current culture for inspiration are now often to be found, like my stepson, in various backwaters of older music.

This relative lack of need for current, innovative culture can cause, has caused, is causing – maybe – the innovative culture to slow down, much as an assembly line in Detroit slows down and lay-offs have to be made when the demand for a new model recedes.

Gotcha.

It’s great to have a theory. It’s even better to have a little data to support it. As we go to print, the 1962 cast recording of Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (re-released in 1990) stands at #48,447 on Amazon’s music bestsellers. Not bad. You could do a lot worse. For example the “beautifully imaginative … magnificent” LP The Snake stands at #162,064. He just might have a point.  The internet (better said: the internet age) might be disincentivizing creativity.

But one release is 19 years old, the other has only a few months of promotion behind it. By point of reference Radiohead released Pablo Honey in 1993, and Amazon ranks that album at #5,070. Too pedestrian? OK.  Try, well, OK Computer at #729. Looking for something in the double digits? How about The Killers at #23?

It’s great that new listeners are uncovering old jazz, and it’s a shame that a rock übermenschlich has been forced to come down from the ivory tower (/sarcasm). But arguments with two data points are two dimensional, simple as that.

OK, this is kind of cheating. “Nashville Skyline Rag” isn’t really a song, it’s more like an album interlude. It’s completely instrumental, and mainly serves to pace the album, like Radiohead does with “Treefingers” or “Fitter Happier,” or The Beatles do with several songs on The White Album.

The difference between those songs and “Nashville Skyline Rag,” though, is that OK Computer, The White Album and Kid A are all generally considered “high concept” albums. The interludes are (hypothetically) necessary to maintain the album’s sense of flow. Nashville Skyline is really just a simple country album. It’s only 27 minutes long, and three of those minutes are a pretty basic country beat without lyrics.

I don’t profess to be a country music expert, but this is a pretty humble, some might even say trite, composition.

What makes the song forgivable, and the Nashville Skyline album as a whole interesting, is the sense that Dylan is having fun. After his seminal work of the mid-60s and a debilitating motorcycle accident, this album, combined with The Basement Tapes, sounds like Dylan has moved beyond the pressure of trying to be brilliantly innovative and unpredictable with every album. And sometimes, I guess, the only way to get beyond that pressure is to do something completely unbrilliant and predictable like “Nashville Skyline Rag.”

OK Computer by Radiohead? A brilliant idea.

Asking a physically active, rather lean 41-year-old with a high metabolism to fast from 8PM to 9AM the next morning, then jabbing him in the arm with a needle after a 45-minute cardiovascular workout, then, in response to his claim that he was passing out, saying “Oh, no you don’t?”

Not a brilliant idea.

Those are the two poles of brilliant ideas. Surely this falls somewhere in between:

According to an L.A. Times report, The Flaming Lips are set to follow-up their life- (and death)-affirming LP Embryonic with a full-album redo of Pink Floyd’s gazillion-selling 1973 psych-rock classic Dark Side of the Moon.

The Lips version of Dark Side is a collaboration with the band Stardeath and White Dwarfs (which includes Wayne Coyne’s nephew Dennis Coyne as a member), and features guest spots from Henry Rollins and Peaches. It will most probably be an iTunes-only release.

The announcement was made last night during a Q&A session with fans at a MySpace show last night at L.A.’s Nike/Ricardo Montalbán Theater.

Wow. The height of musical arrogance. Oh, and, by the way? I love musical arrogance.

To put a bow on this box, let’s go back to our discussion of bodies hitting the floor:

Thom Yorke, originally uploaded by mehan.

All I’ve got this evening is a Metro shuffle reflection: “Let Down,” by Radiohead. I’m pretty sure I first heard the song on the radio back when “OK Computer” was released in the summer of 1997. DC 101 or something. It was one of those situations where you hear a song, and you go out and buy the record immediately. I suppose that’s the thinking behind Shazam, which I just downloaded today but haven’t really used yet.

Anyway, I love the way Thom Yorke brings the heat in the song.

In music news this week, British indie quartet Editors have just dropped their third LP, In This Light and on This Evening. Over the years, the band has continuously drawn criticism for being too similar to seminal post-punk outfit Joy Division. Well, on this album they’ve tackled these criticisms head on, and turned down the road that so many indie bands seem to go down- by ditching the rock and turning electro. But why is it that bands feel they must give up playing real instruments and experiment so early on? And is it a career-ender, or can it be a positive thing? This post looks at some case studies, both good and bad, to find out…

In theory, bands progressing and experimenting with their sound is a good thing. Looking at an artist’s back catalogue and realising that it’s difficult to differentiate between each album is pretty much a cardinal sin. But it remains to be seen whether all these indie-rock bands are branching out to electronic instruments because it’s a natural career path, or if they are simply experimenting for the sake of experimenting. First up, it’s necessary to look at one of the most lauded bands in recent history: Radiohead.

Case Study 1

Band: Radiohead

Album: Kid A

Number: 4

Released: October 2000

Verdict: Success, of course.

To say that this trend began with Radiohead’s fourth LP at the turn of the millenium would be naive, but it can’t be denied that they helped it push it along a little bit. After the release of OK Computer, still one of the greatest rock albums of the 1990’s, the music world was waiting with baited breath for the follow up. But Radiohead did what Radiohead do best, and surprised everyone by releasing a sparse electronic album entirely different from its predecessor. The opening chords on Everything in its Right Place paved the way for an album that was imaginative, eccentric and sometimes just downright strange. Initially it divided fans and critics, but despite the original disagreement it still stands as one of the greatest albums of the decade. Just a few months later the band surprised everyone again by releasing another album titled Amnesiac, proving that it wasn’t just a once off move. And Radiohead have just kept getting better since.

Case Study 2

Band: Bloc Party

Album: Intimacy

Number: 3

Released: August 2008

Verdict: Questionable

When Bloc Party released their debut LP Silent Alarm in 2004, indie kids everywhere rejoiced at a frenetic, rhythmic and dark but somehow incredibly danceable album. Many critics praised it as proof of just how good British bands can be, and it ended up winning a number of awards. Their second album though didn’t quite stack up to everyone’s expectations, and by the third album Intimacy rolled along, they had ditched their finely-tuned brand of indie-rock completely, and replaced it with a more electronic, dance sound. While Intimacy is possibly their strongest album lyrically, and that central-theme of loss running through the album certainly gives it coherence, there just seemed to be something missing. The urgency of the first album just wasn’t there. Whether Bloc Party return to their roots or continue with this genre remains to be seen.

Case Study 3

Artist: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Album: It’s Blitz

Number: 3

Released: April 2009

Verdict: A success, mostly.

They say everything that is old is new again. And with the amount of bands at the moment harking back to the dance-synth days of the 80’s, that adage has never been more true. The YYYs third album saw a complete turn around from their raw, garage rock origins. Full of danceable beats, synths and more electronica than you can poke a stick at, the album divided fans but mostly pleased critics, and gained a lot more mainstream airplay. If you consider It’s Blitz as an album on its own without considering the YYY’s history, it’s pretty damn good. But it’s just missing that edge that was so wonderful in their first couple of releases. Then again, Karen O can really do no wrong in my books.

Case Study 4

Band: Editors

Album: In This Light and on This Evening

Number: 3

Released: October 2009

Verdict: Unfortunate

Poor Editors. Right from the beginning they’ve been slammed as being a carbon copy of Joy Division. And with the moody, atmospheric themes and lead singer Tom Smith’s deep voice, it’s definitely understandable. But if you judge their first album The Back Room purely on its music and forget about it’s influences, it’s actually a really good indie-rock album. While the second LP An End has a Start faltered a bit in its haste to please the commercial masses, the stadium-sized rock suited the band well. But this third album sounds like it’s come straight out of a bad 80’s disco. First single Papillon has so much synth it could be mistaken for Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams are Made of These. An even bigger shame though is that there’s actually some decent tracks on the album. The title-track opener, with Smith’s baritone vocals, is gorgeous. But it just seem like they tried too hard in their transition to electronica. If you can get your hands on bonus EP Cuttings II, it’s much rawer, and much more rewarding.

–

Certainly, only four bands moving into the realms of electronic/dance music in their sophomore releases- even if it’s not a third (or fourth) album- doesn’t necessarily prove the theory. But it doesn’t take much looking to see that there’s plenty more. Is it just because music is inherently cyclical and we’re all going back to the 80’s? Or is this truly a natural progression? Radiohead amongst others have proved that when you can do it right, the results can be very, very rewarding. But it’s the dozens of copy-cat bands doing the same thing just because it’s the ‘in-thing’ that is disappointing. Hopefully Editors can regain some of their credibility with their next release. Or maybe they’ll surprise everyone and actually do something original. Like a hip-hop album. Now wouldn’t that be interesting!

I use the word “best” to describe my favorite 5 bands/artists of the 2000s because I respect my own opinion that much. I don’t really expect you to show it the same respect. Regardless, these are the 5 best bands and artists of the 2000s in no particular order. What you’ll find is the artist name and the albums they’ve released during this decade. Which amazingly enough is drawing awfully close to it’s end. We’ve only got about a year and a half left until the “tens”?

RADIOHEAD (Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows.)

OK, there is some order to my first listing. I think Radiohead is the best band of this decade. Amazingly enough they were also the best band of the 1990s on the strength of OK Computer & The Bends (nevermind Pablo Honey.)

There hasn’t been a band as consistently awesome Radiohead since The Beatles broke up. They don’t seem capable of making a bad album at this point. And their very best albums (Kid A & In Rainbows) set the standard. In my view they are very likely the best two albums of the decade.

BECK (Sea Changes, Guero, The Information, Modern Guilt)

Beck is another one of the top artists of the ’90s that has kept it rocking into the 21st century. In fact I think at this point I’d take his ’00s output over his ’90s (although it was really great too.) I’m not a huge fan of Guero (although it has it’s moments) but the other 3 albums he’s released this decade (include this year’s Modern Guilt) are all excellent.

AKRON/FAMILY (Akron/Family,Meek Warrior,Love Is Simple)

I must particularly recommend their debut self titled album Akron/Family released in 2005. Meek Warrior was actually somewhat of a disappointment for me (although like Beck’s Guero it has it’s moments.) But their most recent album Love Is Simple is a great trip that I do recommend. They are also really excellent live.

DSCN0349, originally uploaded by MartinWorster.

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke plays with Flea, Nigel Godrich and Mauro Refosco play tracks from the Eraser album at the Orpheum in Los Angeles.

No flash allowed or big cameras so afraid the picture quality’s a bit flaky..!

I’ve always struggled with deciding on my favorite Radiohead album. So, being the nerd that I am, I decided to come up with an answer once and for all by quantifying it. I already had all the songs rated on iTunes, so I figured I’d total up all the stars, divide by the number of tracks, and get an average rating for the album. Here are the results:

The Bends (1995)
5 Stars: 6 Tracks
4 Stars: 5 Tracks
3 Stars: 1 Track
Album Rating: 4.42

OK Computer (1997)
5 Stars: 8 Tracks
4 Stars: 2 Tracks
3 Stars: 1 Track
2 Stars: 1 Track
Album Rating: 4.42

Pablo Honey (1993)
5 Stars: 6 Tracks
4 Stars: 5 Tracks
3 Stars: 1 Track
Album Rating: 4.42

Kid A (2000)
5 Stars: 5 Tracks
4 Stars: 2 Tracks
3 Stars: 3 Tracks
Album Rating: 4.2

In Rainbows (2007)
5 Stars: 2 Tracks
4 Stars: 4 Tracks
3 Stars: 3 Tracks
2 Stars: 1 Track
Album Rating: 3.7

Amnesiac (2001)
5 Stars: 1 Track
4 Stars: 2 Tracks
3 Stars: 6 Tracks
2 Stars: 2 Tracks
Album Rating: 3.18

Hail to the Thief (2003)
5 Stars: 1 Track
4 Stars: 3 Tracks
3 Stars: 4 Tracks
2 Stars: 6 Tracks
Album Rating: 2.93

Yes, you read that right, the exact albums that I struggled with, Pablo Honey, The Bends, and OK Computer, somehow, garnered the exact same score! Guess I didn’t accomplish much with this exercise.

PREVIEW: Download 20 Watts’ PROG ROCK MIX on Mediafire

Like epic compositions, time signature changes and songs that can last for more than 15 minutes? Progressive rock is for you. Emerging primarily in Britain in the late 1960s, the oft-critically maligned genre (commonly known as “prog”) has persevered with the simple goal of adding artistic credibility to rock music. Founding fathers like Yes, Pink Floyd and Genesis set themselves apart from their contemporaries by featuring classical and jazz influences in their songwriting. The innovation continues today, as bands like Porcupine Tree and Opeth incorporate hard rock and metal into their own experimental, progressive sounds.

So what’s the very best in progressive rock? 20 Watts’ DAN KAPLAN has the answer in our fifth 20 installment. Watch for new 20s each Thursday, only on 20 Watts, and check out our previous 20s below!

It’s 4:24 AM.

Okay, so I spent about 3 hours and 20 minutes to get about 80% of the points on my physics homework. So… yeah, I understood maybe about half of it, but whatever. I’ll go to office hours and I’ll find out how to do the rest then. In any case, my grades are a bit in the shitter, but I’m trying to pull them off and rinse them with a pressurized hose.

So while I was doing my physics homework, I listened to the album, “My Computer”, by Radiohead. It’s apparently one of the best rock albums of all time, and it’s so very, very depressing. Basically, if you take emo and make it good, that’s what “My Computer”… no, that’s not right to say. Emo is emotional, emotional about the sadness that is their middle-class, suburban life, emotional about their asinine, trivial high school issues, emotional about their uptight, overbearing parents. Rather, what I mean to express is such a deep, endless pool of nihilism that threatens to destroy the mind and crush the soul by merely listening to it. I’m not a music critic, but I can see why music critics say that “OK Computer” is one of the best albums of all time, and certainly one of the best alternative rock albums of the 1990s.

There are a couple of tracks that stick out from all the others. The first that comes to my mind was “Fitter Happier”, an extremely experimental song/poem that basically shat on every dream, aspiration, hope, or tiny happiness that I had in life. It invalidated everything that I wanted and made everything I did seem meaningless. I found a Youtube video that perfectly captures the meaning of the song.

I also liked “Exit Music (For a Film)”, “Let Down”, and “No Surprises” because they were good songs. “No Surprises” was also really depressing and it seemed almost like a suicide note in audio form. Now, I say it’s “depressing”, but I don’t mean to imply that it’s sad. It’s certainly a melancholy song, and by no means is it a happy song, but it’s a different type of sadness. It’s not something sharp like having to bury a family member or breaking up with a girlfriend. Instead, it’s something dull like realizing that nothing really interests or excites you anymore, like it’s difficult to find something to while away the hours. I think that’s real depression. Sadness doesn’t lead to depression; boredom and disinterest does.

On a side note, “No Surprises” was the song in the opening for Season 6 of “House”, and I liked how it was used.

Oh yeah, have you ever tried to write while really sleepy? Like you were about to fall asleep or something but your fingers were still working on autopilot? It also works if you’re writing. It leads to a sort of stream-of-consciousness-type thing where your mind’s on autopilot and your grammar goes out the window but somehow your spelling remains impeccable. You don’t really have a logical string, more like a mess of jumbled up words and ideas that are entirely unrelated to each other. Despite the rambling nature of this bit, I promise that this isn’t any example. If it was, you literally wouldn’t be able to understand anything I wrote. Also, I wouldn’t be proofreading/correcting my stuff while I’m typing but I do detect a larger number of mistakes and missed keys in my typing. Whatever. It’s unimportant.

I swear I’m going to try something like this when I’m much more tired. I’m can sleep, but I’m not about to fall asleep at any point just yet. I would very much like to go to sleep though. It’s a physical compulsion that I just don’t seem to want to go against.

It’s now 5:06 AM. And I kind of want to sleep. Actually, there’s no “kind of”. I WANT to go to sleep. I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I know I need it. My brain’s not operating on full but I so want to continue writing. So I think I will. I’m sorry if this reads like I’m high or something. Wait. No I’m not. I don’t really give a damn. I’m not drunk or on drugs or anything. I’m just listening to Radiohead and I’m sleepy and it’s totally fucking with my mind. It’s not particularly pleasant to I swear to GOD it’s hilariously fun. I’m starting to forget how to spell words now…

Anyway… so… yeah, I’ve met a bunch of new people off-hall so far this year. It’s nice. Most of them are girls. So that’s nice. I always find that more productive. In some way. I think. I dunno. Maybe just in general. Is there a point system or something? Maybe girls are worth twice as many points as guys. Is that strange to contemplate? It might be.

Anyway. So. Yeah. I wonder if I should ask one of them out on a date. I don’t have much money though. I need a job. I need something sustainable. What the hell am I going to do about that? I still don’t have a job. I also haven’t eaten since… around 1 PM yesterday. It’s Sunday now. I started out on Saturday night. I’ve been awake for about 20 hours now. I haven’t eaten in about…. 14. I think I did that math right. 15? No, more like 14. I was right the first time. As long as I’m right in the end. That’s all that matters. I’m feeling very empty in the stomach region. I’m feeling very light. That’s a good feeling. I must learn to maintain it. It both saves money and prevents me from gaining weight. It’s not like you can gain weight if you don’t eat as much, right? Yeah. I’m right.

So in any case, I need to go on a date. I think. Is that a requirement now? What are the contemporary mating rituals for normal human beings? Some of these girls aren’t entirely vanilla though. A couple of them have got the geek flavor. I’m sure they’d appreciate going on a date, but a normal date? I don’t think that’s how things work with geek girls. I mean, it’ll go over well, but what does better? I dunno. I guess it depends on how much of a geek girl they are. In any case, I need money for anything I’m doing. So I’m kind of crap on that ground.

I also need to lose a shit-ton of weight. Like… I need to get to 120-130 or something. Probably 130, because I think I might start looking a bit twig-y if I go below 130. Still. Getting to 130’s not going to be easy. I think it’d take longer than a couple months unless I literally don’t eat or something. I’m just start with getting down to 160 first. I think. That’s manageable. I just won’t have to eat for a week or so (not literally… duh) and then gradually build my diet back up to the point where I can eat some meat or something. I’ll be a bit of a bitch until I get there though. I just know it.

Anyway. It’s 5:17 AM now. I’m really going to sleep now.

Airbag
Paranoid Android
Subterranean Homesick Alien
Exit Music (For A Film)
Let Down
Karma Police
Fitter Happier
Electioneering
Climbing Up The Walls
No Surprises
Lucky
The Tourist

Download

Been fairly lazy this week–it is vacation, but I’ve been taking it slow. Too slow, I think. But it’s okay. Lots of stuff I should cover as well–new albums bought, current addictions, etc. etc. Have to say I do like the look of iTunes 9. The new layout of the iTunes store is very snazzy as well. They rolled out something called iTunes LP. Sort of takes the digital booklet a bit farther. I got the new Muse album that way. It has pictures, videos…pretty cool.

Speaking of new Muse album, it’s good. In saying that, I’m saying I’m not disappointed. I think I was worried initially, but I haven’t had to convince myself that it was good. It just is. I know some are dissing it, but honestly, I think it’s solid. I probably will do a big post Saturday commenting on it further. I have other albums I want to touch on as well, so we’ll just make a date for that.

The past few days have seen a little bit of a recession in terms of my heavy listening to Band of Horses and Silversun Pickups. Both of whom I had seen in concert the past few weeks, both of which owned my ears for the days afterward. If you asked me to choose, though, I’d say BoH wins. Seriously concert of the year in my opinion. They really need to come back. Anyway, the past few days, I had been listening to Muse heavily (sparked by listening to The Resistance), picked up The Strokes again (okay, not First Impressions though, should listen to that), Interpol (Turn on the Bright Lights…ugh so good), The New Pornographers (Challengers!), Stars (should listen to them more), and Radiohead. Hadn’t had a good long while with RH, so it was nice to get back on that again. I knew a few friends who were having serious OK Computer moments. Sometimes I legitimately fear listening to Radiohead, and this morning was one of them. So, I put on TOTBL to delay it, only to put on OKC after.

It was pretty lovely. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t listened to it straight through in a while, but I kept getting surprised. I was reading something on my computer when the first few chords of Exit Music started and my eyes immediately widened. The tamborine at the beginning of Electroneering also caught me by surprise. And I was reacquainted with the nasty 1-2 punch that is No Surprises and Lucky. This is how I describe No Surprises. After hearing something like Climbing Up the Walls (which ends pretty uncomfortably and leaves you on edge), No Surprises comes in and is like the person there that helps you back up, gives you a hug as you recover.

By the time you get to “Such a pretty house and such a pretty garden” (the harmony of which can go to heck, because it makes it worse), you find yourself wanting to give the person comforting you a hug back, like they need it a whole lot more than you do. By the end of the song, you’re pretty much hanging onto each other for dear life. That song, as intially cutesy it may sound, is devastating at the same time. Then you have ringing that starts Lucky coming right behind and it’s all too much. Lucky is the song that clinched Radiohead in my top spot. Jigsaw is without a doubt my favorite RH song, but Lucky is what nailed it for me.

It’s such a brilliant song. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me when I first fell for OKC. It would’ve negated Interpol as the top spot before I had even heard of Interpol, haha. (I had first listened through OKC in 2004, got into Interpol 2005)

Anyway, the reason that I wanted to blog (initially, anyway) was to give a mention to a Belgian girls choir called Scala. I’ve first heard of them when I heard their cover of ‘Creep,’ working with the Kolacny brothers. It’s really lovely. I kind of cringe at some RH covers, but for the most part, it’s been good. Here’s their cover of Exit Music (for a film). I think it captures the mood perfectly. It’s eerie.

I’ve also listened to Christopher O’Riley’s album of RH covers which is very very nice. Nice to study to too, by the way. Of which I should probably get back to doing….

-j

]]> http://theblarg.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/i-used-to-hate-radiohead/ Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:17:23 +0000 jshady http://theblarg.wordpress.com/2009/09/15/i-used-to-hate-radiohead/

…mostly because if I had to hear “Creep” (or any other song from “Pablo Honey”) one more goddamn time, I was going to kill someone.

Years later, after “The Bends” and “OK Computer” were released, I would roll my eyes when people began to spout off about how awesome they had become, how they had reinvented themselves and were the future of music as we knew it. I chalked it up to a lot of hype, figuring they’d go the way of most other early nineties alterna-bands, showing up on a VH1 special about one-hit wonders to reminisce about their heyday of “Creep.”

Nowadays, I’m older, (slightly) wiser, and a lot more willing to listen to music with an open ear. Because of this, I have to admit that I’ve been absolutely and utterly wrong about Radiohead, their career and their music.

For me, the awakening began with Thom Yorke’s guest appearance on the track “Rabbit in your Headlights” from the UNKLE album “Psyence Fiction.” I loved that song, listening to it over and over again; in doing so, it began to dawn on me that maybe there was more to Thom Yorke than just a whiny voice.

In 2000, a friend burned me a copy of “Kid A,” and I began to tell people that I still didn’t like Radiohead, but that they had created a pretty superb album. And then “Amnesiac” hit in 2001, and someone gave me a burn of that disc. And then “Hail to the Thief” was released in 2003. And so on, and so on.

And so I feel I must take a moment here to make amends:

Dear Radiohead,

You most certainly do not suck. I was just a stupid kid.

I apologize. Please forgive me.

Sincerely,

Justin Shady

It’s now safe to say that I’m an actual fan of Radiohead, which means that I was excited to hear that their first six albums were being re-released as collectors editions this year. This past March, the band’s first three albums were released in two editions (“Collectors Edition” and “Special Collectors Edition”), but I didn’t receive any of them for review.

Luckily, I did receive “Special Collectors Edition” sets of “Kid A”, “Amnesiac” and “Hail to the Thief”, all of which were just released a few weeks back.

Each set includes two CDs and one DVD. The first disc in each set is the original full-length release. The second CD in each set contains rare live performances and concert recordings; included are performances from BBC Radio One, sessions from Canal+ Studios, and a 2003 recording from the “Jo Whiley Show.”

The DVDs in the sets serve as a scrapbook for the band from 2000 to 2003. Collecting live performances from “Later… with Jools Holland” and “Top of the Pops”, as well as a few promotional music videos thrown in for fun, Radiohead fans are given a glimpse into the evolution of the band during this time.

If you’re a fan of Radiohead, chances are you’ve already picked these up. If you’re not a fan of Radiohead, you should really reconsider it. Take it from a recovered Radiohead hater.

I was the creep,

-Shady

Según los oyentes de la radio británica Xfm, el tema “Life Forever” de Oasis es la mejor canción del Reino Unido de todos los tiempos. Además, en segundo lugar se encuentra otra canción de la banda de los Gallagher, “Wonderwall”. Por si esto  fuera poco,  la tercera mejor canción también pertenece a los oriundos de Manchester con “Don´t look back in anger”.

No es de extrañar que el mejor disco de rock de la historia de la música inglesa según la New Musical Express sea del grupo Oasis . La encuesta realizada a sus lectores determino que el disco “Definitely Maybe” es el álbum de rock más importante por encima del “Sgt Pepper´s Lonely Heart Club Band y Revolver” de los Beatles y el “Ok Computer” de Radiohead.