Sam, Jordan, and Ashley discuss the contract dispute that's keeping us from getting our Mad Men fix this summer, who's the real bad guy in this fight, whether Sally Draper will eventually trip on acid and throw herself out of a window, and manage to fit another reference to The West Wing into a completely unrelated podcast.
Got comments about this podcast, or questions you want Sam and Jordan to answer? Well let us know! Follow us on twitter @reviewtobenamed (follow us here), or shoot us an e-mail at reviewtobenamed@gmail.com.
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Showing posts with label Ashley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ashley. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Review to Be Named Podcast #3: Top Chef
Sam, Jordan, and "special" guest Ashley discuss Top Chef All Stars, why Richard Blais is "the whole package," whether Angelo is completely insane, and the validity of "dropping conch" as a euphemism.
Got comments about this podcast, or questions you want Sam and Jordan to answer? Well let us know! Follow us on twitter @reviewtobenamed (follow us here), or shoot us an e-mail at reviewtobenamed@gmail.com.
Got comments about this podcast, or questions you want Sam and Jordan to answer? Well let us know! Follow us on twitter @reviewtobenamed (follow us here), or shoot us an e-mail at reviewtobenamed@gmail.com.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Random Pop Culture Top Ten List: Top 10 Musicians Who Seem Impervious to Heroin
By Ashley and Jordan
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which the Review To Be Named gang take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
There’s an old cliché that says life in music is all sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While that saying is so over used at this point your grandma probably knows it’s uncool, the reason it was popularized in the first place is because of all of the sex and drugs that musicians tend to get themselves involved in. Hell, Little Richard has spent half his life as an evangelical preacher and was still known to be involved in orgies and drugs in the ‘60s. Drug overdoses have claimed far too many amazing artists before their time. Yet while that is sort of to be expected with the amount of chemicals these people pump into their bodies, what is actually shocking is how many of them have survived in spite of extended use of the hardest drug of all: Heroin. The following are ten people who probably should have died a long time ago, but have somehow managed to stick around, quite possibly because they’re just impervious to the stuff.
10. Eric Clapton
When people discuss the theory that drug addiction sometimes improves musical performance, one of the oft-cited examples of an artist losing their potency after getting clean is Eric Clapton. After his habit broke up Derek and the Dominos and he notoriously passed out on stage during the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, Clapton eventually dealt with the heroin addiction that dominated his life in the 1970s. But while his releases in the late 70s and early 80s were largely regarded as disappointments, audiences may have been misguided in blaming his sobriety for the creative lapse; Clapton had also reportedly conquered addiction by finding Jesus Christ, a life decision that has killed more careers than rehab.
9. Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe was just as debauched as everyone else in a band known far more for their partying than their music (which was pretty mediocre with occasional flashes of genius), but he was the only junkie. His addiction proved so influential that he titled his 2009 memoirs The Heroin Diaries, in which he recounts at least six overdoses, one of which resulted in his clinical death for two minutes before he was revived with adrenaline shots to the heart, and another in which his dealer left him in a London dumpster. Somehow, he managed to survive the 80s, and now claims to be clean.
8. David Gahan
Maybe not coincidentally, Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan pierced his taint around the same time he got started on a nasty heroin habit. He overdosed several times in the 90s, once pulling a Nikki Sixx and dying for a few minutes before a talented paramedic revived him. Perhaps more tragically, his addiction seems to be indicative of a lifelong struggle with depression: he notoriously slashed his wrists in 1995, which made 1984’s “Blasphemous Rumors” sound like a strange self-fulfilling prophecy:
Miraculously, Gahan has survived to the present day, and continues to make music and tour with Depeche Mode.
7. Ozzy Osbourne
The “Prince of Darkness” rose to prominence as the lead singer for Black Sabbath but has also had a shockingly successful solo career in the decades since he left the band. While he’s certainly famous for his contributions to heavy metal, at this point he’s probably nearly as famous for being a drug addled mess for our entertainment on The Osbournes. The drugs have taken their obvious effects, to be sure, by Ozzy is still standing and still, for the most part, functioning as a human being. Considering he has admitted to imbibing LSD, cocaine, peyote, mushrooms, Quaaludes, glue, cough syrup, rohypol, klonopin, vicodin and heroin, it’s a minor miracle he’s managed to survive this long. So much of a miracle, in fact, that researchers at Cofactor Genetics in St. Louis recently conducted a study of Osbourne in an attempt to isolate a gene that makes him so resistant to drug use. Their results were inconclusive (though they did discover that he’s a Neanderthal) and so it remains one of the greatest mysteries of our time why Osbourne has managed to punish his body for 40 straight years and walk out smelling like slightly mumble-y roses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq6RtN397WA
6. Anthony Kiedis
All of Red Hot Chili Peppers have been heroin users at one point or another and the band’s first guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988. Kiedis has probably been using it the longest, though, claiming to have started in his early teens. After Slovak’s death, Kiedis claimed he would never shoot up again, though he relapsed in 1994 and used on and off again until Christmas Eve 2000, which is reportedly the last time he shot up. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most famous and popular song, “Under the Bridge” is about heroin use, and many of the band’s other songs reference drugs and drug use. Yet despite using heroin on and off for almost 20 years, Kiedis is still standing, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ next album is supposedly coming out later this year. Kiedis may have drew some blood under a bridge down town, but fortunately for us all it wasn’t enough to fell this drug-resistant modern rock legend.
5. Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty has become so much of a tabloid sensation that his talent as a musician has been largely forgotten. Though his relationship with Kate Moss garnered the most press, he’s become just as renown for his unrepentant love of heroin. Doherty arrived on the scene in the early 2000s, when he rose to prominence as a frontman of the English garage rock revival band The Libertines, a position he shared with best friend Carl Barat. By 2003, the relationship between Doherty and Barat had grown volatile due to the former’s addiction, a dynamic they summed up in in the downright tragic second single off of Up the Bracket, “Can’t Stand Me Now.” The band inevitably broke up in 2004, and Doherty’s addiction worsened to the point that that many wondered whether he would join the famed 27 Club by overdosing in 2006. But against all odds, he’s survived to 31, with at least six drug-related arrests, two rehab stints, and countless appalling YouTube videos under his belt:
4. Lou Reed
Perhaps no one has extolled on the feeling of heroin as poetically or as awesomely as Lou Reed. His band The Velvet Underground were a huge part of the drug fueled atmosphere at Andy Warhol’s the factory, and several of the songs on their stellar debut album (the old adage goes that few people bought the album, but every one that did formed a band) are about using or trying to score the drug. Reed didn’t slow down when he went solo, writing the glam rock concept album Transformer, a bleak love story centered on two junkies. His career took some hits as the drugs started to take their toll in the late ‘70’s, and like many people on this list, Reed finally kicked his heroin habit in the early ‘80’s, continuing to be a rock god and an elder statesman for decades afterwards. If you laid money that the man who wrote the epic rock masterpiece that is “Heroin” would make it to old age, you’ve probably come into a windfall of cash by this point: Reed turned 69 this week and is still going strong. Maybe he really IS Jesus’ Son…
3. Scott Weiland
If we lived in a rational universe, Scott Weiland would have died in 1995. But in a twist of fate that Weiland publicly attributes to yoga and meditation, he’s survived to form that shitty supergroup Velvet Revolver. But back in his Stone Temple Pilot days, Weiland was the junkie to end all junkies, with numerous arrests and tour cancellations to his credit. To date, he’s been to rehab over ten times, and has at least eight heroin-related arrests under his belt. But like many of the other musicians on this list, Weiland was really talented back in the day, especially at the height of his addiction:
Ahh, Sarah Michelle Gellar and creepy rabbit things. A simpler, better time, for Weiland and us all.
2. Iggy Pop
The name Iggy Pop is almost synonymous with heroin use at this point. His song “Lust for Life” became a users anthem and was even featured in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. His band The Stooges initially broke up in the early ‘70’s because of the severity of his heroin addiction. When the band reunited, they were again driven apart by his heroin use and his own career stalled for several years. He checked himself into rehab, but had his friend David Bowie smuggle him in cocaine the whole time he was there. It wasn’t until the mid-80’s when Pop finally took a three year break and, with Bowie’s actual support this time, finally kicked the addiction that had plagued and inspired him for over a decade. He went on to a recurring role on Nickelodeon’s Pete and Pete and to what no long-term heroin addict should ever see coming: old age. Though, after a stage diving accident last year at the age of 62, he said he probably won’t do that anymore. So maybe his decades of drug abuse have slowed him down a little.
1. Keith Richards
Keith Richards is a legend, not just for being a member of one of the greatest bands of all time, but for how unkillable he seems to be. The man has been arrested for drug possession five times, including the time in Toronto in 1977 that he was arrested for trafficking after being found in possession of 22 grams of heroin. He got that charge plead down to simple heroin possession because, come on: he’s Keith fucking Richards. He was going to do every god damn gram of that stuff. He claimed in his recent biography that he kicked his heroin habit in 1979, and finally stopped doing cocaine in 2006, saying “I think it gave me up.” It isn’t just that Richards did mountains of drugs and has made it, only slightly worse for the ware, into his late 60s. There’s also that persistent rumor (which, from the evidence we have here might very well be true) that he cannot be killed by conventional weapons.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which the Review To Be Named gang take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
There’s an old cliché that says life in music is all sex, drugs, and rock and roll. While that saying is so over used at this point your grandma probably knows it’s uncool, the reason it was popularized in the first place is because of all of the sex and drugs that musicians tend to get themselves involved in. Hell, Little Richard has spent half his life as an evangelical preacher and was still known to be involved in orgies and drugs in the ‘60s. Drug overdoses have claimed far too many amazing artists before their time. Yet while that is sort of to be expected with the amount of chemicals these people pump into their bodies, what is actually shocking is how many of them have survived in spite of extended use of the hardest drug of all: Heroin. The following are ten people who probably should have died a long time ago, but have somehow managed to stick around, quite possibly because they’re just impervious to the stuff.
10. Eric Clapton
When people discuss the theory that drug addiction sometimes improves musical performance, one of the oft-cited examples of an artist losing their potency after getting clean is Eric Clapton. After his habit broke up Derek and the Dominos and he notoriously passed out on stage during the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh, Clapton eventually dealt with the heroin addiction that dominated his life in the 1970s. But while his releases in the late 70s and early 80s were largely regarded as disappointments, audiences may have been misguided in blaming his sobriety for the creative lapse; Clapton had also reportedly conquered addiction by finding Jesus Christ, a life decision that has killed more careers than rehab.
9. Nikki Sixx
Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe was just as debauched as everyone else in a band known far more for their partying than their music (which was pretty mediocre with occasional flashes of genius), but he was the only junkie. His addiction proved so influential that he titled his 2009 memoirs The Heroin Diaries, in which he recounts at least six overdoses, one of which resulted in his clinical death for two minutes before he was revived with adrenaline shots to the heart, and another in which his dealer left him in a London dumpster. Somehow, he managed to survive the 80s, and now claims to be clean.
8. David Gahan
Maybe not coincidentally, Depeche Mode frontman David Gahan pierced his taint around the same time he got started on a nasty heroin habit. He overdosed several times in the 90s, once pulling a Nikki Sixx and dying for a few minutes before a talented paramedic revived him. Perhaps more tragically, his addiction seems to be indicative of a lifelong struggle with depression: he notoriously slashed his wrists in 1995, which made 1984’s “Blasphemous Rumors” sound like a strange self-fulfilling prophecy:
Miraculously, Gahan has survived to the present day, and continues to make music and tour with Depeche Mode.
7. Ozzy Osbourne
The “Prince of Darkness” rose to prominence as the lead singer for Black Sabbath but has also had a shockingly successful solo career in the decades since he left the band. While he’s certainly famous for his contributions to heavy metal, at this point he’s probably nearly as famous for being a drug addled mess for our entertainment on The Osbournes. The drugs have taken their obvious effects, to be sure, by Ozzy is still standing and still, for the most part, functioning as a human being. Considering he has admitted to imbibing LSD, cocaine, peyote, mushrooms, Quaaludes, glue, cough syrup, rohypol, klonopin, vicodin and heroin, it’s a minor miracle he’s managed to survive this long. So much of a miracle, in fact, that researchers at Cofactor Genetics in St. Louis recently conducted a study of Osbourne in an attempt to isolate a gene that makes him so resistant to drug use. Their results were inconclusive (though they did discover that he’s a Neanderthal) and so it remains one of the greatest mysteries of our time why Osbourne has managed to punish his body for 40 straight years and walk out smelling like slightly mumble-y roses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq6RtN397WA
6. Anthony Kiedis
All of Red Hot Chili Peppers have been heroin users at one point or another and the band’s first guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose in 1988. Kiedis has probably been using it the longest, though, claiming to have started in his early teens. After Slovak’s death, Kiedis claimed he would never shoot up again, though he relapsed in 1994 and used on and off again until Christmas Eve 2000, which is reportedly the last time he shot up. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ most famous and popular song, “Under the Bridge” is about heroin use, and many of the band’s other songs reference drugs and drug use. Yet despite using heroin on and off for almost 20 years, Kiedis is still standing, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ next album is supposedly coming out later this year. Kiedis may have drew some blood under a bridge down town, but fortunately for us all it wasn’t enough to fell this drug-resistant modern rock legend.
5. Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty has become so much of a tabloid sensation that his talent as a musician has been largely forgotten. Though his relationship with Kate Moss garnered the most press, he’s become just as renown for his unrepentant love of heroin. Doherty arrived on the scene in the early 2000s, when he rose to prominence as a frontman of the English garage rock revival band The Libertines, a position he shared with best friend Carl Barat. By 2003, the relationship between Doherty and Barat had grown volatile due to the former’s addiction, a dynamic they summed up in in the downright tragic second single off of Up the Bracket, “Can’t Stand Me Now.” The band inevitably broke up in 2004, and Doherty’s addiction worsened to the point that that many wondered whether he would join the famed 27 Club by overdosing in 2006. But against all odds, he’s survived to 31, with at least six drug-related arrests, two rehab stints, and countless appalling YouTube videos under his belt:
4. Lou Reed
Perhaps no one has extolled on the feeling of heroin as poetically or as awesomely as Lou Reed. His band The Velvet Underground were a huge part of the drug fueled atmosphere at Andy Warhol’s the factory, and several of the songs on their stellar debut album (the old adage goes that few people bought the album, but every one that did formed a band) are about using or trying to score the drug. Reed didn’t slow down when he went solo, writing the glam rock concept album Transformer, a bleak love story centered on two junkies. His career took some hits as the drugs started to take their toll in the late ‘70’s, and like many people on this list, Reed finally kicked his heroin habit in the early ‘80’s, continuing to be a rock god and an elder statesman for decades afterwards. If you laid money that the man who wrote the epic rock masterpiece that is “Heroin” would make it to old age, you’ve probably come into a windfall of cash by this point: Reed turned 69 this week and is still going strong. Maybe he really IS Jesus’ Son…
3. Scott Weiland
If we lived in a rational universe, Scott Weiland would have died in 1995. But in a twist of fate that Weiland publicly attributes to yoga and meditation, he’s survived to form that shitty supergroup Velvet Revolver. But back in his Stone Temple Pilot days, Weiland was the junkie to end all junkies, with numerous arrests and tour cancellations to his credit. To date, he’s been to rehab over ten times, and has at least eight heroin-related arrests under his belt. But like many of the other musicians on this list, Weiland was really talented back in the day, especially at the height of his addiction:
Ahh, Sarah Michelle Gellar and creepy rabbit things. A simpler, better time, for Weiland and us all.
2. Iggy Pop
The name Iggy Pop is almost synonymous with heroin use at this point. His song “Lust for Life” became a users anthem and was even featured in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. His band The Stooges initially broke up in the early ‘70’s because of the severity of his heroin addiction. When the band reunited, they were again driven apart by his heroin use and his own career stalled for several years. He checked himself into rehab, but had his friend David Bowie smuggle him in cocaine the whole time he was there. It wasn’t until the mid-80’s when Pop finally took a three year break and, with Bowie’s actual support this time, finally kicked the addiction that had plagued and inspired him for over a decade. He went on to a recurring role on Nickelodeon’s Pete and Pete and to what no long-term heroin addict should ever see coming: old age. Though, after a stage diving accident last year at the age of 62, he said he probably won’t do that anymore. So maybe his decades of drug abuse have slowed him down a little.
1. Keith Richards
Keith Richards is a legend, not just for being a member of one of the greatest bands of all time, but for how unkillable he seems to be. The man has been arrested for drug possession five times, including the time in Toronto in 1977 that he was arrested for trafficking after being found in possession of 22 grams of heroin. He got that charge plead down to simple heroin possession because, come on: he’s Keith fucking Richards. He was going to do every god damn gram of that stuff. He claimed in his recent biography that he kicked his heroin habit in 1979, and finally stopped doing cocaine in 2006, saying “I think it gave me up.” It isn’t just that Richards did mountains of drugs and has made it, only slightly worse for the ware, into his late 60s. There’s also that persistent rumor (which, from the evidence we have here might very well be true) that he cannot be killed by conventional weapons.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Random Pop Culture Question of the Week: Dream TV Spinoff
Random Pop Culture Question of the Week is a bi-weekly journey into the headspace of the Review to Be Named gang, in which a pop-culture question is posed, answers are sought, and discussions are generated about issues and hypotheticals from throughout the realm of pop culture.
Welcome to the inaugural installment of Random Pop Culture Question of the Week, a new feature that will give the contributors here at Review To Be Named the chance to probe each other’s minds with our own with pop culture queries and hypotheticals. This week’s question comes from our own Chris, who wondered,
If you could helm the spinoff of any character or group from any TV show, spinning it out from any time in that show’s history, who would you spinoff and what would be the premise of your show?
With that question in mind, here are the responses from several Review To Be Named Contributors. Comment and let us know what we missed!
Jordan:
My immediate thought when I heard this question was, “Which Joss Whedon show would I most like to spin off?” While I did think of some fun ideas there, it seemed a little bit obvious. Next, I considered the idea of a Twin Peaks spinoff focusing on Gordon Cole and the FBI that Lynch had created. Everything in that organization is a few steps off the beaten path, a little odd, and ultimately endlessly fascinating. Delving into the strange code they communicate with (including the Blue Rose and Lil, the dancer Cole uses to communicate information to his agents), the nightmarish cases they investigate, and the mysterious nature of the world and their place into it would all be fascinating. Plus, we would inevitably get to dive into what happened to Chester Diamond and, more importantly, who the hell Phillip Jeffries is and where he disappeared to. Which would be cool.
Ultimately, however, the spinoff idea that excited me most, the one that made me wish it had really occurred, is the idea of a spinoff of The West Wing focusing on Sam Seaborn as a congressman. Though in the show’s continuity he lost (because Rob Lowe stupidly wanted to leave the show, something I have only started to forgive him for now that he is so excellent on Parks and Rec), my spinoff would presuppose that he won, and thus was a freshman congressman on his way to fulfilling President Bartlet’s prediction that he would someday sit behind the big chair in the Oval Office. Sam’s disappearance from the show hurt The West Wing almost as much as Aaron Sorkin’s, and the fact that he was dropped from the show kept the potential of his growth into a formidable politician from ever being realized. If given the chance, I would have changed that.
Sam:
My wish for a spin-off comes from an obvious place if you know me well (or at all, really). It’s Chief Wiggum P.I. from "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" episode from season eight. The Spin-Off Showcase offered three different possible new series based around beloved Simpsons characters. In addition to Wiggum P.I., host Troy McClure offered up The Love-Matic Grampa, a show based around the dead Abe Simpson’s soul returning to Earth in the Love-matic machine in Moe’s bar. The other show offered up was The Simpsons Smile Time Variety Hour, a take-off of similar projects from the likes of The Brady Bunch where (nearly) the entire cast returned for a variety show that included very 70’s guest stars, like Tim Conway. But Wiggum P.I. really took the cake. Like the other two shows it was terrible if it existed as a show outside of The Simpsons universe but it’s take on the buddy cop genre could have been a gem. Wiggum is joined by his son Ralph (who could probably hold a show of his own on a more allowing channel like Adult Swim or Comedy Central) and Principal Skinner, who quit his job and is now “Skinny Boy.” The duo have been relocated to New Orleans to face stereotypical bayou crime lords while managing life in The Big Easy. Great setting plus great characters could make for a good show. The police procedural cartoon sit-com had only been done once before with Disney’s Fillmore (very well done I may add) and The Simpsons writers could make something equally enjoyable for an adult crowd. At the end of the episode, when the evil “Big Daddy” gets away from the law, Wiggum thinks aloud that they will meet again in future episodes “in a more exciting and sexy way.” If only.
Rachel:
I thought long and hard about my response to this fantastic question. The consummate overachiever, I wanted to look good. I considered going cult-classic, with a Freaks and Geeks spinoff (clearly it would follow Daniel, because I think his character had a lot of unexplored potential. Also James Franco is stupid-pretty). Sticking to the stupid-pretty reasoning, I thought about a House spinoff following Thirteen on her various escapades after learning about her Huntington’s diagnosis (I pine for the days of witty, pre-rehab House banter). Then there’s the sheer spectacle of a True Blood spinoff following Pam (definitely the most criminally underused character on the show. Every word out of Kristin Bauer’s mouth is pure gold). But I wanted something meaningful. So I settled on Rugrats.
If you were lucky enough to be a 90s baby, Rugrats was a cornerstone of a slew of amazing Nickelodeon cartoons (kids these days are missing out. I-Carly? Hannah Montana? WTF is that shit?). And if you didn’t like Rugrats, there was clearly something wrong with you. Talking babies—awesome. An incredibly baller dog—every child’s dream. But, with the distance of a decade between me and my Rugrats days, I’d want to see a spinoff focusing on the parents. Mostly because the Rugrats: All Growed Up edition was seriously disappointing.
Stu Pickles, in addition to being an amazing dad, was a super cool inventor. His wife Didi was a schoolteacher (and had two spectacular Jewish parents who I would totally want to make consistent appearances. Maybe coming to live with the Pickles as a foil for Grandpa Lou). Angelica’s mom Charlotte was an uber-powerful CEO who, when paired with Betty Deville, the quick witted, Venus-sign sweatshirt wearing jock and Chaz Finster, the sensitive widower single dad, were surprisingly cutting edge for a children’s show, pushing the boundaries of typical gender roles. Then there’s Dr. and Mr. Carmichael (the Rugrats’ Cosbys), she a Harvard-educated doctor and he a successful cartoonist. Around the periphery of the episode, these characters managed to do way more than hem in the hijinks of their precocious little tots. They balanced out plot lines so well, they distracted us from the fact that they seemed to be borderline negligent of their kids. I’d love to see what they were up to while the kids were off getting into trouble.
Ashley:
Before Showtime became a network with somewhat respectable, HBO-esque programming, it was the network with the gay shows. The worst of these was the exploitative, poorly written, and consistently frustrating series The L Word, which ran from 2004-2009. In addition to having what may be the worst theme song in television history, The L Word wasted a lot of talent; capable actresses like Pam Grier, Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner, and Marlee Matlin were mired in silly, melodramatic story arcs. But perhaps the most egregious example of unrealized potential can be found in the characters of Shane McCutcheon (Katherine Moennig) and Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey). Best friends, as well as resident voices of reason, Shane and Alice were the only reasons why I watched all six seasons of this godawful show (to be fair, I also wanted to have sex with both of them, possibly at the same time). I would have loved a spinoff that gave the two of them and their assorted exploits (Alice’s adorable, and ultimately tragic, relationship with Dana; Shane’s failed attempts at monogamy) more screen time. The Alice & Shane Show would certainly lean more towards comedy than drama, and ideally include a more realistic supporting cast so that it looks less like a lesbian soap opera (in which everyone is beautiful, skinny, famous, wealthy, and femme) than its originating series. There’s a lot of support for this particular spinoff idea on YouTube; in case you needed a Shane and Alice tribute montage set to the theme from Free Willy to support my argument, it’s available.
Chris:
Battlestar Galactica SPOILER ALERT
Battlestar Galactica is probably my favorite show of all time. However if I had one critique of the series (aside from the standalone episodes that SyFy forced on them) it's that one of the more fascinating elements of the series never received the full attention I felt it deserved, the status quo altering introduction of a second Colonial warship, the Battlestar Pegasus.
Ideally, I would have liked to see a Battlestar Pegasus, spinoff that would have served as a concurrently running companion series to Battlestar Galactica, beginning during the season 2 break of Galactica. The show would probably have a limited shelf life, as it could only exist so long without dramatically altering the events of Galactica.
Battlestar Pegasus would give the creators of Galactica to tell two very fascinating stories that were only touched on in the made-for-tv-movie Razor:
1.) Flashbacks that would reveal the backstory of the Pegasus, from the attack on Scorpion Fleet Shipyard to their discovery of Galactica and her civilian fleet. Rather than running from the Cylons, Admiral Cain decided to engage in all out guerrilla war, hunting them with an obsession to rival Ahab himself, despite massive losses to her crew and ship. Cain personally executed officers who disobeyed her orders, drafted civilians into military service at gunpoint, and left a fleet of civilian ships helpless after stripping them of any useful components Pegasus could use. It's clear that Pegasus was a very dark environment, as evidenced by the atrocities committed by Lt. Thorn and the fact that Pegasus quickly became the focal point of the Fleet's black market after Cain's death. However nothing in the world of Galactica was ever as black and white as it seemed as there were still many good people serving on Pegasus (Lt. Hoshi), and many more who were haunted by the guilt of their actions (Major Kendra Shaw). Throw in the spineless and corrupt Col. Fisk, and the civilian Deck Chief Laird, who was forced into service when Admiral Cain threatened to kill his family, and you have a really solid cast.
2.) The second storyline would focus on the present. Following the death of Admiral Cain, Lee Adama takes over as Commander of the Pegasus and finds a ship in disarray, where fear, mistrust, and brutality were the environment cultivated by his successors. This would allow for some great story lines as Lee struggles to get his command in order, facing numerous power struggles with crew members that worshipped Cain, and tries to shut down the black market that had been running through Pegasus during Fisk's brief time in charge. The series could also heavily focus on Lee making the difficult transition from a soldier to a general, ordering men into battle rather than leading them personally. Finally, having seen Lee clash with his father numerous times throughout the series, making Lee responsible for the lives of an entire crew would only escalate the tension between him and his father if Admiral Adama made military decisions that Lee didn't agree with.
Alas this will never come to be, for like I said, Razor already touched on many of these elements, albeit lightly, and any Battlestar spinoff will most likely be a prequel, but I can't help but take a longing look back at what might have been.
Read more Random Pop Culture Question of the Week here
Got ideas for future installments of Random Pop Culture Question of the Week? Well let us know! Follow us on twitter @reviewtobenamed (follow us here), or shoot us an e-mail at reviewtobenamed@gmail.com.
Welcome to the inaugural installment of Random Pop Culture Question of the Week, a new feature that will give the contributors here at Review To Be Named the chance to probe each other’s minds with our own with pop culture queries and hypotheticals. This week’s question comes from our own Chris, who wondered,
If you could helm the spinoff of any character or group from any TV show, spinning it out from any time in that show’s history, who would you spinoff and what would be the premise of your show?
With that question in mind, here are the responses from several Review To Be Named Contributors. Comment and let us know what we missed!
Jordan:
My immediate thought when I heard this question was, “Which Joss Whedon show would I most like to spin off?” While I did think of some fun ideas there, it seemed a little bit obvious. Next, I considered the idea of a Twin Peaks spinoff focusing on Gordon Cole and the FBI that Lynch had created. Everything in that organization is a few steps off the beaten path, a little odd, and ultimately endlessly fascinating. Delving into the strange code they communicate with (including the Blue Rose and Lil, the dancer Cole uses to communicate information to his agents), the nightmarish cases they investigate, and the mysterious nature of the world and their place into it would all be fascinating. Plus, we would inevitably get to dive into what happened to Chester Diamond and, more importantly, who the hell Phillip Jeffries is and where he disappeared to. Which would be cool.
Ultimately, however, the spinoff idea that excited me most, the one that made me wish it had really occurred, is the idea of a spinoff of The West Wing focusing on Sam Seaborn as a congressman. Though in the show’s continuity he lost (because Rob Lowe stupidly wanted to leave the show, something I have only started to forgive him for now that he is so excellent on Parks and Rec), my spinoff would presuppose that he won, and thus was a freshman congressman on his way to fulfilling President Bartlet’s prediction that he would someday sit behind the big chair in the Oval Office. Sam’s disappearance from the show hurt The West Wing almost as much as Aaron Sorkin’s, and the fact that he was dropped from the show kept the potential of his growth into a formidable politician from ever being realized. If given the chance, I would have changed that.
Sam:
My wish for a spin-off comes from an obvious place if you know me well (or at all, really). It’s Chief Wiggum P.I. from "The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase" episode from season eight. The Spin-Off Showcase offered three different possible new series based around beloved Simpsons characters. In addition to Wiggum P.I., host Troy McClure offered up The Love-Matic Grampa, a show based around the dead Abe Simpson’s soul returning to Earth in the Love-matic machine in Moe’s bar. The other show offered up was The Simpsons Smile Time Variety Hour, a take-off of similar projects from the likes of The Brady Bunch where (nearly) the entire cast returned for a variety show that included very 70’s guest stars, like Tim Conway. But Wiggum P.I. really took the cake. Like the other two shows it was terrible if it existed as a show outside of The Simpsons universe but it’s take on the buddy cop genre could have been a gem. Wiggum is joined by his son Ralph (who could probably hold a show of his own on a more allowing channel like Adult Swim or Comedy Central) and Principal Skinner, who quit his job and is now “Skinny Boy.” The duo have been relocated to New Orleans to face stereotypical bayou crime lords while managing life in The Big Easy. Great setting plus great characters could make for a good show. The police procedural cartoon sit-com had only been done once before with Disney’s Fillmore (very well done I may add) and The Simpsons writers could make something equally enjoyable for an adult crowd. At the end of the episode, when the evil “Big Daddy” gets away from the law, Wiggum thinks aloud that they will meet again in future episodes “in a more exciting and sexy way.” If only.
Rachel:
I thought long and hard about my response to this fantastic question. The consummate overachiever, I wanted to look good. I considered going cult-classic, with a Freaks and Geeks spinoff (clearly it would follow Daniel, because I think his character had a lot of unexplored potential. Also James Franco is stupid-pretty). Sticking to the stupid-pretty reasoning, I thought about a House spinoff following Thirteen on her various escapades after learning about her Huntington’s diagnosis (I pine for the days of witty, pre-rehab House banter). Then there’s the sheer spectacle of a True Blood spinoff following Pam (definitely the most criminally underused character on the show. Every word out of Kristin Bauer’s mouth is pure gold). But I wanted something meaningful. So I settled on Rugrats.
If you were lucky enough to be a 90s baby, Rugrats was a cornerstone of a slew of amazing Nickelodeon cartoons (kids these days are missing out. I-Carly? Hannah Montana? WTF is that shit?). And if you didn’t like Rugrats, there was clearly something wrong with you. Talking babies—awesome. An incredibly baller dog—every child’s dream. But, with the distance of a decade between me and my Rugrats days, I’d want to see a spinoff focusing on the parents. Mostly because the Rugrats: All Growed Up edition was seriously disappointing.
Stu Pickles, in addition to being an amazing dad, was a super cool inventor. His wife Didi was a schoolteacher (and had two spectacular Jewish parents who I would totally want to make consistent appearances. Maybe coming to live with the Pickles as a foil for Grandpa Lou). Angelica’s mom Charlotte was an uber-powerful CEO who, when paired with Betty Deville, the quick witted, Venus-sign sweatshirt wearing jock and Chaz Finster, the sensitive widower single dad, were surprisingly cutting edge for a children’s show, pushing the boundaries of typical gender roles. Then there’s Dr. and Mr. Carmichael (the Rugrats’ Cosbys), she a Harvard-educated doctor and he a successful cartoonist. Around the periphery of the episode, these characters managed to do way more than hem in the hijinks of their precocious little tots. They balanced out plot lines so well, they distracted us from the fact that they seemed to be borderline negligent of their kids. I’d love to see what they were up to while the kids were off getting into trouble.
Ashley:
Before Showtime became a network with somewhat respectable, HBO-esque programming, it was the network with the gay shows. The worst of these was the exploitative, poorly written, and consistently frustrating series The L Word, which ran from 2004-2009. In addition to having what may be the worst theme song in television history, The L Word wasted a lot of talent; capable actresses like Pam Grier, Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner, and Marlee Matlin were mired in silly, melodramatic story arcs. But perhaps the most egregious example of unrealized potential can be found in the characters of Shane McCutcheon (Katherine Moennig) and Alice Pieszecki (Leisha Hailey). Best friends, as well as resident voices of reason, Shane and Alice were the only reasons why I watched all six seasons of this godawful show (to be fair, I also wanted to have sex with both of them, possibly at the same time). I would have loved a spinoff that gave the two of them and their assorted exploits (Alice’s adorable, and ultimately tragic, relationship with Dana; Shane’s failed attempts at monogamy) more screen time. The Alice & Shane Show would certainly lean more towards comedy than drama, and ideally include a more realistic supporting cast so that it looks less like a lesbian soap opera (in which everyone is beautiful, skinny, famous, wealthy, and femme) than its originating series. There’s a lot of support for this particular spinoff idea on YouTube; in case you needed a Shane and Alice tribute montage set to the theme from Free Willy to support my argument, it’s available.
Chris:
Battlestar Galactica SPOILER ALERT
Battlestar Galactica is probably my favorite show of all time. However if I had one critique of the series (aside from the standalone episodes that SyFy forced on them) it's that one of the more fascinating elements of the series never received the full attention I felt it deserved, the status quo altering introduction of a second Colonial warship, the Battlestar Pegasus.
Ideally, I would have liked to see a Battlestar Pegasus, spinoff that would have served as a concurrently running companion series to Battlestar Galactica, beginning during the season 2 break of Galactica. The show would probably have a limited shelf life, as it could only exist so long without dramatically altering the events of Galactica.
Battlestar Pegasus would give the creators of Galactica to tell two very fascinating stories that were only touched on in the made-for-tv-movie Razor:
1.) Flashbacks that would reveal the backstory of the Pegasus, from the attack on Scorpion Fleet Shipyard to their discovery of Galactica and her civilian fleet. Rather than running from the Cylons, Admiral Cain decided to engage in all out guerrilla war, hunting them with an obsession to rival Ahab himself, despite massive losses to her crew and ship. Cain personally executed officers who disobeyed her orders, drafted civilians into military service at gunpoint, and left a fleet of civilian ships helpless after stripping them of any useful components Pegasus could use. It's clear that Pegasus was a very dark environment, as evidenced by the atrocities committed by Lt. Thorn and the fact that Pegasus quickly became the focal point of the Fleet's black market after Cain's death. However nothing in the world of Galactica was ever as black and white as it seemed as there were still many good people serving on Pegasus (Lt. Hoshi), and many more who were haunted by the guilt of their actions (Major Kendra Shaw). Throw in the spineless and corrupt Col. Fisk, and the civilian Deck Chief Laird, who was forced into service when Admiral Cain threatened to kill his family, and you have a really solid cast.
2.) The second storyline would focus on the present. Following the death of Admiral Cain, Lee Adama takes over as Commander of the Pegasus and finds a ship in disarray, where fear, mistrust, and brutality were the environment cultivated by his successors. This would allow for some great story lines as Lee struggles to get his command in order, facing numerous power struggles with crew members that worshipped Cain, and tries to shut down the black market that had been running through Pegasus during Fisk's brief time in charge. The series could also heavily focus on Lee making the difficult transition from a soldier to a general, ordering men into battle rather than leading them personally. Finally, having seen Lee clash with his father numerous times throughout the series, making Lee responsible for the lives of an entire crew would only escalate the tension between him and his father if Admiral Adama made military decisions that Lee didn't agree with.
Alas this will never come to be, for like I said, Razor already touched on many of these elements, albeit lightly, and any Battlestar spinoff will most likely be a prequel, but I can't help but take a longing look back at what might have been.
Read more Random Pop Culture Question of the Week here
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Wednesday, February 9, 2011
My Year in Lists: Interlude: Talking about Talking Heads
By Jordan
My Year in Lists chronicles one blogger’s quest to understand why music matters to us and what makes it a lasting aspect of our existence. To facilitate this examination, three music fans have contributed a list of 52 essential albums. Each week this year, one album off of each list will be analyzed in an attempt to understand why some music sticks with us and what it means for our lives.
My Year in Lists: Interlude is an intermittent addendum to the feature that takes a step back from the quest to examine music from other perspectives.
Welcome to the first My Year in Lists: Interlude, a planned occasional respite from the quest at the center of the feature in which we will look at music in different ways. Sometimes this will involve asking the list contributors to sound off on a topic (as it does today) and sometimes it will involve me discussing an issue or an event that wouldn't fit into the feature proper (for example, look for an Interlude on the Coachella Music Festival in April). This week, I have asked the three list contributors, Tab, Collin, and Ashley, to discuss Talking Heads, why they consider the band essential, and why they selected the album they did for last week's installment of My Year in Lists. Without further ado, here they are:
Tab, on More Songs About Buildings and Food and Fear of Music:
I lived in a small town in Nebraska from 1977 to 1979. It was a cultural wasteland where the only conduit of music was classic rock FM radio and Rolling Stone magazine. Thank god for Saturday Night Live. It introduced me to two influential bands. DEVO was on in the winter of 1978 and Talking Heads were on in February of 1979. Both bands were great and were unlike the boring old rock and roll that I was exposed to at the time. Because both of these bands were on Warner Brothers labels I was able to buy their cassettes in a chain record store at the mall. In DEVO’s case it was Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! for the Talking Heads it was More Songs About Buildings And Food. Each of these records turned out to be very influential for me and represented a sea change compared to the boring old rock and roll of Boston, Styx, lame Springsteen, or the Cars. Both of the records were also produced by Brian Eno. I think that their second release More Songs About Buildings And Food and third release Fear Of Music are the best Talking Heads records. More Songs was unlike anything I was listening to and I still love the bass line on "Warning Sign" and everything about "Found A Job", one of the greatest songs ever. Fear Of Music is a darker more rhythmic album than its predecessor with "I Zimbra" representing the future sound of the band and "Cities" and "Life During Wartime" being other all-time favorites. Both records are great from first to last cuts and the records that were released after these, from Remain In Light on, were more collaborative efforts, eschewing lead singer David Byrne's creative vision and resulting in derivative sounding songs rather than the pure Talking Heads sound found on their second and third releases. When I was trapped in the bleakness of Nebraska, Talking heads were a beacon of light.
Collin on Remain in Light:
So once upon time in the early 1970’s a couple art-punks by the names of David Byrne and Chris Frantz met at the Rhode Island School of Design. What began as the two-piece outfit, The Artistics, soon evolved into the highly influential and infinitely enduring four-piece new wave band known as Talking Heads. Within a year or two the band would be performing their revolutionary combination of avant-garde, funk, and rock before The Ramones upon CBGB’s legendary stage. Very few musicians have experienced an evolution in artistic style over the course of a career like that of Talking Heads, who eventually incorporated elements from pop, ambient (thanks to Brian Eno), afrobeat and world music into their sound. Accordingly, no single album can capture their unique brand of music categorized as post-punk / new wave. Four albums probably aren’t enough, but they certainly bring us closer to identifying, comprehending, and appreciating (perhaps, even worshiping) the band’s vast and permanent contribution to popular music and American culture. I chose Remain in Light because, for one, I am a mainstream Talking Heads fan likewise embarking on a mission to consume and bask in their entire aesthetic; for two, it marks the beginning of the band’s longest studio hiatus (3 years); and, lastly, it represents the mid-point of their discography as their fourth effort, an effort that I believe to be their most experimental, wide-ranged and ground-breaking, especially in light of the new decade – a decade in which the term “new wave” would surface on MTV’s television screens and project from the mouths of their very own talking heads.
Ashley on Speaking in Tongues:
For this interlude, I’d like to talk about my favorite Talking Heads song, “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody).” A predictable choice perhaps, but sometimes the best is just the best. It’s not a sweeping tour-de-force on the level of “Once in a Lifetime” or as sonically experimental as many of the other tracks on Speaking in Tongues, but it’s one of the most emotionally resonant, nuanced songs in the Talking Heads’ catalog. Even Oliver Stone couldn’t ruin it for me by using it as frosting on the layer cake of mediocrity that was Wall Street and Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The song has experienced a renaissance in the past few years as a go-to cover for bands like Arcade Fire and MGMT, and it even got the PS22 treatment.
For introduction’s sake, here’s one of the most sublime incarnations of the song, a live performance from Jonathan Demme’s brilliant concert film Stop Making Sense (1984):
I think “This Must Be the Place” sounds like a fairly straightforward love song, mostly due to its lilting (naive) melody and unusually warm vocals. There was a time when I wanted to dance to this song at my wedding, possibly with a man wearing an oversized white suit who would look into my eyes and say, “Out of all those kinds of people, you’ve got a face with a view.”
Unfortunately, as Byrne insists, he only writes about love with “reservations and twists,” and in this case, the twist is that "TMBTP" isn't much of a love song at all. The version that I think illustrates this idea most clearly is the music video for the cover by Miles Fisher, which contextualizes the song in the ultimate 80s satire, Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000):
Maybe it’s just because the words are coming out of Patrick Bateman’s mouth, but seeing this video was what convinced me once and for all that “This Must Be the Place” isn’t about being in love; it’s about someone else loving you, and struggling against your overwhelming ennui to return that affection. Byrne seems to be willing himself to feel something throughout the song - there are few sadder sentiments in rock music (or life) than “Home is where I want to be / But I guess I’m already there.” In fact, the entire first verse is downright tragic:
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing
Though obviously Byrne's lyrical point of view lacks Bateman's homicidal tendencies, Miles Fisher's elaborate music video works because both narrators are hollow; Bateman's insistence that he is "simply not there" isn't far off from Byrne's self-descriptors in that first verse. Yet based on the highly accurate and representative source that is the SongMeanings.net comments section, "TMBTP" is still generally regarded as the height of new wave romance. Commenter benfoldsfan insists "This must be what finding real love is like," while UNCWDMBfan says "I love the lyric, "Did I find you or you find me?" i think thats true love...i have no idea what this song means, but its great, what love should be about." A couple of people mention it as a wedding song. There are a few voices of reason throughout (the aptly-usernamed brokenfireescape notes "i think everyone's reading of this song is way off. this is one of the most depressing songs i've ever heard") but the majority seem to think of it as lyrically equivalent to "My Heart Will Go On." It reminds me of the public perception of "Hey Ya" by Outkast - a song about the futility of love and commitment, with a music video that prominently features a coffin, somehow becomes the feel-good hit of the decade.
Personally, I'm pretty content to have my favorite song be horrifically depressing. Besides, "This Must Be the Place" is successful because, not in spite of, the inherent contradictions and disparity between its lyrical content and listener perception. It's a Talking Heads "Choose Your Own Adventure" game, where one can emphasize the beautiful sentiment over the crushing doubt, or vice versa.
Read more My Year in Lists here
My Year in Lists chronicles one blogger’s quest to understand why music matters to us and what makes it a lasting aspect of our existence. To facilitate this examination, three music fans have contributed a list of 52 essential albums. Each week this year, one album off of each list will be analyzed in an attempt to understand why some music sticks with us and what it means for our lives.
My Year in Lists: Interlude is an intermittent addendum to the feature that takes a step back from the quest to examine music from other perspectives.
Welcome to the first My Year in Lists: Interlude, a planned occasional respite from the quest at the center of the feature in which we will look at music in different ways. Sometimes this will involve asking the list contributors to sound off on a topic (as it does today) and sometimes it will involve me discussing an issue or an event that wouldn't fit into the feature proper (for example, look for an Interlude on the Coachella Music Festival in April). This week, I have asked the three list contributors, Tab, Collin, and Ashley, to discuss Talking Heads, why they consider the band essential, and why they selected the album they did for last week's installment of My Year in Lists. Without further ado, here they are:
Tab, on More Songs About Buildings and Food and Fear of Music:
I lived in a small town in Nebraska from 1977 to 1979. It was a cultural wasteland where the only conduit of music was classic rock FM radio and Rolling Stone magazine. Thank god for Saturday Night Live. It introduced me to two influential bands. DEVO was on in the winter of 1978 and Talking Heads were on in February of 1979. Both bands were great and were unlike the boring old rock and roll that I was exposed to at the time. Because both of these bands were on Warner Brothers labels I was able to buy their cassettes in a chain record store at the mall. In DEVO’s case it was Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! for the Talking Heads it was More Songs About Buildings And Food. Each of these records turned out to be very influential for me and represented a sea change compared to the boring old rock and roll of Boston, Styx, lame Springsteen, or the Cars. Both of the records were also produced by Brian Eno. I think that their second release More Songs About Buildings And Food and third release Fear Of Music are the best Talking Heads records. More Songs was unlike anything I was listening to and I still love the bass line on "Warning Sign" and everything about "Found A Job", one of the greatest songs ever. Fear Of Music is a darker more rhythmic album than its predecessor with "I Zimbra" representing the future sound of the band and "Cities" and "Life During Wartime" being other all-time favorites. Both records are great from first to last cuts and the records that were released after these, from Remain In Light on, were more collaborative efforts, eschewing lead singer David Byrne's creative vision and resulting in derivative sounding songs rather than the pure Talking Heads sound found on their second and third releases. When I was trapped in the bleakness of Nebraska, Talking heads were a beacon of light.
Collin on Remain in Light:
So once upon time in the early 1970’s a couple art-punks by the names of David Byrne and Chris Frantz met at the Rhode Island School of Design. What began as the two-piece outfit, The Artistics, soon evolved into the highly influential and infinitely enduring four-piece new wave band known as Talking Heads. Within a year or two the band would be performing their revolutionary combination of avant-garde, funk, and rock before The Ramones upon CBGB’s legendary stage. Very few musicians have experienced an evolution in artistic style over the course of a career like that of Talking Heads, who eventually incorporated elements from pop, ambient (thanks to Brian Eno), afrobeat and world music into their sound. Accordingly, no single album can capture their unique brand of music categorized as post-punk / new wave. Four albums probably aren’t enough, but they certainly bring us closer to identifying, comprehending, and appreciating (perhaps, even worshiping) the band’s vast and permanent contribution to popular music and American culture. I chose Remain in Light because, for one, I am a mainstream Talking Heads fan likewise embarking on a mission to consume and bask in their entire aesthetic; for two, it marks the beginning of the band’s longest studio hiatus (3 years); and, lastly, it represents the mid-point of their discography as their fourth effort, an effort that I believe to be their most experimental, wide-ranged and ground-breaking, especially in light of the new decade – a decade in which the term “new wave” would surface on MTV’s television screens and project from the mouths of their very own talking heads.
Ashley on Speaking in Tongues:
For this interlude, I’d like to talk about my favorite Talking Heads song, “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody).” A predictable choice perhaps, but sometimes the best is just the best. It’s not a sweeping tour-de-force on the level of “Once in a Lifetime” or as sonically experimental as many of the other tracks on Speaking in Tongues, but it’s one of the most emotionally resonant, nuanced songs in the Talking Heads’ catalog. Even Oliver Stone couldn’t ruin it for me by using it as frosting on the layer cake of mediocrity that was Wall Street and Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps. The song has experienced a renaissance in the past few years as a go-to cover for bands like Arcade Fire and MGMT, and it even got the PS22 treatment.
For introduction’s sake, here’s one of the most sublime incarnations of the song, a live performance from Jonathan Demme’s brilliant concert film Stop Making Sense (1984):
I think “This Must Be the Place” sounds like a fairly straightforward love song, mostly due to its lilting (naive) melody and unusually warm vocals. There was a time when I wanted to dance to this song at my wedding, possibly with a man wearing an oversized white suit who would look into my eyes and say, “Out of all those kinds of people, you’ve got a face with a view.”
Unfortunately, as Byrne insists, he only writes about love with “reservations and twists,” and in this case, the twist is that "TMBTP" isn't much of a love song at all. The version that I think illustrates this idea most clearly is the music video for the cover by Miles Fisher, which contextualizes the song in the ultimate 80s satire, Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000):
Maybe it’s just because the words are coming out of Patrick Bateman’s mouth, but seeing this video was what convinced me once and for all that “This Must Be the Place” isn’t about being in love; it’s about someone else loving you, and struggling against your overwhelming ennui to return that affection. Byrne seems to be willing himself to feel something throughout the song - there are few sadder sentiments in rock music (or life) than “Home is where I want to be / But I guess I’m already there.” In fact, the entire first verse is downright tragic:
Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing
Though obviously Byrne's lyrical point of view lacks Bateman's homicidal tendencies, Miles Fisher's elaborate music video works because both narrators are hollow; Bateman's insistence that he is "simply not there" isn't far off from Byrne's self-descriptors in that first verse. Yet based on the highly accurate and representative source that is the SongMeanings.net comments section, "TMBTP" is still generally regarded as the height of new wave romance. Commenter benfoldsfan insists "This must be what finding real love is like," while UNCWDMBfan says "I love the lyric, "Did I find you or you find me?" i think thats true love...i have no idea what this song means, but its great, what love should be about." A couple of people mention it as a wedding song. There are a few voices of reason throughout (the aptly-usernamed brokenfireescape notes "i think everyone's reading of this song is way off. this is one of the most depressing songs i've ever heard") but the majority seem to think of it as lyrically equivalent to "My Heart Will Go On." It reminds me of the public perception of "Hey Ya" by Outkast - a song about the futility of love and commitment, with a music video that prominently features a coffin, somehow becomes the feel-good hit of the decade.
Personally, I'm pretty content to have my favorite song be horrifically depressing. Besides, "This Must Be the Place" is successful because, not in spite of, the inherent contradictions and disparity between its lyrical content and listener perception. It's a Talking Heads "Choose Your Own Adventure" game, where one can emphasize the beautiful sentiment over the crushing doubt, or vice versa.
Read more My Year in Lists here
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Random Pop Culture Top Ten List:: Top Ten Songs From Children's Movies Better Understood By Adults
By Jordan, Sam, and Ashley
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which the writers at Review to Be Named take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
A surprising amount of kids movies have musical numbers exploring themes that are either inappropriate for children or deal with themes that kids coul not hope to understand. Here are ten songs from kids movies that you probably appreciate (or understand) more now that you're slightly older:
10. "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from The Lion King
Though the song sounds like less of a babymaking anthem when performed by Kristle Edwards rather than Elton John, the sexy jam "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" imparts two messages of questionable veracity to children: first, that lions are monogamous, and second, that your friends will secretly mourn every time you get laid. While the latter contains a kernel of truth (significant others will cut into time spent hanging out with the lazy, farting dudes you count as friends), only furries believe that smitten lions make sweet, passionate love in secluded jungle paradises. Mostly, it's anonymous and aggressive fucking in tall grass at midday, which is sure to be a rude awakening for your children when they stumble across it on Animal Planet and wonder why Simba is hurting Nala.
9. "Tale As Old As Time" from Beauty and the Beast
The definition of "snack break" moment for a lot of kids when they first see Beauty and the Beast, "Tale As Old As Time" is actually a pretty insightful song about contempt slowly melting into love. The routine is an old one for fans of romance films, but the most we ever got out of it as kids was that Mrs. Potts voice was pretty comforting (and that it was pretty impressive that the Beast could fit into that suit). In hindsight, watching the Beast try to be a gentlemen and finally make progress with Belle to a song about the romantic formula at its sweetest is actually a pretty affecting moment, but for a kid, its mostly just time to make a run for the peanut butter.
8. "Worried Shoes" from Where The Wild Things Are
Walking into Where The Wild Things Are as a kid, "Worried Shoes" probably comes across as a cute little song about some anthropomorphic shoes. It isn't. In fact, "Worried Shoes" comes from the mind of Daniel Johnston (though to be fair, the version in the film is a cover by Karen O) and is about his crippling depression, caused mostly by his fairly severe mental illness. The song comes from a place of deep darkness, a raw emotional examination of the shackles Johnston has to walk around with each day. It still fits with the tone of the film pretty well, but its inconceivable that any child seeing the movie would even begin to understand the song in context. And it works much, much better in context.
7. "I Won't Say I'm In Love" from Hercules
Anyone who has gone through their teens (or, let's be honest people, our early adulthood) knows what its like to hate yourself for loving someone. Attraction is an uncontrollable phenomenon and at least once in your life, you've probably fallen in love (or lust) with someone that probably wasn't the best choice for you. But our guess is that time wasn't in the third grade. Like many songs on this list, "I Won't Say I'm In Love" is actually very good and discusses some pretty complicated issues. They just happen to be issues that no one in the movie's age group would have any experience with, or any real knowledge of. there were talking statues there though, so bonus points for that.
6. "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Let's start with the obvious: a lot of children probably don't have a very good conception of Hell. More importantly though, we can't imagine too many of the films younger viewers understood the racial tension that plagued Frolo, nor his hate-fuck fueled desire to bang Esmerelda or possibly burn her at the stake for being a gypsy. There are a lot of problems with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (among them the fact that it basically teaches kids that ugly people never get the girl, a truism they can probably wait until puberty to discover), but Frolo's attraction to Esmerelda is the kind of dark, twisted, complex material better saved for a cable channel drama, not a villainous interlude in a movie with talking gargoyles.
5. "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo
In defense of "Pink Elephants on Parade," it is a pretty accurate assessment of what's going on in the film at the time. Yet what's going on in this children's movie is a talking elephant and his circus-hand mouse friend on a bender. This alone is inappropriate enough for kids, but even if they understand Dumbo's very poor decision, they probably won't get that the pink elephant is a well known metaphor for alcohol consumption and addiction. Adults may chuckle at the trippy ode to the paciderm on so many of their backs, but for kids this is really a combination of a bad influence and a bad trip...which is also something they probably won't know about for a decade or so after they see Dumbo.
4. "Little Drop of Poison" from Shrek 2
Shrek 2 is packed to the gills with jokes that play more to adults than to children. In fact, the movie probably wouldn't work at all as kid's fare if it weren't for a lot of cute anthropomorphic animals and some flatulence humor. Yet perhaps the most egregious (at least to the watchful viewer) is the song that Captain Hook sings in the tavern that houses all of the villains Prince Charming is trying to recruit. Technically "Little Drop of Poison" wasn't written for the movie (it actually appears on the kid-friendly Tom Waits' 2006 rarities collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards), and that's obvious if you listen to the incredibly nihilistic, cynical lyrics. "Did the Devil make the world while God was sleeping?" Waits asks. A valid question perhaps for a late night philosophy session in a college dorm, but probably not one that most 6-year-olds are thinking about during that tag game at recess.
3. "Let Me Be Good to You" from The Great Mouse Detective
The sultry dame seducing the rowdy bar is a film noir staple dating back to the '30s. Yet this sequence from The Great Mouse Detective has a lot more that kids might not understand than just a seemingly meek mouse letting go and working her mojo on some rowdy mice. Sure there's drinking, but there's also a rohypnol joke as Basil's partner chugs a mug of beer that Basil warns him too late has been drugged. Let's run this down again: a temptress mouse keeps the bar full of murderous gangsters (dressed mostly as pirates, because I guess kids get that pirates are notorious alcoholics) from rioting by implying that she will sexually please all of them, a trick that isn't going to work on our stalwart heroes until they are drugged. This movie was rated G, but probably just because no kid is going to understand quite how fucked up and inappropriate this scene actually is until they look back on it years later.
2. "I Will Go Sailing No More" from Toy Story
One of the reasons Pixar's output is so good is that their films never talk down to kids. Hell, Toy Story 3 actually had the heroes facing their own mortality, and Up was pretty much a movie about death and the struggle to move on. So it can be argued that "I Will Go Sailing No More," the Randy Newman song that backs Buzz Lightyear's realization that he really can't fly, was just the prototype for this frank, mature way of engaging children. And while the song certainly works as just a sad song playing while something sad is happening to Buzz, its much more tragic when you realize that Newman is singing about the moment in your life when you realize, once and for all, that your dreams may not come true and that the world is a colder, harsher place than you ever expected. "I Will Go Sailing No More" is a legitimately great tragedy of a song, and we just didn't grasp the weight of its sorrow fully when we all still thought we'd grow up to be the first President to set foot on the moon and play a show there with our totally awesome band.
1. "Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie
Seeing The Muppet Movie as a kid, "Rainbow Connection" just played as a sweet little song that showed us that Kermit had the talent he needed to impress Dom Deluise's Hollywood Agent and start his quest to strike it big in the land of dreams. Yet taking a closer look as an adult, "Rainbow Connection" is actually a song about the lies we tell ourselves to make us think our dreams can come true and works more to illustrate how unhappy Kermit is in his quiet swamp life before he realizes that he has to follow his long shot dream or else watch his spirit slowly die. But, you know, there's a stand-up comedian bear about five minutes in his future (at another shady bar full of murderous louts), so he's going to be fine. "Rainbow Connection" isn't the only song in the movie we didn't completely get as kids ("Can You Picture That," the trippy introduction of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, and Gonzo's tragic, nostalgic "I'm Going To Go Back there Someday" leap immediately to mind) but it is the only one that takes on a completely new, much deeper meaning when reexamined at an older age.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which the writers at Review to Be Named take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
A surprising amount of kids movies have musical numbers exploring themes that are either inappropriate for children or deal with themes that kids coul not hope to understand. Here are ten songs from kids movies that you probably appreciate (or understand) more now that you're slightly older:
10. "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from The Lion King
Though the song sounds like less of a babymaking anthem when performed by Kristle Edwards rather than Elton John, the sexy jam "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" imparts two messages of questionable veracity to children: first, that lions are monogamous, and second, that your friends will secretly mourn every time you get laid. While the latter contains a kernel of truth (significant others will cut into time spent hanging out with the lazy, farting dudes you count as friends), only furries believe that smitten lions make sweet, passionate love in secluded jungle paradises. Mostly, it's anonymous and aggressive fucking in tall grass at midday, which is sure to be a rude awakening for your children when they stumble across it on Animal Planet and wonder why Simba is hurting Nala.
9. "Tale As Old As Time" from Beauty and the Beast
The definition of "snack break" moment for a lot of kids when they first see Beauty and the Beast, "Tale As Old As Time" is actually a pretty insightful song about contempt slowly melting into love. The routine is an old one for fans of romance films, but the most we ever got out of it as kids was that Mrs. Potts voice was pretty comforting (and that it was pretty impressive that the Beast could fit into that suit). In hindsight, watching the Beast try to be a gentlemen and finally make progress with Belle to a song about the romantic formula at its sweetest is actually a pretty affecting moment, but for a kid, its mostly just time to make a run for the peanut butter.
8. "Worried Shoes" from Where The Wild Things Are
Walking into Where The Wild Things Are as a kid, "Worried Shoes" probably comes across as a cute little song about some anthropomorphic shoes. It isn't. In fact, "Worried Shoes" comes from the mind of Daniel Johnston (though to be fair, the version in the film is a cover by Karen O) and is about his crippling depression, caused mostly by his fairly severe mental illness. The song comes from a place of deep darkness, a raw emotional examination of the shackles Johnston has to walk around with each day. It still fits with the tone of the film pretty well, but its inconceivable that any child seeing the movie would even begin to understand the song in context. And it works much, much better in context.
7. "I Won't Say I'm In Love" from Hercules
Anyone who has gone through their teens (or, let's be honest people, our early adulthood) knows what its like to hate yourself for loving someone. Attraction is an uncontrollable phenomenon and at least once in your life, you've probably fallen in love (or lust) with someone that probably wasn't the best choice for you. But our guess is that time wasn't in the third grade. Like many songs on this list, "I Won't Say I'm In Love" is actually very good and discusses some pretty complicated issues. They just happen to be issues that no one in the movie's age group would have any experience with, or any real knowledge of. there were talking statues there though, so bonus points for that.
6. "Hellfire" from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Let's start with the obvious: a lot of children probably don't have a very good conception of Hell. More importantly though, we can't imagine too many of the films younger viewers understood the racial tension that plagued Frolo, nor his hate-fuck fueled desire to bang Esmerelda or possibly burn her at the stake for being a gypsy. There are a lot of problems with The Hunchback of Notre Dame (among them the fact that it basically teaches kids that ugly people never get the girl, a truism they can probably wait until puberty to discover), but Frolo's attraction to Esmerelda is the kind of dark, twisted, complex material better saved for a cable channel drama, not a villainous interlude in a movie with talking gargoyles.
5. "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo
In defense of "Pink Elephants on Parade," it is a pretty accurate assessment of what's going on in the film at the time. Yet what's going on in this children's movie is a talking elephant and his circus-hand mouse friend on a bender. This alone is inappropriate enough for kids, but even if they understand Dumbo's very poor decision, they probably won't get that the pink elephant is a well known metaphor for alcohol consumption and addiction. Adults may chuckle at the trippy ode to the paciderm on so many of their backs, but for kids this is really a combination of a bad influence and a bad trip...which is also something they probably won't know about for a decade or so after they see Dumbo.
4. "Little Drop of Poison" from Shrek 2
Shrek 2 is packed to the gills with jokes that play more to adults than to children. In fact, the movie probably wouldn't work at all as kid's fare if it weren't for a lot of cute anthropomorphic animals and some flatulence humor. Yet perhaps the most egregious (at least to the watchful viewer) is the song that Captain Hook sings in the tavern that houses all of the villains Prince Charming is trying to recruit. Technically "Little Drop of Poison" wasn't written for the movie (it actually appears on the kid-friendly Tom Waits' 2006 rarities collection Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards), and that's obvious if you listen to the incredibly nihilistic, cynical lyrics. "Did the Devil make the world while God was sleeping?" Waits asks. A valid question perhaps for a late night philosophy session in a college dorm, but probably not one that most 6-year-olds are thinking about during that tag game at recess.
3. "Let Me Be Good to You" from The Great Mouse Detective
The sultry dame seducing the rowdy bar is a film noir staple dating back to the '30s. Yet this sequence from The Great Mouse Detective has a lot more that kids might not understand than just a seemingly meek mouse letting go and working her mojo on some rowdy mice. Sure there's drinking, but there's also a rohypnol joke as Basil's partner chugs a mug of beer that Basil warns him too late has been drugged. Let's run this down again: a temptress mouse keeps the bar full of murderous gangsters (dressed mostly as pirates, because I guess kids get that pirates are notorious alcoholics) from rioting by implying that she will sexually please all of them, a trick that isn't going to work on our stalwart heroes until they are drugged. This movie was rated G, but probably just because no kid is going to understand quite how fucked up and inappropriate this scene actually is until they look back on it years later.
2. "I Will Go Sailing No More" from Toy Story
One of the reasons Pixar's output is so good is that their films never talk down to kids. Hell, Toy Story 3 actually had the heroes facing their own mortality, and Up was pretty much a movie about death and the struggle to move on. So it can be argued that "I Will Go Sailing No More," the Randy Newman song that backs Buzz Lightyear's realization that he really can't fly, was just the prototype for this frank, mature way of engaging children. And while the song certainly works as just a sad song playing while something sad is happening to Buzz, its much more tragic when you realize that Newman is singing about the moment in your life when you realize, once and for all, that your dreams may not come true and that the world is a colder, harsher place than you ever expected. "I Will Go Sailing No More" is a legitimately great tragedy of a song, and we just didn't grasp the weight of its sorrow fully when we all still thought we'd grow up to be the first President to set foot on the moon and play a show there with our totally awesome band.
1. "Rainbow Connection" from The Muppet Movie
Seeing The Muppet Movie as a kid, "Rainbow Connection" just played as a sweet little song that showed us that Kermit had the talent he needed to impress Dom Deluise's Hollywood Agent and start his quest to strike it big in the land of dreams. Yet taking a closer look as an adult, "Rainbow Connection" is actually a song about the lies we tell ourselves to make us think our dreams can come true and works more to illustrate how unhappy Kermit is in his quiet swamp life before he realizes that he has to follow his long shot dream or else watch his spirit slowly die. But, you know, there's a stand-up comedian bear about five minutes in his future (at another shady bar full of murderous louts), so he's going to be fine. "Rainbow Connection" isn't the only song in the movie we didn't completely get as kids ("Can You Picture That," the trippy introduction of Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem, and Gonzo's tragic, nostalgic "I'm Going To Go Back there Someday" leap immediately to mind) but it is the only one that takes on a completely new, much deeper meaning when reexamined at an older age.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
Friday, December 31, 2010
My Year in Lists: An Introduction
By Jordan
My Year in Lists chronicles one blogger’s quest to understand why music matters to us and what makes it a lasting aspect of our existence. To facilitate this examination, three music fans have contributed a list of 52 essential albums. Each week this year, one album off of each list will be analyzed in an attempt to understand why some music sticks with us and what it means for our lives.
Over the next 52 weeks, I intend to offer an analysis of roughly 168 albums as a showcase of music in as many of its forms as possible. I hope for this feature to be partially critical in nature (that is, I will be discussing what I think are the merits and weaknesses of the albums), partially an effort to put each album and artist in context within the development of music and in some cases movements, and partially an effort to better understand some heady ideas. I want to use My Year in Lists as a way to learn about music writing and expand my own abilities, but also as a chance to examine and discuss the way that music influences our lives and the indelible mark great music leaves with us.
Starting next Friday I will be looking at one album off of each of three lists and evaluating it while also discussing the larger issues surrounding music as a whole. Before I begin in earnest, I have asked each of the three people who contributed a list to give a small introduction to their lists, explaining a bit about their musical background and biases, and giving some insight into the philosophies inherent in their lists. Ashley, you’ve heard from before around Review To Be Named. Collin will be joining us this year as a recurring contributor focusing on music. Tab is my uncle, and a musical collector and expert to be envied (with a collection of over 5,000 cds, not counting his vinyls and cassettes from years past). I chose these three to contribute lists both because I trust their musical knowledge and because I believed they would give me lists with enough divergence to keep things interesting for the next year. I look forward to where this project will take me, and can't wait to dig in next week. Without further ado, here are the introductions by each of the contributors.
Ashley’s Intro:
When I began to put together a list of my 52 essential albums, it became clear to me almost immediately that I needed a theme to build around. 52 is a small number, especially when you consider that music critics frequently select 50 albums from a single year to highlight in their “Best of (Year)” wrap-ups. I quickly abandoned any pretense toward objectivity, since I know my internal music library is hardly far-reaching enough to catch some of the lesser-known but truly great albums. Meanwhile, an intensely personal list would probably be both boring and embarrassing (I would never ask anyone else to listen to Ani DiFranco). I settled on the loosely-constructed theme of “20 Years of Alternative.” This is primarily a tribute to my formative years spent listening to alt rock radio in the 90s, before the medium fell victim to rap rock and that Nickelback/Hinder/Daughtry bullshit and became irrelevant. There’s a sampling here of the music that I heard and grew to love, from the early stuff (Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Joy Division/New Order) that used to play during “80s Rewind” hours, to the shoegaze, grunge, Britpop, trip-hop, and indie rock of the 90s.
I chose to exclude more mainstream rock (there’s no Bowie or U2 here) since I wanted to focus on alternative as a loosely-constructed movement. Furthermore, I’ve obviously fudged the “twenty years” so that it’s a bit closer to twenty-one; there was just no way to not include 1979, during which Joy Division, Devo, Gang of Four, and The Cars all released incredibly important LPs that year.
Collin’s Intro:
This list of 52 essential albums that I’ve compiled for Jordan’s personal consumption and eventual critique is as near a historical retrospective of the last 52 years of recorded music that I could conceive of as an young, alternative adult male (re: “fucking hipster”). I constructed this list to represent a chronological narrative of music, to embody an audible arc of American culture. My intent in designing this catalog was to share some of my favorite albums with my good friend, engage his critical faculty, expand his taste, expose him to forms of musical expression he discounts, and discover a few new gems myself. There’s something for everyone here. The list encompasses almost every major genre of music from blues, jazz, folk, rock, r&b, hip-hop, pop, and electronica (excepting country and classical, although their influence is undoubtedly discernible), and their respective subgenres like acid jazz, rockabilly, freak folk, hard rock, prog rock, psychedelic rock, post-rock, “indie”-rock (Canadian, Brooklyn, and Portland), ambient, disco, new age, new wave, punk, grunge, rap, trip-hop, pop-hop, industrial, house, trance, minimal techno, downtempo, shoegaze, IDM, world music, two-step, dubstep, afrobeat, big beat, break beat, dance hall, glitch-hop, experimental, etc. Let it be known that my love for music is second to none, and yet I am no musician. I know nothing of music theory. It could be said that this illiteracy is the bane of my existence (that, or Herpes simplex). Luckily and ironically (or beautifully) enough, there is comfort in the sensation of rhythmic vibrations. Thankfully, my inability to translate musical notation doesn’t negate my sense of and taste for sound. I can still feel it (“like your mother felt the love last night, Trebek”). What I am saying is fortunately the relationship I share with my greatest passion is not a total tragedy, complete hoax, utter fallacy, or phenomenal failure: just a little bit of one.
This difference between the visual and audible modalities of music points towards my main purpose in presenting such an extensive collection before Jordan’s eyes and ears: to challenge him. Music – that is, moving emotions – transmits its message audibly and engages its audience through exceptionally different means and much more abstract forms than visual moving pictures. Concepts like instrumentation, lyric, voice, melody, rhythm, time signature, harmony, movement, syncopation, key, and (my favorite) chord replace character, dialogue, scene, symbolism, direction, and plot in the overall development of the artistic work. Although the aesthetic and thematic questions provoked by music remain somewhat similar to those incited by film, the nature, shape and scope of their answers remain as undisciplined, amorphous, and unbounded as desire itself. It is with this prologue that I counsel, encourage and applaud Jordan for his acceptance of such a vast and foreign mission.
Tab’s introduction:
I chose to ignore the instruction of selecting 52 essential albums. I ignored the instructions not just because of the difficulty in selecting what represents approximately 1% of my music collection. I store my CDs/CDRs in Case Logic plastic cases/containers which hold 64 slim case CDs. Because I was making copies of the CDs for Jordan to review I decided to not waste space and to fill the whole case and make 64 CDs. I made copies on 80 minute CDRs for Jordan to review and with a theme of not wasting, I decided to include multiple releases on CDs if the whole piece fit. Thus many of my 64 CDs have multiple albums/releases on them. The 64 CDs represent music from 45 artists and total 121 releases. In fact many of the CDs also contain singles and in one case the CD contains 16 7”, 10”, and 12” vinyl releases from Organum/David Jackman. I don’t think it’s fair to have music defined by the format and a collection of 16 singles is as essential as any particular release. For the most part I restricted CDs to only one artist but there are exceptions. Also if an artist was releasing music under multiple aliases it is still considered the same artist, e.g. O Yuki Conjugate and Sons of Silence.
From a content standpoint I focused on time period and primarily on artists. My time period was from the 60’s through the present, or the last 50 years. I tried to evenly distribute the selection across the decades but was not successful. From an artist standpoint, I selected who I feel are the “most essential” artists in terms influencing and creating the contemporary modern music, or non-classic rock and roll, that I listen to. I excluded some genres and artists that are essential such as Mozart, Marley, Hendrix and The Beatles because they have been covered enough. I also don’t like to use terms such as Alternative Music because to paraphrase Claude Bessey in The Decline of Western Civilization, which didn’t make the 64 80 minute CDR list but is a very influential album, Alternative Music doesn’t mean shit. The music on my list has been called many things and has been massively plagiarized. In the nineties I was once told that Throbbing Gristle isn’t classified as Industrial Music anymore, even though they invented the term. I was told that that label refers to Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Ministry and other artists with a rhythmic electronic beat. In fact, I included one artist on my list, Portion Control, because they turned out to have the sound that music industry plagiaristically defined as Industrial Music in the 90s. I loathe the term Alternative Music because it implies that Classic Rock is still relevant and that modern music, or really any other music, is still inferior to Classic Rock. It’s a label created and used by Classic Rock Stakeholders, primarily consisting of the music industry and mass music media. Labels allow for categorization and are a great vehicle for controlling the music markets and artistic freedom.
It’s sad that so much “essential” music has gone undiscovered to most people. Not ever listening to Can, Wire, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound, The Residents, Captain Beefheart, as well as many other of the artists on my list would be like not ever listening to The Beatles, Hendrix, Marley or Mozart. What is funny is that 100 years from now most of these artists will be more popular than they are today. One artist, The Minutemen, are already much more popular today than they were in their heyday, almost 25 years ago, when I would see them play in Los Angeles on multiple occasions to audiences that numbered about 25 or 30 people. My goal with this list is to provide a list of music that gives an understanding of the artists on the list. In many cases multiple releases are selected for artists because it is needed to either understand the range or the growth of the artist. The list does not represent the most essential albums, it represents selections from the most essential artists. Virtually all the artists on my list are considered very mainstream by a select group of people. Believe me that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I read somewhere online that although there is so much music available one has to be a member of a secret club to know what is really worth listening to. A lot of the members of this club are music collectors who have a vested interest in keeping the knowledge of this music to themselves so that these releases remain exclusive and valuable on eBay. Listen to my list, look the artists up on Wikipedia, see the connections between them and learn some music history as I see it. Buying and listening to The Talking Heads “More Songs About Buildings and Food” in 1978 when Bruce Springsteen and Boston were cutting edge artists and Throbbing Gristle’s “We Hate You Little Girls/Five Knuckle Shuffle” 7” in 1981 when punk rock was considered the most extreme music represented a sea change in the way I thought about and listened to music. I hope that someone can have the same sea change via listening to the artists and selections on this list.
My Year in Lists chronicles one blogger’s quest to understand why music matters to us and what makes it a lasting aspect of our existence. To facilitate this examination, three music fans have contributed a list of 52 essential albums. Each week this year, one album off of each list will be analyzed in an attempt to understand why some music sticks with us and what it means for our lives.
Over the next 52 weeks, I intend to offer an analysis of roughly 168 albums as a showcase of music in as many of its forms as possible. I hope for this feature to be partially critical in nature (that is, I will be discussing what I think are the merits and weaknesses of the albums), partially an effort to put each album and artist in context within the development of music and in some cases movements, and partially an effort to better understand some heady ideas. I want to use My Year in Lists as a way to learn about music writing and expand my own abilities, but also as a chance to examine and discuss the way that music influences our lives and the indelible mark great music leaves with us.
Starting next Friday I will be looking at one album off of each of three lists and evaluating it while also discussing the larger issues surrounding music as a whole. Before I begin in earnest, I have asked each of the three people who contributed a list to give a small introduction to their lists, explaining a bit about their musical background and biases, and giving some insight into the philosophies inherent in their lists. Ashley, you’ve heard from before around Review To Be Named. Collin will be joining us this year as a recurring contributor focusing on music. Tab is my uncle, and a musical collector and expert to be envied (with a collection of over 5,000 cds, not counting his vinyls and cassettes from years past). I chose these three to contribute lists both because I trust their musical knowledge and because I believed they would give me lists with enough divergence to keep things interesting for the next year. I look forward to where this project will take me, and can't wait to dig in next week. Without further ado, here are the introductions by each of the contributors.
Ashley’s Intro:
When I began to put together a list of my 52 essential albums, it became clear to me almost immediately that I needed a theme to build around. 52 is a small number, especially when you consider that music critics frequently select 50 albums from a single year to highlight in their “Best of (Year)” wrap-ups. I quickly abandoned any pretense toward objectivity, since I know my internal music library is hardly far-reaching enough to catch some of the lesser-known but truly great albums. Meanwhile, an intensely personal list would probably be both boring and embarrassing (I would never ask anyone else to listen to Ani DiFranco). I settled on the loosely-constructed theme of “20 Years of Alternative.” This is primarily a tribute to my formative years spent listening to alt rock radio in the 90s, before the medium fell victim to rap rock and that Nickelback/Hinder/Daughtry bullshit and became irrelevant. There’s a sampling here of the music that I heard and grew to love, from the early stuff (Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Joy Division/New Order) that used to play during “80s Rewind” hours, to the shoegaze, grunge, Britpop, trip-hop, and indie rock of the 90s.
I chose to exclude more mainstream rock (there’s no Bowie or U2 here) since I wanted to focus on alternative as a loosely-constructed movement. Furthermore, I’ve obviously fudged the “twenty years” so that it’s a bit closer to twenty-one; there was just no way to not include 1979, during which Joy Division, Devo, Gang of Four, and The Cars all released incredibly important LPs that year.
Collin’s Intro:
This list of 52 essential albums that I’ve compiled for Jordan’s personal consumption and eventual critique is as near a historical retrospective of the last 52 years of recorded music that I could conceive of as an young, alternative adult male (re: “fucking hipster”). I constructed this list to represent a chronological narrative of music, to embody an audible arc of American culture. My intent in designing this catalog was to share some of my favorite albums with my good friend, engage his critical faculty, expand his taste, expose him to forms of musical expression he discounts, and discover a few new gems myself. There’s something for everyone here. The list encompasses almost every major genre of music from blues, jazz, folk, rock, r&b, hip-hop, pop, and electronica (excepting country and classical, although their influence is undoubtedly discernible), and their respective subgenres like acid jazz, rockabilly, freak folk, hard rock, prog rock, psychedelic rock, post-rock, “indie”-rock (Canadian, Brooklyn, and Portland), ambient, disco, new age, new wave, punk, grunge, rap, trip-hop, pop-hop, industrial, house, trance, minimal techno, downtempo, shoegaze, IDM, world music, two-step, dubstep, afrobeat, big beat, break beat, dance hall, glitch-hop, experimental, etc. Let it be known that my love for music is second to none, and yet I am no musician. I know nothing of music theory. It could be said that this illiteracy is the bane of my existence (that, or Herpes simplex). Luckily and ironically (or beautifully) enough, there is comfort in the sensation of rhythmic vibrations. Thankfully, my inability to translate musical notation doesn’t negate my sense of and taste for sound. I can still feel it (“like your mother felt the love last night, Trebek”). What I am saying is fortunately the relationship I share with my greatest passion is not a total tragedy, complete hoax, utter fallacy, or phenomenal failure: just a little bit of one.
This difference between the visual and audible modalities of music points towards my main purpose in presenting such an extensive collection before Jordan’s eyes and ears: to challenge him. Music – that is, moving emotions – transmits its message audibly and engages its audience through exceptionally different means and much more abstract forms than visual moving pictures. Concepts like instrumentation, lyric, voice, melody, rhythm, time signature, harmony, movement, syncopation, key, and (my favorite) chord replace character, dialogue, scene, symbolism, direction, and plot in the overall development of the artistic work. Although the aesthetic and thematic questions provoked by music remain somewhat similar to those incited by film, the nature, shape and scope of their answers remain as undisciplined, amorphous, and unbounded as desire itself. It is with this prologue that I counsel, encourage and applaud Jordan for his acceptance of such a vast and foreign mission.
Tab’s introduction:
I chose to ignore the instruction of selecting 52 essential albums. I ignored the instructions not just because of the difficulty in selecting what represents approximately 1% of my music collection. I store my CDs/CDRs in Case Logic plastic cases/containers which hold 64 slim case CDs. Because I was making copies of the CDs for Jordan to review I decided to not waste space and to fill the whole case and make 64 CDs. I made copies on 80 minute CDRs for Jordan to review and with a theme of not wasting, I decided to include multiple releases on CDs if the whole piece fit. Thus many of my 64 CDs have multiple albums/releases on them. The 64 CDs represent music from 45 artists and total 121 releases. In fact many of the CDs also contain singles and in one case the CD contains 16 7”, 10”, and 12” vinyl releases from Organum/David Jackman. I don’t think it’s fair to have music defined by the format and a collection of 16 singles is as essential as any particular release. For the most part I restricted CDs to only one artist but there are exceptions. Also if an artist was releasing music under multiple aliases it is still considered the same artist, e.g. O Yuki Conjugate and Sons of Silence.
From a content standpoint I focused on time period and primarily on artists. My time period was from the 60’s through the present, or the last 50 years. I tried to evenly distribute the selection across the decades but was not successful. From an artist standpoint, I selected who I feel are the “most essential” artists in terms influencing and creating the contemporary modern music, or non-classic rock and roll, that I listen to. I excluded some genres and artists that are essential such as Mozart, Marley, Hendrix and The Beatles because they have been covered enough. I also don’t like to use terms such as Alternative Music because to paraphrase Claude Bessey in The Decline of Western Civilization, which didn’t make the 64 80 minute CDR list but is a very influential album, Alternative Music doesn’t mean shit. The music on my list has been called many things and has been massively plagiarized. In the nineties I was once told that Throbbing Gristle isn’t classified as Industrial Music anymore, even though they invented the term. I was told that that label refers to Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, Ministry and other artists with a rhythmic electronic beat. In fact, I included one artist on my list, Portion Control, because they turned out to have the sound that music industry plagiaristically defined as Industrial Music in the 90s. I loathe the term Alternative Music because it implies that Classic Rock is still relevant and that modern music, or really any other music, is still inferior to Classic Rock. It’s a label created and used by Classic Rock Stakeholders, primarily consisting of the music industry and mass music media. Labels allow for categorization and are a great vehicle for controlling the music markets and artistic freedom.
It’s sad that so much “essential” music has gone undiscovered to most people. Not ever listening to Can, Wire, Throbbing Gristle, Nurse With Wound, The Residents, Captain Beefheart, as well as many other of the artists on my list would be like not ever listening to The Beatles, Hendrix, Marley or Mozart. What is funny is that 100 years from now most of these artists will be more popular than they are today. One artist, The Minutemen, are already much more popular today than they were in their heyday, almost 25 years ago, when I would see them play in Los Angeles on multiple occasions to audiences that numbered about 25 or 30 people. My goal with this list is to provide a list of music that gives an understanding of the artists on the list. In many cases multiple releases are selected for artists because it is needed to either understand the range or the growth of the artist. The list does not represent the most essential albums, it represents selections from the most essential artists. Virtually all the artists on my list are considered very mainstream by a select group of people. Believe me that this is just the tip of the iceberg. I read somewhere online that although there is so much music available one has to be a member of a secret club to know what is really worth listening to. A lot of the members of this club are music collectors who have a vested interest in keeping the knowledge of this music to themselves so that these releases remain exclusive and valuable on eBay. Listen to my list, look the artists up on Wikipedia, see the connections between them and learn some music history as I see it. Buying and listening to The Talking Heads “More Songs About Buildings and Food” in 1978 when Bruce Springsteen and Boston were cutting edge artists and Throbbing Gristle’s “We Hate You Little Girls/Five Knuckle Shuffle” 7” in 1981 when punk rock was considered the most extreme music represented a sea change in the way I thought about and listened to music. I hope that someone can have the same sea change via listening to the artists and selections on this list.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Ashley's Top Ten Albums of 2010
Disclaimer: If you’ve so much as scanned most of this year’s top ten lists on Pitchfork, AV Club, Stereogum, etc., you’ve probably noticed that they’re pretty heavily into the nu-gaze/lo-fi/noise genre as exemplified by artists like Beach House, Deerhunter, Wavves, Ariel Pink, and the like. And while I’m sure that there is substantial merit to all of these albums, I just don’t like them. I’m not sure if I’ve descended into some kind of early-onset old fogeyism, but when I hear Best Coast, I just think, “Man, if I’m going to snort a line of coke while wearing high-waisted acid-wash jeans, I’d rather do it to My Bloody Valentine.”
Without further ado, here are my top ten albums this year:
10. Los Campesinos! ROMANCE IS BORING
Essential tracks: Straight in at 101, There are Listed Buildings, In Media Res
If the ethos of Los Campesinos! previous LP could be summed up in its title track, “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,” Romance is Boring seems convinced that actually, we’re just doomed. And that might be precisely why it's a challenging album. Tweecore is, as the name suggests, just so damn twee; it’s strawberry-flavored, twinkling fluff by way of awkward teenagers in knobby sweaters singing about love and sex. It’s a formula that seems less suited to an album built around a nautical motif and dwelling in existential angst and despair, and a tweecore act less clever and talented than LC! couldn’t have pulled it off. But when Gareth insists “I think I’d do it for love, if it were not for the money / I’ll take any scraps that you can give” it feels more genuine than most of the more upbeat material on their previous albums.
9. The New Pornographers TOGETHER
Essential tracks: Moves, Your Hands (Together), We End Up Together
As elder statesmen of indie rock, as well as something of an unintentional supergroup given the band members' numerous side projects and solo name recognition, the New Pornographer generate high expectations with each new album. Fortunately, Together is a breezy, joyful return to the bombastic, chorus-driven material on Twin Cinema. The title is particularly fitting, not just because of the frequent use of the word on the twelve tracks, but because it’s an album that perfectly orchestrates and organizes the presences and styles of the four major personalities in the band in a way that’s unified and cohesive. One of my favorite sounds in the world is that of Neko Case duetting with A.C. Newman, and several tracks on Together (“Moves” and “We End Up Together” in particular) use their talents to overwhelming success.
8. Wolf Parade EXPO 86
Essential tracks: Cloud Shadow on the Mountain, Ghost Pressure, Little Golden Age
Expo 86 thrusts the listener into Spencer Krug’s surreal universe with the opening track, “Cloud Shadow on Mountain,” and never loses momentum. Due in large part to his omnipresence on Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf Parade has always felt, first and foremost, like a Krug project, in spite of the presence of Dan Boeckner of Handsome Furs as an equal contributor. But Expo 86 appears to be Dan’s time to shine: “Ghost Pressure” and “Little Golden Age” are some of the album’s most tightly composed tracks, and even on the songs Krug composed, Boeckner’s guitar work is particularly inspired. But just when they’ve achieved the balance and energy that was sorely lacking from At Mount Zoomer, Wolf Parade has announced that they’re going on indefinite hiatus. Hopefully Krug, Boeckner, et al. continue to be as prolific in their side projects as they’ve been in the past, but even then, their collaboration will be missed.
7. Big Boi SIR LUCIOUS LEFT FOOT: THE SON OF CHICO DUSTY
Essential tracks: Follow Us, Shutterbugg, Be Still
The once humble Atlanta hip hop scene has become bloated, over-exposed, and shitty in recent years, which rappers like T-Pain, Lil Jon, and Gucci Mane churning out crappy single after crappy single and driving lyrically-based traditions into the ground. Thankfully, one of the original ATL prodigies, Big Boi, is redeeming what’s left of the scene. Always somewhat overshadowed by Andre 3000’s visual and lyrical style as half of Outkast, Big Boi more than stands on his own on Sir Lucious Left Foot; he produces one of the best hip-hop albums in recent memory. Though the album’s most recognizable tracks (“Follow Us,” “Shutterbugg,” “Tangerine”) are high-energy and fast-paced, the quieter moments (his collaboration with Janelle Monae on “Be Still”) show Big Boi’s range in a way that Speakerboxxx failed to.
6. Robyn BODY TALK
Essential tracks: Dancing on My Own, Indestructible, Hang with Me
A lot of Americans forget that Robyn’s been on the scene since 1997, when “Show Me Love” was a huge pop radio hit. With Body Talk, she’s experienced a much-deserved renaissance outside of her native Sweden. A compilation of selections from Body Talk Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 paired with five new tracks, Body Talk is what good pop music should be: intelligent and experimental, yet still infectious and danceable. Robyn’s greatest strength is her crystalline, hypnotizing voice; the only other vocalist I can think of who achieves a similarly pure sound is Emily Haines of Metric. But though she declares herself to be a fembot, few of the songs feel detached; on the contrary, tracks like “Hang With Me” and “Cry When You Get Older” are warm and endearing, a rare quality in electronica.
5. LCD Soundsystem THIS IS HAPPENING
Essential tracks: I Can Change, All I Want, Drunk Girls
Eighties nostalgia is a scourge, except when it produces outstanding dance rock albums like This is Happening, which (like much of the band’s discography) sounds like a 21st century reimagining of Speaking in Tongues by the Talking Heads. It’s a fitting conclusion (if Murphy’s interviews are to be believed) to the three-act play that is LCD Soundsystem; the frustration of “You Wanted a Hit?” and “Drunk Girls” is balanced by the quiet nostalgia of “All I Want” and “Home.” But the greatest achievement of This is Happening is undoubtedly “I Can Change,” a synth-heavy plea that manages to be Morrissey-inspired without the whine and with significantly more wit. Hopefully, if Murphy is indeed ready to wrap up his current project, he’ll continue to ply his trade elsewhere on DFA.
4. Arcade Fire THE SUBURBS
Essential tracks: Ready to Start, We Used to Wait, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
I was really skeptical about this album for a long time, mostly because I couldn’t imagine how anyone, even a band as accomplished and beloved as the Arcade Fire, could add anything new to the sentiment that suburbia is a soul-sucking wasteland of empty promises and nostalgia for something that never existed in the first place. And after my first listen, I didn’t think that they did. But upon second, third, and fourth listens, The Suburbs turned out to be a grower rather than a shower, and it quickly became one of my favorite albums of the year. It’s despondent and disillusioned in all of the right ways, qualities accented well by the band’s intense orchestral accompaniments (and decidedly more electronic arrangements than on Funeral or Neon Bible). Whereas Neon Bible’s paranoia focused on capitalism and global politics, the fear in The Suburbs is of spiritual death and superficial connections. It’s Mad Men: The Album, especially on tracks like “City With No Children” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”
3. Janelle Monae THE ARCHANDROID
Essential tracks: Tight Rope, Cold War, Come Alive (War of the Roses)
In presenting herself as a futuristic robot vixen inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, it’s as if Janelle Monae anticipated the popular response to her 2010 album: how can a human being be so talented? Monae is the whole package in a way that few modern artists can claim to be – she’s a brilliant songwriter and vocalist, a dancer, a performance artist, an intellectual. Her work is undoubtedly high-concept, garnering comparisons to everyone from George Clinton to Pink Floyd to Michael Jackson. But even if it were to be stripped of its theatrical trappings, the material on The ArchAndroid would stand apart from everything else released this year. From the funky (the Big Boi-assisted “Tight Rope” and “Dance or Die”) to the quieter R&B pieces (“Oh Maker,” “Say You’ll Go) to the rock-twinged (“Cold War”) Monae has established herself as one of the most promising acts of the decade. When she inevitably collaborates with Andre 3000, my brain will explode.
2. The National HIGH VIOLET
Essential tracks: Sorrow, Bloodbuzz Ohio, England
Following the release of High Violet, The National has been branded by some as “dad rock,” an obnoxious moniker that suggests that Matt Berninger and company are doing something safe or boring. In reality, the National is making straightforward, nuanced indie rock in a market that’s been overtaken by lo-fi noisemakers in their early 20s, hardly an endeavor worthy of derision. The material on High Violet is lush and orchestral; several of the tracks, most notably the opener “Terrible Love” and “England,” feel like rolling waves as they build to trumpet-laden crescendos. Indeed, the album is mellower in its composition than the two LPs that preceded it – there’s none of the screaming or sexual frustration of Alligator or the rumbling repressed anger of Boxer. But The National’s trademark lovelorn desperation is woven throughout High Violet; only this time, with a renewed sense of self-awareness: Berninger follows up the line “lay my head on the hood of your car” with the qualifier “I take it too far.” For once, the National’s obsessive streak is tempered with a self-critical one, hopefully not a quality only found in middle-aged parents.
1. Kanye West MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY
Essential tracks: All of the Lights, Runaway, Lost in the World
Kanye West, both as a musician and a public figure, is possibly the greatest entertainer of the last decade, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the culmination of his stylistic evolution and the embodiment of a finely tuned aesthetic. The narrative arc of the album lays bare the insecurity and self-loathing that belies his public persona as an egomaniacal asshole, managing to be both a cohesive portrait of an artist at a creative turning point as well as a singles machine, with “Power, “Monster,” and “Runaway” generating hype months in advance of the official release date. The album is strewn with delightful contradictions; Yeezy’s clever jokes abound (a personal favorite being “Too many Urkels on your team / that’s why your wins low” from “Dark Fantasy”), while at the same time, offering scathing criticisms of “post-racial” America.
There’s been a lot written about why this album is perfect. I’m convinced that it’s not; though Pitchfork gave it an unprecedented perfect 10, I don’t think that an album that includes a verse of Fergie rap can reasonably score above a 9.5. Kanye West has always been a phenomenal producer, but he hasn’t always exercised the best editorial discretion with his own material, leading to tracks that include upwards of 10 featured artists. Yet the genius of Fantasy is that somehow, the cluttered, dense composition works; it has all of the ambition and pomp of a concept album without the heavy-handed didacticism. It’s a hip-hop “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and while not perfect, it’s the greatest achievement in his five-album discography.
Without further ado, here are my top ten albums this year:
10. Los Campesinos! ROMANCE IS BORING
Essential tracks: Straight in at 101, There are Listed Buildings, In Media Res
If the ethos of Los Campesinos! previous LP could be summed up in its title track, “We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed,” Romance is Boring seems convinced that actually, we’re just doomed. And that might be precisely why it's a challenging album. Tweecore is, as the name suggests, just so damn twee; it’s strawberry-flavored, twinkling fluff by way of awkward teenagers in knobby sweaters singing about love and sex. It’s a formula that seems less suited to an album built around a nautical motif and dwelling in existential angst and despair, and a tweecore act less clever and talented than LC! couldn’t have pulled it off. But when Gareth insists “I think I’d do it for love, if it were not for the money / I’ll take any scraps that you can give” it feels more genuine than most of the more upbeat material on their previous albums.
9. The New Pornographers TOGETHER
Essential tracks: Moves, Your Hands (Together), We End Up Together
As elder statesmen of indie rock, as well as something of an unintentional supergroup given the band members' numerous side projects and solo name recognition, the New Pornographer generate high expectations with each new album. Fortunately, Together is a breezy, joyful return to the bombastic, chorus-driven material on Twin Cinema. The title is particularly fitting, not just because of the frequent use of the word on the twelve tracks, but because it’s an album that perfectly orchestrates and organizes the presences and styles of the four major personalities in the band in a way that’s unified and cohesive. One of my favorite sounds in the world is that of Neko Case duetting with A.C. Newman, and several tracks on Together (“Moves” and “We End Up Together” in particular) use their talents to overwhelming success.
8. Wolf Parade EXPO 86
Essential tracks: Cloud Shadow on the Mountain, Ghost Pressure, Little Golden Age
Expo 86 thrusts the listener into Spencer Krug’s surreal universe with the opening track, “Cloud Shadow on Mountain,” and never loses momentum. Due in large part to his omnipresence on Apologies to the Queen Mary, Wolf Parade has always felt, first and foremost, like a Krug project, in spite of the presence of Dan Boeckner of Handsome Furs as an equal contributor. But Expo 86 appears to be Dan’s time to shine: “Ghost Pressure” and “Little Golden Age” are some of the album’s most tightly composed tracks, and even on the songs Krug composed, Boeckner’s guitar work is particularly inspired. But just when they’ve achieved the balance and energy that was sorely lacking from At Mount Zoomer, Wolf Parade has announced that they’re going on indefinite hiatus. Hopefully Krug, Boeckner, et al. continue to be as prolific in their side projects as they’ve been in the past, but even then, their collaboration will be missed.
7. Big Boi SIR LUCIOUS LEFT FOOT: THE SON OF CHICO DUSTY
Essential tracks: Follow Us, Shutterbugg, Be Still
The once humble Atlanta hip hop scene has become bloated, over-exposed, and shitty in recent years, which rappers like T-Pain, Lil Jon, and Gucci Mane churning out crappy single after crappy single and driving lyrically-based traditions into the ground. Thankfully, one of the original ATL prodigies, Big Boi, is redeeming what’s left of the scene. Always somewhat overshadowed by Andre 3000’s visual and lyrical style as half of Outkast, Big Boi more than stands on his own on Sir Lucious Left Foot; he produces one of the best hip-hop albums in recent memory. Though the album’s most recognizable tracks (“Follow Us,” “Shutterbugg,” “Tangerine”) are high-energy and fast-paced, the quieter moments (his collaboration with Janelle Monae on “Be Still”) show Big Boi’s range in a way that Speakerboxxx failed to.
6. Robyn BODY TALK
Essential tracks: Dancing on My Own, Indestructible, Hang with Me
A lot of Americans forget that Robyn’s been on the scene since 1997, when “Show Me Love” was a huge pop radio hit. With Body Talk, she’s experienced a much-deserved renaissance outside of her native Sweden. A compilation of selections from Body Talk Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 paired with five new tracks, Body Talk is what good pop music should be: intelligent and experimental, yet still infectious and danceable. Robyn’s greatest strength is her crystalline, hypnotizing voice; the only other vocalist I can think of who achieves a similarly pure sound is Emily Haines of Metric. But though she declares herself to be a fembot, few of the songs feel detached; on the contrary, tracks like “Hang With Me” and “Cry When You Get Older” are warm and endearing, a rare quality in electronica.
5. LCD Soundsystem THIS IS HAPPENING
Essential tracks: I Can Change, All I Want, Drunk Girls
Eighties nostalgia is a scourge, except when it produces outstanding dance rock albums like This is Happening, which (like much of the band’s discography) sounds like a 21st century reimagining of Speaking in Tongues by the Talking Heads. It’s a fitting conclusion (if Murphy’s interviews are to be believed) to the three-act play that is LCD Soundsystem; the frustration of “You Wanted a Hit?” and “Drunk Girls” is balanced by the quiet nostalgia of “All I Want” and “Home.” But the greatest achievement of This is Happening is undoubtedly “I Can Change,” a synth-heavy plea that manages to be Morrissey-inspired without the whine and with significantly more wit. Hopefully, if Murphy is indeed ready to wrap up his current project, he’ll continue to ply his trade elsewhere on DFA.
4. Arcade Fire THE SUBURBS
Essential tracks: Ready to Start, We Used to Wait, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
I was really skeptical about this album for a long time, mostly because I couldn’t imagine how anyone, even a band as accomplished and beloved as the Arcade Fire, could add anything new to the sentiment that suburbia is a soul-sucking wasteland of empty promises and nostalgia for something that never existed in the first place. And after my first listen, I didn’t think that they did. But upon second, third, and fourth listens, The Suburbs turned out to be a grower rather than a shower, and it quickly became one of my favorite albums of the year. It’s despondent and disillusioned in all of the right ways, qualities accented well by the band’s intense orchestral accompaniments (and decidedly more electronic arrangements than on Funeral or Neon Bible). Whereas Neon Bible’s paranoia focused on capitalism and global politics, the fear in The Suburbs is of spiritual death and superficial connections. It’s Mad Men: The Album, especially on tracks like “City With No Children” and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”
3. Janelle Monae THE ARCHANDROID
Essential tracks: Tight Rope, Cold War, Come Alive (War of the Roses)
In presenting herself as a futuristic robot vixen inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, it’s as if Janelle Monae anticipated the popular response to her 2010 album: how can a human being be so talented? Monae is the whole package in a way that few modern artists can claim to be – she’s a brilliant songwriter and vocalist, a dancer, a performance artist, an intellectual. Her work is undoubtedly high-concept, garnering comparisons to everyone from George Clinton to Pink Floyd to Michael Jackson. But even if it were to be stripped of its theatrical trappings, the material on The ArchAndroid would stand apart from everything else released this year. From the funky (the Big Boi-assisted “Tight Rope” and “Dance or Die”) to the quieter R&B pieces (“Oh Maker,” “Say You’ll Go) to the rock-twinged (“Cold War”) Monae has established herself as one of the most promising acts of the decade. When she inevitably collaborates with Andre 3000, my brain will explode.
2. The National HIGH VIOLET
Essential tracks: Sorrow, Bloodbuzz Ohio, England
Following the release of High Violet, The National has been branded by some as “dad rock,” an obnoxious moniker that suggests that Matt Berninger and company are doing something safe or boring. In reality, the National is making straightforward, nuanced indie rock in a market that’s been overtaken by lo-fi noisemakers in their early 20s, hardly an endeavor worthy of derision. The material on High Violet is lush and orchestral; several of the tracks, most notably the opener “Terrible Love” and “England,” feel like rolling waves as they build to trumpet-laden crescendos. Indeed, the album is mellower in its composition than the two LPs that preceded it – there’s none of the screaming or sexual frustration of Alligator or the rumbling repressed anger of Boxer. But The National’s trademark lovelorn desperation is woven throughout High Violet; only this time, with a renewed sense of self-awareness: Berninger follows up the line “lay my head on the hood of your car” with the qualifier “I take it too far.” For once, the National’s obsessive streak is tempered with a self-critical one, hopefully not a quality only found in middle-aged parents.
1. Kanye West MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY
Essential tracks: All of the Lights, Runaway, Lost in the World
Kanye West, both as a musician and a public figure, is possibly the greatest entertainer of the last decade, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the culmination of his stylistic evolution and the embodiment of a finely tuned aesthetic. The narrative arc of the album lays bare the insecurity and self-loathing that belies his public persona as an egomaniacal asshole, managing to be both a cohesive portrait of an artist at a creative turning point as well as a singles machine, with “Power, “Monster,” and “Runaway” generating hype months in advance of the official release date. The album is strewn with delightful contradictions; Yeezy’s clever jokes abound (a personal favorite being “Too many Urkels on your team / that’s why your wins low” from “Dark Fantasy”), while at the same time, offering scathing criticisms of “post-racial” America.
There’s been a lot written about why this album is perfect. I’m convinced that it’s not; though Pitchfork gave it an unprecedented perfect 10, I don’t think that an album that includes a verse of Fergie rap can reasonably score above a 9.5. Kanye West has always been a phenomenal producer, but he hasn’t always exercised the best editorial discretion with his own material, leading to tracks that include upwards of 10 featured artists. Yet the genius of Fantasy is that somehow, the cluttered, dense composition works; it has all of the ambition and pomp of a concept album without the heavy-handed didacticism. It’s a hip-hop “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and while not perfect, it’s the greatest achievement in his five-album discography.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Random Pop Culture Top Ten List: Top 10 Badasses Who Take a Turn as a Transvestite
by Jordan and Ashley
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which Jordan and Sam take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
Throughout the history of film, it has occasionally become necessary for some bad ass mother fucker to dress up like a lady. Sometimes he's doing it to escape from bad guys, some times he's doing it to ensnare them, and sometimes he's just playing a transvestite in a movie. Let's look at some of the great thespians (ok, great bad asses) who have undertaken this challenge...
10. John Travolta, Hairspray
Before the Scientology, awful career choices, and accepting the title of “Oprah’s Favorite White Man” (seriously, this happened), John Travolta was pretty badass. He was Danny Zuko, Bud Davis, AND Tony Manero. And though something seemed to fall apart in the 80s, he may even have irrevocable membership in the Badass Club for his stellar performance in one of the badassiest movies of all time, Pulp Fiction. While seeing Travolta covered in prosthetic fat and doing a terrible Baltimore accent in the 2007 musical film adaptation of John Waters’ 1988 comedy may have been a depressing reminder for some of how far one man can stray from his dignity, for others it was a delightfully out-of-character romp. One thing’s for sure: Divine did it better.
9. Johnny Depp, Ed Wood
Though one could argue that Johnny Depp’s badass cred wasn’t cemented until Captain Jack Sparrow became a cultural phenomenon in 2003, his underground appeal as a teen idol gone rogue was well established by the time he donned angora and sequins as Ed Wood in Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic. Wood, a lifelong crossdresser, was eager to lend his personal experiences (as well as his questionable acting ability) to his films, an element Burton captures in all its tragicomic glory. Meanwhile, Depp perfectly embodies the failed director in all of his earnestness, optimism, and sheer perversion; in a particularly memorable sequence, Depp-as-Wood manages to incorporate an angora bolero into an Arabian striptease, a spectacle that convinces girlfriend Delores (Sarah Jessica Parker) that Ed’s freak flag might be flying a bit too high for her liking.
8. Gene Hackman, The Birdcage
In many ways, Gene Hackman’s character in The Birdcage differs little from the tough-guy characters that have become his trademark: Senator Keeley is a Moral Majority-era Republican in a perpetually dour mood after his reelection campaign is sullied by a sex scandal. But when his daughter (Calista Flockhart) is engaged to a boy who has two daddies, one of whom is a professional drag queen (Nathan Lane, obviously), he finds himself in a sticky situation that calls for an ingenious disguise. Hackman is especially brilliant in the film’s penultimate scene, in which he can be found shimmying awkwardly while humming along to Sister Sledge in a Miami gay club.
7. Cillian Murphy, Breakfast on Pluto
Cillian Murphy has fought zombies in 28 Days Later, fought Batman in Batman Begins (and briefly in The Dark Knight) and fought Rachel McAdams in Red Eye (she's more threatening than she seems!). But in Breakfast on Pluto he puts all of that violence aside to portray the soft spoken, and quietly willful Patrick "Kitty" Braden, who leaves her small Irish town to avoid persecution and sets out to find her mother and become entrenched in the English music scene. Patrick isn't someone you'd want to push around, but she also isn't going to spray you with neurotoxins, so she has that going for her.
6. Chiwitel Ejiofor, Kinky Boots
Ejiofor is definitely a man you don't want to mess with. He is chillingly deadly as The Operative in Serenity, treacherously persistent as a revolutionary in Children of Men, a cold hard police detective in Inside Man, and even a mixed martial artist in Redbelt. In Kinky Boots, on the other hand, Ejiofor plays Lola, a sassy drag queen who agrees to help a small town shoe-maker diversify his business by making men's fetish footwear that would allow drag queens to walk more comfortably. To avoid a "walk a mile in someone else's shoes" pun, I think we can just move on...
5. Wesley Snipes, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Wesley Snipes is Blade. Need we say more? Yet in To Wong Foo he trades in his swords and sunglasses for high heels and a skirt to play Noxeema Jackson, part of a trio of drag queens on a road trip to a national competition in L.A. (if this plot sounds derivitive of a movie that will appear higher on this list, that's because it is). They face discrimination and change some minds in small town America along the way, and a fun, sassy time is had by all.
4. Michael Caine, Dressed to Kill
Brian de Palma’s 1980 thriller Dressed to Kill is mostly known today for is Razzie Awards, its insensitive portrayal of transgender issues, and for blatantly ripping off Psycho. But it also features preeminent badass Michael Caine in drag, even if it’s homicidal-maniac-drag. The film follows Dr. Robert Elliott (Caine), a psychologist who specializes in sexual disorders. After one of his patients is murdered, another patient, a transsexual woman named Bobbi, becomes the prime suspect. In one of the least climactic “big reveals” in recent memory, Dr. Elliott and Bobbi turn out to be the same person, driven to homicidal madness by gender confusion. While Dressed to Kill is both a catalogue of outdated DSM diagnoses as well as a generally shitty movie, Michael Caine in bad drag almost makes sitting through it a worthwhile endeavor.
3. Willem Defoe, Boondock Saints
Willem Defoe shows off his badass credentials in Platoon, Wild at Heart, and in Spider-Man. Plus, the man played Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, and anyone willing to deal with that kind of torture has to be pretty badass. Defoe doesn't go far off of his badass path in Boondock Saints, playing Special Agent Paul Smecker, an FBI Agent with a preternatural sense of how crimes occurred (which leads to some flat out ridiculous sequences and plot developments, but we aren't here to review the movie). At the film's climax, Smecker needs to gain admittance into the house of some Russian thugs, and let's just say he's got a pretty smooth way of doing it.
2. Tony Curtis, Some Like it Hot
As both an action-adventure and western star, Tony Curtis epitomized classic Hollywood masculinity, a persona that made his appearance in Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon as male musicians who go into hiding as members of a ladies’ orchestra after witnessing a mob hit all the more hilarious and surprising to audiences in the late 50s. The film is consistently ranked as one of the greatest comedies of all time, in part because of Curtis’ performance as Joe, whose alter-ego Josephine finds herself engaged to a smitten older man (which provides for one of the greatest ending scenes in movie history).
1. The Cast of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Almost doubtlessly the largest collection of badasses playing drag queens in film history, Priscilla follows Mitzi (Hugo Weaving, who would go on to be Mr. Smith in The Matrix, Elrond in Lord of the Rings, and V in V for Vendetta), Felicia (Guy Pearce, who was headed towards L.A. Confidential, Memento, and The Count of Monte Cristo) and Bernadette (Terrence Stamp, who had already done Superman II, and Young Guns, and still had The Limey and Wanted in his future) as they travel across Australia to put on a show at Mitzi's ex-wife's failing hotel. They encounter discrimination, mistaken identities, a phenomenal soundtrack and a whole lot of fabulous costumes on the way (the film won a much deserved Oscar for Best Costumes. Three Words: Flip Flop Dress), and also learn something about how complexities are a part of any relationship and that no matter what, true connections can survive the complications.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
Random Pop Culture Top 10 List is a (fairly self-explanatory) weekly list in which Jordan and Sam take stock of the realm of pop culture, and come up with their Top Ten in a specific category.
Throughout the history of film, it has occasionally become necessary for some bad ass mother fucker to dress up like a lady. Sometimes he's doing it to escape from bad guys, some times he's doing it to ensnare them, and sometimes he's just playing a transvestite in a movie. Let's look at some of the great thespians (ok, great bad asses) who have undertaken this challenge...
10. John Travolta, Hairspray
Before the Scientology, awful career choices, and accepting the title of “Oprah’s Favorite White Man” (seriously, this happened), John Travolta was pretty badass. He was Danny Zuko, Bud Davis, AND Tony Manero. And though something seemed to fall apart in the 80s, he may even have irrevocable membership in the Badass Club for his stellar performance in one of the badassiest movies of all time, Pulp Fiction. While seeing Travolta covered in prosthetic fat and doing a terrible Baltimore accent in the 2007 musical film adaptation of John Waters’ 1988 comedy may have been a depressing reminder for some of how far one man can stray from his dignity, for others it was a delightfully out-of-character romp. One thing’s for sure: Divine did it better.
9. Johnny Depp, Ed Wood
Though one could argue that Johnny Depp’s badass cred wasn’t cemented until Captain Jack Sparrow became a cultural phenomenon in 2003, his underground appeal as a teen idol gone rogue was well established by the time he donned angora and sequins as Ed Wood in Tim Burton’s 1994 biopic. Wood, a lifelong crossdresser, was eager to lend his personal experiences (as well as his questionable acting ability) to his films, an element Burton captures in all its tragicomic glory. Meanwhile, Depp perfectly embodies the failed director in all of his earnestness, optimism, and sheer perversion; in a particularly memorable sequence, Depp-as-Wood manages to incorporate an angora bolero into an Arabian striptease, a spectacle that convinces girlfriend Delores (Sarah Jessica Parker) that Ed’s freak flag might be flying a bit too high for her liking.
8. Gene Hackman, The Birdcage
In many ways, Gene Hackman’s character in The Birdcage differs little from the tough-guy characters that have become his trademark: Senator Keeley is a Moral Majority-era Republican in a perpetually dour mood after his reelection campaign is sullied by a sex scandal. But when his daughter (Calista Flockhart) is engaged to a boy who has two daddies, one of whom is a professional drag queen (Nathan Lane, obviously), he finds himself in a sticky situation that calls for an ingenious disguise. Hackman is especially brilliant in the film’s penultimate scene, in which he can be found shimmying awkwardly while humming along to Sister Sledge in a Miami gay club.
7. Cillian Murphy, Breakfast on Pluto
Cillian Murphy has fought zombies in 28 Days Later, fought Batman in Batman Begins (and briefly in The Dark Knight) and fought Rachel McAdams in Red Eye (she's more threatening than she seems!). But in Breakfast on Pluto he puts all of that violence aside to portray the soft spoken, and quietly willful Patrick "Kitty" Braden, who leaves her small Irish town to avoid persecution and sets out to find her mother and become entrenched in the English music scene. Patrick isn't someone you'd want to push around, but she also isn't going to spray you with neurotoxins, so she has that going for her.
6. Chiwitel Ejiofor, Kinky Boots
Ejiofor is definitely a man you don't want to mess with. He is chillingly deadly as The Operative in Serenity, treacherously persistent as a revolutionary in Children of Men, a cold hard police detective in Inside Man, and even a mixed martial artist in Redbelt. In Kinky Boots, on the other hand, Ejiofor plays Lola, a sassy drag queen who agrees to help a small town shoe-maker diversify his business by making men's fetish footwear that would allow drag queens to walk more comfortably. To avoid a "walk a mile in someone else's shoes" pun, I think we can just move on...
5. Wesley Snipes, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
Wesley Snipes is Blade. Need we say more? Yet in To Wong Foo he trades in his swords and sunglasses for high heels and a skirt to play Noxeema Jackson, part of a trio of drag queens on a road trip to a national competition in L.A. (if this plot sounds derivitive of a movie that will appear higher on this list, that's because it is). They face discrimination and change some minds in small town America along the way, and a fun, sassy time is had by all.
4. Michael Caine, Dressed to Kill
Brian de Palma’s 1980 thriller Dressed to Kill is mostly known today for is Razzie Awards, its insensitive portrayal of transgender issues, and for blatantly ripping off Psycho. But it also features preeminent badass Michael Caine in drag, even if it’s homicidal-maniac-drag. The film follows Dr. Robert Elliott (Caine), a psychologist who specializes in sexual disorders. After one of his patients is murdered, another patient, a transsexual woman named Bobbi, becomes the prime suspect. In one of the least climactic “big reveals” in recent memory, Dr. Elliott and Bobbi turn out to be the same person, driven to homicidal madness by gender confusion. While Dressed to Kill is both a catalogue of outdated DSM diagnoses as well as a generally shitty movie, Michael Caine in bad drag almost makes sitting through it a worthwhile endeavor.
3. Willem Defoe, Boondock Saints
Willem Defoe shows off his badass credentials in Platoon, Wild at Heart, and in Spider-Man. Plus, the man played Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, and anyone willing to deal with that kind of torture has to be pretty badass. Defoe doesn't go far off of his badass path in Boondock Saints, playing Special Agent Paul Smecker, an FBI Agent with a preternatural sense of how crimes occurred (which leads to some flat out ridiculous sequences and plot developments, but we aren't here to review the movie). At the film's climax, Smecker needs to gain admittance into the house of some Russian thugs, and let's just say he's got a pretty smooth way of doing it.
2. Tony Curtis, Some Like it Hot
As both an action-adventure and western star, Tony Curtis epitomized classic Hollywood masculinity, a persona that made his appearance in Some Like It Hot with Jack Lemmon as male musicians who go into hiding as members of a ladies’ orchestra after witnessing a mob hit all the more hilarious and surprising to audiences in the late 50s. The film is consistently ranked as one of the greatest comedies of all time, in part because of Curtis’ performance as Joe, whose alter-ego Josephine finds herself engaged to a smitten older man (which provides for one of the greatest ending scenes in movie history).
1. The Cast of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Almost doubtlessly the largest collection of badasses playing drag queens in film history, Priscilla follows Mitzi (Hugo Weaving, who would go on to be Mr. Smith in The Matrix, Elrond in Lord of the Rings, and V in V for Vendetta), Felicia (Guy Pearce, who was headed towards L.A. Confidential, Memento, and The Count of Monte Cristo) and Bernadette (Terrence Stamp, who had already done Superman II, and Young Guns, and still had The Limey and Wanted in his future) as they travel across Australia to put on a show at Mitzi's ex-wife's failing hotel. They encounter discrimination, mistaken identities, a phenomenal soundtrack and a whole lot of fabulous costumes on the way (the film won a much deserved Oscar for Best Costumes. Three Words: Flip Flop Dress), and also learn something about how complexities are a part of any relationship and that no matter what, true connections can survive the complications.
Read more Random Pop Culture Top Ten List here
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